69-YEAR-OLD WOMAN TO DIE TODAY FOR SECOND MURDER: EVENING STAR, APRIL 11, 1947
On the morning of April 11, 1947, the Washington Evening Star ran an Associated Press story datelined San Quentin with a headline that left no room for hope: "69-Year-Old Woman to Die Today for Second Murder." The woman was Louise Peete, under her last married name, Mrs. Louise Peete Judson, "convicted of two murders but still protesting her innocence." The United States Supreme Court had again refused to rehear her case, and Governor Earl Warren had denied clemency. She would be, the paper said, the second woman California had ever executed.
The story compresses twenty-seven years into a few lines. In 1920 Jacob C. Denton, a Los Angeles mining engineer, disappeared from the house she had leased from him, and his body was later dug out of his own basement with a bullet in it. She served eighteen years of a life sentence and was paroled to Margaret Logan of Pacific Palisades, who with her husband had stood by her while she was in prison. In 1944 Mrs. Logan vanished too, and she was found in a shallow grave in her own garden. It was her death, the paper says, that brought Peete to "the green-painted death chamber."
She arrived from the women's prison at Tehachapi late the day before and spoke to reporters with the warden, Clinton Duffy, standing by. "I am not guilty," she told them. "I did not kill Denton or Mrs. Logan," she said, and she got as far as "I committed forgery. But that is all" before her voice broke. The chamber had been covered with a canvas screen so she would not see it on the way to her cell. She never confessed. That morning she mouthed "Let's go" to Duffy, and the pellets dropped at 10:03.
An Associated Press advance, written before the execution it announces. It gives her age as sixty-nine; she was born on September 20, 1880, and was sixty-six. It says the Supreme Court refused her "yesterday," the day before the execution, while other accounts date the denial of her last petition to April 9. The paper has her meeting reporters at San Quentin on arrival, while one later account places her last talk with them in the county jail. Its claim that Juanita Spinelli was the first woman California executed is the paper's own. She was convicted of first-degree murder twice: for Jacob Denton, in February 1921, with a life sentence, and for Margaret Logan, on May 28, 1945, without mercy, which meant death.
The Evening Star for April 11, 1947, was published less than ninety-five years ago. The Library of Congress believes issues from these years are in the public domain, though they may contain some copyrighted third-party material; nothing in this item is marked as syndicated or separately copyrighted. The scan is the Library's own copy in Chronicling America, and the citation and rights statement follow it.
The page is greyed and the halftone portrait bleeds a little into the type beside it, but every word could be read, so nothing is marked illegible. Two misprints stand as set, "Sacramenta" for Sacramento and "a Lot Angeles engineer," and her denial still ends in the doubled dash where her voice gave out. The portrait's caption, "Louise Judson.," is transcribed in place. The story at the foot of the right-hand column, "5 British Husbands Press Appeal for Russian Wives," is unrelated.
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.
69-Year-Old Woman to Die Today for Second Murder
By the Associated Press
SAN QUENTIN, Calif., April 11.—Mrs. Louise Peete Judson, 69, convicted of two murders but still protesting her innocence, goes to her death in the San Quentin gas chamber today—the second woman ever executed by California.
Her last hope of escaping execution was dashed yesterday when the United States Supreme Court again refused to rehear her case, and Gov. Earl Warren denied clemency.
First woman executed in California was Mrs. Juanita "The Duchess" Spinelli, who died in 1941 for a gang slaying near Sacramenta.
Mrs. Judson first was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Jacob C. Denton, a Lot Angeles engineer, in 1920. She was paroled, after serving 18 years of the sentence, to Mrs. Margaret Logan of Pacific Palisades, Calif.
It was Mrs. Logan's death three years ago that brought her to the green-painted death chamber.
"I am not guilty," Mrs. Judson told newsmen late yesterday on her arrival from the women's prison at Tehachapi.
"I did not kill Denton or Mrs. Logan," she declared during a brief interview, with Warden Clinton Duffy present. "I signed Mrs. Logan's name, yes. I committed forgery. But that is all——"
Her voice broke, her face was white and taut. Mrs. Judson was tired and nervous and tearful as she entered the prison to prepare for death.
She was spared the sight of the gas chamber as she was led to her tiny cell in death row. For her benefit, the chamber was covered by a canvas screen.
[photograph, captioned: Louise Judson.]
Transcriber's notes
- Readability: good. The type is clean but the page is greyed and the halftone portrait bleeds slightly into the adjoining text. No [illegible] markers were needed.
- Printer's errors kept as printed: "Sacramenta" for Sacramento; "a Lot Angeles engineer" for Los Angeles; the em-dashes run together as "——" at the end of her quoted denial.
- She is named throughout as Mrs. Louise Peete Judson, under her later married name; SKC files her as Louise Peete.
- The quoted denial is the reason to keep the item: it is a contemporary record of her last statement to reporters, made the day before she was executed on 11 April 1947, with the warden present.
- The article runs across two columns under one headline, and a portrait of her is set into the first column. The crop is a single rectangle covering both columns, so the lower part of the right-hand column shows the start of an unrelated article headed "5 British Husbands Press Appeal for Russian Wives", which is not part of this item.