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Elizabeth
POTTS
Born Elizabeth Atherton
Classification: Murderer
Characteristics: Dismemberment - The
only woman ever legally executed in Nevada
Number of victims: 1
Date of murder:
January 1, 1888
Date of arrest:
February 16, 1889
Date of birth: December 21, 1846
Victim profile: Miles Faucett, 57
Method of murder:
Shooting
Location: Carlin, Elko County, Nevada,
USA
Status:
Executed by hanging in Elko, Nevada, on June 20, 1890
June
20, 1890 - Mrs. Elizabeth Potts and her husband Josiah (a
middle aged white couple) were hanged in Elko, Nevada for killing
Miles Faucett. Their motive appeared to be financial gain.
After
their appeals had been turned down, an execution date was set and a
gallows was brought from California and re-assembled in the prison
yard. Elizabeth had a new white dress with black silk bows made
especially for her execution. On the trap their wrists were bound,
their shoes removed, and their legs strapped. They leaned forward and
kissed affectionately before the black hoods were pulled over their
heads and nooses adjusted around their necks. The trap was sprung at
10:44 a.m., the force of the drop nearly decapitating Elizabeth who
had put on weight in prison. Blood was seen oozing from the hood and
running down the front of her dress. Fifty two men were present to
witness this gruesome spectacle, women who had applied for jail passes
having had their requests denied. Elizabeth was to be the only woman
ever executed in Nevada.
Elizabeth Potts (née Atherton;
December 21, 1846 – June 20, 1890) was convicted of murder in 1889 and
hanged the following year, the only woman ever to be legally executed
in the U.S. state of Nevada. Her husband, Josiah Potts, was executed
simultaneously, having also been convicted of the murder and partial
dismemberment of Miles Faucett.
Biography
Elizabeth Atherton and Josiah Potts (1842–1890)
were both born in Manchester, England. They married in 1863 and
immigrated to the United States two years later, settling in
Milwaukee, Wisconsin. They became parents to at least five and as many
as seven children (sources differ on the number), including a son
named Charley (age 17 in 1890), a daughter who was 13 in 1890, and a
daughter named Edith (born July 4, 1883).
The family moved west after Josiah, a machinist,
got a job with the Central Pacific Railroad, at first in Terrace,
Utah, and in 1886 in Carlin, Nevada. While living in Carlin, Elizabeth
temporarily separated from Josiah, possibly due to financial
hardships. While separated from her husband, Elizabeth traveled to
Fresno, California, where she entered into a bigamous marriage with
Miles Faucett, a carpenter who was also a native of England. The story
of the marriage was not revealed publicly until it was uncovered by a
San Francisco journalist some time after the Pottses had been executed
for Faucett's murder.
As of 1887, Elizabeth had returned to her home in
Carlin. Faucett also went to Carlin, where he took up residence as a
boarder in the Potts household. He soon bought a nearby ranch and
moved to his property, but visited the Potts home regularly because
Elizabeth provided him with bread and washed his laundry.
Disappearance and death of Miles Faucett
On January 1, 1888, Faucett told a friend, J.P.
Linebarger, that he intended to visit the Pottses to collect some
money they owed him, and that he had knowledge about Elizabeth's past
that he could use to convince her to pay the debt. Faucett and
Linebarger arrived together at the Pottses' home, whereupon Elizabeth
invited Faucett to spend the night. Faucett accepted, Linebarger
departed, and Faucett was not seen alive again. In the days
thereafter, when questioned about Faucett's disappearance, Josiah
Potts said that Faucett had been called away on business in another
state.
In the summer of 1888, the Pottses moved to Rock
Springs, Wyoming, and their house in Carlin was rented to a family
named Brewer. In January 1889, George Brewer discovered mutilated
human remains in the home's cellar. The remains were identified as
those of Miles Faucett, and Elizabeth and Josiah Potts were arrested
for the murder.
Murder conviction and execution
The Pottses were indicted for murder in the first
degree and tried. They were both convicted of murder and sentenced to
the death penalty. A double gallows, manufactured in Placerville,
California, was obtained for the hanging and invitations were issued
for attendance at the June 20, 1890 event. Elizabeth and Josiah Potts
were hanged simultaneously before an audience of 52 men. Their bodies
were buried in Elko Cemetery and later reinterred in a common grave
when the cemetery was relocated.
Elizabeth is the only woman ever to be legally
executed in the history of Nevada. The Potts hanging was the last
legal execution in Elko County; a state law passed in 1901 ended the
practice of conducting executions in Nevada's county seats.
Wikipedia.org
POTTS,
Elizabeth (USA)
Some
executions are by hanging, others by decapitation; rarely did one
victim suffer both methods almost simultaneously, but that was the
appalling result when Elizabeth met her death in 1890.
The
events leading up to this shocking disaster started back in January
1888 at a house in Nevada, when a man named Miles Faucett, who was
allegedly owed money by Elizabeth and her husband Josiah, called on
them to discuss the debt, but never left the premises. Some months
later the Potts moved to another part of the country, and the Brewer
family moved in to the Potts’ old house. Mrs Brewer, her senses
apparently attuned to spiritualistic activities, then reported the
presence of apparitions, and of hearing spectral sounds in the house,
especially in the area of the cellar. Her husband George, sceptical or
not, investigated, any doubts he may have had being instantly
dispersed when he discovered human remains down there, these mainly
consisting of a charred and mutilated head, and pieces of what were
arms and legs. A fragment of clothing being identified as belonging to
Miles Faucett, the Potts pair were brought back to the town for
questioning. So strong was the evidence that they were subsequently
charged with murder, and on 12 March 1889 appeared in court.
Their
defence, which they maintained throughout their trial, was that
Faucett had committed suicide because Elizabeth had caught him in the
act of assaulting their four-year-old daughter and, fearing the shame
of exposure, had shot himself. Elizabeth did not explain why, if that
had been the case, she and her husband had dismembered and burnt the
body, rather than simply sending for the police. In the absence of any
extenuating circumstances, both Mr and Mrs Potts were found guilty of
murder and sentenced to death.
For the
executions a scaffold was transported in sections from California, a
local paper describing it as ‘made of seasoned timber; the crossbeam
was capable of sustaining a tremendous strain and worked like a charm
when tested with sandbags’. On hearing the noise of it being assembled
in the prison grounds, it was reported that both the Potts had cried,
although later Elizabeth was heard swearing damnation on all
concerned. Josiah apparently passed the time by playing patience, an
admirable quality which, seemingly, he had a sufficiency. It was also
rumoured that Elizabeth had attempted to commit suicide by cutting her
wrists with a small penknife she had hidden in her hair, but had been
thwarted by one of the warders.
On 20
June 1890 both faced the sheriff as he read out the death warrants, a
regulation procedure which took twenty minutes. Both Josiah and
Elizabeth had been given a ‘reinforcing tonic’, probably whisky,
though a reporter described how the woman gasped in horror at the
official’s words. They then mounted the scaffold steps to the
platform, where they had their shoes removed and were pinioned, their
arms to their sides, their wrists bound in front of them. Awkwardly
they shook hands with each other and kissed, Elizabeth still
protesting her innocence as the hangman put the black hoods over their
heads and proceeded to noose them. He then cut the cord, withdrawing
the bolts which held the trapdoors in place, and the two victims
dropped into the pit.
It was
then that, for the officials and witnesses, the ‘normal’ hanging was
transformed into an unforgettably ghastly nightmare, for on looking
down into the pit, they saw that while Josiah’s body rotated slowly on
the rope, life having departed, Elizabeth’s speed of descent had been
too great, and as the rope about her neck abruptly tightened, the
noose had acted like a cheese-cutter, slicing through the carotid
artery, causing the blood to flow copiously over her body, and almost
severing her head. Rather than expose the distorted features of the
victims to the bystanders, the black hoods were left in place, both
cadavers then being brought out of the pit and later interred,
appropriately, in a potter’s field. Miles Faucett’s remains were also
buried nearby.
Some
early American transgressors were punished by being in the stocks or
having to stand on the penance stool in the marketplace while wearing
a large card on which was inscribed their offence. In May 1652, Ann
Boulder, a Boston woman, was arrested for defacing a public notice and
was ordered ‘to stand in yrons half an hour with a Paper on her Breast
marked PVBLICK DESTROYER OF PEACE.’ And when Joan Andrews, a resident
of York, Maine, was caught increasing the weight of a firkin of butter
with two heavy stones, ‘she had to stand disgraced bearing the
description of her cheatery written in Capitall Letters and pinned
upon her forehead.’ As did Widow Bradley of New London, Connecticut,
in 1673 ‘for her sorry behaviour, by wearing a paper pinned to her cap
to proclaim her shame.’
Amazing
True Stories of Female Executions by Geoffrey Abbott
Josiah and Elizabeth
Potts
By Howard Hickson
Josiah and Elizabeth Potts were hanged in Elko County,
Nevada in 1890 for the crime of murder. They were convicted for
killing Miles Faucett around the date of January 1, 1888, his remains
were found about a year later and the Potts' arrested. The
circumstances around the murder have remained mysterious, but the
facts remain that the Potts' did horrible things to the body of
Faucett after he was killed.
They were sentenced to death, but they appealed to the
Supreme Court which denied their appeal. There was one more appeal to
the Board of Pardons, and the presiding judge in the Potts' Elko
County trial appealed for the commutation of their sentence to life.
He said that Mr. Potts was well liked in the community, and had never
before been in trouble. However Mrs. Potts, "was not well liked and
her character was not good...She was evidently a strong minded,
masculine woman, while the husband appears retiring and almost
timid...that she was the leader in all things, and very likely the
principal in the murder." The judge went on to say that the 5 year old
daughter of the Potts' had told people that her mother killed Mr.
Faucett and her father was away at the time. The Board of Pardons
turned down the appeal and Josiah and Elizabeth Potts were jointly
hung in Elko.
The Ghost Cries Morder
"It
is a little exciting when one has the good luck to move into a
veritable haunted house. So far, the ghost hasn't scared any of us,
but he is here just the same. Sometimes he taps on the head board of
the bed; other times he stalks across the kitchen floor, and anon
(sic) he hammers away at the door and nobody's there. But the gayest
of capers of all is cut up in the cellar. There he holds high revels,
and upsets the pickles and carries on generally..." wrote Amelia
Brewer in the Elko Free Press on January 5, 1888. She was the Carlin
correspondent for the newspaper writing under the pen name of "Busy
Bee."
A
couple of weeks later, her husband, George, decided to investigate.
Armed with an iron rod, he went down into the cellar under the house
and prodded around. He found a soft spot and guessed that the floor
had been dug up sometime in the past. Brewer poked the rod in the area
several times. Not finding anything, he lost interest.
A
week passed and he took the stairs down to the cellar again. This time
he was in for a surprise. He described the scene: "I saw something
that looked like a rotten turnip. I pulled up some hair and the smell
came with it."
He
hurriedly contacted Deputy George McIntosh who telegraphed Sheriff Lou
Barnard over in Elko. Digging in the soft dirt floor, law officers
unearthed mutilated remains of a man. The body had been cut into
several pieces.
Brewer said, "The head looked as though it was cut off right straight
across below the ears."
What was left of the skull was partially crushed, charred and without
flesh. Burning and burial in damp ground left the cadaver
unidentifiable. An old knife discovered in one of the dead man's
trouser pockets was recognized as having belonged to Miles Faucett, a
Carlin miner and rancher who hadn't been around the past year.
Suspicion centered on Josiah and Elizabeth Potts, earlier residents of
the house and former friends of Faucett but they weren't around. The
Potts family had left Carlin in 1887 and moved to Rock Springs,
Wyoming with their two children.
Sheriff Barnard and Constable Joe Triplett traveled to Wyoming and
returned the family to Elko. On the trip back to Nevada, loose-lipped
Josiah couldn't keep his mouth shut and confessed to dismembering and
burying Faucett's body, claiming that Miles had committed suicide in
their house. He was afraid he would be charged with murder so he got
rid of the body. His confession would haunt the couple's legal efforts
to escape the gallows.
During their two-year stay in Carlin, nervous, mild-mannered
45-year-old Josiah worked as a machinist in the Central Pacific
Railroad shops. He was considered a hard worker. The family rented in
a small house owned by Tom Souter on the northeast edge of town.
His
wife was also in her forties. Elizabeth was a large woman weighing
around two hundred pounds. She had a fresh, healthy complexion and
light blue eyes. Both were born in Manchester, England where they were
married in 1863.
Josiah and Elizabeth migrated to the United States in 1865. The couple
produced seven children. For reasons unknown most were adopted into
different families in several states. With them in Carlin were two of
their offspring; Charles, 16-years-old, and Edith, who was six.
Faucett, 57, came to Carlin from Sacramento, California a few years
before the Potts. "Old Man Faucett," as he was known locally, was an
old acquaintance of Josiah and Elizabeth. All three hailed from
Manchester. He bought a meager spread, the Hot Springs Ranch, a few
miles from town but boarded with the Potts before moving out to the
place. He appreciated the favors and friendship they gave him and
frequently lent them small sums of money. When Miles moved out to his
new acreage Elizabeth continued doing his laundry.
Faucett, invited to the Potts' place to spend the evening on New
Year's Day, 1887 arrived, tended his team and entered the house with a
friend, J.R. Linebarger, who left after a couple of drinks. Old Man
Faucett would not be seen alive again. Near dusk Josiah came out and
drove the team and wagon away.
Miles' disappearance caused some to think it might be foul play. To
those who asked, Josiah told them that Faucett had gone east on the
railroad around six p.m. on New Years Day. He maintained that Miles
sold him the ranch, wagon and team. He claimed that Miles and he had
argued and the old man took off in a huff.
When Linebarger asked about Faucett's departure, Josiah showed him a
bill of sale transferring all of Faucett's property to him. Potts told
him that Faucett had tried to rape little Edith and that caused the
problem. Linebarger, still unconvinced that his friend just up and
left town, asked the local deputy to look into his friend's
disappearance.
Deputy McIntosh rode out to Faucett's place and found the door wide
open. Everything of value was gone. Some missing items were later
found at the Potts' house. Nothing suggested foul play and the brief
investigation was closed until poor old Miles' remains were dug up a
year later.
District Attorney W.C. Love presented his sparse but damaging evidence
to the Grand Jury in Elko and Elizabeth and Josiah were indicted for
killing Faucett. On February 16, 1889, the couple entered a not guilty
plea and were taken to jail to wait for trial.
On
March 12, 1889, Judge R.R. Bigelow opened the case. A court-appointed
attorney, J.A. Plummer, represented the Potts. Most of the day was
taken with jury selection.
Linebarger was the State's first witness. He told about going to the
Potts' house with Faucett and that Mrs. Potts persuaded Miles to stay
overnight with them. Miles told Linebarger that he was staying the
night to collect money owed him by the couple, adding that he knew
enough about Elizabeth's past life to force them to pay the debt. The
witness added that he saw Faucett's purse earlier in the day when he
opened it to pay for some feed. He said the deceased had as much as
one hundred dollars in twenty-dollar gold pieces.
The
Brewers described finding the partially-burned body in their cellar.
They were followed by Deputy McIntosh who detailed his visit to Hot
Springs Ranch where he found the place ransacked.
That, in essence, was the State's case against the Potts. It had taken
District Attorney Love less than two days to present the evidence.
Sixteen-year-old Charley Potts was the first witness for the defense.
He testified hearing loud talk the evening of January 1 and got out of
bed to see what was going on. Charles said he opened the kitchen door
just as Faucett shot himself. The boy then returned to bed and claimed
that the family never discussed the incident after that. He insisted
that his parents had not told him what to say on the witness stand.
Next came Elizabeth, a calm and in control witness. She testified that
Faucett came to their house to pick up his washing. Since it was New
Year's Day, she invited Miles and Linebarger in to have a drink of
whiskey. After two drinks Linebarger left.
Elizabeth claimed that her husband, around nine o'clock in the
evening, was searching in her trunk for a postage stamp with which to
send for a catalog and found a letter she had written to Deputy
McInstosh but never mailed. The letter described an occurrence in the
summer of 1886 when Miles lived in their barn while he was mining
nights and before moving to his ranch. One afternoon she noticed that
little Edith was missing. While searching for the child she found
Faucett in the barn sitting on the edge of his bed in his drawers.
Edith was sitting astride his legs with her drawers unbuttoned.
"You old wretch!" she shrieked, "I'll have you tarred and feathered
for that at least." Looking at the jury, she said he threw the little
girl on the bed and grabbed Elizabeth and choked her until she was
black in the face. He then made her promise to say nothing about what
happened. "By the way he
looked he would kill me if I did not. So, I kept doing his baking and
washing as usual but kept brooding over it all the time. I didn't tell
Josiah."
Elizabeth wrote an account of the episode intending to mail it to
Deputy McIntosh when they moved away. At the least, it would prevent
Miles from ever molesting a child again. It was this letter that
Josiah found that fateful evening.
Enraged, he rushed into the kitchen and confronted Faucett who claimed
he was only playing with the child. Potts screamed that he would have
Miles lynched. Faucett dropped to his knees screaming, "I was crazy! I
didn't know what I was doing!"
Miles offered to give the Potts everything he owned in payment of a
$180 debt he owed them for board, washing, and lodging. Elizabeth
composed a bill of sale which Faucett signed. Josiah threw the paper
in Faucett's face and screeched, "To hell with your note!" Miles stood
with his back to a cupboard.
She
continued, saying that Faucett reached up with his left hand and
grasped a revolver off a shelf, held it to the left side of his head
and laughed, saying, "You folks will be blamed for this." With a
devilish grin he fired and sank down without a word. Elizabeth, at her
husband's request, went to the bedroom for the rest of night.
It
was time to hear Josiah's story. Corroborating his wife's testimony,
he explained that he sent his wife and Charley out of the room and
closed the door. He sat with the body most of the night wondering what
to do with it. He knew they would be blamed for Faucett's end and that
prompted him to hide the corpse.
Josiah wrapped poor old Miles in blankets and carried the body down to
the cellar. He dug a shallow grave and placed the remains in it, even
putting a pillow under Faucett's head. Three months passed and Josiah,
worried that the body might be discovered, dug up the cadaver,
planning to destroy the corpus delicti.
In
his words: "I cut up the body in pieces. I cut off the head and feet.
I mashed the head with an ax in order to burn it. I chopped the feet
up a little with an ax. I succeeded in burning a little of the skull
and a little of his foot. I had to give it up and could not finish on
account of the smell."
He
gathered up his grisly handiwork and reburied the body pieces.
Continuing, Josiah claimed that Faucett shot himself behind the ear
and that the bullet lodged in his right eye. He then stated that
Elizabeth did not, in any way, help him with the body and that he took
nothing, money nor papers, from the body.
That ended the defense's case in the four-day trial. Justice was
mostly swift in those days and it took the jury about four hours to
find Josiah and Elizabeth guilty of first degree murder. When the
verdict was read Josiah bowed his head and kept his eyes on the
courtroom floor. Elizabeth, maintaining her calm, looked straight
ahead, not a muscle twitched.
On
March 22 the courtroom was crowded to overflowing. Judge Bigelow
sentenced the couple "to be hanged by the neck until dead." Their
execution date was set for May 17, 1889. Josiah's lips quivered and
Elizabeth looked the judge in the eyes showing no emotion.
Their sentence was appealed and a stay of execution ordered. In
November 1889 Nevada Supreme Court justices affirmed Bigelow's
sentence. He set Friday, June 20, 1890 as the new date for their
execution.
Sheriff Barnard was not happy with the decision. He, with many other
citizens in the county, violently opposed hanging a woman, especially
one convicted on circumstantial evidence. A petition signed by 267
residents was sent to the State Board of Pardons asking that the death
sentence be commuted to life imprisonment. They denied it. Then
Bigelow, the same judge who sentenced them to death, and Deputy
Sheriff A.G. Dawley appealed on behalf of the Potts to avoid hanging a
woman. The request was turned down. There was nothing to do but
prepare for the execution.
Sheriff Barnard ordered a scaffold built in Placerville, California.
It is ironic that an earlier name of Placerville was Hangtown. The
scaffold was constructed, tested with weights, then taken apart and
shipped to Elko. Barely a week before the hanging, the double gallows
was put back together behind the old courthouse (same site as the
present county courthouse) and stood ready for its hideous job. A tall
board fence was built at the front and back ends of the jail yard
between the courthouse and jail. The gallows waited in the southeast
corner where it was tested with bags of sand and "worked like a
charm."
Barnard issued black-bordered invitations to several people, other
Nevada law officers, and editors of the local newspapers.
Josiah and Elizabeth endured in agony the sounds of construction and
realized that the end was near. He paced his cell and she endlessly
cursed the world and all its inhabitants. Thursday morning, the day
before the execution, she cut her wrists with a small penknife she had
hidden on her person. She climbed onto her cot, covered herself with a
blanket, and called to the jailer, Stanley Taber, to play her a tune
to soothe her to sleep. Taber, suspicious about her using a blanket on
a warm June evening, pulled the cover back. They called a doctor and
he stopped the bleeding. Frustrated, she screamed, ranted, and
blasphemed the whole world until she finally fainted from loss of
blood.
Friday morning came bright and clear. It was June 20, 1890. Many
people came to town, mostly reporters, sheriffs and ex-sheriffs. An
air of frenzied excitement swept over the whole community. Of those
invited to the event, 52 came to witness the hanging. No ladies were
there - all their requests were turned down.
At
10:30 a.m. officers offered the condemned a small bottle of booze. The
alcohol was taken after a brief prayer by Reverend C.J. Porter. When
the death warrants were read, Mrs. Potts lifted her right hand saying,
"Innocent, so help me God. We are innocent, that's all we can say; we
are innocent from first to last."
They were given another stiff drink then led from the jail to the yard
and began calmly climbing the steps of the gallows. A silent crowd
watched grimly.
Elizabeth was dressed in a white dress with black silk bows at her
throat and wrists. Josiah was in a business suit. They were bound,
their shoes removed, and legs strapped. The couple stood, leaned
forward and kissed affectionately. Black hoods were pulled over their
heads and nooses slipped around their necks.
Josiah kept murmuring, "Lord have mercy on me."
Elizabeth appealed, "Lord have mercy on my soul."
Barnard tripped the trap door at 10:44. A singular gasp was heard from
the crowd as blood streamed down the front of Elizabeth's white dress
and dripped into a pool at her feet. Her head was almost severed
because of her heavy weight. Josiah slowly turned around two or three
times and his legs contracted once. At 11:08 Elizabeth was cut down
and turned over to the undertaker. A few minutes later Josiah was
placed in a coffin next to hers in the back of a wagon and they were
taken to the cemetery.
San
Francisco Daily Report editors wrote: "It is to the credit of Elko,
Nevada, that it hangs a woman guilty of murder. It is a dreadful thing
to hang a woman but not so dreadful as for a woman to be a murderer.
Evidently Elko possesses citizens who, when on a jury have some
respect for their oath. In San Francisco Mrs. Potts would have walked
out of court a free woman."
Other somber realities about this case: The hanging of Josiah and
Elizabeth was the second and last legal execution in Elko County; the
hanging of Elizabeth Potts was the first and last time a woman was
lawfully executed in Nevada; and it was the first legal execution of a
woman in the entire Pacific Coast region.
Several years ago, I interviewed Charles Paul Keyser, then in his
nineties. He was a teenager when he climbed a pole to watch the
hanging. His uncle was the local undertaker and young Keyser hitched a
ride on the wagon carrying the caskets to the cemetery.
After he had told me the story of the murder and trial, I asked him,
"This couple was convicted pretty much on circumstantial evidence. Do
you think they were guilty?"
Agitated more than a nonagenarian should risk, he blurted, "Hell, yes!
Everybody knew they did it!"
OutbackNevada.com
Elizabeth Potts
Elizabeth Potts
Gallows for Potts Hanging, courtesy
Northeastern Nevada Museum.
