Criminal - Poster Boy

Episode Date: February 20, 2015

On July 17th, 1889, the residents of Clayton County, Iowa woke up to news of the worst crime in their history. A Civil War veteran John Elkins and his young wife Hattie had been murdered in their bed in a grisly attack. Their two children escaped to raise the alarm. But something was off. There were no suspects. There were no clues. To quote the local newspaper, the whole thing was “surrounded in a veil of mystery." Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts: iTunes.com/CriminalShow. We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery. Artwork by Julienne Alexander. Check out our online shop.  Episode transcripts are posted on our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for Criminal comes from Apple Podcasts. Each month, Apple Podcasts highlights one series worth your attention, and they call these series essentials. This month, they recommend Wondery's Ghost Story, a seven-part series that follows journalist Tristan Redman as he tries to get to the bottom of a ghostly presence in his childhood home. His investigation takes him on a journey involving homicide detectives, ghost hunters, and even psychic mediums, and leads him to a dark secret about his own family.

Check out Ghost Story, a series essential pick, completely ad-free on Apple Podcasts. Your own weight loss journey is personal. Everyone's diet is different. Everyone's bodies are different. And according to Noom, there is no one-size-fits-all approach. Thank you. for a healthier lifestyle. Stay focused on what's important to you with Noom's psychology and biology-based approach. Sign up for your free trial today at Noom.com. We all would like to have things kind of packaged up in a nice, neat package for us to be able to understand. There was a moment at 3 a.m. one morning when he

viciously butchered the two people closest to him in life. Now why he did that, I don't know. John and Hattie Elkins were murdered in their bed in the middle of the night on July 17, 1889. John was 45, a Civil War veteran. Hattie, his third wife, was 23. They lived in rural Iowa. The only survivors to the whole thing was a young boy and a young baby. Steve Wendell is a retired counselor who used to work at Anamosa State Penitentiary in Iowa. He and University of North Carolina law professor Patricia Bryan have been working for years to sort out the details of this story, which, for everyone involved, has always been hard

to make sense of. It was early on a morning of July 1889, and a neighbor saw this young 11-year-old boy in a buggy coming down this very small dirt road, and he asked him where he was going, and he said, really without much reluctance, that his parents had been killed in the night. He said it was an intruder. He had been sleeping in the barn, didn't know who had done it.

And when the scene was investigated, they found the very, very much mutilated corpses of the pair. The father had been shot in the head, and then the mother had been, her head had been bludgeoned almost into an unrecognizable state. And then when the father started to groan, apparently not quite dead, the perpetrator did the same thing to him as far as with the club. So the heads were almost unrecognizable. A reporter followed the police around the scene. He called it the worst crime in the history of Clayton County.

The house was half a mile from the road and half a mile from the nearest neighbor. Outside the house, they found the club that had been used lying in the bushes, still covered in blood. But there were no suspects. They investigated and they really couldn't find much evidence. The only person who could have known anything, I suppose, was Wesley, the 11-year-old boy. But he claimed he had been sleeping in the barn. He knew nothing. When he talked to the police, 11-year-old Wesley Elkins said he'd woken up around 2 a.m. when he'd heard a gunshot and his stepmother scream.

He'd been out in the barn because it was summer and it was cooler up in the hayloft than in his bedroom. After hearing the scream, he said he was scared and stayed hidden in the barn for about an hour before going into the house to see what had happened. He said he picked up the baby from between the two bodies, changed it out of its bloody clothes, and that was that. He hopped on the family buggy to go tell someone. Eric Menel has today's story about the search for the killer and for an explanation. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. That next week was a strange one for Clayton County.

News of the murder was spreading across the country and the town was consumed by it. The governor offered a $500 reward for the killer, nearly $12,000 in today's money. But there were still no obvious suspects. Except, you know, there was something a little off with that kid who had been sleeping in the barn. The fact that the young boy, this Elkins, this young Elkins, John Wesley, was so cool and so seemingly unperturbed by this horrific event that he had just been in such close proximity to, was considered very suspicious. Why was he not more emotional? So people started investigating on their own, watching Wesley's every move, floating their own theories. They would literally lift him up off

the ground, testing his weight. In some sense, I suppose, testing in their own minds whether this slight little youth was capable of such a horrific crime. They would pick him up. They would pick him up, exactly. You know, is the magnitude of the crime related to a person's size? You know, they had to grapple with a lot of different things that didn't make sense to them. But the thought that an 11-year-old boy could commit such violence was really unimaginable. That is, until he confessed. He wrote up this incredibly eloquent letter, and it was published all over. In the confession, Wesley says he had tried to run away, but his dad wouldn't let him.

Wesley also said he had to do too much work around the house. One would like to think that it would take something much more serious than chores to butcher one's parents. But then again, who knows? With the confession in hand and no other suspects, in 1890, the state of Iowa convicted Wesley Elkins of first-degree murder. At 4'7", 73 pounds, he was sentenced to life in prison. Just to be upfront about this, it seems pretty clear to everyone, even now, that Elkins did murder his father and stepmother. So if you, you true crime podcast loving audience were hoping for a story about a wrongful conviction of a child, sorry, he almost certainly did it.

But it's this certainty that actually makes the story all that more perplexing. How could something like this happen? A lot of people reacted the way you might expect when a kid goes off the rails. Blame the parents. Many folks thought that he had the mark of Cain on him. Which has to be the most 19th century insult I've ever heard. Steve Wendell and Patricia Bryan say that back in the 1800s, the prevailing theory of criminality was that some people are innately evil.

That bad behavior is a result of heredity. It gets passed down through the bloodline. People around town knew Wesley's father, John, pretty well. So they looked at the parent they didn't know so well, his birth mother, Matilda. She apparently was a rather bad actor. She had tried to kill her husband on more than one occasion,

including once when she was pregnant with John Wesley. Lots of theories circulated about Matilda's character. She had tried to kill her husband, John, three times, once with poison, once with a gun, and once by positioning some heavy logs in such a way that they might fall on him. Now, to a lot of people, it actually seemed like a great explanation. That she had tried to kill her husband when she was pregnant, and that that had somehow come through to the fetus. Wesley had lived with Matilda until he was seven years old. That's when she died.

But even if the heredity was a little too far-fetched an explanation, there were other ways to show Wesley's criminal instincts. People could actually measure them. You know, at the time, the quote-unquote science of phrenology was in vogue, where they thought they could divine a person's criminal tendencies by the shape of their skull. And they say, well, just look at his skull. You know, he's got the bumps in all the right places. And so, you know, everybody was looking for reasons.

You know, why did this happen? How could such a thing happen? Support for Criminal comes from Apple Podcasts. you know, why did this happen? How could such a thing happen? lives gets to the bottom of a ghostly presence in his childhood home. His investigation takes him on a journey involving homicide detectives, ghost hunters, and even psychic mediums, and leads him to a dark secret about his own family. Check out Ghost Story, a series essential pick, completely ad-free on Apple Podcasts. Support for this podcast comes from Anthropic.

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on safety. The leadership team founded the company with a commitment to an ethical approach that puts humanity first. To learn more, visit anthropic.com slash Claude. That's anthropic.com slash Claude. When Wesley Elkins got to Anamosa State Penitentiary, he was mixed in with other criminals, murderers, chicken thieves, all sorts. The New York Times said he was the youngest child ever put in a maximum security prison for life. So people watched him closely. They were trying to pick up on clues that would show his true nature.

But what's clear from all official accounts is Wesley Elkins was actually a model prisoner. He made very, very good use of his time. He was a bright boy, clever. He was smart. He was very capable. He worked as the warden's assistant and eventually in the library. While he was there, he discovered he'd been given one of the harshest sentences in the state's history.

And he argued that because he was so young, there's no way he could have really comprehended what he had done. There was even a legal precedent here. So, after seven years in prison, Wesley Elkins applied for a pardon. He wanted out. Needless to say, some people had no interest in that idea. There was a terrible letter about him that was printed in the Daily Republican. The letter was written anonymously by someone who claimed to have inside knowledge of Elkins thinking about the crime. He called Elkins a, quote, fiend with murder in his heart. Elkins, who's 18 at this point, fired back in a letter to the local newspaper. It was the first time people had heard from him since his grisly confession seven years earlier. In reading an article in your paper this morning,

I was surprised at the mistakes and misrepresentations in it. I have been all my lifetime, I might say, in prison. It was eloquent and impressive. Caught a lot of people off guard. Elkins sent his pardon request to the governor, but it wasn't enough. The request was denied. While the pardon was a failure, the attention it drew was a huge benefit to Elkins. The letter he wrote to the newspaper was so shockingly well composed, many people began to question their impressions of the boy lifer as he'd come to be known. It sort of showed him as a very emotional, vulnerable, young man who had hopes and dreams like other men. PR campaign. Because around this time, people are starting to think, maybe criminality is not

inherent. Maybe people can be reformed or cured even of their criminal tendencies. And Wesley Elkins might be the perfect example of this. I'm not looked upon as a dangerous character, and instead of being the most closely, I am the least watched of any man in the prison. Elkins started writing more letters showing the public how much he had taught himself, how much he had changed since his childhood crime. He wrote to supporters in academia and to the governor. In the years I've been confined, I have devoted my time to study and I've done all in my power to improve my mind and fit myself for a different position in life. I committed a terrible crime, that I know, but has not my punishment been severe? To spend my boyhood behind prison walls. I was so young

when the crime was committed that the question of punishment is removed entirely from your consideration. The question to be decided by you is, am I capable of becoming a safe and useful member of society? But Clayton County residents said it's a mask. You know, he's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He can put on this educated appearance. But beneath that, he has an impulse to kill. Wesley Elkins could not be let out or he would kill again. He was in a tough spot, a sort of poster child for whatever argument you wanted to believe about criminal nature. Either he was a good young man guilty of a horrible crime but who had atoned for his sins,

or he was a psychopath using his intelligence to mask his actual corruption, a wolf in sheep's clothes. And the fact is, nobody really knew which he was or what he kept getting rejected. It took five years for him to gain any real traction. When Iowa's General Assembly finally did debate his parole on the floor of the legislature, one guy actually pulled out the club he claimed Elkins had used to butcher his parents. He waved it around to remind everybody just how violent the crime had been. Elkins had been in prison for 12 years at this point, more than half his life, when it finally came down to a vote. 47 to 46, one vote separated the opponents

from the supporters. One vote. One single vote. Right. That he was not going to be pardoned. That he was not going to be pardoned. Exactly right. The people afraid of Elkins had won. But.

There is then one legislature who calls for a re-vote. In a good old-fashioned political flip-flop, one legislator stands up and says, I had promised my vote to the people of Clayton County who wanted to keep Elkins in jail. I gave them my vote once. Now, I'd like to change it. So, they called a re-vote,

and it passed by a handful of votes. Wesley Elkins was set free at age 23. For all intents and purposes, Wesley Elkins went silent after he got out. He spent some time in Minnesota and then in Hawaii, where he met a girl, and they got married. They moved to California, where he became an accountant. She died 37 years later, and then he died two years after that in 1961. They never had any kids, and it's actually not clear if she even knew about his crime. Whatever people thought they saw in Elkins as a kid, he managed to either escape it or conceal it in the end. His obituary made no mention of the crime. It made no mention of his time in prison,

and it made no mention of the night that he made no mention of his time in prison. And it made no mention of the night that he pulled a baby from between his dead parents, changed its clothes, and rode into town on a buggy. Eric Menel. Criminal is produced by Eric, Lauren Sporer, and me. Our episode artwork is by Julianne Alexander. You can find out more about our show at thisiscriminal.com or on Facebook and Twitter at Criminal Show.

One of the other Radiotopia shows you might like is The Truth by Jonathan Mitchell. Their latest episode is about a house that's not haunted by ghosts, but by memories. All right, you ready? Scare away the rats. Hello. Oh my God. The snow. Just smell it. Oh, that's rotten food or rotting meat. That's the latest episode of The Truth. Radiotopia from PRX is made possible with support from the Knight Foundation and MailChimp,

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