Patty Cannon - Legal Consequences

Legal Consequences

The gang was initially indicted in May 1822. Joe Johnson was sentenced to the pillory and 39 lashes; records show the sentence was carried out. Cannon and several other gang members, though charged with Johnson, apparently did not go to trial nor receive sentences.

In 1829, however, bodies were discovered on the farm property Cannon owned in Delaware by a tenant farmer doing plowing there. In April, 1829, she was indicted on four counts of murder by a grand jury of 24 white males:

• an infant female on April 26, 1822
• a male child on April 26, 1822
• an adult male on October 1, 1820
• a "Negro boy" on June 1, 1824

The indictments were signed by the Attorney General of Delaware, James Rogers. Witness Cyrus James stated he saw her take an injured "black child not yet dead out in her apron, but that it never returned." James had been purchased by Cannon when he was only seven years old, and had grown up in her household and participated in her crimes.

Cannon died in her cell on May 11, 1829, at an age estimated to be between sixty and seventy years old. Sources differ on whether she was convicted and sentenced to hang before her death in the cell, and on whether she committed suicide or died of natural causes. The Entailed Hat attributes her death to self-administered poison.

Her body was initially buried in the jail's graveyard. When that land became a parking lot in the 20th century, her skeleton, along with those of two other women, was exhumed and reburied in a potter's field near the new prison. However, her skull was separated from the rest of her remains and put on display in various venues, and loaned to the Dover Public Library in 1961.