The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-01-05
kE[s, ONCE 'DEAD,' , DIES ON GALLONS
Murdered Laborer For Life
 Insurance Money-Stolid .ssks. 10 LaSl

FOLSOM PENITENTIARY. Cal Jan. 4.-Alex Kels, Lodi 'Haystack murderer, was hanged here at 10:16 a. ID. today.
 Kels began mounting the fateful 13 steps to tho Folsom prison gallows at l0:05. One minute later, the trap was sprung, and in 10 minutes and 46 seconds the prison physician pro- nounced him dead.
 Kels died silently, stolidly, uncom- plainingly.
 That he took to his death with him the consciousness of having commit ted one of the most horrible murders in California's crime annals was not apparent from his demeanor in the gallows room. He staggered slightly as he mounted up the stairs, and was carried on up by the guards.
 He was calm and unconcerned. With the stroke of 10 a. m. today, Alex Kels, once legally dead" and buried with all the honors of . respected business man of Lodi Cal. became dead in actuality.
 Murdered Laborer.
 He was hanged from scaffold here, paying for the murder or Ed Meserervy, itinerant laborer from Illinois.
 As the rumble of the dropping trap heralded the passing of his life, Mrs Kels became the widow for second time.
 An insurance company will pay to her $10O,000 insurance-so Kels has accomplished through the workings of the law the thing he sought to bring about when he murdered Mes erervey and permitted burial of the body as that of his own, though in doing so, he becomes the man who died twice."
 Kels, his final hope gone when Governor F. W. Richardson on Wednesday refused him reprieve. spent his last days quietly. He did not storm at his fate, but rather whispered words of contrition to a priest who spent much time with him. He prayed that strength might be given his wife. He paced his cell in silence-and he smoked count less cigarets.
 It was three months ago that Lodi heard with a shock that the body of Alex Kels, cattle man, meat dealer and prominent in the towns business circles, had been found in burned autom obile the skull horribly crushed and two bullet holes telling the story of how death came.
 
 It was buried while the widow wept beside the grave-her sorrow doubled by the knowledge that soon a child was to be born to her which was to go through life robbed of a fathers companionship.
 Had $10O,0O0 Insurance.
 A stranger, the last man seen with KeIs, was sought as the murderer.
 Just as the insurance, amounting to S1O0,000, was about to be paid Alex Kels-the man who was sup posedly buried-was arrested in Eureka, Cal, in the act of attempting suicide.
 He was brought back to his home county. admitted he murdered the man whose body had been found. and, ina courtroom crowded with his friends, judge whom he had known since childhood ordered that he be hanged by the neck until dead, dead. dead"
 Not until a month ago did Mrs. Kels know that her husband, instead of being the man over whose grave she wept, was awaiting the coming of the hangman at state peniten- tiary.
 She then launched a campaign to save him from the gallows.
 Alex was not sane" she insisted in her appeals.
 But courts and doctors said he was. Silent Before Hansins.
 Kels, in accordance with grim cus- tom, was given the right to order anything he might desire for his final breakfast. He asked for poached