Our Arklahoma Heritage: Heinous murder of wife and child in 1878 saw justice served on Franklin County gallows

Thomas B. Edmonds was born in Livingston County, Kentucky around 1846 and lived a quiet life as a farmer. 

The 1870 U.S. Census captures him at 24, residing in Smithland with his 21-year-old wife, Emma, born around 1849, and their two young children, a family tethered to the rural heart of western Kentucky. 

But by 1878, scandal or restlessness shattered this world.

Edmonds, then about 32, fled to Arkansas with Julia Alsbrook, a neighbor’s daughter in her late teens or early 20s, leaving behind whispers of betrayal. 

Settling in Washington County they posed as man and wife, their daughter Ellen, born around April 1878, a fragile thread in their new life, where they initially earned the community’s respect--until it unraveled.

In August 1878, Edmonds, claiming a return to Kentucky, hired a wagon to take Julia, Ellen, and himself to Johnson County, where he said they’d catch a boat. The Arkansas Democrat reported that after the wagon returned, Julia and Ellen had vanished. Months later, a skeleton surfaced in a river, its skull bearing a gold-plugged front tooth00a chilling match to Julia’s---though no trace of Ellen was found.

 Suspicion fell on Edmonds, and in May 1879, an Arkansas lawman arrested him in Kentucky, where he’d returned. He denied the murder, claiming he was in Argenta ( Pulaski County)during the supposed crime, a defense he couldn’t substantiate.

he case, steeped in scandal and mystery, gripped Arkansas. Edmonds secured a change of venue to Franklin County, where his trial unfolded in the fall 1879 circuit court. He claimed Julia and Ellen died in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, but offered no proof, and the jury convicted him of first-degree murder, sentencing him to hang. 

An appeal delayed his execution from February 27, 1880, after a paperwork error nearly led to his premature death, until Governor William Miller intervened with a telegraph warning the sheriff of legal consequences. Chief Justice Elbert English upheld the conviction in March, setting the execution for May 28, 1880

.The execution in Ozark drew 5,000 spectators, a testament to the era’s fascination with public justice, as reported by the Arkansas Gazette. Crowds poured in the night before, eager for the spectacle. In the Franklin County jail,

Edmonds, now 34, faced his end with quiet resolve, weeping as local women sang hymns at his request. Taken to the gallows atop his coffin, he climbed the scaffold and declared, “It is hard for me to die, as I am not guilty. With uplifted hands toward heaven, I declare my innocence.” 

At 12:30 p.m., the sheriff read the death warrant, set the noose, and sprung the trap. Eleven minutes later, Edmonds was dead, one of two executions in Arkansas that day, alongside L. L. Ford in Crittenden County.

Edmonds’s case, with its tale of elopement, a river-bound skeleton, and a public execution, captivated Arkansas, fueled by newspapers like the Gazette that thrived on such drama. 

. The media’s appetite for sensational stories gave Edmonds’s case a spotlight, a stark contrast to many forgotten tales of the time, where the lack of such drama left countless others buried in obscurity.