New Britain herald., 1917-07-14
VERDICT 0F GUILTY
 IN GILLIGAN CASE
Woman Sentenced to Be Hanged
 at WetherSheld Nov. 6

Hartford. Conn.,, July 14.-After five hours consideration of evidence put forward by the state. which charges Mrs. Amy E. Archer-Gilligan with five murders. the jury last evening brought in a. first degree verdict against the woman for the death of Franklin R. Andrews. The jury returned the yer dict at 5:09 D. m., and 16 minutes later she was sentenced by Judge Gar diner Greene to be hanged in the Wethersfield prison November 6.
 The state began her trial June 18.t charging her with the murder of five persons, one of them her husband. But the woman's attorney made a suc- cessful fight to have the state re- stricted to proving murder in a single case. and that of the sudden, violent death by arsenic poisoning of Andrews was selected. She still stands indicted TOT the murder of the other four-two men and two women
 Mrs. Archer-Gilligan was unable to stand at the passing of the death sen-' tence. She is a little woman and kept her face wholly concealed by 8 heavy black veil, the while she huddled in a pig armchair and wept audibly when Juoge Greene was speaking.
 An hour before the actual verdict was In she must have had ome reali- zatlon that the day-the superstitious in the courtroom were tireless in pointing out that 1t was Friday, the lrteenth'-would go against her. She was present, necessarily, when at 4 o'clock. the jury came in to ask further instructions. Their question was as to what latitude was allowed between first and second degree ver- dict and Judge Greene answered by reading again a portion of his charge in which he had said that 1t was diffi- cut to suppose case of wilful poison ing that was not murder in the first degree.
 The court room had been crowded during the judges charge and at the time when the jury retired But when it was announced the jurors were ready with their verdict. courtroom and corridors were cleared by order of Judge Greene. Only lawyers and newspapermen were allowed to re- main, besides the court attendants and the sheriff and his deputies.
 A big deputy led the woman in black to her chair. On the other side of her, holding tightly to her arm, walked her 8 year old daughter, Miss Mary Archer. When Mrs. Archer Gilligan heard the verdict she clung convulsively to the girl and sank into the big armchair that had been pro- vided for her during the trial.
 Judge Greene Shaken. anything to say why the sentence of death should not be pronounced on your" asked Judge Greene.
 tho judge waited for nearly minute to give the woman a chance to compose herself and speak if she desired. She made no effort to arise, but sat limp ly in the chair and chung with both hands to her weeping daughters arm
 Judge Greene went on in a voice which plainly betrayed emotion, to direct the sheriff to deliver the pris- oner to the warden of the state prison at Wethersfeld within 20 days. Then he charged Warden Garner that on the morning of Nov. 6, you shall hang her by the neck until dead"
 Then he looked toward the woman and the paper in his hand on which he had made notes shook as he said, And may God have mercy on your soul!"
 At a back door of the court house, where, with her guards the defend- ant awaited an automobile, she en- braced her daughter continually, moaning, "Oh, Mary, my darling child!"
 The girl who has all along ex- pressed fullest confidence in her m others innocence, treasured the woman more than a. dozen times of her continued loyalty. She was all owed to accompany her mother in the motor car, which made it's way through a big crowd before it could be driven at speed to the county jail.
 The state pictured the woman at the trial as nothing short of a fend. 3 wholesale poisoner for money-gain of aged. i'll, feeble and mentally weak persons given over to her care at what was known as the Archer Home at Windsor, Conn.
 The states attorney declared there had been 40 deaths under peculiar at the Archer institu- ton, many of whose inmates entered on a life contract-the payment of a ump sum for which they were to be narbored for the remainder of their Ives.
 Besides Andrews, the state caused he woman to be indicted for the mur- 1ers of Michael w. Gilligan, her sec ond husband, in 1914. He died sud- lenly the day after he had made a will bequeathing her all his property.
 Mrs. Maude Lynch of Lakeville, Conn.. who was only 34 years old, Or whom her parents paid s1,000 to Mrs. Archer for life care, died a few months after entering the Archer nome; Charles A. Smith of Waterbury md Mrs. Alice Gowdy of Hartford lied in 1914. Mrs. Archer -Gilligan lad come into control of the place y the death of her husband, James '. Archer. in 1910. He founded the