Ottumwa semi-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1899-1903, 1901-04-18
MURDERESS
Efforts Being Made to Free Delilah
Fails.
KILLED HER BETRAYER IN 1897
Cedar Falls Attorney viii Leave This
Evening for Des Moines Armed
With a Well Signed Petition Asking
Executive Ciemency.

Cedar Falls, April 16.-(speciaD-
Attorney w. H. Mcclure, of this city,
will leave for Des Moines this evening
armed with a petition signed by over
six hundred people asking for a par
don for Miss Delilah Fails, who was
sentenced in 1897 to twenty years in
the penitentiary for the killing OF ia
cob Kern of Bremen county.
The Case.
The case was tried in the courts of
Waverly and attracted wide attention
at the time. Miss Fails at the trial
caused sensation by making a con-
fession to Sheriff Parrott duplicating
the youngest son of Kern. then seven
teen years old. The court sentenced
the young woman to twenty and the
young man to twelve years in prison.
All the parties concerned were ignor-
ant and especially was this true of the
girl. The murdered man, it is claim
ed, had gained criminal intimacy
with her and had kept up his atten,
lions for three or four years despite
her efforts to rid herself of him. His
conduct became SO revolving that the
son entered into a conspiracy with
Miss Fails to kill his father, and they
carried out the plan on August %,
1897, by waylaying him in what is
known as the big Woods southeast
of Waverly. They used a revolver as
the surest means of death. The body
when found showed evidence of having
been burned and at the trial an effort
was made to prove that the murderers
had tried to cremate the body in a
brush pile after the killing. The shot
was fired at close range and it was
thought by many that the clothing
caught from the powder burn.
Exemplary Prisoner.
Miss Fails had many sympathizers
at the time, and many were free to eX-
press themselves as feeling that the
crime was justifiable if ever one was.
Since her confinement in the prison
her conduct has been of the very best.
Col. Mcclure has carried on an extern
sive correspondence with the prison
authorities and has had letters from
some of them expressing desire that
the matter will be successfully brought
to close by the removal of the pris-
oner from the penitentiary. 1t is said
that the Methodist minister at Ana
moSa has taken an interest in the
young woman and has promised to
take her to his home if she is released
and endeavor to help her in all ways
possible to begin new life, which she
says she is DESTROYS of doing. She
has no desire to go back to the scene
of the tragedy, but wants to erase il
from her memory as faras possible. Col
Mcclure has no personal interest in
the case, and he is not connected in
any way with the family. The father
of the young woman realizes the enor
nifty of the crime and does not express
a desire to shield his daughter. He
does not justify her actions in taking
the law into her own hands, but does
not see any advantage to be gained by
her continued confinement and as she
is but twenty-five years old and has
ample time to redeem herself if given
the opportunity.
An effort was made about year age
to gain her release but it was fount
that the state law would not permit o.
such action so soon after the sentence
had been pronounced, and the parties
have been waiting for the lapse o.
time. The papers of Waverly were op
posed to the move at that time anc
were quite severe in their criticisms.