1906: Robert E. Newcomb and John Mueller
February 16th, 2017 Meaghan
(Thanks to Meaghan Good of the Charley Project for the guest post. -ed.)
On this day in 1906, Robert E. Newcomb and John Mueller were hanged together in Chicago, Illinois. Both were multiple murderers, with six deaths between them.
Newcomb, who was, described as “crazed” and “maddened,” hanged for the murder of Chicago police sergeant John Peter Shine.
On October 10 the previous year, Shine heard reports of a gunman terrorizing people on the streets of Englewood. Newcomb had already shot three people and one, a woman named Florence Poore who was the wife of Newcomb’s friend, was dead. Shine found out the gunman had barricaded himself in his apartment. Although he was off duty, he decided to make the arrest himself.
When he knocked on the apartment door and demanded entry, however, Newcomb simply fired through the closed door, hitting Shine in the abdomen and mortally wounding him. The officer died two hours later at Englewood Union Hospital, at the age of 42. Walter Blue, one of the others Newcomb had shot, also died of his wounds.
After Shine was shot, over 100 police officers surrounded Newcomb’s apartment and fired into it, hoping to apprehend or kill the gunman. After a long siege, Newcomb surrendered to an equally certain death in the judiciary.
Little is known about John Mueller or his crimes. Daniel Allen Hearn, in his book Legal Executions in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky and Missouri: A Comprehensive Registry, 1866-1965, describes Mueller as “a drunk and a loser who went berserk when refused money with which to buy liquor.” The 32-year-old slaughtered his wife, Annie, and their two daughters, two-year-old Martha and 18-month-old Mary, by shooting them and slashing them repeatedly with a razor.
The two killers were executed in the Cook County Jail. It was an integrated execution: Newcomb was black and Mueller was white.
On this day..
- 1938: Herman Hurmevaara, Finnish Social Democrat - 2020
- 1919: Heinrich Bosse - 2019
- 1917: The only triple hanging in Montana - 2018
- 1943: Mildred Fish-Harnack, an American in the German Resistance - 2016
- 1894: Joe Dick, "allowed to go anywhere he desired" - 2015
- 1318: Dukes Erik and Valdemar Magnusson - 2014
- 1943: Toralf Berg, Norwegian resistance member - 2013
- 1912: Thomas Jennings, fingerprinted - 2012
- 1939: The only triple execution in Manitoba - 2011
- 1535: Etienne de la Forge, John Calvin's friend - 2010
- 1495: William Stanley, Lord Chamberlain - 2009
- 1973: Francisco Caamaño, the Dominican Republic's would-be Fidel - 2008
Entry Filed under: 20th Century,Capital Punishment,Common Criminals,Crime,Death Penalty,Disfavored Minorities,Execution,Guest Writers,Hanged,Illinois,Murder,Other Voices,Racial and Ethnic Minorities,USA
Tags: 1900s, 1906, chicago, february 16, john mueller, robert newcomb
