ASHLEY, Mo. — It happened 150 years ago this summer, but the death of Abbie Summers remains one of the most gruesome murders in Pike County.

One reason may be the crime had elements that ensured timeless interest – a talented teacher, a spurned lover, a jail escape, multiple trials, a muted sentence, a gubernatorial pardon and a mysterious ending.

Ambrose Coe took the life of a woman he said he couldn’t live without. So, how could a burgeoning love turn into such senseless hate?

Perhaps the answer reveals why the case draws attention even now – no one is immune from the darkness of the psyche. Consequences keep most troubled souls from crossing the line. In this case, that didn’t happen, and that’s what scares us.

“The telegraph has dreadfully announced to our readers one of the most heart-rendering butcheries of the age,” the Memphis Daily Appeal of Tennessee announced.

 

Benign beginning

Summers and Coe met in the fall of 1867, when he was 24 and she was 19.

Coe was an Ohio native who took a teaching job at a school in Melrose Township south of Quincy, Ill. Summers was what The Quincy Daily Whig later called the “bright and accomplished” youngest daughter of “well-to-do and highly respected farmer” Nathaniel Summers.

Abbie’s mother had died while the girl was young. So, she had been raised by two older sisters. The family lived about a mile from the farm of Coe’s roommate, William Perkins.

“Coe was young, and was generally regarded as being what is called ‘smart,’ and a good talker and of pleasing address,” The Whig offered. Summers was “favorably impressed with his attentions.”

In February 1868, Coe asked for her hand, but allegedly was more interested in daddy’s deep pockets. Summers’ sister, Jane, suspected Coe was after Nathaniel Summers’ estate, which today would be worth about $900,000.

“Shortly after this, Abbie came to the conclusion that the engagement was a mistake and seemed convinced upon reflection that the marriage as contemplated could not result happily,” according to the newspaper.

Just a month after the engagement, Summers wrote to Coe and said both would be better off if they parted.

“She expressed a sisterly regard for him; stated that she would ever entertain for him the kindest feelings, but that the promises of love and marriage…were given without consideration,” the State Journal reported. “While she respected him as a friend, she could never be his wife.”

Coe “became enraged upon receiving the letter” and “wrote her that if she did not marry him, she should never marry anyone,” according to The Whig.

“This was the serious turning point in Coe’s history, and from that time onward a demon of darkness seemed to have possessed him,” the State Journal theorized.

Rapid deterioration

Coe couldn’t let go, and things got ugly fast.

“He made frequent attempts to see her, and when once in her presence would beg her to reconsider her decision,” The Whig said.

The harassment got so bad that Summers decided to take a music teaching job at Watson Seminary in Ashley, Mo.

Distance did not quell love’s longings because several Ashely residents remember seeing or talking with Coe after Summers started teaching there.

However, the lovers apparently tried to make it work because witnesses would later say the engagement was renewed and broken off at least twice more, always during Summers’ return to Melrose Township at the end Watson Seminary ‘s spring term.

Perkins testified about his roommate’s ominous, yet unheeded, warning after the final break in August 1869, noting that he said “he had a pistol and would shoot Miss Summers and kill himself.”

Jane Summers said Coe told her that had the marriage gone forward, the two “would have been the happiest couple in the world.”

George Fogg, who also knew Coe, said he had frequent talks with the forsaken groom about Summers and that Coe said “she should never marry anyone else.”

The Whig reported Summers “always feared what she called the ‘scenes’ Coe made.” Afraid of more encounters, Summers stayed at Ashley after the spring term in May 1870.

She would not return to Illinois alive.

Dastardly deed

Coe was coming back from a trip to Kansas when he stopped in Ashley.

The date was Thursday, June 9, 1870. Martin Bryant later testified Coe wanted to trade a suit for a pistol, but Bryant said he declined. Robert Smith said he found nothing amiss when he spent time with Coe on Saturday night.

On Sunday morning, Coe showed up as Summers attended church. One congregation member reported he unsheathed a butcher knife, but caused no trouble. Another said he looked troubled as he walked out before the service was over.

Coe followed Summers to the home of one of her friends, waiting outside until she left and walked back to her boarding house. The clock showed it was just before noon.

Joseph Watkins, the principal of Watson Seminary was visiting with Summers in the music room of the boarding house when he saw through a window that Coe was coming up the street.

“We were laughing and talking when I saw Coe pass,” Watkins later testified. “He came back and I heard the gate latch. She also heard it and started to go and look out and I told her it was Coe. She said nothing and soon after Coe knocked.”

Watkins sensed Summers’ nervousness, and asked her if Coe should be allowed in. Summers agreed. Watkins said Coe “spoke very politely” as he walked into the music room and strolled across the floor to a piano.

“I told him to take a seat and asked for his hat,” Watkins recalled. “He turned to give it to me, and then saw Miss Summers sitting behind the door. He stepped towards her and extended his hand. She merely bowed, but refused to take his hand.”

There was an awkward silence as Coe gave his hat to Watkins and the principal placed it on the piano, seating himself on the nearby stool.

Finally, Summers got up to leave and Coe begged her to stay. He said he wanted to speak with her alone. Summers asked Watkins to wait in the parlor across the hall. When Watkins didn’t budge, she asked him again, and Summers accompanied him to the door of the music room.

“As I went out, I said ‘If you need me, call me,’” Watkins testified.

Summers said nothing. Moments later, Watkins and the boarding house’s owner, Minor Griggs, heard a horrible scream.

Gruesome scene

Griggs kicked down the locked door just as Watkins came across the hall.

“The first thing we noticed was Coe retreating from the window,” Watkins testified. “We did not see the body at first. The door flying open revealed the body lying under the window partly on its left side. Blood was pouring out of it, and it was propped up by a butcher knife, which was sticking into it.”

The Whig reported blood had “spurted from the wounds to the ceiling, some twelve feet above the floor and left there great crimson spots, while the carpet was covered with gore.”

Watkins said he asked Griggs to go for a doctor and then wrestled with Coe.

“He muttered something which I took for ‘I have killed her,’ but I do not know certainly it is what he said,” Watkins testified. “I gave him a wrench over and threw him to the floor. I put my knee on his breast to hold him down. He made no resistance and I…went to her body to see if I could help her. I felt (for a) pulse and found none.”

Though Summers died almost instantly, she certainly knew what was happening.

A wound to her left breast indicated she was facing her attacker when the first blow was struck. One of the three stab marks to the back proved fatal. The weapon had been thrust with such force that it severed her spine.

“I tried to draw the knife out of the body with the left hand, but could not,” Watkins testified. “I changed and drew it out with great difficulty with my right hand. Streams of blood followed the knife.”

Coe “stood calmly by, not a muscle of his face twitched,” the State Journal reported. “He made no effort to escape, but viewed unconcernedly the…ruin at his feet, the body of the sweet girl he had robbed of life.”

Just then, Reuben Strother and an unidentified man entered the room. Strother picked up the knife and moved toward Coe. Fearing that the suspect would be harmed, Watkins intervened and threw the knife out the window. Coe then got up and ran outside to look for the blade.

Watkins said he “grappled with Coe again” until George Matthews could restrain the suspect. Word of the crime spread quickly.

“When the citizens heard of the murder and hastened to the bloody scene, Coe asked them to take him out and hang him,” the Lincoln County Herald reported.

The Quincy Daily Herald reported that Coe allegedly said he wanted to die because he “had nothing left to live for.”

Instead of being hung, Coe was arrested. On the five-mile trip to the Pike County Jail in Bowling Green, authorities allegedly dared Coe by saying if he really wanted to die, he should jump out of the wagon and make a run for it.

Coe “declined doing so, and said ‘Please don’t hurt me,’” according to The Herald.

Summers was “dead when I entered the room, I think,” Watkins later told a court. “I saw nothing but a convulsive grasp of the hand.”

‘Handsome in death’

Summers’ remains were placed in a metal casket at Louisiana and sent to Quincy aboard a steamboat on June 14.

Jane Summers accompanied her sister’s body. A visitation was held at a relative’s home near Ninth and Vermont.

“Many who had known Abbie Summers in life, and loved her for her kind and gentle nature and her sweet disposition, called yesterday afternoon to take a last look and mingle their tears with the bereaved ones,” The Whig reported.

The newspaper said that “one could scarcely believe that the cold, inanimate form was locked in death’s embrace, so natural was its appearance.”

“It seemed as though she were sleeping sweetly, the sleep of innocence,” the paper wrote. “No rigidity of features, no contraction of the muscles were there to tell of the fearful agony of the death struggle.”

Summers was dressed in white merino trimmed in white satin.

“All that was mortal of Abbie Summers looked handsome in death,” The Whig wrote. “A wreath of white roses and lilies encircled the pale and still beautiful face, and attested the depth of the love and friendship of those who paid the last sad tribute to her memory.”

The funeral was held June 15 at the Unitarian Church.

“The keen and poignant sorrow, and bitter agony, the anguish and grief of the relatives of the deceased as the burial casket was borne to the desolate family can well be imagined, but not described,” The Whig reported. “They have the heartfelt sympathy of an entire community in the sad hour of grievous affliction.”

On June 28, Coe was indicted by a Pike County grand jury on a charge of first-degree murder.

The prosecutor and the defense sought a continuance because many potential witnesses lived in Illinois. The judge moved the case to September and Coe was remanded to jail.

“It is thought that the defense will try to prove that Coe was laboring under a fit of insanity at the time of committing the murder and, therefore, not responsible for the crime,” The Whig reported on June 30.

Before the next court appearance, Coe’s attorneys were granted a change of venue to Marion County. The case was put on the February 1871 docket, but another defense continuance was sought.

The request was “founded upon the affidavit of (Coe’s) father” and “set forth that the prisoner was insane, and that his insanity, it was believed, could be established by witnesses whose attendance he expected to secure,” The Whig reported.

The Lincoln County Herald was blunt about its opinion of the defense.

“The fashionable plea of insanity will be set up and justice will probably be defeated,” it offered on March 9, 1871.

Coe “has been sane enough since he committed the murder,” the Eaton, Ohio, Weekly Democrat suggested on Aug. 17, 1871.

Marion County Circuit Judge John T. Redd granted the continuance and another one. The case eventually was set for Feb. 25, 1872. Like many of its readers, the Clarksville Sentinel had grown weary of the delays.

The trial “will be had, if not continued for the forty-seventh time,” the paper exaggerated on Feb. 24. The next day brought another postponement. This time, the proceedings were moved to April 29.

But Coe threw a wrench — or, perhaps, a hacksaw — into the plans.

Big breakout 

The accused murderer was among seven prisoners who broke out of the Marion County Jail at Palmyra on March 14, 1872.

More precisely, the evidence showed they were broken out.

“The escape was made through a window, the iron bars which protected the opening being sawed away from the outside,” The Whig wrote.

The newspaper reported that “some of the locks were broken and others were unlocked with a key.”

“It is supposed that the friends of Coe, who succeeded in postponing his trial, were instrumental in procuring his escape, and great indignation is felt,” the Lincoln County Herald wrote.

Because there were no guards on duty, the jailbreak wasn’t discovered for more than seven hours, giving the scofflaws plenty of time to leave town.

“The affair attracted a great deal of attention during the day from the fact that almost every resident of Quincy and vicinity is acquainted with the details of the murder committed by Coe and have been anxious to see him meet the fate he so richly merits,” The Whig reported.

Of the seven escapees, Coe’s ransom was the highest at $200 – a little more than $3,600 in today’s dollars.

The search had all the makings of a modern fugitive hunt. The Whig reported that a description was “telegraphed in every direction” and “several hundred photographs were printed.”

The suspect was described as five feet, five inches tall and weighing 150 to 160 pounds, with grey eyes, light hair, a sandy moustache, chin whiskers and a light complexion.

Thanks to contributions from Summers’ friends and other Illinois residents, the pot was soon upped to $1,000. The Marion County sheriff was “making every exertion for the capture of Coe and the six other prisoners,” the Whig wrote.

The deputy sheriff and “two efficient members of the (Quincy) police force” searched a nearby farm owned by Coe’s brother, Ira, but “the fugitive was not there,” according to The Whig.

On March 16, Palmyra police issued a warning to other law enforcement that Coe had “crossed the river…seven miles south of Quincy this morning.”

The taste of freedom was short-lived. Just a few days later, Coe and three of the other six were caught near Montezuma on the Illinois River in Pike County. On March 25, Marion County Sheriff George Hewitt billed the state $388 for capture expenses.

No one apparently was arrested for aiding in the jailbreak, and Coe wasn’t talking.

Big surprise

The defendant wore a plain wool suit to the opening of his trial on April 29, 1872, at the Marion County Courthouse in Palmyra.

But there was nothing simple about his defense team.

“The army of legal talent for the prisoner is remarkably strong,” The Whig reported.

It featured former Northeast Missouri Congressman and Judge Thomas L. Anderson and his son, Rufus E. Anderson, who “like his father, is well versed in argument and eloquent in his argument,” according to the newspaper.

They were joined by the elder Anderson’s law partner, W.M. Boulware, whom The Whig said had a knack for “surprising his opponents when they least expect it.”

They faced what the Palmyra Spectator called “fearful odds” for being on the “unpopular side” in a case where “the whole community, yes, the whole country” was “infuriated against Coe.”

The state was represented by Circuit Attorney M.L. Hollister of Hannibal, whom The Whig described as “a young man” who was “not remarkable as a speaker” but “is a hard worker.”
Sitting next to Hollister were two men from Illinois, Adams County State’s Attorney W.G. Ewing and George Fogg, along with advisor and Palmyra lawyer Edward McCabe.

Coe “looked perfectly at ease” as he was brought into the courtroom a little after 2 p.m., the Whig noted.

“He took a seat near his counsel, calmly surveyed the crowd and appeared to enjoy himself,” the newspaper observed. “His countenance bore evidence of long confinement, but his appearance indicated that life in prison had agreed with him.”

What happened next startled just about everyone.

Coe’s defense filed motions to quash the indictment from Pike County, saying it hadn’t been done properly because the person acting as jury foreman hadn’t been formally appointed to the post as required by state law. Judge Redd was presented with a quandary.

“The question was entirely new to him, and he did not like to decide upon it without making some investigations,” according to The Whig.

Redd decided to take the matter under advisement.

Mob rules

By Aug. 1, 1872, the issue had been resolved.

Because of an overload of cases, Redd had called in a new judge, future Missouri Supreme Court Justice John W. Henry from Macon, and the trial seemed imminent.

Just as Henry was about to drop the gavel, however, Anderson asked for another continuance.

Coe’s father had submitted a second affidavit. This one said that while his son had “a good defense to the indictment,” he was not ready for trial due to the “absence of witnesses who are material and necessary to his defense.”

Coe repeated the insanity claim, saying his son was “not in his right mind” and that he had been “insane immediately before and after” Summers’ murder.

Ewing gave a 30-minute speech on why a continuance was a waste of time, saying it was insufficient and at one point turning toward the defense table and saying “God have mercy on your client.” He said the evidence of premeditation clearly showed the suspect was sane.

After the defense declined a rebuttal, the judge weighed in. He understood parts of the arguments made by both sides.

“It is for the jury to determine whether…the affidavit would tend to show that the defendant was insance or not,” Henry said. “I confess that I think the circumstances very slight and while they might not have any tendency to lead my mind to the conclusion that the defendant was insane, still it is not for this court to say what impressions that evidence would make upon the minds of a jury.”

Henry said he had no choice but to move the trial to February 1873. Reaction was swift.

The Quincy Daily Herald said a crowd outside the courthouse was “indignant” and “generally disgusted with the long delays.”  The paper brought up the possibility of “mob law” if “justice will not be done in the courts.”

“We learn from reliable citizens of Palmyra that the public, owing to the frequent postponements of the case, have come to the conclusion that justice is being trifled with,” the newspaper observed.

The judge’s decision “induced many to speak harshly of the court and the law that would permit a man charged with murder to defer his trial just as long as it pleased him,” The Herald wrote.

Trial at last

On Feb. 28, 1873, the long-awaited trial finally commenced.

Redd was back in the judge’s chair. The first two witnesses called by the prosecution were the victim’s sisters, Ella and Jane Summers. Watkins, the principal at Watson Seminary, provided the starkest testimony.

“The knife was in the body up to the handle, between the shoulder blades, in her backbone,” he said. “I saw the wounds; one in left breast and three in the back, all close together two of them were at the side of back bone and the other through it.”

Perkins, Coe’s roommate at Melrose, told the jury that after Summers broke off the engagement for the final time, Coe “said he never could be happy without Abbie and and would never give her up.”

Robert Smith said he had first met Coe in 1868 at Ashley and that the defendant had “said he was sorry” for the crime but “it was done, and if he had it to do over again, he would do the same thing and that it was the thing he had been wanting to do for two years.”

Dr. J.A. Mathews outlined the wounds for the jury and several other witnesses described their dealings with Coe. The prosecution finished its case on the fourth day.

The defense opened with depositions about Coe’s character, and they covered a wide range of people who had known the defendant throughout his life.

Nine men who had known Coe during a teaching stint in Michigan “all agreed in giving him a good character as a quiet, studious and temperate young man,” The Herald reported.

Others painted a darker picture. One railroad co-worker from Galesburg “thought (Coe) a little deranged by his actions” and another “thought his mind weak.”

Bradley Tuttle, who grew up with Coe in Ohio, told the jury the defendant’s aunt “was insane at different times.”

Maria Grafton of Plymouth, Ill., where Coe had taught school, said the defendant “had a wild, vacant look.” Another Plymouth resident, Elizabeth Rankin, said Coe’s “demeanor indicated (an) unsound mind” while a third, Joseph Klepper, thought Coe “would soon be a fit subject for an insane asylum.”

Eliza Reed testified that Coe wept when the engagement was broken and that he destroyed a letter given to him by Summers. Della Ray said Summers had shown her the engagement ring, but denied breaking off the nuptials because she was in love with another man.

Former Pike County Sheriff Patrick Lonergan rememberd seeing Coe in his cell the day after the crime, and the defendant had asked about Summers. Coe then begged to see Summers’ remains.

“I said ‘No’ – his neck would not be worth a straw,” Lonergan said. “He then cried and said ‘O, do let me go and see her.’”

The sheriff asked Coe how he could committ such a crime.

“He raised both hands to his forehead and said ‘I don’t know,’” Lonergan said.

The most intriguing testimony came on the sixth day from the defendant’s father.

Samuel Coe was obviously trying to save his son’s life, but stuck to the assessment he had made from the beginning.

Coe said the breakup had caused his son to go from “a lively disposition to a gloomy, disheartened disposition.”

Under cross-examination, he went farther than prosecutors probably could have dreamed by expanding upon the history of insanity in his family. Coe said his wife’s sister had been insane since 1840 and that “it was of a religious nature.” He also said he father-in-law had suffered from “religious despondency” but “had never been in an asylym.”

And yet, Coe still remained adamant that he had “never noticed anything in any of (his seven living children) till this perculiarity in Ambrose.”

The defense then put on the stand Quincy Dr. Moses F. Bassett, whom The Quincy Daily Journal would later call a “pioneer physician and surgeon.”

Bassett had first met Coe in 1867. He said that even after putting aside the family’s alleged history of mental problems, the evidence showed there was “presumptive insanity” However, Bassett left open the possibility of another cause.

“I should think there was something wrong about him, but whether it would convince me of his insanity or not, I do not know,” he said.

Bassett blamed Coe’s actions on “delusion” because he was “incapable of drawing a conclusion and believed he had rights he did not possess.”

“He believed the young lady to belong to him when she did not,” Bassett testified.

The Palmyra Spectator lauded one of Coe’s attorney, Thomas Anderson, saying he “made perhaps some of the strongest appeals that ever fell from the lips of a Missourian.”

Startling outcome

One of the smartest things Anderson did was keep Coe off the witness stand.

After eight days of testimony, Judge Redd finally delivered instructions to the jury. He discussed insanity at length.

“With reference to the defense of insanity set up for the prisoner as a ground of exemption from legal responsibility for the act of killing, I must say to you, gentlemen, that the law furnishes no test or standard by the application of which to the mind of the individual it can be determined whether he is sane or insane,” Redd said.

He added that “the best medical minds of this and past generations have sought in vain for such a test” and that the failure was due to the fact that the “subject is outside the domain of legal science.”

“The existence or true nature and extent of mental disease are essentially questions of fact, and from their nature are not and cannot become questions of law,” according to Redd.

The judge told the jury that the question of insanity could only be answered by the facts.

“The law presumes that the prisoner was sane until the contrary is established to your satisfaction by the evidence,” he said. “This presumption is reasonable and rests on the recognized fact that sanity is the normal condition of the human mind.”

Redd said Coe and his attorneys had the “burden of proving insanity,” but were not “bound to prove it to the exclusion of all reasonable doubt.”

“I must say to you, gentlemen, as a legal proposition, that the mere fact of insanity, independent of any question as to its nature or its influence over the mind and will in producing the criminal act, does not exempt from criminal responsibility,” Redd concluded. “But if, in addition to the insanity, it appear that the criminal act resulted from the insanity and not from a criminal intent, the actor is exempt from all criminal liability.”

Despite overwhelming evidence, the jury apparently was confused about the definition of insanity.

Four voted to convict, but seven wanted to acquit. Since there was no verdict, the path was left open for prosecutors to refile the charges. Newspapers, and many people, were outraged.

The Troy Herald said the outcome would be “a lasting disgrace upon the judicial records of Marion county.”

Verdict returned

Coe had waited almost three years for his first trial.

In the space of just six months, he would get two more. Well, almost.

The first opened on Jan. 21, 1874. Held again in Palmyra, it went pretty much as the first one had, with one exception – the jury had no doubts.

Taking just an hour for deliberations, the 12-man panel on Jan. 29 convicted Coe of first-degree murder.

The defense asked that the jury be polled. Coe rose with what the Missouri Weekly Patriot called “that self-control and assumed calmness” he had shown throughout the proceedings.

“Each juryman as his name was called stepped promptly forward and to the question ‘Is this your verdict?’ firmly and clearly responded ‘It is,” the Patriot wrote.

Coe stood “unmoved as a statue” as each man uttered the two little words that should “have fallen like an avalanche of fire upon the guilty soul of the culprit,” the Patriot mused.

But when the 11th juror uttered “It is,” Coe “fell back into his chair. As the final juror spoke, the “head of the prisoner fell back in a swoon, his palid brow and lusterless eye presenting a spectacle that will never be forgotten by those present,” the newspaper reported.

“For a time, the Temple of Justice seemed transformed into a chamber of death,” it said.

Coe’s father, Samuel, tried to console his son. Astonishingly, Summers’ sister, Jane, was “moved to tears by the sad scene,” the Patriot offered.

Summers “with a true woman’s tenderness approached the father and son, speaking to the prisoner, saying ‘Ambrose, Ambrose,’ in a kindly way as though desirous to soothe the agonized culprit,” according to the newspaper. “The father, however, motioned her away in a manner that betoken anything but a Christian spirit.”

Authorities had to clear the courtroom so that Coe could be returned to a cell across the street at the county jail.

“Upon arriving there, he again fainted away and up to a late hour…was in a partial swoon, completely broken down and overwhelmed by the dread sentence that had overtaken him,” the Patriot wrote.

Hang or not?

With the verdict in, the debate about punishment began.

“Since the late trial, two strong parties, nearly equally divided, have sprung up in Palmyra, known as the hanging and anti-hanging parties,” the Weekly Caucasian of Lexington, Mo., reported on March 14, 1874.

The newspaper said supporters and opponents of hanging Coe “have agitated the question until the whole social fabric of Palmyra is shaken to its center, and the lines more closely drawn than in the midst of the most exciting political contest.”

The topic was “the staple of discussion at the county seat, and enters the family circle, the sewing society, churches, schools, everywhere, in fact, where” people got together.

The conversations ranged from the serious to the absurd.

The Caucasian reported that a school teacher said prosecutor Ewing should be hung instead of Coe and another woman said she would “volunteer to take the place of the prisoner on the scaffold.”

“This might do according to the Chinese criminal code, where a murderer can always secure a proxy if he had the money, but under our laws we don’t believe the Palmyra ladies will be allowed to make such a sacrifice, and if any one is hung for the Ashley murder, it must be Coe,” the newspaper expounded.

The debate over whether to hang or not apparently got so heated that “some of the more timid are afraid Governor (Silas) Woodson will be called on to send a regiment of militia” to Palmyra.

The Caucasian hoped a resolution could be reached so that “peace and quiet” could be restored.

‘Good behavior’

Before a sentence could be handed down, the defense sought a new hearing.

On June 10, 1874 – almost four years to the day after the crime had taken place – the third trial commenced.

In a case which had seen its share of unusual twists and turns, the one sprung by Coe’s attorneys caught everyone off guard.

“A proposition was made by the defense to plead guilty to murder in the second degree and let the court impose the highest penalty,” The Daily Herald reported. “This was agreed to by the prosecution.”

The popularity of the case had been so extensive that one Vermont newspaper reported that Palmyra was “divided on the question of whether Ambrose Coe shall or shall not be hanged” and said “the governor is afraid to order (such a sentence) carried out because Coe’s friends threaten a riot.”

Judge Redd stuck to the plea bargain and sentenced Coe to life in prison. The case had cost taxpayers more than $20,000 – the equivalent of about $500,000 in today’s dollars — and had all but bankrupted the families on both sides.

On June 18, Coe was taken by Marion County Sheriff Daniel McLeod to the state prison in Jefferson City.

The State Journal reported the next day that Coe “probably has many years of toil and misery before him, the saddest hours of which will be spent in vain repinings for the lost love of beautiful Abbie Summers and guilty remorse for the bloody deed that robbed the sweet girl of her innocent and precious young life.”

The Herald was more subtle, saying Coe would “spend the remainder of his days” behind bars “unless pardoned.”

The newspaper didn’t know how largely those two words would loom, because Coe didn’t wait long to seek release.

Gov. Silas Woodson turned down what apparently was his first pardon request, and that of another convict, a month before the fourth anniversary of Coe’s imprisonment.

Interestingly, the State Journal story of May 17, 1874, discussed Coe’s crime, but didn’t mention that of the other man.

Things took a dramatic turn on July 4, 1878, when Gov. Albert Morehouse officially pardoned Coe for what one newspaper called “good behavior.”

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reminded readers that prisoners sentenced to life “may be pardoned on the expiration of fifteen years” if their “record has been in accordance with the rules and regulations governing convicts in the penitentiary.”

The admonition did little to halt a rekindling of old anger.

The Louisiana Journal said the pardon “was received with a great deal of disfavor in this city.” The Palmyra Spectator said Morehouse “made no friends in Marion County” through his action.

What happened next remains unclear. It was either an outlandish example of mistaken identity or an even deadlier fit of carnage.

Enigmatic ending

Perhaps it’s fitting that the fate of a man who slaughtered the woman he claimed to love should be a mystery.

The newspaper record tells two vastly different stories.

One grizzly version would certainly be plausible to all who thought Coe guilty, insanity or not. The other would appeal to those who believed the convict learned his lesson in prison.

The first account says Coe moved to Kansas shortly after being pardoned by Morehouse. He settled near Yates Corner and got married.

All was apparently well until June 24, 1890, when Coe reportedly killed his wife and her two brothers.

“A dispatch stated the facts, but no one here knew that the man who committed the many murders in Kansas was the same man who killed Abbie Summers,” the Mexico, Mo., Ledger reported.

The Ralls County Herald said Coe placed “the murderous weapon to his own worthless head” and “blew his brains out.”

The second version is anything but appalling. The Quincy Daily Whig reported on Aug. 9, 1890, that the Ambrose Coe in Kansas wasn’t the same man.

It said the Ambrose Coe who killed Abbie Summers “is the bookkeeper of a Chicago firm, and it is said (he) is now leading an exemplary life.”

The story is bolstered by an April 29, 1907, story in the Daily Journal. An article about the death of Coe’s brother, Iro, mentioned that the survivors included “one sister and three brothers, namely: Mrs. Maria Spalding of Chicago; Ambrose and Lewis Coe of Denver, Colo.; and Corrigan Coe of Silt, Colorado.”

No matter the outcome, Ambrose Coe’s name remained in the headlines for years.

On March 3, 1896, the Quincy Daily Journal mentioned Coe in discussion about capital punishment that echoes the sentiments of many people today.

“If a murderer could be sent to the penitentiary and kept there, capital punishment would be endorsed by few,” the newspaper wrote. “But how many criminals are made to serve out their sentences.”

On June 30, 1897, the Journal reported that Coe’s name had come to mind in the case of a Monroe City man convicted of sending threatening letters to a “highly respected young lady” of Hannibal who rejected his advances.

One more thing

Some would argue that Coe paid for his crime, but others did not.

Shortly after Coe was pardoned by Morehouse, the Palmyra Spectator echoed the thoughts of many.

“Though fifteen years have passed since Coe left the jail at this place to serve out a justly-deserved sentence, his brutal crime is still fresh in the minds of the people, and they will not agree with his Excellency that fifteen years is an adequate punishment for such an atrocious outrage,” the newspaper wrote.

One thing is certain. The house where the murder took place still stands. And it’s still occupied.