The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1927-04-30
Records Show IA Women
Have Been Put to Death
Legally Nm This Country,
Six White and Eight Ne.
gro - Good Looking Al
legged Murderesses Usually
Freed or Given Prison
Terms
(BY ALLENE sUMNER)


New York, April 3O.--If Mrs. Ruth
tlcman not her husband-a gentle.
man now on trial with his erstwhile
paramour for the murder of that
guilty of murder
If she is not only found guilty.
but is sentenced to death
II she is not pardoned--
If she really dies for the murder
which she once confessed and now
denies
She will be member Of a much
more exclusive set than it she mere.
~ becomes one more of the vast
army Of ladies who have faced MUIR
der charges. and then escaped death
or even prison terms.
fe1rteen Put to Death
For, while murderesses have not
been few in this country. the best
information obtainable indicates that
only Ia women in the history OF this
country have paid the death penalty,
while men by the hundreds have
breathed lethal gas, dangled from the
moose or sat in the electric chair to
expiate their crimes.
OF this number, it is believed six
were white women and the rest
negroes. The names Of the negro
women are not available.
As to the white women, it was way
back in 1880 that Polly Barclay
hanged in Wilkes county, Ca, for
the murder Of her husband. In 1860
a Susan Eberhardt, also Of Georgia,
was hung for completely in choking
to death the wife Of her lover.
To Prison for Life
Georgia almost added the name of
a third white woman to its execution
list when Mrs. Ida Hughes, 26, was
sentenced to hang on March IA, 1924,
for the murder Of her mother-in-law
But the sentence of pretty Mrs,
Hughes was committed from hanging
to life imprisonment.
On July Z, 1865, Mrs. Mary Suratt
hung for her part in the assassina-
ton of President Lincoln.
In 1899 Mrs. Martha Place OF
Brooklyn was executed ut Sing Sing
for hacking to bits with an AK her
husband. She first blinded with acid
her stepdaughter, of whom she was
jealous.
Ten years later Mrs. Mary Farmer
sat on the same death seat in Sing
Sing. paying for the murder Of q
neighbor woman, Mrs. Sarah Bren.
nan, whose property she hoped to
obtain through ruse.
Mrs. Mary Mabel Rogers was hang.
ed in Vermont in 1905.
An Eye for An Eye
These few names represent the
practical grand total Of society's de-
mands in this country for an eye fol-
an eye when it is woman who has
taken life.
The list of women who have been
condemned to death, only to be saved
from the moose or chair at the last
second. is another story. of course.
In 1923 the first white woman in
the history of the state of Illinois
was given the death sentence. She
was Mrs. ISABELLE Nitti-Crudelle, con.
victed of plotting with her lover ia
slay her husband. She was found
guilty Of hitting him on the head
with a heavy hammer and helping
throw his body into catch basin
on their farm.
She was condemned to death. Then
the racket began. There had been
an epidemic of women murder cases
Scores of them had been acquitted
The acquitted ones had been beauti.
full women. This woman condemned
to death was nothing but an ugly
peasant woman. Shrieking this fact
and demanding justice for ugly muir.
deresses as we'll as pretty ones. Chi.
cago women got q reprieve for the
condemned woman.
Served Three Years
In the same year Mrs. Anna Buzz
of New York was sentenced to cleo
trocution in Sing Sing. She hat
been found guilty Of numbering Fred
erick Schneider, wealthy contractor
with whom she had lived for sever
years, and whom she killed when h.
grew restless and showed interest il
another woman. After nearly three
years in prison with one new tria