Autobiography of Jesse H. Pomeroy, Written by Him While Imprisoned in the Suffolk County Jail and Under Sentence of Death for the Murder of H.H. Millen, Together with a Sketch of his Trial, the Several Crimes with which He is Charged and an Account of his Recent Attempt to Break Jail

Bsoton: J.A. Cummings & Co, [1875].

First Edition. 32 pp, in original illustrated wrappers. Some staining and chipping to wrappers, internally clean; very good. McDade 757. Sometimes described as America's first serial killer, Jesse Pomeroy was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to death when just 14 years old. He had been tried for only one murder--that of 4-year-old Horace Millen--but was known to have also killed a nine-year-old girl and brutally beaten other young children. His case sparked heated debate in the local and national press over whether justice would only be served by the death penalty, or whether it was immoral to hang a boy who was only 14 at the time of his crime. Paralyzed by fear of political repercussions, the incumbent Governor of Massachusetts declined to either commute Pomeroy's sentence or to sign his death warrant. When a new Governor took office, he did commute the death sentence, but ordered that the young man be kept in solitary confinement for life. Pomeroy entered the Charlestown Prison at age 16 and spent next 53 years there, 41 of them in solitary confinement. Robert Stroud, the "Birdman of Alcatraz," is the only prisoner in American history known to have spent more time in solitary confinement. A documentary about this case called "Jesse Pomeroy: The Boston Boy Fiend" is in production as of July 2018.

Item #19812

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