Ernest Lacore (1872-1894)

LACORE

Posted By: Dorian Myhre (email)
Date: 4/19/2011 at 20:56:23

From Story County Watchman January 26, 1894

As stated by this paper last week Ernest Lacore was hanged at Jolliett, Ill., on Friday last for murder, and Saturday the body was received at this place and Sunday was interred in the family lot with services by Rev. Horswell. As a full report will be given in the inside pages we forbear further remarks

In the same paper:

THE HANGMAN.

He Puts in Busy Day in Several Localities.

Lacore Executed at Joliet, Ill., Bamberger at Cando, N. D., and Wils Howard at Lebanon, Mo.--Story of Their Fiendish Crimes.

ERNEST LACORE STRETCHES HEMP.

Joliet, Ill., Jan. 21.--Ernest Lacore was executed here Friday morning. His neck was broken by the fall. The doomed man continued his reckless abandon up to the last moment.

At 9 o'clock the two clergymen who had been attending him visited the condemned man in his cell and the last devotion was gone through with, Lacore joining with a good will. Shortly after, his mother, grandfather and brother took their leave of him. The final parting was not without visible emotion, but somewhat strained. He bade all a hearty good-by.

At 10:30 Sheriff Hennebry appeared with an escort of bailiffs and read the death warrant. Lacore listened with his customary indifference and promptly obeyed the command to come along. He walked boldly and ascended the gallows with out a tremor, and stood motionless while being pinioned and while the noose was being adjusted.

Lacore, in response to the sheriff, said he had nothing to say, except that he wanted to bid them all good-by and hoped to meet them on the other shore. The drop fell at 10:34 a. m. The neck was broken and Lacore was pronounced dead in ten minutes thereafter. The remains were given to his mother.

[The crime for which Lacore was hanged was the murder of Mary Ellen Byron, on August 6, in the town of Wesley, near Wilmington, this county. In the forenoon of that Sunday she attended church at Wilmington and went home with her aunt to spend the afternoon. About 3 o'clock Lacore, who was a farmhand working for James Clark, about a mile from Mary Bryon's home came to her house and enticed the 12-year-old girl into a thicket by a story of a dead steer belonging to her father, and in attempting to assault her broke her neck. Lacore narrowly escaped lynching by the infuriated mobs both at Wilmington and in Joliet. At his trial, notwithstanding his confession, he pleaded not guilty, but the case was too strong against him. From the first he appeared utterly indifferent to his fate.]