George Pepoon Is Paroled

PEPOON

Posted By: Marilyn Holmes
Date: 2/15/2014 at 16:36:13

The Grinnell (IA) Herald
Jan. 1, 1924

GEORGE PEPOON IS PAROLED
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Former Grinnell Man Receives Parole From Life
Sentence on Christmas Day.
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From the Walla Walla Bulletin of December 18 we clipped the item below showing that George Pepoon was paroled on Christmas Day. This matter is of great interest to many Grinnell friends who knew Mr. Pepoon as a boy and as a young man. So far as the senior editor of this paper is concerned we have never believed that Mr. Pepoon poisoned his wife. During the trial and afterward we had access to the reports as given in the Portland dailies which were quite complete. The evidence on which he was convicted was that he gave his wife water to drink during a party and that it was from drinking this water that she was poisoned.

The evidence was the most flimsy on which to condemn a man to life imprisonment that we have ever read. It is interesting to note that the men who secured his conviction have now signed a petition stating that they believed him to be innocent at the time of condemnation.

The article from the Walla Walla Bulletin reads as follows:

"A Christmas parole was granted to George Pepoon, serving a life sentence at Walla Walla penitentiary, by Governor Louis F. Hart today. While actual pardon can not be made for about a year, Governor Hart announced that he had no doubt it will be confirmed at that time.

A belief in Pepoon's innocence of the murder of his wife, of which he was convicted May 31, 1910, was expressed in a mass of correspondence received by the governor. Sheriff W.F. Graham, who arrested Pepoon, Prosecutor H.G. Kirkpatrick, the trial judge, members of the jury that convicted him and hundreds of citizens of Stevens county have all petitioned Governor Hart to act, he declared.

"Pepoon has served 13 years without a blemish in his prison life, Governor Hart announced. Prison officials have reported that Pepoon's behavior was exemplary. The mother of his deceased wife, his own parents, now nearly 80 years old and his three daughters, have all remained steadfast to him during his prison term."