The Paducah evening sun. [volume] (Paducah, Ky.) 1906-1929, 1907-06-03
Did She Confess to Murder She
Never Committed?
Nashville Dispatch Says an Alleged
Victim of Paducah Woman Is
Alive.
SHE WAS RUN OUT OF HERE

flumDef hanged Tor a crime Sne
did not commit?
st. Louis authorities believe she
was. but no records in McCracken
county show it, and old residents
who remember her, and know of her
conduct, do not believe she was.
'Pinkie Plumber was hanged in
1875 on her confession, which con-
WINGED authorities that she murdered
Lawson Lane, now found to be alive
at zeigler. ILL.,"
The above telegram was received
this morning. An investigation re-
suited In the finding of plenty of in
formation about the woman, but af-
tier her expulsion from Paducah, lit
tie was heard of her.
Minnie Taylor was her right name
and she came from Vienna, H.,
Chief of Police Collins stated. "She
Operated a house of III repute for
some time, and was OFTEN arrested
and fined, but as far as l know she
was never presented before any court
in this county for a felony or a man
slaughter charge. She had only one
hand and was a woman of tremen-
dous proportions"
81 remember the woman well"
said Captain Frank Harlan, "and
was on the force at the time she
conducted her house OF I'll repute.
She left Paducah about 1875 and
went to Tennessee, and 1t seems to
me that | remember something about
her being tried for some serious
charge in Humboldt, Tenn, but be-
lieve she was cleared"
The records in circuit court were
reviewed from 1875 back several
years. and they failed to disclose
anything, the woman's name not be-
ing entered foi any charge.
Strange Story Told.
The whole story came in the fol-
lowing dispatch from Nashville:
Nashville, Tenn, June a. Curtis
Lane, l.. & n. freight conductor
running between Nashville and Ev-
ansville, told story here today that
is stranger than fiction. Lane says
his father, who had moved from
Zeigler, H.. to Handy Station. Hop
kins county. Ky, Just after the Civil
war went to Paducah, KY, one day
to buy some goods. He was TO have
returned on the third day, but did
not come, and was never heard Of
Iagain until last week. This was In
1878. A few days later the goods for
which he went to Paducah came to
his wife, but no tidings of the hus-
band and father. Detectives were en-
ployed and they visited Paducah, st.
Louis, Chicago, Louisville and Hot
Springs, Ark, in search of Lane.
lThey spent hundreds of dollars try
ing to trace him. Just at the time
Lane was at Paducah, however, three
men were supposed to have been
murdered there. About that time a
noted woman desperate, Pink Plum
Der, was arrested for murder, was
tried, convicted and hanged. On the
scaffold she told Of several shocking
crimes of which she had been guilty.
Among other things she said she kill
ed three men in Paducah about the
| time killed the man for which she
was being hanged. One of these men
was killed, she said, near the then
chesapeake & Ohio depot. 1t was gem
orally accepted that Lane was the
man.
Later on, Mrs. Lane married j. t.
Denton, OF Darlington, KY, and by
| him raised a family OF children. She
had three sons by Lane. one OF which
is Curtis Lane.
Recently a young man of Evans
willie, who had lived in Darlington
and knew the Lane-Denton family
well, was in ziegler, ILL.,. and met the
| elder Lane. The latter learned the
young man was from Kentucky. and
Inquired II he knew anyone of his
own name down there. replied in the
Affirmative and called the names.
Lane then said they we're his chill
dren. Returning to Evansville. the
Iyoung man told Curtis Lane what he
had heard Of the stranger at Zeigler.
Inl. Curtis Lane conferred with his
brother and a detective was employ
ed who went to ziegler. This detec-
tive returned Saturday and told the
Lane boys what they had heard was
true. The elder Lane had married
again and reared a large family. Cur
It's Lane left Nashville tonight for
IZlegler to see his father and inquire
into his strange conduct The mother
is III at Darlington and she as yet
knows nothing of the discovery.