The Murder of Delia B. Congdon

 

 

Elroy Kent was hanged on January 5, 1912 for the July 24, 1908 murder of East Wallingford resident Delia B. Congdon. These are the two facts upon which all can agree. Newspaper and family accounts when compared with court reports all tell different stories about what happened.  What really happened? What impact did these events have for Vermonters?
 

Newspaper accounts reveal that Elroy had been a resident of East Wallingford and at the time of the murder was thirty-three years old. The Washington Herald, Washington, D. C. in a story printed on October 26, 1908 stated that “Kent’s escape from the asylum, July 10, caused great excitement throughout Vermont, where his desperate character was well known. A large posse of men has been hunting for him, but Kent succeeded in making his way out of the state…He began his criminal career at seven, and has been either in prison or the asylum for the greater part of the time since. He bears the scar of a bullet wound which he received while breaking into a store near Burlington, and he has a scar on his head as the result of leaping from a train in escaping from an officer some years ago.” The Amsterdam Evening News reported on Thursday, July 30, 1908 that bloodhounds from Poughkeepsie, NY were used to track down Kent. The group included State's Attorney, Robert E. Lawrence and a party of deputies from Rutland, VT. There was evidence that Kent had been in the settlement of Ninevah, VT locate about 10 miles away from the scene of the murder. The News also reported that a reward of $50 had been offered. This amount differs from the what was reported in the New York Tribune on October 25.
 

The New York Tribune reported on October 25 that “The suspect [under the name of William Allen] was arrested on Wednesday on the charge of stealing a bicycle. Yesterday when subject to a ‘third degree’ examination he confessed to having committed to having committed a robbery in Holyoke, and then surprised the police by a statement that he was wanted in Vermont for a crime committed on July 10, and that a reward of $500 had been offered for his capture. He did not tell the nature of the offense for which Vermont officials were seeking him…The man is about thirty-five years old, five feet five inches tall, and of light complexion. He has two big scars on his face, one on the left cheek and the other on the forehead. When the description of the man under arrest was telephoned to-day to Superintendent D. D. Grout of Waterbury asylum, Dr. Grout stated that he felt no doubt the man was Kent.” In a news release from Rutland, Vermont on October 24, it was reported that “for attempting to cut the throat of one of his uncles, Kent was sentenced to Vermont State prison at Windsor and was later transferred to the insane asylum.”   One major discrepancy in the story as reported by the New York and Washington D.C. papers involved the location of Kent’s arrest. The Washington paper falsely reported he had been arrested in Pittsburgh, PA while the New York paper correctly identified the place of arrest as Pittsfield, MA.
 

Another report of his arrest gives us the following information. "Meanwhile, Pittsfield police apprehended "a very queer stranger," as the Eagle put it. The man, who was picked up while attempting to sell a bicycle that the arresting officer believed to be stolen, gave his name as William Allen. He had an inch-deep dent in the side of his head, where he said he had been kicked by a horse. He appeared to have amnesia and could not tell the police much of anything else about himself. When asked where he was from, he gestured vaguely, saying "up there." The last thing he remembered, he said, was riding his bicycle in Schenectady the previous Sunday, and everything after that was a blank. This was no returned abductee from Trainor's supposed spaceship - though the truth, when it finally came out two days later, was nearly as sensational. The mysterious "William Allen" was in fact Elroy Kent, a fearsome lunatic who had escaped from Waterbury Asylum in Vermont the previous summer, and soon after had murdered a woman in Wallingford. His arrest made headlines throughout the northeast." [Posted on the blog "These Mysterious Hills" on 11/11/2005
 
Even the accounts of her murder were twisted by the news reports. An on-line organization reports that Kent “from his hiding place in their barn he could see through Delia’s bedroom window. Becoming sexually aroused, he entered the farmhouse, raped and throttled her, then battered her to death with a wood-splitter.” [http://www.truecrimelibrary.com] The Congdon family stated in a post after their October 12, 2006 family reunion that “she was murdered in the milk house of the farm on Sugar Hill.” The Washington Herald reported that an autopsy indicated that Delia had been choked to death. A news release from Rutland reported that “Miss Congdon’s body was found by neighbors on the floor of the pantry of her home, wounds on her head indicating that she had been beaten to death with some sharp instrument.”  Court records state that  “Delia’s body was found in her house about noon on the 24th day of July, 1908, in a condition which indicated that she had been ravished, and with several deep cuts upon the head” and “there was evidence that he [Elroy] was seen on the 22d of July, about three miles from the Congdon house, at a deserted building known as the "Monadnock Club House," and that on the 20th there was found carved on a door in the Buffum house, a deserted building about three-fourths of a mile from the club house, the following date, "July. 22. 1908", and below It the name "E. Kent"; each punctuated as shown. The barn on the Congdon place stood within a hundred feet of the house, with the side containing the double doors facing the window of Miss Congdon's bedroom. There was no evidence that the respondent had been seen in the immediate vicinity of the Congdon house; but there was evidence of his having stated that he passed the night of the 23d in the Congdon barn, and that he saw the deceased through a crack in the barn door when she got up, and that he went there for that purpose.”
 

Not to be out done, even the information regarding Delia has been misrepresented. The Congdon family stated that “Delia used to make cookies to give to the children after school. Having suffered a crippling illness in her youth (perhaps scarlet fever), she was deaf and mute.” The online site http://www.truecrimelibrary.com falsely reported that Delia was a 41 year-old farmer’s wife. Census records list her birth on February 11, 1867 making her 41 when she was murdered. She was unmarried. One unnamed source reported that Delia was "an inoffensive, simple, sweet-spirited girl, troubled with difficulty in speech and hearing." The real tragedy is that so much more is known of Elroy and so little about his victim.

After Kent’s conviction of first degree murder, he was sentenced to death by hanging. Since most of the evidence against Kent was related to the hand carvings – “July. 22. 1908” and “E. Kent” an appeal was made and a ruling by Vermont Supreme Court, Rutland, Nov. 12, 1910 “indicated Elroy Kent was convicted of murder, and he brings exceptions. No error.” The case was argued before ROWELL, C. J., and MUNSON, WATSON, HAZELTON, and POWERS, J. J. By John O. Sargent, Atty. Gen., and Joseph C. Jones, State's Atty., for the State and by Ernest H. O'Brien, for respondent.

Elroy Kent was hanged in the State Prison at Windsor, VT on January 5, 1912. The rope broke and his body fell to the floor. Dr. S. E. McKervan, the prison physician, said he died almost instantly. The trap was released at 1:18 P. M., when six deputy sheriffs each pushed a button but only one of them released the trap. Dr. McKervan issued this statement following the execution: “Owing to an unavoidable accident which no one was responsible for, the condemned man’s neck was only partially broken by the fall. But he suffered no conscious thought and died from the shock.”  Truecrimelibrary.com reported “when the buttons were pushed the trap opened but the rope broke, plunging Kent to the concrete floor below. He writhed about in agony for several minutes before the gallows could be reset. The hanging process was then repeated and this time the rope held.” A report in the Lincoln Evening News, Lincoln, Nebraska dated January 6 stated “when the trap was sprung the weight of Kent's falling body snapped the rope and his limp body crashed to the floor below. He was pronounced dead, however, by attending physicians.” The report also contained information not found in the news release from the prison. The article stated “Another result of the gruesome incident, the second of its kind within a short period, is the expected call for a legislative investigation of the charge, made openly today, that the rotton[sic] rope, which broke when Kent's body shot through the trap, was the same piece of hemp that stretched and let the body of Mrs. Mary M. Rogers strike the floor when she was hanged in December of 1905.”

The truthfulness of this report cannot be supported but we do know that Elroy Kent was the last person executed by hanging. Hanging was replaced by electrocution and remained the remained of execution in Vermont until 1965 although the last publicly execution was held in 1954. Since the death penalty was instituted in 1778 a total of 21 people had been executed by hanging and 5 by electrocution. One thing is sure that in the last 100 years nothing has changed regarding the reporting of news as we continue to have bits and pieces, even contradictory accounts, of events but not the whole story.

I have tried to solicit information from various people without success. If you have any other information regarding Delia’s death, please let me know by emailing me at rrf1270@frontiernet.net.   © 2010 by Robert Flatt - Up dated 11/25/2010 Cannot be used without permission.

PS Additional information regarding Delia: She became a member of the Wallingford Congregational Church in 1893 by profession. Also on November 6, 1905 it was reported that she finished work at C. W. Stone's and returned home.

Last edited on:
08/23/2011 11:46 PM -0500