NORTHCOTT TO DIE BY HANGING TODAY: EVENING STAR, OCTOBER 2, 1930

At 10:06 on the morning of October 2, 1930, Gordon Northcott was led into the death chamber at San Quentin, and three minutes later he dropped through the trap. He had collapsed on the way from his cell, and two guards held him up. He came in blindfolded, the first condemned man in the prison's history brought into the room that way, and some 140 people watched. The Evening Star in Washington ran the Associated Press bulletin the same day, stacked above the longer story the wire had filed in advance, so the headline over both still announced that he would die by hanging today. He was twenty-three.

The advance story is the one that lingers. Late the night before, two mothers had come to his cell: Christine Collins of Los Angeles, whose nine-year-old son Walter had vanished, and Mrs. Nelson Winslow of Pomona, whose boys Lewis and Nelson had gone missing together. They came hoping to learn, once and for all, whether their sons had died on the Wineville "murder farm." He would not admit killing them. He said that his mother, Sarah Louise Northcott, and his teenage nephew "knew all about the boys," and that the bodies had been buried on the ranch, and when the women pressed him for details, he told them to ask his mother and the boy.

The rest of the story retells the case in a few lines. A relative's request in August 1928 to have the nephew deported to Canada brought officers to the ranch; Northcott fled across the border; the boy told them he had seen his uncle abuse and kill three boys; and officers found shallow graves holding bones and quicklime. His mother had pleaded guilty to the murder of the Collins boy and was serving life, the paper adds, though she now insisted she had done it only to save her son from the gallows. As for the three boys whose mothers sat in that cell, their deaths, it says, "never were indisputably established."

Written mostly before the execution and topped with a short bulletin after it, this is wire copy, and its first sentence is loose. Northcott was convicted in February 1929 of three first-degree murders, but the three were Lewis and Nelson Winslow and a Mexican boy, whose name is still disputed and whose headless body was found near La Puente, not on the ranch, as the paper itself makes clear further down. He was never tried for Walter Collins; his mother's guilty plea closed that death, and she later recanted. The paper spells the elder Winslow boy Louis and the mother Sarah Louisa, where other records give Lewis and Sarah Louise. His confession on the drive south, and his retraction of it, get a single sentence here.

Newspapers published in the United States more than ninety-five years ago are in the public domain in their entirety, and this October 1930 Evening Star qualifies. What appears here is the Library of Congress scan in Chronicling America, with the citation and the Library's rights statement printed beneath it.

Clean, well-inked type made a complete transcription possible, with no gaps and no illegible marks. Two slips of the composing room are preserved: the wire credit printed as "(A>)," a broken piece of type where the AP logotype belonged, and the second dateline's "Calif" without its period. The bulletin and the advance story beneath its rule appear in the order printed. A filler paragraph on the railways of Finland at the foot of the second column is not part of the article and is left out.

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.

NORTHCOTT TO DIE BY HANGING TODAY

Refuses to Admit to Mothers That He Really Killed Children.

By the Associated Press.

SAN QUENTIN, Calif., October 2 (A>).—Gordon Stewart Northcott, 23, convicted of murdering three boys on his Wineville, Calif., chicken ranch, was hanged at State's prison here at 10:09 a.m. today.

Northcott was led into the death chamber at 10:06 o'clock and three minutes later plunged through the trap. He collapsed as he was led from the death cell and was supported by two guards.

For the first time in the history of the prison a condemned man was brought into the room blindfolded.

Some 140 persons witnessed the execution.

SAN QUENTIN, Calif, October 2.—Gordon Stewart Northcott prepared to die on the gallows here today after having granted an eleventh-hour interview to the mothers of three boys whom he allegedly mistreated and murdered on his ranch near Riverside, Calif., two years ago.

Mrs. Christine Collins of Los Angeles and Mrs. Nelson Winslow of Pomona, mothers of the three youths named as Northcott's victims, visited him in the death cell late last night in the hope of learning definitely whether their sons were killed on the Wineville "murder farm" two years ago.

Writes Three Letters.

Except for the finding of bones in shallow graves on the ranch, the deaths of Walter Collins and of Louis and Nelson Winslow, brothers, never were indisputably established.

After having written three letters—one each to his mother and father and one to his spiritual adviser—Northcott received the two women late last night. He still refused to admit slaying the youths, but said his mother, Mrs. Sarah Louisa Northcott, and his nephew, 15-year-old Sanford Clark, knew all about the boys. He said, however, their bodies had been buried on the ranch. Mrs. Northcott pleaded guilty to a charge of murdering the Collins boy and is serving a life sentence here. Since her imprisonment, however, she has insisted she did not kill young Collins, but pleaded guilty to the charge in the hope of saving her son from the gallows.

Asked for details concerning the burial of three youths, Northcott told Mrs. Collins and Mrs. Winslow to question Mrs. Northcott and young Clark.

The investigation which uncovered Northcott's alleged crimes began August 31, 1928, when his niece, Jessie Clark, asked immigration authorities to deport her brother, Sanford Clark, to Canada. Northcott fled to Canada after officers visited the ranch.

Young Clark told authorities Northcott had abused and slain three boys. Officers visited the ranch and found shallow graves containing bones and quicklime.

Mexican Was Slain.

The murder of a Mexican youth whose decapitated body had been found at Puente, Calif., several weeks previously also was laid to Northcott.

Northcott finally was arrested near Vernon, British Columbia, and his mother later was found at Calgary, Alberta. Both were returned to Riverside, Calif., to face murder charges. On the way to Southern California Northcott confessed the slayings, but later repudiated the confession.

Tried for the slaying of the Mexican youth and Louis and Nelson Winslow, Northcott dismissed his attorney during his trial and took charge of the case himself. He was convicted and sentenced to death, after which he waged an unsuccessful fight in appealing the case.

Transcriber's notes

- Readability: excellent throughout. Clean, well-inked type. No [illegible] markers were needed.

- Kept as printed: the Associated Press credit set as "(A>)" — a broken piece of type for the usual (AP) logotype — and "SAN QUENTIN, Calif," without the second point in the second dateline.

- The item is set as two takes of the same story under one headline: a short bulletin reporting that the execution had taken place, then, below a rule, the longer advance story written before it. Both are transcribed above in the order printed.

- The article runs from the foot of column 1 into column 2. An unrelated filler paragraph about the railways of Finland follows it at the foot of column 2 and is not part of the article.