The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-06-22
MARY'S NECK IS SAVED.
She Enters a Plea Of Guilty Con-
ditiOled Upon a Life Sentence.

uIll0ueu UpOn Lie OtltelC6.
Many of Her own Race Seemed to
Want Her Hanged-Murmurs IN the
Gallery Indicative of an Unfriendly
and Then Withdrawn-Her Mental
Suffering Has Had Telling Eject.
Mary Washington, the murderer of
Isaiah Harden, pleaded guilty yesterday
to the crime of murder, with a recon-
mendation by jury of Imprisonment for
life in the penitentiarY.
! This plea, while rather an unusual one,
is not without precedent, and where the
! facts are such as would, in all PROBABLE
ity, lead to such a verdict were a case
! tried, this form of plea is sometimes en-
| tered and accepted. There seems little
doubt that a jury would have reached a
similar conclusion, for while there was no
doubt as to the woman's guilt, there was
no witness of the crime and the only
thing to do would have been to accept her
| statement, according to which there was
the smallest degree of Justification which
| would probably have resulted in a recon-
| mendation to mercy.
| According to her confession she and
| her husband had separated and she was
| living with Isaiah Harden. Harden had
| been in the habit, she said of beating and
| ill treating her at all times, and on the
night of the murder, in September, 1893
| he came home drunk, beat her and then
! threatened to kill her. He sat down in a
chair and fell into drunken stupor, when
! she, fearing he would do her some bodily
| injury, picked up an AK and cut open his
| hn Fvufna he
and then cut up the body and buried it
under the floor in her room. This is her
| confession as made to DIR. L. B. Chisholm,
the county physician. 1t would have
been used on the trial if the plea of guilty
had not been entered as stated.
EAGER FOR VICTIM.
! The superior court room was crowded
! when Mary Washington's case was called.
! The morbid curiosity of the negroes had
brought them out in force and it is reas-
! onably certain that a dozen more could
not have packed themselves into the
court gallery. They watched the pro-
ceedings with interest from start to
finish.
After the proceedings in the Katie
Grant case Mary was brought into the
court room. She had a troubled, anxious
look and seemed to have been crying.
| There was a subdued and half-witted eX-
| preston upon her features, which told
that the murder of Isaiah Harden had
been weighing heavily upon her. She
seemed partially insane when arrested,
and, to all appearances, there has been
| no abatement of her condition She has
lost much flesh since her confinement in
jail, due, undoubtedly, to the mental suf-
| fering she has undergone,
The eyes of every negro in the gallery
were upon her as she entered the court
room. The list of jurors had been called
and both the state and the defense an
nounced ready Just before the assign
ment, the attorneys for the defendant,
Messrs. A. S. Way and A. S. Lawrence,
put in plea of temporary insanity. Mr..
Way read the plea which stated that the
mind of the defendant was evidently in
an unsound condition, and she would be
unable to to defend herself properly at
that time.
Solicitor General Fraser said it would,
of course, require special jury to pass
| upon the defendants sanity or insanity,
and as he had no previous notice of such
a plea, he asked a short time in which to
get ready for the state. He was given
until 10 o'clock, when the case was taken
up again.
THE PLEA WITHDRAWN.
At IL O'Clock the plea of insanity was
withdrawn. The plea would no doubt
have been contested by the state had it
been urged, as Drs. Chisholm, Drummer
and Dunn, who examined the woman
about month and half ago, pronounced
her of sound mind. There was no doubt
that her mental strain was a severe one
but whether she was insane was another
question.
Then, again, If she had been pronounced
insane it would have been for her
to have gone to the asylum
for an indefinite period and then
come back and stand trial. There was
no possible way, therefore, so far as could
be seen, to save her from life imprison-
ment, and the only question with her at
torneys was how to save her neck. To
this the solicitor general did not inter-
pose any objection, as he believed life i'm
prisonment would have been the result
had the case gone to trial and two days
consumed on it.
NO SYMPATHY FROM HER OWN RACE.
A plea of guilty of murder as with a re-
communication by a jury of imprisonment
| Tor life in the penitentiary was therefore
accepted and made, and many of the
negroes in the gallery heard with mourn
| full eye the sentence OF the court upon a
prisoner they had hoped to see hung In
fact, the brutality of some of them seemed
atrocious. 1t IS said subdued remarks
of Hang her." Burn her" were heard
in the gallery during the entire proceed
ings. There seemed no sympathy what
ever for the woman among those of her
own race, and there is no doubt she
would have been unfortunate indeed if
she had been compelled to stand trial at
their hands
A crowd of them followed her to the
jail, haunting her as far as they dared on
the way, and she was no doubt glad to be
behind the prison bars once more, safe
from their biting words.
AT the conclusion Of the proceeding
Mary Washington turned to her attor-
neys, bowed, and thanked them for their
services. They had saved her neck, and
that seemed all she expected.
The Washington woman's crime is
still fresh in the minds of all readers of
the MORNING NEWS. She will be taken
TO the convict farm of Capt j. NJ Smith,
in Oglethorpe county, who takes all the
women cOnvicts from the state courts
There she will spend the rest Of her life