The Washington times., 1922-03-03
SLAYER Of
Z To HANG
At 4 P. N.
Heroic Efforts Will Be Made by
Lawyer to Get Stay Of
Execution.
BY international NewS Service.

BY International News Service.
CHICAGO. March 3.-Pity will
seek to temper the sternness of
Justice today in a final despair
ing attempt to halt the execution
Of Harvey w. Church. youthful
murderer, who is to be hanged at
4 o'clock this afternoon.
To Seek Stay.
Attorney Benjamin F. Bartel will
ask Judge Kickham Scalon. chief
justice Of the criminal court. for
ten day stay of execution on hu-
manitarian grounds. An attempt to
obtain writ staying the hanging
also win be made on the technical
claim that Church was not execu-
ted within twenty-five days after
sentence, as required by law.
There. seemed to be little hope that
efforts to halt the execution would
be successful. Governor Small and
the State supreme court have said
their final negative to all pleas for
clemency.
While attorneys kept up their last.
ditch fight, preparations for the
execution were going forward in
the county Jail. The pounding OF
hammers echoed In the courtyard as
the gallows were erected. The length
of hemp rope hat will snuff out the
life Of the slayer was being tested
with heavy. inert bags of sand, more
iifeless even than the condemned
man, who has lain passive and un-
needing, to all appearances appar-
entity mentally dead, for more than a
month.
Sister Enters Cell.
On his narrow cot in the death
cell, Church gives no sign that he
knows of the approach of his zero
hour" His form lies motionless ex-
cept for the constant twitching OF
the eyelids that has continued
through his strange period of coma
His mind, If 1t Is still functioning.
gives no proof visible to the jailer
that sits watching, or to the physi-
clans that call.
Church showed the first signs Of
consciousness this forenoon. as tn"
hour of his execution approached.
He opened his eyes and began TO
mutter cultural calls for mother"
and father"
The father and mother, Mr.. and
Mrs, E. o. Church, were Immediately
summoned and taken to the deatf
cell.
Late last night Church's sister.
Isabel. entered his cell. She knelt
by the cot and held the shell of her
brothers once powerful body in her
arms. grooming words OF love and
pleading as she might have pleaded
with a child that he speak or give
some sign of recognition. She went
away without a sign from her
brother that he had heard her
agonized cry.
A little later two nuns called at
the jail. For while they knelt
and prayed for the soul of Harvey
Church-prayed for the forgiveness
that the law has found it impos-
sible to extend. Church again gave
no sign that he was conscious of
their presence.
VIII Be Hanged In Chair.
The single movement Of Church's
last long night upon earth came
when he turned contulsively in bed
from his back to his right side.
When the hour of his execution
comes, Church will be carried by
two guards. strapped to a chair,
from the death cell to the gallows.
He will be executed while seated in
the chair.
The condemned man will receive
his last tubed meal of liquids at
noon. For forty days or more he
has eaten no food voluntarily, but
has been kept alive by nourishment
forcibly administered. Physicians
say his state is due to hypnotic
catalepsy, self-imposed. His mind
has lost control Of his body. physi-
clans say. and has probably ceased
to function entirely.
Church will pay the penalty for
the staying Of Bernard J. Daugh-
erty and 'Carl Asmus. He con-
fessed to Turing them to his home
on the pretense Of desiring to buy
an automobile. He beat them to
death with a baseball bat, buried
the body Of one, and threw the
body Of the other into . river.