The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1911-07-19
FOR 81 YEARS He
WAS KEPT IN CELL
Now Jesse Pomeroy, Boy
Murderer Is to Be Given
Liberty Of Prison.
tNat!onal News Associa t.oa)


Boston, July 19.-Jesse H. Pomeroy.
known for almost four decades as the
boy murderer and held by an earlier
generation to be the most desperate
criminal abnormality of the age. is
soon to leave his cell for greater free
dom in the state prison at Charles
town after having spent thirty-seven
years in solitary confinement
This announcement was made yes
terday, when it was declared that Gov.
Foss, impressed by the evidence sub
mitted to him from many sources OF
the great change in Pomeroy's char
acter, has decided to allow the life
convict to enjoy many of the liberties
granted we'll behaved prisoners.
Gov. Foss will never grant Pome-
roy a full pardon, and it is generally
believed no other governor ever will
take such action, but to give the man
who has inspired dread in the hearts
of even his keepers ever since the
day when as a fOurteen-year-Old boy,
he was thrust into punishment" cell
in the Charlestown prison, any por-
ton of the freedom enjoyed by trac-
table cOnvicts is considered evidence
of a transformation in the criminal
makeup.
Women Sign Petition
Gov. FossS determination to do
L. L. ..l~l ho
refused to do, in the face of prayerful
petitions signed by women in all parts
of the country, is set forth in letter
he has sent to John Ernest Warren,
librarian of the American Dramatists
club of New York. Warren, who was
a playmate of Pomeroy, recently made
an eloquent plea in behalf of his life
long friend, and Gov. Foss in his reply
made known that Warren's present
ment of the facts had much to do with
reaching his decision.
But Pomeroy's greatest champion
has been his mother now sad-faced
whitehaired woman nearing her sew
entieth year. Although denied even
the right to see her son, and having to
was regarded all ovr the world of the
most atrocious example of a wanton
murderer, his mother never faltered in
her faith in his innate goodness, nor
forsook for a moment her plan to gain
for him his freedom. At each holiday
season, Thanksgiving and Christmas
as well as on his own birthday, she
L,, 20 WI no
ket of good things to eat, and it is she,
also. who has kept him supplied with
current magazines and books.
Killed Boy and Girl.
Pomeroy killed two children, a boy
and a girl. after treating them with
barbaric cruelty. He inveigled other
children into isolated sections, strip
ped them of their clothing, tied them
to trees or upon boards and then beat
them until they We're unconscious.
He delighted in sticking pins into
their unconscious forms and cut them
deeply with knife. When this jul
venile monster, then fourteen years
old, was finally run down and cap
tured he barely escaped iynChing. Lis
y
penalty.
Last October, he wrote his own
story of his crime, and attempted to
show what he characterized as legal
error in his conviction. In his plea
he said
Il respectfully suggest that this
prisoner may have some encourage
in, Toll &c a
than his neighbors. Kindness is new
err lost on any one, and this prisoner
has all his life shown himself respon-
sive to kind treatment. Although |
have made some errors here. | have
never once been violent or dangerous.
No officer has ever accused me of it.
The register shows the fact, as | say,
yet the newspapers have been full of
yarns about me, as, for instance, that
tried to kill the warden. and was so
shut up in CELL
Action by Gov. CASTOR
To give me the privileges the gov
ernor will have to be consulted, as the
sentence is still solitary, and the COM
missioners and warden have no au-
Whether my case can have your SYM
pathy | do not know. still an effort to
uplift this life would bring you the
pleasure as it did Gov. CASTOR in 1875.
His message to me 1SSS) was: I am
glad | saved that boys life He would
not sign the death warrant
Public feeling against me is re-
sponsible for the deeply rooted and
persistent newspaper representation
all these years. and that public feeling
was due to newspaper eXaggeration
and notoriety in 1874. OF course it
cannot be denied that the crime was
dreadful and that public justice re-
quired satisfaction but the truth is
no effort has been made from that
day 10 this to better this prisoner s
condition.
| have no friends, no influence:
cannot get a hearing from the COVER
nor. l have been left to my own de-
vices in this cell all these years"
Sucn a Bore to Dress.