The evening leader. (Tarpon Springs, Fla.) 191?-19??, 1917-01-29

which he has been, penned for the
greater part of his life half-blind,
sallow, bald-headed man nearly fifty
six years old, with wrinkled face
and shyness of manner that has
grown on him in his solitary cell.
Children were Pomeroy's prey. Out
wardly normal, bright and gentle
boy, he was innately a fend. Time
and again he obeyed impulses that
caused him to denude children and
beat them with ropes until their flesh
was scared and they became uncon-
scious. From that he passed to
slashing his little victims with knives,
and finally numbering them.
His crimes began in 1871. His
father, civil war veteran, worked in
an abbatoir; his mother kept small
dressmaking shop. They were thrifty,
respectable folk. Later, it was recall
ed, that his mother, in the months pre-
ceding his birth, often visited her hus-
band at the abbatoir and watched him
in his work of killing sheep and hogs.
In all the years he has had only one
explanation-the same that he made
as boy he has made as man, of
mind to enable him to- acquire eight
languages, to read every one of 5000
books in the prison library with ap-
to write letters of remark
able interest. 81 never knew why I
did such things. I just couldn't help
it."
In 1871 a small boy named Paine
was found tied to beam in a barn,
his naked body encrimsoned from the
raw wounds of a rope.
Shortly afterward Tracy Hayden
was found tied to a board in vacant
lot in South Boston. He was nude,
had been frightfully beaten with a
rope and his teeth knocked out.
In July, 1872, Pomeroy enticed
Johnny Blach to march, stripped
him, beat him and the little fellow
awakened to find Jesse rubbing salt
into his wounds.
Next, little BOBBY Gould was found
tied to railroad tracks, his body,-cou-.
erd with welts, big wound in his
scalp.
Four-year-old George Pratt was
found in the cabin of an old yacht,
nude, his body slashed with a pen
knife and pins and needles stuck into
his flesh.
sThree-year-old Harry Austin was
found next, bearing similar injuries.
None of these boys knew their as
sailant. Most of them were delirious
when found. But when workmen
found little Joe Kennedy in similar
plight, and the little boy was revived,
he said positively:
"A boy named Pomeroy did it. He
works in store on Broadway" t.,s.
Parents and children had been terri
fled SO long that mobs appeared
outside police headquarters while Jes-
Sc was being cross-examined and the
crowds prepared to lynch the boy.
He confessed only after few hours
grill. He was sent to the state re-
formatory, but after seventeen months
there without a black mark against
him, friends of his family secured his
release.
Less than month afterward, little
Katie Curran disappeared. 1t was
thought she was drowned. A month
after that, fve-year-old Horace Mil
len was found lying in the marshes,
with his throat gashed. On the scene
were prints of the feet of a larger
boy.
The police arrested Jesse Pomeroy.
For hours he withstood a "third de-
gree" in which the police held his
face forcibly within a few inches of
the dead face of the Millen boy. But
when he did confess, he cleared also
the mystery of the disappearance of
Katie Curran. He had murdered her
by cutting her throat in the cellar of
her mothers store, and hid the corpse
under pile of ashes.
With the community tremendously
aroused against him, he was tried
and convicted in three days, and sem
fenced to be hanged. His tender
years and the pity felt for his mother
saved him. The executive council
finally voted 6 to for Communication
to life Imprisonment, in solitary con-
fnement.
Since that time only his keeper and
his mother have seen him. She was
allowed monthly visits. She died two
years ago, fighting for his pardon.
In his new surroundings, Pomeroy
will have cell whose window will
give him a view of the street and
passersby. He will take his meals
with the other convicts, and be per-
n1Itfad thA uco of knifa fnrIr orJ