A voice cried out in the night, desperate: “Oh, John, spare me! and Oh, John, save me!
Neighbors alarmed by the commotion rushed to help as John McCaffrey walked back toward his home from the yard, his clothes wet and covered in mud.
It was about 11 p.m. July 22, 1850, but at least a few residents of Kenosha had been stirred awake “by the cry that a murder had been committed,” according to a half-column article published later that same week in the Kenosha Telegraph, a local newspaper.
The body of McCaffrey’s wife, Bridget, was found inside a barrel sunk into the ground in the yard, completely submerged beneath water collected from a nearby well.
Wisconsin became the first state to abolish the death penalty in 1853
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Wisconsin became the first state to abolish the death penalty in 1853
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Wisconsin became the first state to abolish the death penalty in 1853
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