Stephen Dee Richards - The Execution

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Story: Stephen Dee Richards - Non-Fiction

*This is a real event that happened.

Stephen Dee Richards, who was hanged on the 26th day of April 1879, at Minden, Nebraska, for the murder of Peter Anderson, was born in the state of Ohio, and came West in 1876, in search of adventure.

Part 1: Introduction

Part 2: The Confession

Part3: Second Confession

Part 4: A History of His Killings and Crimes

Part 5: The Execution

Part 5: The Execution

We have, four of us in number, just arrived from
Minden. It was a midnight ride on a moonlight
night that saw us there.
Before service this morning, a deputy sheriff called
me, and said Richards wanted to have a talk.
I went at once. He thought a ray of hope existed,
if he could only implicate somebody in the murder of
the Harlson family. He showed the greatest interest
in me since he had made the confession, and gave me his
last request to sheriff Kiernan, of Kearney county,
which was, that the writer and Rev. Gee should be with
him. I talked with him about his misdeeds, and while
he spoke with feelings of kind-heartedness that dispelled
the brutal theorj^, he felt that we were too far from
the telegraph office, and that he must die. He laughed,
smiled, and exhibited an exuberance of spirits
that amazed most of the listeners.
After breakfast the teams began to pour over the
prairies, and by twelve o'clock fifteen hundred people
were in town.
The law compelling private execution, and "confining
the witnesses to ten men is wrong. So thought
the crowd as they thronged about the pen, talking
loudly. As the crowd increased, the enthusiasm increased,
and a feeling that there should be a public
show or none, was apparent.
Richards had received visitors all the morning long,
and the increasing multitudes about the court house
indicated anxiety to see the victim. Sheriff Kiernan
thereupon put him in a democrat wagon and rode
around the public square; Richards eyeing the scaffold
cheerfully. At twelve o'clock, at Richards request, I
went to him in the sheriff's room. He spent the night
in writing. He then told me he murdered Mrs. Harlson,
and then her three children, and hoped the God
he was about to meet would forgive him. He was
then un-handcuffed, and his shackles taken ofl. He
could have broken through the window and escaped.
Rev. Gee's prayers had their effect. This was the
third time Mr. Gee has officiated, and Richards'
thoughts were of another world. He asked for a pencil
and my paper, and said he would re-write the Harlson
butchery. I gave it to him; then, with blandness
that encouraged smiles, childlike and fullgrown, he
said, " What good will this do? " and " where will I be
after dinner?"
He continued talking of friends at Hastings, Lincoln,
and in the east, and particularly the prison people,
who had treated him kindly in his hours of sorrow
and sadness, and added: "Cropsey, my dying
wish is that you will strike out the names of all the
ladies I mentioned in the confession. It will drag
them into a notoriety they will dislike forever." I
said I never saw a man standing on the brink of eternity
with such fortitude; therefore his wish should be
granted.
Promptly at 12 o'clock the wagon drove up to the
sheriff's door. Richards put his cheek against mine,
and said: " Good bye, old boy; we shall meet again."
Followed, and flanked by Swede deputies, avenging
Anderson's murder, they drove to the gallows.
In the meantime the great throng had grown uneasy
and torn down the standing boards that hid the
engine of destruction. They first swayed, whooped,
and, as every board was torn from its place, a shout
went heavenward. At last the gallows stood in the
sunlight, with front protection to the north. Richards got out of the wagon and ascended the ladder
that led to death.
The crowd—men, women, and children—became
boisterous, swayed and crowded. Three of us, with
tickets for admission, sat on the ground fronting the
victim. He boldly marched up the ladder and took a
glance at the staring multitude. Clerk Kent, who
was the father of the occasion, and who, with Sheriff
Kiernan, has made the whole affair a success by manly
and determined action, came forward and made a
speech, telling why and what for they were before the
audience. The Sheriff, who previously protested
against tearing down the enclosure, read the death
warrant.

Richards, who stood composed, was then asked if he
desired to say anything, and spoke as follows :

RICHARDS' SPEECH.

" I stand here a victim of law. You have your
opinion, I mine. I was found guilty of murder in
the first degree. Condemned men don't consider a
sentence just. I have made my peace with God, and
am going to a better world, and would sooner leave
this world than not, knowing what has been said. I
nope to see you all in Heaven, and shall expect to
meet many there who are now traveling the narrow
way. I have a father, brother, and five sisters to
mourn my loss. I would rather that they were in a
far-off country, so they would not know my fate.
They know it to their sorrow, and the time I go. I
hope to meet all where crime never comes."
As he spoke, he stood erect, hands folded on his
breast, looking over the throng. Sheriffs Martin, of
Adams, and Jones, of Dawson county, stood on the
steps leading to the gallows to keep back the pressing
mob. Rev. Mr. Gee read from the bible, offered
prayer, and Richards said, " I have a small message
for you, my friend," looking at me. I stepped forward
and he handed me two notes, one reading:
" I, S. D. Richards, feel it my duty, to self and God,
to say just this, to leave after I am dead and gone,
that the public may know that I am not the murderer
of nine persons. I only murdered two persons, leaving
out the Harlson family. I am willing to bear my
part of the blame, but not all. I don't claim to be
guilty of the charge I am to be executed for to-day."
The other note was part of a song copied on note
paper, the first lines reading thus:
"Take the name of Jesus with you
Child of sorrow and of woe."
The whole assembly joined in the song, and Richards
joined with them.
As Richards stood looking at the audience with
their upturned faces, he seemed to have the feeling of
an animal, and smiled complacently on the people
standing around—two thousand in number. He stood
up, and was pinioned with three new straps, across the
hips, knees, and ankles; his hands were tied with
string to his thighs, to which the sheriff kept an everwatchful
eye, for fear of some mishap.
The sheriff put the noose over his head. I sat before
him and he looked down and laughed inaudibly.
Then came the black cap drawn down over his face,
and as he talked of hope hereafter, the lever standing above the platform was touched, down went the drop,
and Richards was no more.
Twice he swung up, lifting his body and legs with
the muscles of his neck. He fell nearly five feet and
his neck was broke at once. In five minutes his pulse
fell to forty, and then ceased to beat. Not a tear left
his ej^es; not a murmur of nervousness escaped his
lips. He stood before that immense throng and faced
his Maker like a man serene and glad he was going.
Richards was a cold-blooded murderer, but he was
not a coward. He said to me this morning, that some
thought he would not hang, but he looked as he
spoke significantly to an eight-cornered looking glass,
and I believe he meant to use it. He wanted to be
shaved, but his Lincoln prison forbid the use of a razor.
He especially charged the Warden to see that he was
buried as others in Kearney county. He did not sell
his body. Somebody had told him that Brooks, of the
Omaha Republican had said that " the people ought
not to be put to expense for an enclosure, but that
they could take a bucket off and tie the rope around
his neck, and dump him thirty feet into a well." He
thought that man ought to be forgiven.