Thomas Edmonds (Execution of)

Thomas Edmonds was hanged at Ozark (Franklin County) on May 28, 1880, after being convicted of a murder he went to the gallows denying having committed.

The 1870 U.S. census shows a twenty-four-year-old farmer named T. B. Edmond living at Smithland in Livingston County, Kentucky, with his twenty-one-year-old wife Emma and their two children. He may be the same Thomas Edmonds who, in 1878, “ran off to Arkansas with a neighbor’s daughter.” Edmonds and Julia Alsbrook settled in Washington County, living as man and wife, and “were respected by the community at large.”

Edmonds “grew restless” and decided to return to Kentucky and hired a wagon to take him, the young woman, and their child to Johnson County, where Edmonds said they would engage a boat to take them farther, and “no one ever saw the girl alive after the wagon went back.”

Sometime later, a skeleton was found in the river, the skull featuring a front tooth plugged with gold, as Julia Alsbrook’s had been, and “suspicion of Edmonds diabolical transaction was confirmed.” No trace of the child was found. An Arkansas lawman went to Kentucky and arrested him in May 1879. Initial reports said he “denied the murder, and said he was in Argenta when it was supposed to have been committed.”

Edmonds attained a change of venue to Franklin County, where he was tried during the fall 1879 circuit court term. At trial, he claimed that the woman and child died in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, “but he could bring up nothing to sustain him in this statement.”

Convicted of first-degree murder, Edmonds was sentenced to hang in Ozark on February 27, 1880, along with murderer James Howard Miller, but the Arkansas Supreme Court accepted his case for appeal. Because of a paperwork mix-up, the Franklin County sheriff initially planned to proceed with Edmonds’s hanging until Governor William Miller “telegraphed that if the execution was effected, the sheriff would be held responsible.” Chief Justice Elbert English affirmed Edmonds’s conviction in mid-March 1880, and his execution was slated for May 28.

The Arkansas Gazette reported on the morning of the hanging that “the ingress of people from every direction began the evening before, and by 12 o’clock to-day 5000 persons were here to witness the execution.” The correspondent visited the condemned man in the Franklin County jail, where Edmonds said, “I shall meet my fate as bravely as I can, without any ostentation.” At his request, a group of local women were admitted and “sang several sacred songs” as Edmonds wept.

At around 12:30 p.m., he was taken from the jail and sat atop his coffin as a wagon transported him to the gallows. Edmonds climbed the scaffold and told the assembled crowd: “It is hard for me to die, as I am not guilty. With uplifted hands toward heaven, I declare my innocence.” As ministers sang hymns and prayed, “Edmonds wept audibly.” The sheriff then “read the death warrant, fixed the noose about the doomed man’s neck, placed the cap over his face and sprung the trap, and he was plunged into eternity.” Edmonds was declared dead eleven minutes later.

Edmonds’s was one of two executions in Arkansas on May 28, 1880—L. L. Ford was also hanged for murder in Crittenden County.

For additional information:
“A Dreadful Crime.” Arkansas Democrat, May 17, 1879, p. 1.

“Paying the Penalty.” Arkansas Gazette, May 29, 1880, p. 1.

“Postponed.” Arkansas Gazette, February 28, 1880, p. 8.

“Supreme Court.” Arkansas Gazette, March 14, 1880, p. 8.

“Three Men to Hang.” Arkansas Gazette, May 28, 1880, p. 8.

Mark K. Christ
Little Rock, Arkansas