Captured, Convicted and Pardoned
On August 16, 1899, while gathering supplies, Lay was cornered in Carlsbad, New Mexico and captured. He was subsequently charged and convicted of the killings and the robbery. He received a life sentence which he served in the New Mexico State Penitentiary. Maude divorced Elzy.
Lay spent seven years in prison, where he became a trustee to the warden. In this role, he once accompanied the warden to Sante Fe. Upon their return, they found that the inmates had taken the warden's wife and daughter hostage inside the prison. Lay was able to convince the prisoners to release the women, and for this act he was pardoned by Governor Miguel Antonio Otero on January 10, 1906.
Read more about this topic: Elzy Lay
Famous quotes containing the word convicted:
“I ask whether the mere eating of human flesh so very far exceeds in barbarity that custom which only a few years since was practised in enlightened England:Ma convicted traitor, perhaps a man found guilty of honesty, patriotism, and suchlike heinous crimes, had his head lopped off with a huge axe, his bowels dragged out and thrown into a fire; while his body, carved into four quarters, was with his head exposed upon pikes, and permitted to rot and fester among the public haunts of men!”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)