Indiana daily times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1914-1922, 1921-11-04
MAKES !
NOPLEA AS SON
is GIVEN DEATH
After Hearing Confession
Tells Youth to Give Life
for One Fo Took.

McALESTER. Okla, Nov. 4.-No mother
love more worthy Of eulog.' ever followed
a condemned son than thai Of Mrs. Edith
TAFT Of Enterprise, Utah, whose son, Will
liam H. TAFT, is under sentence to pay
the supreme penalty in the electric chair
at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary for
the murder Of Russell Sprague, service
car driver, Of Lawton, Okla.
But mother love to William TAFT took
no pitying or condoning form; instead,
it left these words to sound in his ears
till his execution. which was to have
taken place July Is, but has been posts
poned
'There Is nothing for you to do but
to give up your life for the life you
took.
These we're his mothers words to him
after she had come l 600 miles from Utah
to Oklahoma TO see him in prison only
few days before the time set for his
death, and had heard from his own lips
the story she could not believe till them
EXECUTION DEFERRED
by GOVERNOR.
Even when a Governors reprieve cons
ing dramatically on the day of her visit
to her doomed son added to his life, the
mothers only rejoicing was: IF it's the
Lords will that his life be extended, I
am glad that it is extended-and I think
it is His will Ny prayer from the first
has been that His viii be done in this
and not mine
TAFT, 20 years old, deserted from the
Army, was convicted, together with
Cleo Cohen, a Lawton farmer youth, OF
what was probably the most coldly
planned murder ever committed in Okla
homa. one whose only motive was the
theft Of the victims car and money.
Sprague, the victim, was a young man
of - who helped care for his mother out
Of his earnings as a service car driver.
According to Lawton people he was
thrifty. serious and unusually clean in
his habits.
The story of the murder, as told in
the narrative of TAFT, as he rather
gruffly yielded TO the pleading of his
mother mt his prison cell to tell her
nothing but the truth" was related in
the Post-Dispatch.
Mrs. TAFT and her son belong to the
Mormon Church, whose doctrine it is
that there is no redemption for a muir
derer save through rising from the
depths of hell
TAFT has committed a double sin
against his faith. first reputation of his
God, for he had once been ordained an
elder i'll the Mormon Church, and sec
ond, murder.
Behold says the Book of Mormon,
If We deny the Holy Ghost when it
once has had place in you, and We know
that We deny it, behold, this is a sin
which is unpardonaLle. Yea, and who
soever murdereth against the light and
knowledge of God. it is not easy for him
to obtain forgiveness" This was the
word Of Alma, the prophet, to his son.
COriana. =
ANOTHER
ALSO CONVICTED.
The killing of Sprague took place
March 20. The slayers left his body in
a creek fourteen miles from Lawton,
where it was found half-buried in sand
a few days later. TAFT and Cohen were
tried within a month, convicted and both
sentenced to death.
TAFT was first sentenced to die June
II and Cohen June IS. Cohen appealed
to the Criminal Court of Appeals and
thus delayed his execution date. TAFT
recently was seriously i'll at the peni-
tertiary and for several days was in the
prison hospital with high fever.
Mrs. Tait's visit to her son was made
possible by contributions of Oklahoma
people to a $3.50 fund raised by an Okla
homa City newspaper.