Volume 17 , Issue 32

1913 April, Gallows Finish Of Illicit Love

As the "Wichita Beacon" reported, 28 Arpil 1913, Monday, page 1: "Gallows Finish Of Illicit Love." The Judge of Appeals affirmed Alva Murder Case. Lawyer Miller sentenced to Life for murder of Mabel Oakes - his dupe - Judge Furman said hangman was cheated.

Found on Newspapers.com

Oklahoma City, April 28 (1913) -- The gallows was cheated when the District Court of Woodward County convicted N. L. Miller for the murder of Mabel Oakes and sentenced him to the penitentiary for life, declared Judge Henry M. Furman, of the Criminal Court of Appeals, in an opinion affirming the decision of the lower court. following an extended courtship, by Miller, who promised to get a divorce from his wife and marry Miss Oakes, the girl was found dead in a room adjoining Miller's office in Alva, November 9, 1910. Expert testimony showed that the girl had met her death by strangulation and at the hands of some person other than herself.

Miss Oakes was working in the office of the defendant before her death and Miller had confided his affection for her and his domestic troubles to several of his friends. The evidence given concerned an evening's buggy ride, a day of tears for the girl, a subsequent liaison, the promise of marriage by the defendant, who had been estranged from his wife, and the sudden death of the girl, who formerly was a healthy and happy young woman.

Four weeks before the crime was committed there was a reconciliation in the Miller family, but he girl was soon to become a mother. An operation was performed upon her, presumably by Miller. Then came the end.

At the trial three physicians and an expert chemist were called upon for their opinion as to the probable cause of death. All of these strongly incriminated Miller.

Speaking of the case, Judge Furman declared, "Illicit love will sink its victims to a greater degradation and prompt the commission of more desperate deeds and unjustifiable crimes than any passion to which poor, erring mortality is the slave."

And in closing the opinion, he says, "We believe that the gallows was cheated of its due when the jury failed to inflict the death penalty upon appellant. The protection of female purity requires that such conduct, of which appellant has been guilty, should receive the most severe possible punishment."
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