Notorious Court Case

 I have moved on to digitizing court cases now. I started these around Thanksgiving. So far I have found some divorces, illegal sales of alcohol, a few forgeries, many foreclosures on mortgage, some bastardy cases, a couple rape cases and others. And then there is this one: the notorious case of murder and then a hanging. The only hanging done in Polk County, Nebraska. 

But before we get to that:

On July 14, 1884 Ruth M. Smith filed for divorce against Milton W. Smith. Now I don't know if the divorce went through; I didn't look at that case very closely. (It's case number 256 in the court records.) However it seems to have not gone through; maybe she dropped the case. Or at least they continued to live together, possibly for financial records. This is all speculation. 

Because then on November 27, 1884 Milton W. Smith shot his wife and attempted to shoot his children. On November 28, Ruth's body was found. Apparently after the deed was done, men heard him because they were searching for Smith. They found him hiding in some corn stalks. On the way to jail, there were shouts of "hang him! String him up!" A mob of 30 men wanted to hang him, but discovered he cut his throat with a knife. They figured he was near death, so they left. 

However he did not die (yet). An inquest was held on November 29 before the coroner. A jury was selected. After the inquest, Mrs. Smith was laid to rest. 

M. A. Mills was asked to defend Mr. Smith. Mr. Mills' friends advised not to take the case, but because he needed a lawyer and Mr. Smith had done odd jobs for him, he took the case. The trial began March 19, 1885 and lasted 4 days. On March 23 the jury pronounced him guilty of murder in the first degree and he was sentenced to hang on July 24. Mr. Smith made an appeal but was refused. He took his sentence coolly, as if to not care whether he lived or died. 

On Friday July 24, 1885 at the age of 58 Milton Smith was hung just south of the jail. His death was almost instantaneous. His body was cut down after 12 minutes and he was laid to rest in Potters Field. 

There is record of his burial in the Osceola Cemetery records, but no marker is found. This is not surprising given the circumstances. I made a Findagrave memorial for him, and stated a short version of this. Some of these details are rather graphic. The court case has quite a number of pages, including the above one, and a 4-page summary someone wrote up. There is also a brief synposis in the book "The Early Days of Polk County" which is digitized on the newspaper website (Advantage Preservation). 

This case (#276) along with other court records are digitized or in the process of and can be found on FamilySearch.org in the near future.