life imprisonment. For thirteen long, dreary years she has lived behind
these prison walls. She longs for death, but death refuses, as yet, to
claim her as his own. Broken in health, friendless, penniless, this
poor old woman is but another proof that "the way of the transgressor
is hard." I also saw Anna Brown, another female prisoner, who, with her
step-brother, planned and carried into execution a terrible cold-blooded
murder. It was none other than the killing of her aged father. The
boy was sent to prison for life and the woman received a sentence
of forty-nine years. Her sentence might just as well have read "life
imprisonment" as forty-nine years, for she cannot live but a few years
longer in confinement. Nannie Stair is another interesting prisoner. She
came from Vernon County. An old and crippled man was driving through the
country. Night coming on found him near the house of the Stair family.
He stopped and asked for a night's lodging. His request was granted.
That was the old man's last night of earth. During the hours of the
night Stair and his wife made their way into the bed-chamber where the
helpless traveler lay asleep unconscious of his doom. It was not long
until the husband sent an axe crushing through his brain, his wife
standing by, a witness to the fearful deed. During the same night they
dug his grave in the garden back of the house, and buried him. Next day
the husband drove the murdered man's team to a town not far distant, and
sold it. In a couple of weeks friends began to institute search for the
missing man. He was traced to the home of the Stair family. The husband
and wife being separated, and the officers telling the wife that she
would be let out of the scrape without much punishment in case she would
tell all she knew, she informed them of all the details of the bloody
deed, where the victim lay buried, and what disposition was made of
the murdered man's team and money. The two were arrested, tried and
convicted. The husband was hung, and the wife sent to the penitentiary
for six years. Her time will now soon be served out, and she will once
more be a free woman. The desire of this family to obtain filthy lucre
was too great. Of the fifty-six female inmates of of the Missouri
penitentiary, fifteen of them were sent for murder. Kansas City has
several female representatives. It is stated, on good authority, that
the sentences imposed by the judges of the Kansas City district are far
more