Jones County, Iowa Historical Info THE FIRST HANGING AT ANAMOSA Charles Stegal Charles Stegal, under sentence of death and in confinement at the Anamosa prison awaiting execution for murder, the date for which has been fixed for Dec. 1, next, at an hour to be determined by the Sheriff between 12 o’clock midnight, and sunrise. Stegal is a colored gentleman and his victim was also a negro. They quarreled over a woman. Stegal finally lying in wait for his rival, assaulted him with a knife inflicting numerous, frightful wounds in his back and finishing the murderous work by severing the jugular vein of his victim who bled to death in the street in the presence of numerous witnesses. If Gov. Shaw intervenes to commute Stegal’s fate in a term of life imprisonment it will be entirely on his own motion, the people of Davenport being unanimous in the opinion that the extreme penalty of the law is the only adequate punishment for Stegal’s crime. This execution, if consummated, will be the first to mark the history of the Anamosa penitentiary and the first legal hanging in Jones County for that matter. The statutes require that the death penalty shall be administered within the walls of one of the state penitentiaries after the condemned has been confined therein for a period of not less than one year from date of sentence and that the execution shall be under the immediate supervision of the Sheriff of the county in which the crime for which sentence was imposed was committed. Submitted by Kenneth E. Wright BACK Copyright © Genealogy Trails All data on this website is Copyright by Genealogy Trails with full rights reserved for original submitters.