The Trunk Dripped Blood by Mark Grossman

Author:Mark Grossman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McFarland
Published: 2017-12-15T05:00:00+00:00

There were attempts by Mary Farmer’s supporters to collect affidavits from those who knew, to try to show that she was indeed insane, and save her from the electric chair.61

All of these attempts were in vain, however: on 22 March 1909, Governor Hughes announced that he had denied executive clemency for Mrs. Farmer: “As the prisoner is a woman, there are those who urge that capital punishment in such a case is revolting, and that the sentence should be commuted on the ground of sex. The law of the state regarding murder makes no distinction between the sexes, and a woman who is found guilty of this crime is subject to the same penalty as a man.”62

Nothing could save Mary Farmer from the electric chair—this was a time before the U.S. Supreme Court heard death penalty appeals. She began to prepare for her execution. Even until the end, she showed a lack of remorse or any feelings at all for the crime she committed, for her husband, or for her infant son.

In her last hours, Warden Benham informed Farmer that she could be visited by her spiritual adviser, the Rev. Hickey. It was reported that “when Father Hickey made his daily visit to … she received him without any show of emotion, although for some time previous to his arrival she had been apparently engrossed in a Prayer Book.” When Hickey told her that she could see her husband before being put to death, she apparently “brightened a trifle” and said, “I would like to see Jim.” It was reported that “prison officials expect that the last talk between convicted husband and wife will be protracted, but hardly look for any display of real feeling on the part of either. Thus far neither has said anything about their infant son….”63

On the day before the execution, Mary Farmer was described as calm and facing her doom with an iron will. She met with the Rev. Hickey, who counseled her that if she could make a statement before her execution that would exonerate her husband that she should do so. She did not wish to confess to anything, she told him, but she would make a simple statement, and a notary public was called to hear this declaration. She gave it in confidence, with orders that it not be released until after her death. She also left an additional statement, addressed to her attorney, Robert Wilcox, with the proviso that he keep it until it could be read to her son when he became old enough to fully understand its meaning. Said one newspaper, “It is said to be full of endearing terms, good advice to the boy to live as he should live, and prayerful words that he may be spared through all his life from any consequences of her rash act.”64

The New-York Tribune reported, “Facing death at dawn, the wretched woman showed no evidences to-night of collapse, though the last words between herself and [her] husband, separated in their parting

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