Murder
When the appointment did not come, Prendergast visited Harrison at his home on October 28, 1893, admitted by a maid who went to wake the mayor. As Harrison was leaving the room where he had been sleeping, Prendergast approached and shot the mayor three times with a .38 revolver and escaped, firing once at a coachman whom he encountered. Harrison did not know who Prendergast was.
Prendergast surrendered at Des Plaines Street police station 30 minutes later. He still had the gun in his possession. When interviewed by police, he gave varying stories as to his motive, including the failed appointment and the mayor's failure to elevate train track crossings. The smell of burned powder and empty chambers reaffirmed the police department of his actions.
In his first trial, Prendergast's attorney tried to have him found insane. Several doctors testified that while Prendergast was paranoid, he knew right from wrong and was capable of standing trial for the murder. Clarence Darrow later won a hearing on Prendergast's sanity, but it also failed. Prendergast was hanged on July 14, 1894 in Chicago.
Read more about this topic: Patrick Eugene Prendergast
Famous quotes containing the word murder:
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—Mark Hellinger (1903–1947)
“Then tell, O! tell, how thou didst murder me.”
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“If we Americans are to survive it will have to be because we choose and elect and defend to be first of all Americans; to present to the world one homogeneous and unbroken front, whether of white Americans or black ones or purple or blue or green.... If we in America have reached that point in our desperate culture when we must murder children, no matter for what reason or what color, we don’t deserve to survive, and probably won’t.”
—William Faulkner (1897–1962)