The Last Legal Hanging in America

Justice at 12:04 A.M.

By Robert A. Waters

 June 12, 1979. Midnight. Delaware Correctional Center in Smyrna.

The cold wind snapped Billy Bailey’s jacket as about a dozen spectators watched him trudge up the stairs of a makeshift gallows. Two prison guards escorted him to the platform where his sentence would be carried out. They wore black jumpsuits, black hoods and black baseball caps to hold the hoods in place. Prison warden Robert Snyder, also wearing black, waited near the center of the scaffold. Bailey, about five feet tall and weighing more than 200 pounds, seemed not to notice the noose swinging in the wind. In fact, he never seemed to notice or care about anything, much less the pain he inflicted on humanity during his sordid life.

Mary Ann Lambertson, daughter-in-law of murder victims Gilbert Lambertson, 80, and wife Clara, 73, was one person struggling with mental pain caused by Bailey’s actions. He’d broken into the couple’s modest farm home near Dover and shot-gunned them. Mary Ann, working nearby, heard the blasts and witnessed Bailey fleeing across a fifty-acre field. Racing to the home, she found Gilbert, half his face blown off, and Clara, with gaping holes in her shoulder and abdomen. Her hand had a gunshot wound, too, as if she’d raised it to try to ward off the buckshot tearing into her soul. Even years later, Mary Ann could not forget that wrenching scene.

In the frigid air, Mary Ann spoke to reporters. “I think it’s really past time this [execution] should have come about,” she said. “It’s been too many years. When they know for a fact that someone did something, it shouldn’t take 16 years to execute him.”

For most of his life, Billy Bailey had been a terror to almost everyone who came in contact with him. He’d been imprisoned six times, and when he killed the Lamberstons, should have been on a prison work detail. However, he escaped due to a clerical error. Within minutes of going on the lam, he attempted to hold up a liquor store. When the clerk refused to give him money, he tried to shoot her with a .25-caliber pistol. The gun jammed, and he ran from the store carrying a bottle of liquor in one hand and the pistol in the other.

Less than an hour later, Bailey ended up at Lamberston’s Corner.

Gilbert and Clara raised soybeans for a living. Gilbert’s father had farmed the same land and, when he died, the couple inherited his property and home. They raised their children there. Clara liked to make jams and jellies for friends, and both attended church regularly. They were country people with country values. In the scheme of life, it seemed unlikely that they would fall prey to a hardened criminal like Billy Bailey.

Newsman Karl Vick described the execution: “The guards led [Bailey] onto the trapdoor, placed a strap around his ankles and pulled a black hood over his head and upper chest. The noose was fastened over the hood and tightened beneath Bailey’s chin.

“Several times, Snyder felt at the hood to be certain that the top of the hangman’s knot lay beneath Bailey’s left ear, the placement old Army regulations specify to assure the straightening rope has the best chance of bringing quick death by severing the spinal cord. Finally, the warden stepped back and pulled a gray wooden lever with both hands.

“The trap door opened with a thump. Five feet of manila rope followed through the hole and snapped taut 10 feet above the sodden ground.”

Guards quickly placed a canvas tarp in front of Bailey, hoping to conceal the body as it spun in the wind. As friends and relatives of the victims watched, their thoughts may have drifted back in time to a loving couple who had lived ethical lives and died violent deaths. Dennis Lambertson, grandson of the victims, certainly had those thoughts. “One of them watched the other one get blown away,” he said. “They were kind of old, feeble people. My grandfather kind of wobbled when he walked.”

Billy Bailey chose hanging over a poison needle, which was his right at the time he committed the murders. He is said to have commented, "I don't want to be put down like a dog." There will be no more hangings in Delaware since, by law, any new execution will be done by lethal injection.

Whatever anyone thinks about the death penalty, Billy Bailey has never hurt another person since that cold night in June.

NOTE: Much of the information for this story came from the excellent Washington Post article, “An Execution in the Old Way,” by Karl Vick. I also consulted court documents and numerous newspaper articles from the period.

Engineer in 1890 Train Derailment is Immortalized in Song

Story of the Folk Song “Engine One-Forty-Three”

By Robert A. Waters

Trains have always thrilled the hearts of songwriters. “Wabash Cannonball,” “Casey Jones,” “Wreck of the Old ’97,” “Folsom Prison Blues,” and “City of New Orleans” are just a few popular railroad songs. Like almost all folk songs, there are many different versions of the tune, “Engine One-Forty-Three.” This post will use Townes Van Zandt’s version, called “FFV.”

The title “FFV” means Fast Flying Virginian, or Fast Flying Vestibule. The song is about a train wreck that occurred in West Virginia, killing its engineer, George Alley.

Here is the entire newspaper report from the Staunton Vindicator, published October 31, 1890:

Fatal Accident

“On Thursday morning last, about two miles this side of Hinton, the C & O vestibule train ran into a rock which had fallen on the track. The engine, tinder, baggage car and postal car went off the track, the baggage car and tinder going over the embankment. The engine turned over. Engineer George W. Alley of Clifton Forge had an arm and leg broken, and was so badly scalded by the escaping steam that he died before his wife, who had started from Clifton Forge when she heard the news, could get there.

Fireman Lewis Withrow was badly scalded on the neck, arm and side and S. Foster, an extra fireman on his way home to Staunton, was slightly bruised. Engineer Alley’s remains were taken to Clifton Forge and the funeral took place from the Methodist Church there, of which he was a member, on Friday. He leaves a widow and three children. The train had slowed some in turning a curve or it is probable it would have gone over into the Greenbrier River. The track walker, it is said, had crossed over the spot a few minutes previous to the accident and found it clear.”

The Chesapeake and Ohio train ran daily between New York, Washington, D.C., and Cincinnati. Alley’s father and five brothers worked for the railroad.

The Making of a Folk Song

Folk songs usually have a grain of truth, but some can also stretch truth to the outer limits—as happened in this case. “FFV” suggests that George was speeding. There was no indication of that. In fact, he had slowed as he came toward a bend, which may have saved many lives. The song states that George’s mother warned him about speeding. That did not happen as she had died years before. The actual number of the train was 134, not 143. The song states that the train ran off the tracks and hit a rock, but that is inaccurate: the boulder lay on the tracks so there was no way Alley could have avoided it. While his last words may well have been, “Nearer my God to thee,” it’s unlikely that he told anyone he wanted to die along with his engine. In fact, he was said to be asking for his family as he slipped in and out of consciousness. The description of George’s injuries was fairly accurate.

I've always loved this song. No one knows who wrote the initial version, although it has been speculated that a worker for C & O was the author.

Here are the lyrics, as sung by Texas troubadour and songwriter, Townes Van Zandt. Click the FFV link to listen to the song.

FFV

Well, along come the FFV, the swiftest on the line,

Runnin’ on the C & O road twenty minutes behind.

Runnin’ into Seville, headquarters on the line,

Receiving their strict orders from the station just behind.

 

Well, Georgie’s mother come to him with a bucket on her arm,

Saying, “My darling boy, be careful how you run.

Well, it’s many a man has lost his life in tryin’ to make lost time,

But if you run your engine right, you’ll make her just on time.”

 

Aw, but off the road she darted and into the rocks she crashed,

Well, the engine she laid upside down and Georgie’s breast was smashed.

His head lay against the firebox door and the flames were rollin’ high,

“Well, I’m proud to be born for an engineer on the C & O road to die.”

 

Well, the doctor come to Georgie, “My darlin’ boy be still.

Your life can yet be saved it is God’s blessed will.”

“Oh no, no, it will not do, I want to fly so free,

Well, I want to die with the engine I love, one-hundred-and-forty-three.”

 

Then the doctor said to Georgie, “Well, your life cannot be saved,

Murdered out on the railroad and laid in a lonesome grave.”

His face was all covered up with blood and his eyes they could not see

And the very last words that Georgie spoke were, “Nearer my God to thee.”

 

Case of the Doll-like Corpse

Murder of a “Government Girl”

By Robert A. Waters

By October, 1944, the momentum in World War II had begun to shift to the Allies. Yet, with hundreds of American soldiers still dying every day, the United States War Department continued to hire workers to help defeat the Nazis and Japanese.

Shortly after graduating from high school, Dorothy Berrum passed the civil service exam and left Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin for Washington, D.C. Seventeen-years-old, the newly-hired clerk stood only four feet, six inches tall and weighed just 85 pounds. Despite her appearance, she quickly made friends at Arlington Farms, the War Department dorm where she lived, although friends lamented that the young teenager from the mid-west seemed naïve to the wiles of the city.

She’d been in DC for only three months when she vanished.

A few hours later, in the early morning of October 6, two employees of the East Potomac Park golf club discovered Dorothy’s corpse. She lay face-up in wet grass near the sixth hole. The Washington Evening Star reported that “her face bore bruises and scratches, indicating the victim had put up a fierce struggle before her assailant choked her. Coroner A. Magruder MacDonald said death had been caused by strangulation and that she had been criminally assaulted.” Because of her diminutive size, some reporters described her as “doll-like.”

According to the Washington Daily News, cops “found that the girl had been strangled with her own turban gaudy strip of blue, white, green and purple cloth. The body had been clad in a brown dress covered by a red coat buttoned from top to bottom. Later, it was discovered that the victim’s underclothing was torn. She had been raped, it appeared, then strangled.”

Investigators surveyed the crime scene and, about forty yards away, discovered a belt with a bent buckle. Cops knew it would have been standard issue on a Marine Corps uniform. After collecting the belt for evidence, detectives began attempting to identify the victim. A class ring on her finger provided the clue they needed. The ring came from McDonnell High School and had the initials “D. B.” engraved into it. Cops searched several databases and found a McDonnell High School in Wisconsin. After identifying Dorothy Berrum, they had the task of informing her parents that their daughter had been murdered.

The now-grieving parents had been skeptical all along about Dorothy’s move to the big city, but there was no stopping her. In letters home, she emphasized that she was pleased with her new place in the world. 

On the evening of October 5, the “government girl,” as newspapers would soon label her, arranged to meet two girl friends at the corner of 10^th Street and D Street, N.W. When neither friend showed up, a stranger who identified himself as Earl McFarland struck up a conversation with Dorothy. Sporting a neatly pressed Marine Corps uniform, he told her he had fought in Guadalcanal and was on the home front recovering from malaria. (That was true, but he neglected to tell her he was married, had two children, had been arrested for several crimes, and had served two years in prison.)

At 9:15 p.m., they hailed a taxi. She and McFarland got in the back seat, and the driver heard Dorothy tell her companion she was hungry. He asked where she would like to eat and she said, “The Hot Shoppe.” The restaurant, famous locally for its “Mighty Mo,” a triple decker hamburger, and root beer floats, was a few miles away. McFarland told the cabbie, Harold Thomas, to take them in that direction.

The next morning, Thomas saw the girl’s picture on the front page of the newspaper and contacted investigators. The young college-age cab-driver told detectives that after Dorothy had mentioned the Hot Shoppe, the soldier “asked me to have a cigarette and leaned over and whispered in my ear to take them around Hains Point.” Once there, McFarland told him to stop, paid the tab, and exited with Dorothy. Before leaving, Thomas heard the girl ask, “Why are we stopping here?” The cabbie informed investigators that after he let the pair out, he found a switchblade knife in the back seat.

Detectives made a beeline to the Marine Corps barracks located in the city. They had three questions for USMC personnel: Who had been out on pass the night of October 5? Who had lost a knife? And who had lost a belt? The answer to each of those questions turned out to be twenty-four-year-old Earl Jackson McFarland, formerly of Knoxville, Tennessee.

While being interrogated, McFarland lied about everything. He claimed the belt was not his. He wasn’t even wearing a belt on October 5, he said. Another soldier at his barracks contradicted McFarland’s claim and produced a photograph taken in a “quickie joint” earlier on the day of the 5^th. The picture showed a grinning McFarland wearing the belt. What’s more, investigators saw that the buckle had been bent exactly like the one they had in evidence.

McFarland denied the knife was his. He told police he did not know the girl and had never met her, contradicting the cabdriver’s statement.  

And it turned out that even his name, “Earl McFarland,” was an alias. Earl Jack Dills was his real moniker. He had changed names when he enlisted in the military to hide his criminal past.

Detectives suspected McFarland of another murder in the city. Mrs. Margaret Fitzpatrick had been brutally raped and murdered just three weeks before Dorothy Berrum’s corpse was discovered. A friend identified McFarland as the last person to see Margaret alive. He was indicted for that murder but never tried.

As McFarland awaited trial, detectives tracked down the history of the mysterious “switchblade” knife. Marine private John S. Holzberger identified the knife as the one he lent to McFarland while they served in Guadalcanal.

United Press reported that “a Federal Grand Jury today indicted Pvt. Earl McFarland, 21-year-old Marine veteran of Guadalcanal on three counts—each punishable by death—in connection with the slaying of 18-year-old Dorothy Berrum.”

Shortly after being housed in the Washington jail, McFarland and another inmate escaped. An investigation showed they had charmed their way into the guards’ confidence. The website Execution Today states that during a card game played in one of the guards’ rooms, “they imprisoned their jailers, nicked their clothes, and cut their way into a ventilation shaft and out to the roof.” While the other inmate was quickly captured, McFarland spent eight days on the run before being tracked down in Knoxville.

Meanwhile, newspapers began receiving letters criticizing the military for "snatching" girls from all over the country to work in the dangerous city of Washington. One newspaper editor wrote: "The problems imposed by a tremendous wartime influx of young women have been discussed for months but the discussion has reached a new peak in press, pulpit and among government workers themselves since the tragedy of Dorothy Berrum."

McFarland's trial began on January 8, 1945. Defense attorneys produced three psychiatrists who testified that their client was mentally ill. However, the strategy didn't work. Circumstantial evidence prevailed and the former Marine was convicted and sentenced to death. That sentence was upheld by the U. S. Court of Appeals stating that the evidence “clearly established his guilt.”

He was executed in the electric chair on July 19, 1946.

Book Review

Deaf Row

A Mystery Novel by Ron Franscell

Review by Robert A. Waters

By the second paragraph of Deaf Row, I was invested. When retired Denver detective Woodrow “Mountain” Bell visits a nursing home in a high-mountain mining town, author Ron Franscell describes the scene: “Pale September twilight swathed the cheerless room as white-haired shadows silently drifted in for dinner, like dust that hadn’t been blown away yet.” At the facility, Bell meets a man whose daughter disappeared decades before. She was later found murdered, with one eye sewn shut. The father has dementia and can only recall brief, flickering remembrances now of his beloved daughter, but Bell is hooked.

In many fiction books, the good writing drops off somewhere in the middle, only to be brought back to life near the end. Not this book. Franscell’s narrative never fails as Bell weaves his way through obscure clue after obscure clue. The former cop enlists help from each of the characters at the restaurant where they meet every morning.

Those friends are drawn with a masterful hand. Each has a colorful background, and the author's witty, fast-paced writing makes them seem alive, if sometimes poignant. For instance, Roxy has discovered the “secret math of solitaire.” He plays the card game for hours every day, trying to master it. Even though the other members of the gang rib him about his obsession, Roxy's mathematical expertise helps Bell develop key information about the killer. And when Bell grows discouraged, Catholic Priest Father Bert Clancy prods the former cop to continue his quest.

Unknown to everyone, the predator lurks nearby, hiding in plain sight. In the unforgiving cold of the mountain town, Bell tracks his prey. The killer’s motives, based on interviews of real serial killers, will leave the reader stunned.

I love it when writers can bring a scene to life. This description of a mountainous road is one of many examples: “The road to the asylum was unearthly. Over the past fifty years, the mountain had reclaimed the steep, bumpy two-track. It was now a barely visible, frozen crease through a narrow gap in the pines.” With those words, I can see that trail crawling up the mountain.

Here is a description of a greasy diner in another mining town: “The mahogany walls—original to the eatery’s opera-house days—were festooned with dozens of old hardhats, each one bearing the name of countless area mines and the name of the miner who wore it. Some dating back to the 1800s weren’t hardhats at all, merely shellac-brimmed derbies with carbide lamps. Seven different calendars from seven random years adorned the place. And slapped across the front of the old-fashioned cash register was a bright red bumper sticker: We’re all here because we’re not all there.”

I can’t say enough about Deaf Row, except that I thoroughly enjoyed it and highly recommend it. Ron Franscell is one of our finest modern literary masters and this book proves it.

All the Pretty Little Girls

 

Mary Proulx

Killer of Children

The May 6, 1936 edition of the Boston Globe reported that "James H. Folsom, confessed slayer of 12-year-old Annie K. Knights of Fairfield and 7-year-old Mary Proulx of [Waterville, Maine] led police authorities on a gruesome before-dawn reenactment of both crimes today." (Investigators used the early morning darkness to avoid a possible lynching of the hated killer.)

On the afternoon of October 7, 1935, Annie K. Knights left her Lawrence Avenue home in Fairfield, Maine to pick apples. A few hours later, a local high school student found Annie's body in a roadside ditch.

Dr. Julius Gottlieb, who performed the autopsy, said the child died of "asphyxiation by gagging." A handkerchief had been stuffed into her mouth, obstructing the air flow, and she'd been brutally raped. The Lewiston Daily Sun stated that, "Annie, frail and small for her age, was lying on her back, her arms bound and tied to a stump."

One witness, Mrs. Olive Lacombe, told investigators she saw the girl walking with a man and holding a paper bag. Lacombe described the man as being thick-set and wearing a gray suit, a light hat, and white shoes.

Within minutes of finding the little girl's remains, police swept the countryside, arresting dozens of people. No man who had been out and about that day was safe. One suspect, David Roy, a 44-year-old Fairfield carpenter, was brought in and interrogated hard. He vehemently denied his involvement, so police coerced him into taking a "lie detector" test. Professor Edward J. Colgan, of Colby College, who administered the test, told reporters the lie detector is a "psycho-galvanic reflex apparatus which registers the principal emotional changes in the electrical conductivity of the skin and can tell if a suspect is lying." After nearly twelve hours, the machine "proved" Roy had been truthful. Over the next few days, throngs of men were hauled into the police department, only to file out later with no charges.

Maine's hard winter came and went with cops no closer to finding the killer.

Waterville, a town of 15,000 souls, lay three and a half miles from Fairfield. It was there on May 5, 1936, that a second child went missing.

King Features crime writer Jack Martin wrote that "it was about 4 o'clock on a sultry Sunday afternoon when Mrs. Lena Proulx...ran hysterically into the office of Chief of Police Alfred Poirier to report that her 7-year-old daughter, Mary, had disappeared." The chief was slow to react, believing the child had gotten lost and would soon be located.

When Mary hadn't been found by Monday, police launched an all-out search. Hundreds of cops and residents scoured the town and nearby countryside. Poirier became so desperate that he emptied the local high school so students could help. Within a couple of hours, Robert Rancourt, a senior, stumbled on the body lying beside the Mesalonskee River, a few hundred yards outside Waterville.

Martin, who had interviewed some of the cops, wrote: "The child had been fiendishly tortured. A handkerchief had been jammed into her mouth as a gag and it was held in place with another handkerchief tied around her head. Her hands were bound across her chest with a piece of stout twine, such as is used in many stores to wrap heavy parcels." When compared, the twine turned out to be similar to that used in Annie's murder. As in the previous child murder, death was said to be due to "asphyxiation by gagging." Mary had also been raped.

It immediately became obvious to cops that the killer of Annie K. Knights had struck again. Chief Poirier, perhaps feeling pressure from the community at not having taken Mary's mother seriously, threw his entire force on the case.

In the end, a cop from another district provided critical information. While in Skowhegan helping to search for the killer, Somerset County Chief Deputy Sheriff William Goulette spied an ex-convict he knew well. He'd arrested James H. Folsom for "taking indecent liberties with children," and the pedophile had served time in Windham Prison for that series of crimes. Goulette soon learned Folsom was out on parole and wasted no time contacting Chief Poirier. Cops arrested Folsom at the sawmill where he worked.

The suspect quickly confessed and led investigators on that night-time recreation of his crimes. His chilling confession read, in part: "I, James H. Folsom, admit I am guilty of killing [the] girl in Waterville, Me., on Sunday of 3rd of May, also Annie Knight (sic) of Fairfield. Both were the same. They started to cry and I was afraid someone would hear so I tied their hands and gagged them both. I did not know either one [and I] was not of this world until afterwards..." He admitted "taking indecent liberty's (sic) with both and attacked both. I seemed not to know or care what I was doing."

Folsom told detectives he lured each girl away by offering them "pennies."

A search of Folsom's belongings revealed conclusive evidence. Investigators learned that Folsom had rented a room at the YMCA one hour after Mary had been taken. He'd left a box there containing several items, including handkerchiefs exactly like the ones used to gag the girls. Detectives also located a ball of twine that matched the bindings on Mary and Annie's hands.

One month later, Folsom pleaded guilty to the murder of Mary Proulx and received a sentence of life in prison without parole. He died in Maine State Prison 51 years later, at 87.

Student Attacks Teacher's Aide at Florida School (VIDEO)

GRAPHIC VIDEO - Be forewarned

On February 21, 2023, Brendan J. Depa allegedly assaulted Joan Naydich, teacher's aide at Matanzas High School in Palm Coast, Florida. Depa, who stands six-feet-six inches tall and weighs 270 pounds rushed Naydich, shoving her full-force to the floor. She hit her head on the tile, knocking her unconscious.

Video footage shows the assailant kicking the downed woman and beating her with his fists until other employees intervened. After pushing her down, Depa landed 15 blows before help arrived. Five staff members eventually pulled him off Naydich and held him until deputies arrived.

Cops handcuffed Depa and took him to jail. He was charged with aggravated battery on a school board employee, a first-degree felony. If convicted, Depa could spend thirty years behind bars. The Seventh Judicial Court set his bail at $1 million.

Although Depa is only seventeen, he already has three arrests for battery. Because of his age, officials would not release details of those alleged assaults.

After his arrest, investigators said Depa spat on Naydich and vowed to kill her once he is released. He told lawmen he attacked her because she took his Nintendo Switch from him. Naydich denies that. "I just want to set the record straight," she said. "I never took the Nintendo Switch from him. I've been told this was unfortunately misinformation."

Paramedics transported Naydich to a local hospital where it was reported she had suffered a concussion and broken ribs.

I have published the video released by the Flagler County Sheriff's Office.

El Paso Mall Shooter Taken Down by Concealed Carry Holder

Investigation Continues on Shooting at Cielo Vista Mall

(The following is a news release published by El Paso Police Department - February 15, 2023)

El Paso, Texas - The El Paso Police Department continues the investigation of the shooting that took place Wednesday at Cielo Vista Mall. Investigators are able to confirm that an individual that is Licensed to Carry shot the suspect responsible for the murder.

Investigators have learned that at 5:05 P.M., a confrontation ensued between two groups near the food court area on the second level. The first group consisted of 17-year-old Angeles Zaragoza, a 17-year-old Hispanic male, a 14-year-old Hispanic male who was seriously injured, a 17-year-old Hispanic female, a 16-year-old Hispanic male, a 14-year-old Hispanic male, and a 14-year-old Hispanic female. The second group consisted of a 16-year-old male, who has been identified as the shooter in this incident, a 20-year-old Hispanic male who was injured, a 17-year-old Hispanic male, and a 15-year-old Hispanic male.

The confrontation between both groups escalated into a physical fight. As they fought, the 16-year-old pulled out a handgun. The suspect fatally shot 17-year-old Angeles Zaragoza and seriously wounded a 17-year-old Hispanic male who was part of the first group. In the shooting a 20-year-old Hispanic male of the second group was shot.

As soon as the shooting ended, the 16-year-old suspect began to run and was pointing the gun towards the direction of bystanders, including 32-year-old Emanuel Duran, a Licensed to Carry Holder. As the suspect ran towards Duran and bystanders, Duran drew his handgun and shot the suspect.

At that time, an off-duty El Paso Police Officer arrived at the area of the shooting and together with Duran rendered aid to the 16-year-old suspect and the others that were injured. Investigators found that there were at least two other legally armed citizens in the area of where the shooting took place, but were not involved. The investigation continues and charges are pending against the 16-year-old suspect. The 16-year-old suspect was last listed in stable condition. This is the 4th Murder for 2023 as compared to 2 at this time last year.  

The Paperboy Murder

 Joseph "Joey" Didier

The sad slaying of Joey Didier

By Robert A. Waters

Joey's last words hung in the air like a nightmare: "Please don't hang me." 

Robert Lower kidnapped Joseph "Joey" Didier at about 6:30 a.m. on March 4, 1975, as the fifteen-year-old delivered the Rockford Morning Star newspapers to homes in the city. Lower, living out a fantasy, drove Joey sixty miles away to the deserted Apple River Boy Scout Camp between Stockton and Rockford, Illinois. There he molested the young boy before murdering him.

Lower set up an elaborate system of death. As always, ropes played an important part in his fantasies. The Rockford Register-Republic reported that Lower "tied a rope to a small bench on which young Joseph Didier stood with a second rope around his neck, walked out the door of an isolated cabin, then pulled the rope knocking over the bench and hanging the boy."

Twelve days later, two Boy Scouts found the frozen, nude body lying on the floor of the cabin, a rope still about his neck. The coroner ruled strangulation to be the cause of death and, according to court documents, "there were evidences of rope burns on the wrist and evidence of sexual molestation."

Robert Henry Lower

With his record of attacks on young boys, the killer should never have been at large.

In 1958, while serving in the United States Air Force, Lower had been arrested in Sparks, Nevada for kidnapping and molesting a young boy. The pedophile was dishonorably discharged and sentenced to prison for his crime.

Six years later, Lower was free. In 1964, he raped another teenaged boy. Committed to Menard Psychiatric Center in Freeport, court documents relate that "the Freeport police files indicated certain bizarre conduct with the young boy in question involving tying him up with ropes and a simulated hanging." A psychiatrist, John G. Graybill, warned that Lower was dangerous and should be kept in prison for as long as possible.

By 1973, he was free again and stalking paperboys. (Children who delivered news to residents in many cities were plagued by "chicken hawks," as they were called. Rape, molestation, and even murder was the common fare for young paperboys, most from poor backgrounds who worked to help their families survive.)

Beginning in 1973, Rockford police found a pattern in several bizarre sexual assaults of young boys. Court documents record the following unsolved cases: "On February 3, Scotty Johnston*, aged 12, had been assaulted while delivering his morning papers by a man who struck him, took him two blocks away to a church, took off his clothes and spray painted his groin area. Johnston described the man to the police as wearing a gold snowmobile suit with a face cover.

"On that same date, another paperboy, Ricky Alstott*, was followed persistently for several blocks while delivering his papers but he managed to elude the man who was following him. The man was also wearing a snowmobile suit...On April 12, 1974, Brett Dorset*, a paperboy, was abducted by a man while delivering his morning route. Dorset said the man jumped from behind a bush, placed a hood over his head and put him into the trunk of an automobile. He was then taken to a cemetery and suspended from a tree by ropes. He was then disrobed and tied to a post where he was sexually abused and then was forced to run in circles at the end of a rope tied to his wrist. He was left tied to the post with his face covered until he freed himself sometime later. His genitals were also painted..."

After Joey Didier disappeared, a massive search began. The Decatur Daily News reported "that police said Joseph's newspaper sack, with only four newspapers delivered, was found in the same block where, about two hours earlier, a woman reported hearing a scream and a car sped away. Near the sack, police said, there were footprints in the snow other than Joseph's."

For the next twelve days, hundreds of police and volunteers scoured the countryside for Joey. Ground and air searches produced no leads. Truckers banded together to hand out thousands of flyers to customers and local businesses. Cops spoke with every neighbor in the area, including known pedophiles, but still could not gather any solid clues.

Then, on March 24, 1975, The Daily Sentinel reported that "Robert Henry Lower, 36, is being held without bond for the murder of Joseph Didier, 15, son of Rockford Alderman Joseph Didier, Jr. He was arrested Friday while leaving his job as a truck driver for a Rockford firm and charged with murder and aggravated kidnapping."

Lower was swiftly moved to the Winnebago County Jail and surrounded by guards for his protection. Described as a loner and a snowmobile enthusiast, investigators said a tip led to his arrest.

Within hours, Lower had confessed to the kidnapping and murder, writing a four-page long statement. In his confession, he said Joey had begged Lower not to kill him. The kidnapper told his captive that he would have to kill him because Joey could identify him (Lower). Joey responded that he had a "bad memory" and could not remember who abducted him. As Lower walked outside the cabin to pull the rope, Joey uttered his last words.

In October, Lower was sentenced to 100 to 150 years in prison. Unfortunately, he would be eligible for parole after only 19 years. He was housed in the Menard State Prison, the same penitentiary where he had been imprisoned after raping an 11-year-old boy. Joey's father spoke to reporters, saying, "The hate I have for this man, I cannot express in any way."

On February 19, 2017, after a long illness, the infamous killer died in Graham Correctional Center. No one claimed his body and he is buried in the prison cemetery.

The Winnebago County State's Attorney's Office released the following statement: "Our thoughts and focus have always been and remain with the family of Joey Didier. They will continue to feel the loss of Joey as his life was cut short by Robert Lower's brutal and cold-blooded actions 42 years ago. For years, the State's Attorney's Office has joined together with the Didier's and this community to keep Lower in prison, and while it's comforting to know that this part of the fight is over, we will continue to grieve the loss of Joey and hope for continued healing for his family."

* Not their real names

The Sad Life of John Stith Pemberton, Inventor of Coca-Cola

A Pain with no End

By Robert A. Waters

What would it be like to become severely wounded during the last battle of a war that had already ended? Wounded so badly that the chronic pain lasts a lifetime. This happened to John Stith Pemberton and led to the invention of the most popular soft drink in the world: Coca-Cola.

 

On April 12, 1865, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia.

On April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Boothe assassinated United States President Abraham Lincoln.

Since most telegraph wires in the war-torn South had been destroyed, Union Major General James H. Wilson didn’t know either of these events had occurred. Ordered to occupy the manufacturing town of Columbus, Georgia, he arrived around 2:00 in the afternoon on April 16. His 15,000 troops dwarfed those of the defenders of Columbus, which numbered about 3,500 soldiers and civilian volunteers. Shortly after Wilson arrived, his army attacked.

ExploreSouthernHistory.com states that “by April of 1865, Columbus was the last surviving industrial city in the South. A major center for military manufacturing, it was also the home of significant naval construction facilities where the new ironclad C.S.S. Jackson was nearing completion.”

Barricades at two bridges across the Chattahoochee River temporarily kept the invaders at bay. The Confederates blew up Dillingham Street Bridge to keep the Union army from advancing, but, as the battle began, they spared the 14^th Street Bridge because many of their own soldiers were fighting Yankees on that span. The battle stormed on into the night, with the Federals finally taking the city.

Casualties were high, particularly for the Confederates who fought to the bitter end. One defender, John Stith Pemberton, a Lieutenant Colonel in the Third Cavalry Battalion of the Georgia State Guard, suffered a saber wound to his chest during the battle.

In The Civil War Roots of Coca-Cola in Columbus, Georgia, Richard Gardiner writes: “Pemberton served in the Confederate army for almost the entire duration of the Civil War. During the Battle of Columbus, Pemberton served as Colonel in the local mounted cavalry. [When the battle began], he rode out to the bank of the Chattahoochee where he encountered cavalry under the command of Union General Wilson.

“The weapon of choice in the cavalry was the saber. A musket was incredibly difficult to manage on horseback, especially the muzzle-loading variety. Most cavalrymen relied on their swords and pistols in battle. The pistols, which normally fired six shots, quickly became empty and useless in the midst of an engagement. Pemberton found himself in an equestrian sword-fight with Union cavalry. According to the closest eyewitness, Pemberton was both shot and slashed in that encounter. The wound from the saber to his torso was life-altering. It left a scar that he would carry for the rest of his life, though he grew weary of talking about it.”

The Pemberton lineage in America dated from 1680 when his family settled in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Phineas Pemberton, an ancestor, served as administrator for William Penn. Since he had been born and raised in Georgia, John Stith Pemberton fought for the Confederacy. Before the war, when he was just 19 years old, the young phenom graduated from Reform Medical College of Georgia in Macon. He later obtained a degree in pharmacy.

After the war, Pemberton continued to live in Columbus with his wife, Ann Eliza Clifford Lewis, and their son, Charles, in a four-bedroom home. There he set up his lab and began developing the concoction that would later become Coca-Cola. Pemberton, trying to alleviate the constant torment from his war wound, became addicted to morphine. As his body and mental state slowly deteriorated, he began trying to find a cure for his habit. (Morphine addiction became so common among former soldiers the medicine came to be called “Soldier’s Joy.”)

The Confederate veteran established Pemberton’s Eagle Drug and Chemical Company on Broad Street in Columbus. There he developed several draughts which he sold as medicine. For instance, “Globe Flower Cough Syrup” was described as being “free from opium” and helpful for stopping coughs. He also opened a wholesale and retail business “selling the raw materials for pharmaceutical remedies.”

Gardiner writes that “Pemberton’s [newspaper] advertisements from the era leave no question that he dispensed numerous soft-drink syrups at his drug store in Columbus. The significant elements in Pemberton’s most famous formula were the cocoa (coca) leaf and the kola nut. When and where Pemberton first mixed the world’s most famous formula has been debated.”

He called one of his inventions “French Wine Coca” which was similar to a French-based drink called “Vin Mariani.” About it, he stated “I am convinced from actual experiments that coca is the very best substitute for opium…It supplies the place of that drug, and the patient who will use it as means of a cure, may deliver himself from the pernicious habit.” It was not well- known at the time that coca (i.e., cocaine) was even more addictive and destructive than morphine.

In 1870, Pemberton moved to Atlanta. There he had some success selling a perfume called “Sweet Southern Bouquet.” He also served as a trustee for Atlanta Medical College (now Emory University Medical School). While in Atlanta, he formed a partnership with other investors.

After a slow start, Pemberton’s original “French Wine Coca” sold well. He continued to experiment with it, particularly after Atlanta’s city government banned alcoholic beverages. He removed wine from the formula and included damiana, said to contain aphrodisiac properties. His drinks were sold over the counter at various drug stores in Atlanta. Only after he added carbonation to the formula, and named it Coca-Cola (suggested by his bookkeeper, Frank Robinson) did he have the final product.

Encyclopedia.com reports that, after an unsuccessful first year, he used local advertisements to enhance sales: “Soon the product was spreading across the city, and Pemberton was convinced it was on its way to national popularity.”

He was right, but he would never see it, having developed stomach cancer. Suffering from excruciating pain and his seemingly endless addiction to morphine, “he progressively sold two-thirds of his interest in the company to other investors, including the transplanted Northern pharmacist Asa G. Chandler. He retained one-third for his son.”

Encyclopedia.com states that “Pemberton died on August 16, 1888, leaving his wife in a difficult financial situation. A struggle for control of Coca-Cola followed his death; the financial machinations that occurred were murky, with rights to both the name Coca-Cola and the formula for the drink under dispute, and it has never been entirely clear how Asa Candler, who was responsible for the growth of Coca-Cola in the 1890s, wrested control of the company from Charles Pemberton and the other investors.”

Tragedy often begets innovation, as it did with John Stith Pemberton. Had he not been wounded in war, he likely would never have invented the most popular soft drink in the history of mankind.

The Hidden Life of Nursery Rhymes

Secrets Kept from Children

By Robert A. Waters

Baa, baa black sheep, have you any wool?

Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full.

One for my master, one for the dame,

One for the little boy who lives down the lane.

Hiding behind nursery rhyme lyrics are stories--old stories, stories of mystery and suspense, and sometimes stories of subtle resistance to tyranny. These poems and songs circulated among the peasants of olde England from the 1400s to the 1800s. No one knows who wrote them, they just appeared out of the dark.

For instance, the well-known nursery rhyme posted above chronicled a real event. Clemency Burton-Hill, in "The dark side of nursery rhymes," wrote that "Baa, Baa Black Sheep is about the medieval wool tax, imposed in the 13th century by King Edward I. Under the new rules, a third of the cost of a sack of wool went to him, another third went to the church and the last to the farmer. (In the original version, nothing was left for the little shepherd boy who lives down the lane.)"

The wool farmer ended up having to pay a suffocating sixty-six per cent of his earnings in taxes. Resentment led someone to come up with the jingle that we all know and love.

The nursery rhyme, "Oranges and Lemons," refers to a condemned man walking to his execution past famous churches in downtown London.

Oranges and lemons say the bells of St. Clement's.

You owe me five farthings say the bells of St. Martin's.

When will you pay me say the bells of Old Bailey?

When I grow rich say the bells of Shoreditch.

And when will that be say the bells of Stepney.

Oh, I do not know say the great bells of Bow.

Here comes a candle to light you to bed,

And here comes a chopper to chop off your head.

Nursery rhymes are found in all cultures throughout the world. A compilation of English nursery rhymes was first published in 1744. Later editions, including Mother Goose, kept the poems alive. Many have been sanitized through the years until they became what we know today.

Nursery rhymes have been deemed important to the cognitive development of children. Infants-to-adults enjoy the rhymes, the music, and the rich tapestry of Medieval England. Yet, in the background behind a few words may exist murderous plots and deeds. For instance, "Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary" has a gruesome history.

Mary, Mary, quite contrary.

How does your garden grow?

With silver bells and cockle shells

And pretty maids all in a row.

Burton-Hill writes that "Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary may be about Bloody Mary, daughter of King Henry VIII and concerns the torture and murder of Protestants. Queen Mary was a staunch Catholic and the 'garden' here is an allusion to the graveyards which were filling with Protestant martyrs. The 'silver bells' were thumbscrews; while 'cockleshells' are believed to be instruments of torture which were attached to male genitals."

The meanings of many nursery rhymes are unknown. For instance, "Humpty Dumpty" may refer to King Richard III, a humpback who was defeated and killed at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1845. Or Humpty Dumpty could be a cannon ball, or some unknown king, an egg, or a dozen other things. We just don't know. Scholars make their guesses, right or wrong. 

Maybe it's just as well that we're kept in the dark. Meanwhile, children love to sing and recite these sometimes nonsensical tales. And that's good--it helps them to learn language skills.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.

Humpty Dumpty had a big fall.

All the king's horses and all the king's men

Couldn't put Humpty together again.

In my opinion, those few words were written by a genius. I'll leave it at that.