The evening world. Newspaper, July 25, 1922, Page 20

we THE EVENING WORLD, TUESDAY, JULY 25, 1922 eed Omer Woods, Ex-Judge eache Hanging for the Murder of His Wife, as, Have Twenty- Seven Other Men Convicted of Murder Under the Odd Law of Utah—His Crime a Most Peculiar One and Con- viction Was Made Solely on Circumstantial Evidence. —=+- death sentence. Under the Utah laws ® murder trial jury may recommend tmerey, In which case the death pen- ality is volded and a prison sentence imposed. If the jury omits the merey. recommendation thé trial Judge has ho alternative Woods, a native of Knoxville, Tenn, last January, in the early eve- ning of the 9th, aroused occupants of adjoining apartments in the Pauline Apartment house by his subduea € moans. Persons passing through the hallway heard him. ‘The police were hotified. The doors were foreed. Woods was found bound hand aad foot and lying on the floor of @ three-room flat. On a bed in the game room lay the body of his wife, Maryette. She had been bonnd after being severely beaten. The bedding had been fired and the woman's bedy, was partially burned. The flames were due to benzine, which had been scattered over the bed, but hed burned out before destroying the bed or completely charring the woman’a os a way out? The law of the State of Utah allows the con- convirted of the murder of his wife. There was no direct testimony in the 4 demned to make a choice in the matter of his gruesome eit cose, the verdict being based upon circumetantiat evidence alone. When hed his preference Woods made his choice emphatic. V y HY should a man condemned to death prefer shooting to hangina aschonl teacher in other States, is the latest to elect shooting. He tos from the mundane stage, Since the law was framed twenty-seven men ; have been condemned to death by the Utah courts. When the Judge has The law prescribes in detail the method of carmying out the court's isked them their preference of deaths each has chosen shooting in pref. sentence. Five men execute the decree, Three of their rifles carry loaded erence to hanging. cartridges—two dlanks—so the erecutionera never know which have firet Omer RP. Woods, a native of Tennessee and later a County Judge and the fatal shote. New York Event es Publishing Com (Spectal to The Evening World.) SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, July 24 HEN, a few days ago, Omer R. W tobe stits World) taches. Not since the State of Utah, fornia, hod enacted the statute giving tion. If the defendant neglect or t ui borrowing largely from the penal code the condemned murderer choice be refuve to make election, the court of ite nelghbor Commonwealth, Cali- tween choking by the neck or facing at the time of rengering the sen a firing squad has any crimino! ou tence must declafe the mode and sentence chosen to be put to death cn enter the same as part of its is, once < the gallows. Utah became a State in judgment.” body County Judge in Ida s 1898, Its criminal code was revised i Woods's story was that two robbers ho, former school 7 n afterward by the firet Legisia- The law further stipulates that sen hed entered the apartment and, after MA AB) teacher, ex-agent of (iF ture, Some of the Territorial laws ‘nce must be executed by the Sheriff tying him and his wife and beating 1 can cea * were retained, but that relating to ex- Of the county tn which the mur both, had escaped with some money, GB} omce and latterly « { cceurs, “within the exterior walls of and Jewelry. But before going theyt jack - of -all- trades, faced Criminal ) x the Btate Prison.’’ The State F n had ¢ a ‘tlle weinaal tol iis “ Judge Ephraim Haneon tn the Third : A Is located in the environs of Salt Lake and set fire to the Wedding after pour. District Court after his sonvietsn ‘a Ing a quantity of benzine over ft. a charge of first degree murder, he Smoke from the blaze, escaping was acked by the neg aa shat . . Atle through the windows, attracted the ‘Is {t your choice to die by shoo! LS f attention of neighbors : attention of neighbors across the Ing, or do you elect to be hanged?"’ , F (~~ tr Woods's reply, in almost inaudible . ee et and the Fire Department was called, reaching the spot about beat 2 time the also summoned after Woods's cries had brought assistance. arrived at the flat voice, was the simple: ‘‘Shooting, If ! your Honot pleases."’ The condemned man had made the clection expected by the court at Detectives set on the case noted cles in Woods's story of at tack by robbers. They also found a penzine can in the pantry, and the partly filled receptaclo afforded the The sel was found and d that Woods had made the g ise on the day of the tragedy. Woods's first was that he had i d aga re treatment of by the intruders: later on he we another statement in which he nes of the fact that juarreiied Woods had at- hire a man from dah Job of bumping off.'* It wa wn that on at least one n he had beaten his wife, a underwe were detailed All this evidence, par- tieularly that bearing on the murder itself, was purely circumstantial, but the testimony relating to his insur- ance deals and familiarity with wo- of uncertain morals was direct. Woods's defense shifted from an original plea of insanity to one of the sion of the erime by robbers. W himself a lawyer, alded in the selection of a jury, and he assisted in tle examination of witnesses. Tak- ge AEROGE who prosecuted Wood NS Se eT Cent tae ae ay, truders. A twelvye-hour grilling croas- ae y) 4 examination failed to materially J shake his story. Another witness was 2 Woods's eighteen-year-old daughter, La 4 Utah has there been a blunder or mis- Tee Lee, a student at the University ra £ h, who stoutly maintained her innocence and Woods and his hap. All the spectators of the scene witness 1s a whiff of gunpowder a8 the qicnuted charges t rifles bark their message of death wife uent quarrels, She ad- through small holes in the shanty mitted, however, that there had been sides. The names of the executioners Ccasional trouble between her father iad RB MAIER OF SMS GROCUMORRES: nit mother: are known to none but the Sheriff and “"s feature of the trial was the dis- prison officials. ‘T'wo of the rifles are closure that Woods had not married foaded with blank cartridges, So that his wife, also a resident of Knoxville, 8 after the birth of their t 3 daughter, Tee Lee, This testimony comfort th es with the Knowl- was presented by the State in am edge that perhaps, after all, three effort to show that Woods had never ) others of their group and not them- ed with his marriage. Not selves, actually put the condemne jef in her father’ executioners may, if they try, acknowledged the ante- nuptial birth of his daughter did tho man to death girl know of the real tragedy of her crime for which Omer Woods oWn life. She was in the court room a when her father made tho admission suffer death some time In and the revelation caused her to tember, if the appeal which his at- faint, She recovered her self-posges~ of marksmen, who aim at his heart torney has taken to the Supreme sion soon afterward and in her evi- and fire at command. Asa matter of Court proves unavailing, is regarded popes isa def aaa atatemens ™ the first inti she fact the condemned man does not see by the police and legal authorities of }'° 100) harn out of wedlock, visions were contested on the ground his executioners; neither do witnesses tha State as one of the most atrocious ‘he Woodses had been in Salt Lake that it contrayened the Federal Con- of the grim judicial killing, the numb- in Utah criminal annals. His convie- for some six monte prior to the murs a ne Frede sais usual because der. Questioning by the prosecution: stitution tu that it was a ‘‘cruel and er whom fs rigidly restr’ ected. tion is regarded ns unusus t b ie faite eal much concerning unususl punishment.” The same ar Five men hired by the Sheriff begin every serap of evidence against this \.,0, before arriving in ing raised against drilling some weeks before the date former Judge and educator—a man of Utah itnesser, however, gument is now City, hence all executions take pl varaan ity even for a were found to knit the story whieh within the Irmits of the capital the new law in Neyada, which pro- of execution, On the appointed morn- more than average ability even for Sr ikie qeateatakealc ete aces ce 4 >» ma a er and a teacher—was purely ecir- Y# stn be SHUT ATE ¥ Murders, as 4 rule, are rare in vides that condemned prisoners must ing, before, sunrise, theso marksmen lawyer and a tencher—was purely eir~ TAX LUO Si Slabiate! Ne evidence ate Prison cumstantial, Not a seintilla of direct is been said, Hftea Utah. Since statehood some score and be Put to death in a lethal chamber. are secretly taken to th 1 family, that he had the advange eoutions was, as on the tragedy itself was ad almost bodily from the California S¢¥¢8 malefactors have been put to In the case teeting the constitution- and hustled into a rough, shanty-like eviden aa ot superior sdusution; thats statute books death—all by hanging. The average, ality of the shooting law, the United wooden structure some hundred paces duced at tho trial, whlch oeupled ten’ alt i he praptined lew inoue Section 9182, Utah Penal ¢ . re. taking into account the population of States Court, People vs. Wilkinson, from the stone wall surrounding the days and which was Bitendy contest- oine te State (capital, lols ferring © methods of exceutions, the State, is low, And not since decided that it was not a “cruel or pray stone prison building. ed at every stage of its progress. But \ yor he : el sted County Proba' provides: statehood and the “personal election’ unusual’ punishment ‘The doomed man $s led to a-chair the elrcumstantial evidence seemed so Tudge. He holds twa college cesreens The punishment of death must has any murderer chosen to make his THE pepiilar notion seems to be placed against tho wall, then blind~ convincing that when the ¢ islets po Mae EBCUE SYs0) Fs be inflicted by hanging the defen exit via t trap that th ndenined murderer in Utah folded. At a signal from the Sheriff given to the jury it deliberated le ‘ea 4 tle woman who 3 dant by the neck until he is dead, Back in the cirlicy days of the t lined up against the State Prison the marksmen fire. The tragedy is than threo hours, und the voting at gpp¢ unhappy and seldom ; er by shooting him, at hie ei operation of the elective law ita pro- wall, bilbdfelded and facing » group over. In none of the executions in all times was for conviction and the emil 4