WIDOW IS CONVICTED OF KILLING DAUGHTER, 9: EVENING STAR, OCTOBER 14, 1958

The jury in Macon took an hour and 41 minutes. The case went to it at 8:27 in the evening, the verdict came back at 10:08, and Anjette Donovan Lyles, a 33-year-old widow and former restaurant owner, stood convicted of poisoning her nine-year-old daughter, Marcia Elaine, and sentenced to die in Georgia's electric chair. The Associated Press story ran in the Evening Star in Washington on October 14, 1958. She took the verdict calmly, it says; the only sign was that she reddened and bit her lip. Judge Oscar Long let her remain seated while he pronounced sentence, and the paper calls that a precedent.

Marcia was the only death she was tried for, but the State had accused her of more: two husbands and a mother-in-law, all poisoned with arsenic. The prosecution said she had killed for hate and greed. In an unsworn statement, which Georgia law allowed a defendant to make, she denied every charge and said that in Marcia's case there was no motive at all. The insurance had paid her only $1,750, she said, while the hospital bills, special nurses and burial came to $5,000. "I did not give my child any poison," she told the court.

Then the story turns to the detail that would stick to her name. She admitted what the paper calls an abnormal interest in "root doctors, spiritual advisers and fortune tellers," and she described the seven-day candles she burned: green for luck and money, white for peace, red for love. Once, she said, she had burned a black one to break up a romance between her boyfriend, an airline pilot named Bob Franks, and another girl. Her lawyers filed notice of appeal at once, which stayed the December 5 execution date, and the paper adds that if the appeal failed she would be the first white woman to die in Georgia's electric chair.

This is an Associated Press wire report filed the morning after the verdict, not a court record, and its account of the other deaths is the State's accusation as the reporter summed it up. The paper places the verdict on the night of October 13; the record of the case gives the date of her conviction as October 15, 1958. Anjette Lyles was convicted of one murder, her daughter's. The other three indictments were held back, and she was convicted of no other death. She never went to the chair. A sanity commission found her a chronic paranoid schizophrenic, her sentence was commuted to commitment, and she died at Central State Hospital in Milledgeville on December 4, 1977.

Published October 14, 1958, this page falls within the years for which the Library of Congress believes its newspapers are in the public domain while cautioning that they may contain some copyrighted third-party material. This story is wire copy, credited "(AP)" in its dateline rather than written by the Star's own staff, though it carries no byline and no separate copyright notice. The scan is the Library of Congress copy in Chronicling America, with the citation and rights statement beneath it.

Every word was read directly from the scan, and nothing had to be marked illegible. The paper's own setting is kept: the closing quotation mark missing after "I did not kill my child," "boy friend" as two words, and the period word "Negro" in the sentence about Georgia's only earlier electrocution of a woman. The two subheads, "Accepts Verdict Calmly" and "Blanket Denial," stay where the paper put them, and the story's jump from one column to the next is closed up without loss.

Transcription

Transcribed word for word from the page scan. Original spelling, punctuation, capitalisation and typographical errors have been kept exactly as printed. Unreadable words are marked [illegible]. Nothing has been modernised or corrected.

Widow Is Convicted Of Killing Daughter, 9

MACON, Ga., Oct. 14 (AP).—Plump, blond Anjette Donovan Lyles, convicted and sentenced to die for poisoning her daughter, awaited word from her attorneys today on chances for a new trial.

A jury convicted the 33-year-old widow of murder last night. Her attorneys immediately filed notice of appeal, and this automatically stayed the date of execution, which had been set for December 5.

Mrs. Lyles also is accused by the State of poisoning two husbands and a mother-in-law with arsenic. She was tried only in the death of her 9-year-old daughter, Marcia Elaine Lyles.

Accepts Verdict Calmly

The former restaurant owner accepted the death verdict calmly. The only visible reaction was when she reddened and bit her lip.

Judge Oscar Long set a precedent when he told Mrs. Lyles she might remain seated while sentence was pronounced.

The courtroom was jammed as it had been every day of the trial, which lasted seven days.

Judge Long set a hearing on the motion for a new trial for December 12.

If Mrs. Lyles loses her appeal, she will be the first white woman to die in Georgia's electric chair. Only one woman, a Negro, has been electrocuted in this State.

The case was given to the jury at 8:27 p.m. The verdict was announced at 10:08 p.m.—an hour and 41 minutes after the jury began its deliberations.

Blanket Denial

In an unsworn statement under Georgia law, Mrs. Lyles made a blanket denial of all the State's charges and in the specific case of Marcia, she maintained there was no motive.

She said she received only $1,750 from insurance while her expenses, including hospital bills, special nurses and burial, amounted to $5,000.

"I did not give my child any poison—I did not kill my child, Mrs. Lyles declared.

The State charged she murdered for hate and greed.

Mrs. Lyles acknowledged an abnormal interest in "root doctors, spiritual advisers and fortune tellers."

She said she burned seven-day candles—green for luck and money, white for peace, and red for love, and once burned a black candle in attempting to break up a romance between her boy friend, airline pilot Bob Franks, and another girl.