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j)| MANCY KELLY TAKES OWN LIFEPI.Slashes His Throat With Small Knife In Jail Cell Few Minutes Before Time For Execution.itor1.00..60.60..30.251.501.00Ion.922.du« InpOHCdBrtlaleorutlcICOJlHlfc'c com -Kidcr-iiiino*ter :i on* icen iJust a few minutes before the time set for his execution, Mancy Kelley took his own life last Friday, April 14, 1922, at about 12:35 p. m., using i small pocket-knife and cutting h'.s tlirout by two strokes one on each Vide, making a gash which reached ilmost from ear to ear and severed his jugulars as well as cut his windpipe in two, the wound gaping wide inti e xposing the insidoof the throat At ihe lime ft occurnd Kelly was in his cell in the Leukesvtl e jail w here he had been placed late the preceding afternoon on be in g □rought here from Jackson jail where ne has been kept since his trial last May nearly a year ago when he was uou vie led directly of the murder of Marshal Lawrence Du imam on April 1, 1921, and was also under indictment for the murder of Prohibition Officer Jake Green killed at the same time in the famous shinny-still raid in the wilds of Piney Woods creek just inside the Greene County hue a few miles out from Rich ton.When Kelly arrived in Loakesville Sheriff Webb Walley asked him ifthere was any thing he wished beforelocking him up in the cell. 11*5 ask-r:d to see lhe death trap and was shown it and the rope which had been hung a few days before for the execution. Kelly remarked that the rope looked rather big. Then heto see anymsuslittle I was asked if he wishedjounti the ?hose were spirit i for and iome-hose, elves ses-havcpreacher, the several ones of the towTn being named and their denominations. Said did not want auy, out later after the Sheriff insisted he asked about the Baptist minister,but being told bro. Golden was out of town, finally consented to have the Presbyterian minister bro. Hardy.A longdistance message was put in for Governor Russell that morning by Kelly's wife and brother afterl.hnv Hrrivnd hp.rp. Thov finn'lvcmbut cell a little dhrk and kpife pos*blblv a little darkened from b'oodund did not exactly *ee the knife. Then 1 said 'Mancy what did you do that for? Kelly—'T just couldn't.stand It; the rope looked too big, Mr. Wulley wont get to hung me.’ Jonathan—‘What did you do it with? Where is the knife?1 Kelly had laid down on the bad now and pointed under the bed where the knife was found.”Sheriff Wallev after getting to the cell and seeing Kelly dying sent for bro. Hardy and then tor Walter Kelly the brother of the expiring man. Then Walley appeared at the side jail door below and announced to the waiting crowd who had already got an inkling that Jveliy had suicided: “The man who was to have been executed today has just cut his throat with a knife and died within two minutes.” Then he called out jurors for the Coroner's* inquest who went inside with Justice T.G. Briscoe and quickly returned a verdict of that, “The deceased came to his death at his own hands with a knife.”The knife with which he did the work was exhibited to the people and showed sharp as a razor though a small pocket knife with but one blade.There was a puddle of blood in the cell beside the bed about big as a man's hat giving a rather gruesome look to the place, despite it was comfortably arranged with good bed, chair, toilet, etc.A note was found which read as follows: “Don’t think anybody is responsible for this suicide but me: I do not think I ought to hang for this crime. The rope looks too big for ine. ”The rope in question is the regulation size used for hangings, so ShfT Wallev says the' authorities told him. It was a 1 inch man ilia rope.Two rather lengthy letters were left by Kelly and in one of them to a fellow-prisoner in the Jackson, Miss, jail he said that he “had two chances to have done what am doing, on way coming here but wanted to see my19cotoEraofhitltidiwJih;oi
Newspaper Details
Leakesville Greene County Herald
Leakesville, Mississippi, US
Fri, Apr 21, 1922
Page 2
Full Page
Clipped by
Kelly H.
MS, USA 17 Jan 2021
Other Publications Near Leakesville, Mississippi
Leakesville Greene County Herald
