The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1914-07-31
SPENCER DIED
ON THE GALLONS
Tango Murderer Said He Was
Innocent Just
Before His
Execution.
NERVY TO THE LAST
Says His Happlest Days Were Those
He Spent In Jail,
Waiting to be
Hanged.
Merry TO THE LAST

UNITED Press Leased Wire Service
| WHEATON, ILL.,, July 31.-Henr
Spencer, murderer of Mrs Mildred A
l1son Rexroat, paid the death penalt
on the gallows here today. The ira
was sprung at 1922 and exactly tw,
minutes later he was pronounce
dead.
The tango murderer never lost hi
nerve. Running lightly up the step
leading to the gallows, he turned
| smile on the crowd Of $50 within thu
jail enclosure.
There is one thing l know you arr
all interested in he said, speaking
slowly and with all the grace OF e
platform orator That is my limo
cence or guilt. 1 want to tell you
am innocent"
Spencer paused a minute and smil
ed again.
zone other thing he said. "The
happiest days of my life have been
the days spent in the Dupage county
jail. / found mother in Mrs. VIII
liam Evans (wife of minister) and
LII CIo LII 81 liIuC III lily lll0 1 lSdl uCu
religion and how to pray"
Rev. William Evans Of the Moody
Bible institute, Chicago, who accom-
panied the doomed man to the gal
lows, touched him on the arm and
Spencer began repeating the twenty
third, thirty-first and thirty-second
psalms. His voice grew husky toward
the end but he betrayed no nervous
ness while the white shroud and black
death mask were being adjusted A
muffled good bye was heard by
spectators nearest the gallows. The
trap was sprung; Spencers body drop
ped eight feet and in two minutes he
was pronounced dead. FL
The crime for which Spencer paid
with his life, his subsequent startling
confession that he had killed nearly
a score of women in all parts Of the
country and the apparent cheerfulness
with which he received the verdict OF
death, attracted national interest in
his case. Alienists and criminolog-
lists, even admitting the strange in
tiuence exerted by opium upon Spenc-
er's brain, pronounced him one of the
most remarkable criminals of recent
years. Mrs. Allison-Rexroat who
shortly after her divorce from her
first husband, Allison, had married Rex
roat, a young farmer living near Ma
comb, ILL.,, was engage as q tango
teacher at Chicago dancing school.
She boarded an interurban car on the
night of September % for Wayne, ILL.,,
a short distance from Chicago, where
she had been asked over the tele-
rhone to start new class in the
tango. Early the following morning
her body, horribly mangled, was
found on the railroad tracks near
Wayne, in lonely ravine. Close ex-
showed that the tango
,eacher had been slain before her
body was struck by the train. |
Various clues were run down by
he police without success, at least a
1ozen suspects were arrested before
Spencer was taken into custody.
Then by queer turn of fate, the man
who afterward described himself as
10Th LADY killer and a woman
later" was betrayed by woman
o whom he offered a $500 diamond
ing he had taken from the body of
he murdered woman
Lured to the woman's home, Spenc-
II was trapped and arrested by detec-
ives after desperate struggle. His
runk, in rooming house run by a
Iuiet elderly couple, on the south |
ide, revealed more evidence connect
ng him with the crime, and under a !
evere sweating he broke down and
confessed.
Under skilful guidance from the
olfce, Spencer, a weak-faced little
nan with rat eyes, recited a remark
bic crime record. He swore that he
ad killed more than twenty persons,
Mostly women, had robbed and as
aulted many others, had set fire to
big apartment, causing the loss of
q other life.
women, damn emil hate 'em!
hey always played me for a sucker
nd / killed them just like flies" he
creamed in one of his outbursts of
a ssion.
By communicating with authorities
II over the country, the larger part
+ Spencer's amazing tale was dis
redited. In a few instances facts
pparently supported his claims that
e had other murder victims on his
,mous death list. While he was re-
ting his. story, the Rev. tombstone
levers of Emmanuel Baptist church,
80 = ~ ~
cen regular attendant at his
hurch and had protested to be deep
: interested in church work Spenc.
RS trial in the little brick court
ouse here was full of thrills. Hell.