The Wenatchee daily world. [volume] (Wenatchee, Wash.) 1905-1971, 1909-12-09
HALF CENTURY IN
PRISON

HdrtIOTu, COnH., Dec. S.-W men
the state board of pardons meets the
first of next week it will consider and |
act upon an application for the par
don of John P. Warren, who is Of
ficially designated as convict No. 1 |
on the roster of the big Connecticut
state prison at Wethersfielj. If fav-l
orable action is taken by the board,
and it is generally believed that such |
will be the case, the coming Christ |
mas will be happy one indeed for |
Warren, for it will be his first Christ |
mas outside of prison walls in half
a century
On the day that the board of par
dons meets to consider his case War
rem will have completed an even fifty |
years as an inmate of the state pris- |
on. He is believed to be the longest |
Imprisoned life convict in the United |
States, and possibly in the world.
When the doors of the big prison |
first closed on Warren the Civil war
had not commenced, railroad trans
portation was in it's infancy and such
common conveniences of the present |
day as the telephone, the electric car, |
the automobile, and the typewriter, |
were unheard of, not to mention the |
skyscraped buildings. wireless teleg- |
raphy, flying machines. submarine |
boats and a hundred and one other |
things with which the present gen !
Grafton is familiar.
Wife murder was the crime for |
which Warren was sentenced to life |
Imprisonment. One day in July, |
1859, he invited his 1S-year-old wife |
to take a walk with him. and, coming |
to a brook near their farm in Will !
lington, a small town in Tolland |
county, in northeastern Connecticut, |
he suggested that they take off their |
shoes AMI stockings and battle their |
feet in the cool waters of the brook |
She acquiesced, but once near the |
brook, Warren seized her and held
her head under the foot or more of
water until life was extinct Just
what was the motive that actuated
the man to commit the deliberate,
cold-blooded and apparently unpro-
voked crime on his wife. none knows,
and Warren himself has never talked
of the crime since he confessed and
rest
Warren's plea of guilty and his at
torney's earnest plea for second de-
gree sentence saved his life and he |
was sentenced to prison for life on
the day on which a notable meeting
was held in Hartford of famous Con-
necticut patriots, under a call ito
save the Union The war feeling |
was just then beginning to become |
a factor in national politics, but War |
rem was taken to Wethersfield before |
the war commenced, and, what has |
happened in the fifty years that have
elapsed since that time, he knows of
only indirectly and from what he has
been permitted to read
It speaks we'll for the methods en-
ployed at the state prison that. the
fifty-year inmate shows little evil
dence of failing powers, either men
tai or physician. Though II, he looks |
more like a man or As or perhaps so |
years. He is alert mentally and takes |
an active interest in all that goes on
about him. In recent years he has |
been allowed considerable freedom |
in the institution, though never per-
mitted to leave the prison grounds. |
If the aged lifer is released through !
the action of the board of pardons |
next week he will be well taken care |
of during his remaining years by his |
two younger brothers and other mem
bers of his family, all people of ex-
cellent standing. 1t is understood t
that the application for pardon has |
been Endorsed by many persons of |
prominence who have interested |
themselves in his case.