NEWS BRIEF ON JAKE BIRD'S HABEAS CORPUS DENIAL: THE DAILY ALASKA EMPIRE, JULY 7, 1949

Jake Bird had run out of ways to put off the rope. On July 7, 1949, the Washington State Supreme Court entered an order denying his latest petition, for a writ of habeas corpus, which would have bought him one more hearing in that court. The effect, the Associated Press reported from Olympia, was that he should hang as scheduled on July 15, shortly after midnight, at the state prison in Walla Walla. The Daily Alaska Empire in Juneau ran the news the same day as a few lines without a headline, set between rules among the wire briefs on its front page.

The brief names one victim, Bertha Kludt, killed in Tacoma two years before. She was fifty-two. At about 2:30 on the morning of October 30, 1947, a man took an ax from a shed, slipped off his shoes and came into the house she shared with her seventeen-year-old daughter, Beverly June. Bertha woke and reached for a weapon. Both women were hacked to death. Two officers answering reports of screaming chased a man from the back door and caught him, and at the city jail he gave his name as Jake Bird. A jury convicted him of two counts of first-degree murder on November 26, 1947.

The brief counts three earlier execution dates wiped out by legal delays and calls the petition the latest in a long series of maneuvers. Some of that time Bird had bought himself. Set to hang in January 1948, he claimed forty-four other killings and offered to help clear them, and the governor granted a sixty-day reprieve while officers from several states came to hear him out. Eleven of those killings were substantiated. He went to the gallows eight days after this item ran, at 12:20 a.m. on July 15, 1949, before 125 witnesses, and no family claimed his body.

Five sentences of wire copy, this is a notice of a court order, not a record of the case, and it tells only half of the conviction. Bird was convicted of two murders, Bertha Kludt's and her daughter Beverly June's, though the item names only the mother. It gives his age as 46; born on December 14, 1901, he was 47 when it ran. The count of three earlier execution dates is the paper's. The racial label it attaches to him is its own 1949 wording, kept in the transcription as printed. His claims to dozens of other killings, eleven later substantiated by police, never went before a jury.

Published on July 7, 1949, this issue is not yet ninety-five years old, and the Library of Congress, whose Chronicling America scan is shown, believes such papers are in the public domain while noting that they "may contain some copyrighted third-party material." Nothing in this brief indicates syndicated or separately copyrighted matter. The citation and the Library's rights statement are given beneath the scan.

The paper printed no headline over this item, so the label above it is descriptive. Clean, heavy type gave a complete transcription with nothing marked illegible. The compositor's "manuevers" is left as set, along with "axe slayer" and the small AP logotype, rendered as plain "(AP)." The brief is complete where it stands and continues nowhere else.

A short, unheadlined wire brief from the front page of The Daily Alaska Empire, Juneau, July 7, 1949: five paragraphs datelined Olympia, Wash., set between two rules in a column of news items. No photograph. — The Daily Alaska Empire (Juneau, Alaska), July 7, 1949, page 1, column 3. Library of Congress, Chronicling America (LCCN sn83045499).Select the scan to open it at full size. The full newspaper page: JPG or PDF.Rights: "The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety." This issue was published in 1949. Because it is less than 95 years old, the Library of Congress notes that issues like it may contain some copyrighted third-party material.

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.

OLYMPIA, Wash., July 7. (AP) The state supreme court ruled in effect today that axe slayer Jake Bird should hang as scheduled July 15.

The high court entered an order denying Bird's latest petition—for a writ of habeas corpus.

The writ, if granted, would have given the 46-year-old Negro another hearing in the state supreme court.

The petition for the writ was the latest in a long series of legal manuevers by Bird to escape the gallows for the slaying of Mrs. Bertha Kludt in Tacoma two years ago. Three previous execution dates have been wiped out by legal delays.

Bird is being held in the death row of Walla Walla state prison awaiting his scheduled hanging shortly after midnight July 15.

Transcriber's notes

- Readability: excellent. Clean, heavy type. No [illegible] markers were needed.

- Kept as printed: "manuevers" for manoeuvres; "axe slayer"; the Associated Press credit set as a small (AP) logotype, rendered here as (AP); and the racial description, which is the paper's own 1949 wording, reproduced as a matter of record.

- The item has no headline of its own: it is set between rules in a column of wire briefs on the front page.

- Bird was hanged at Walla Walla on 15 July 1949 for the murder of Bertha Kludt at Tacoma in October 1947; he claimed some forty other killings across the country, and police cleared a number of cold cases against his statements.