The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1920-12-03
TWO BOYS CONDEMNED
TO HANG
GAR p. PERRYGO, is, KILLED AND
ROBBED ELDERLY WOMAN SO he
MIGHT MARRY JOHN McHENRY, II,
CALLED BY PAL MASTER MIND IN
CRIME - PRENATAL INFLUENCE IS
CITED IN BOTH CASES.

Two boys, one of them only 1S
roars old, are in the District Jail in
Washington waiting to go to the gal
Ioys to pay the penalty for first de-
gree murder.
John McHenry, 21 years old, who on
October was sentenced by Judge
Ashley M. Gould, in the Criminal
Court, to be hanged, will go to the gal
lows December II, unless some pro-
cess is instituted to stay the court
proceedings. Nothing has yet been
done.
Edgar Randolph Perrygo, Is years
old was found guilty of first degree
murder in the same court and awaits
sentence-the only sentence which
can be inflicted in the District for
such crime being death by hanging"
John McHenry was convicted for the
death of Detective Sergeant James E.
Armstrong, whom he is alleged to
have shot in the Union Station here,
when Armstrong attempted to arrest
him last December for the killing of
Wallace w. Mulcare, an automobile
accessories dealer, whom McHenry
had killed in an attempt to rob.
Edgar Randolph Perrygo was con-
yicted for the murder of Mrs. Mary
Emily Faithful, 63 years old, whom he
is alleged to have killed in an attempt
TO rob of money which she carried
.sewed in an underskirt which she
wore at all times.
Except for the extreme youth of the
&c 1ittln nf ciU1i Ia rltU
in the two cases.
McHenry, according to evidence
given at the police station following
his arrest, robbed Mulcare because
he was hungry.
Edgar Randolph Perrygo, according
to testimony given at his trial. rob-
bed Mrs. Faithful to get money which
would enable him to marry MABEL
Hill, his 16-year-old sweetheart, WHO
now is in the National Training
School for girls here, where she is to
be kept until she is 21.
McHenry, according to the testl-
mOny has a criminal record covering
many years.
Perrygo, according to the testimony,
has never been arrested before.
McHenry according to his mother,
who came from Connecticut to testl-
fy at his trial in an effort to save him,
began running away from home when
he was 2 or years old. His career
of crime, she testified, began when ne
was about or 10 years old, when ne
and another boy stole some tools and
hid them in the cemetery. Not long
after that, according to his mother,
Ioff and che did NOT
see him again until she faced him IN
the courtroom where he was on trial
for his life.
The story of McHenry's life, after
he left home, his work in the under
world, was graphically described
during the trial by Edward J. Scan
lon, a former confederate Of the boy,
who was brought from prison IN
Maine, where he is serving a five
year sentence, to testify against Nc
Henry.
McHenry, according to his former
pal, did not even observe the code o.
Honor among thieves.
81 am serving my present sentence
for McHenry," he testified. "McHenry
pulled the Job for which l was con
viCted and sentenced. He was one or
the most daring, shrewd and calculat-
ing thieves | ever met, and | have
been associated with a number OF
criminals McHenry was born lead
er of thieves, a sort of master mind,
despite his youth Ever ready with his
gun, he would shoot to kill if any one
got in his way.
He got little money for his daring
and more than once | was scared al
most speechless by the jams he got
into. But his gun was always out and
he succeeded in making his getaway
because the police and others who
were anxious to capture him Wete
afraid Of their lives-afraid he would
make his threat good to shoot to Kill.
Against this record of McHenrv,
which ended when the boy did make
good his threat and kill the two men
in Washington, stands the record u
Edgar Randolph Perrygo-spotlessly
clean until he killed Mrs. Faithful
hitting her in the head with an IRON
bar about foot long.
While McHenry had been roaming
the underworld plying bis ''profes-
sion," Perrygo had been living at
home with his parents on their little
farm at Oxen Hill, Md. While McHen-
ry had been robbing and stealing, Per-
rygo had been honestly earning a
salary of $40 a week working on his
1ather's truck farm.
The plea in both cases was "insan-
ity."
In each case an effort was made to
show prenatal influence
In the case of McHenry his attor-
neys attempted to show that the boy
was born a criminal" due to the fact
that for several months before his
birth his mother had been kept in
constant state of worry and fear be-
cause her husband. George Rice. a
pugilist, was away from home at the
tlmA engaging in fights.
Three months before the birth OF
Edar Randolph Perrygo. accordingseto
testimony introduced at his triasg an
insane patient from st. Elizabeth's
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