The Washington times., 1922-10-08
WOMAN STAYS
TWO, AIDED BY
own MOTHER
"Never Heard Of God in the
Swamps," Only Defense
,..r She Offers.

-. SUC SitOtSs
DETROIT, Oct. IA country
without a moral code! A weird.
strange country of gloomy swamp
lands, sparsely inhabited, and SO
isolated from the rest of the world
that laws of God and man do not
penetrate.
Against this background is paint
ed the figure of the woman without
a soul, the spiritually deficient fig
ure of a slim young wife who has
confessed to two of the most shock
ing crimes in history, the murder of
her, husband and her husbands
father, slain in cold blood, the hus-
band because he was in the way"
the father, an old man, because
he was a. nuisance" =.
Her Mother Aided. -.
Aiding and abbetting the young
woman was her mother, also shut off
by an abyss of Ignorance from any
knowledge of right and wrong and
apparently unconscious even yet
that human beings may not be killed
as one kills stray cats, because they
are in the way"
Many writer's have described the
various moral codes existing in diff.
ferent parts of the world. Some of
these writer's have even gone so far
as to say that there can be no fixed
standard of morals for the world be-
cause what Is deemed moral in
Greenland may be deemed highly
immoral in the South Sea Islands.
But they have always found some
kind Of code, some law which must
be- obeyed: .... ..
Country without Code.
Not far from White Cloud, Mich,
in 'Goodwell township, exists the
country without a code, the home of
the two women whose confession has
stirred the whole State of Michigan
into rigorous investigation Of con-
ditions in the swamp lands.
The leading characters Of the
swamp murder are: First, Mrs. Media
Hodell. twenty.six. the wife, frail and
thin. weighing less than one hundred
pounds, and cOnfessing unemotion-
ally to the murder of her husband
and father-in-law. Second, her
mother, Mrs. Alice Dudgeon, who
helped her and who is equally un.
a"dtC thdt way Vut
Of the way in their actions.
When Media Hodell told the story
to the officials Of White Cloud, the
prosecutor asked her If she didn't
know that il was a crime.
No God i'm Swamps.
1--WE live so far away from every.
one we don't know much about such
things" was her reply.
Rt.f In nrI
commandment, Thou shalt not kill?"
he persisted.
Well" she replied, I'VE never hear
much about religion and those things
in the swamp land. We don't know
about God I'm the swamps."
Media was born in the swamps,
which have always been regarded
with superstitious awe by the in.
habitants of the towns near them.
1t was known that human beings
dwelt in the few tumble.down shacks
scattered over the drenched land,
but those Swamp Sallys" were left
alone, in a loneliness soaring the sou;
and deadening all sensibility. Strange
stories of crime came out of the
swamps from time to time.
In this Cheerless environment the
girl grew to womanhood. q woman.
hood devoid Of beauty, gentleness and
righteousness, and finally she was
married TO the son of old David Ho-
dell, who had come to live on the
same farm where she and her mother
eked out a precarious existence.
Poisoned His Coffee.
The old man became obnoxious to
her.
why not get rid of him?" she
said TO herself And with no more
cOmpunctiOn than she would have
used i'm killing a mouse she poisoned
his coffee with arsenic and watched
him stager from the house to die.
Her next discovery was that she
would be more contented without her
husband. So in the dead of night,
while Romie was sleeping, she took
q weapon to which cartoonists have
given a grewsome familiarity, a roll
ingpin. Swamp life had given Media
the muscles of a man, but her first
blows did not kill the sleeping man.
He sort Of quivered all over"
Media said. "and I felt kind of sorry
for him.
Mother Finishes It.,
Her momentary hesitancy was
made up for by her mother, While
Media was lying at the side Of the
man whose head she had broken. the
mother picked up the weapon and
with one blow finished the deed be-
gun by her daughter.
The first crime had been commit
ted without the knowledge Of any
one. but the killing of Romie was
known to Medals two brothers, Lee
and Robert Dudgeon. These knew
It was "agin the law" so they called
in a friend, a farm hand, named
Robert Bennett.
The consplratOrs made up a story
nf suicide. and Lee and Robert