Evening star., 1936-07-17
COUPLE EXECUTED
FORPO|SONK|LL
Mrs. Creighton, Collapsed,
Taken to Chair-Man
Repeats DeniaIS.

Appetgute, zoo -pOuHU UVe OJ
Buldpin, Long Island, American
Legion member, died of poisoning
Police arrested Appelgate and his
former intimate, Mrs. Mary Fran
ceS Creighton. The AppelgdteS and
Creightons shared bungalow.
Mrs. Creighton confessed part in
the Staying, but said the actual
dose Uds administered by Appel
gate. The State advanced the
theory that Mrs. Creighton DGnted
AppelgdteS pite out OF the Ddy so
he could marry her 15-year-old
daughter, ,Dith ,phom he confessed
he had been intimate. Both the
accused were sentenced to die in
the elctric chair.
BY the Associated Press.
OSSINING, N. Y, July 17.-Mrs.
= Frances Creighton, electrocuted for the
poison eggnog murder of Mrs. Ada
Appelgate was the first person IN Sing
Sing prisons history ever carried to
the electric chair.
Semi-comatose, her head lolling
against the back of a wheel chair, Mrs.
Creighton was trundled into the death
chamber late last night and executed
along with Everett C. Appelgate, hus-
band of the slain woman.
Appelgate, in contrast, calmly walked
in unassisted two minutes after Mrs.
Creighton was pronounced dead. He
faced witnesses to protest his lnno-
cence and invoked Divine mercy for
the district attorney who had prose-
cuted him.
Maintains Innocence.
Before I die, gentlemen, want to
say that I am absolutely innocent OF
this crime. I pray that God have
mercy on the soul of Martin w. Little
ton OF Nassau County," Appelgate
said
Finished, he cleared his throat, sat
down and was put to death four min
utes after Mrs. Creighton's wheel chair
had first appeared in the death cham
ber door.
Littleton, the district attorney Ap-
pelgate referred to. said, when told OF
the condemned mans last words:
''The law has taken its course"
Sing Sings warden. Lewis E. Lawes,
said the unparalleled procedure of
wheeling the 38year-old woman to
the chair was decided upon only after
she had said she could not rise from
her prison cot unaSSisted.
A special medical commission ap-
pointed by Gov. Herbert Lehman to
Investigate Mrs. Creighton's condition,
had reported that hysterical fear had
caused her to feign paralysis OF her
lower limbs and vocal cords.
Accused of Killing Wife.
The condemned man and woman
were convicted of having poisoned a
''nourishing drink" and given it to
Appelgate's 268-pound wife.
The Creighton and Appelgate
families had shared bungalow in
Baldwin, Long Island.
Twice before had Mrs Creighton
been acquitted of poison murder
charges, in 1928 in the death of her
brother, Charles Avery, in Newark.
N. j., and in the poisoning of her
mother-ln-laW, Mrs. John F. Crelgh-
ton
Mrs. Creighton was the sixth woman
10 be electrocuted In Sing Sing since
the chair was put into operation in
1891.
Embracing the Catholic faith only a
few hours before the electrocution, she
was visited only by the Catholic chap
lain and her husband, John, with
whom she shook hands. She gave him
her wedding ring.
Appelgate spent his last hours with
his l3-year-old daughter, Agnes. Led
from his cell just before the execution,
the girl sat in an ante room of the
warden's Office and munched a box
lunch with an aunt and uncle.