News Article, Albrecht Hanged, 1896

This newspaper article was published in the Coos Bay News on July 1, 1896. It describes the hanging of Carl Albrecht in Marshfield (present-day Coos Bay).

On February 18, 1896, Albrecht followed his estranged wife through the streets of Marshfield, threatening to kill her if she did not return to him. She had filed for divorce days earlier on the grounds of cruelty. When she refused to acquiesce to his demands, Albrecht stuck a revolver into her back and fired five times, killing her instantly. In an article published on the day of his hanging, the Oregonian noted that “when his dastardly deed was committed, Albrecht turned and pointed his revolver at himself, as if he were going to take his own life, and then took to his heels to get out of reach of the officers.” A police officer followed after Albrecht, shooting him twice when Albrecht raised his gun. After his recovery, Albrecht was tried and found guilty of first-degree murder on May 3. Less than two months later he was hanged at the Coos County courthouse.

Capital punishment was a controversial subject in Oregon during the Progressive Era. In 1911 Governor Oswald West, a progressive reformer, vowed to eliminate the death penalty during his term. West considered the practice a “relic of the barbarous mediaeval ages of man.” The following year he proposed an initiative that would have abolished capital punishment in the state. To force the issue he granted a temporary reprieve to prisoners on death row and set the new date for their execution immediately after the initiative vote. “In other words,” historian and legal scholar William Long writes, “West was trying to make the people of Oregon not mere spectators but intimate participants in the raging debate over the death penalty.” Much to his chagrin, the voters of Oregon voted overwhelmingly in favor of keeping the death penalty. West allowed four executions to proceed on the scheduled date despite the pleas of death penalty opponents.

Just two years later, however, Oregonians voted in favor of eliminating capital punishment. Washington had done so the year before, and, more importantly, women now had the vote in Oregon, which they had won two years earlier. Their vote proved decisive, as the initiative passed by a mere 157 votes out of 200,947 cast. Just six years later, however, Oregonians reinstituted the death penalty after a series of well-publicized murders. Oregonians again voted in favor of abolishing the death penalty in 1964 and then reinstituted it in 1984.

Further Reading:
Goeres-Gardner, Diane L. Necktie Parties: Legal Executions in Oregon, 1851-1905. Caldwell, Idaho, 2005.

Long, William R. A Tortured History: The Story of Capital Punishment in Oregon. Eugene, Oreg., 2001.

Written by Cain Allen, ©Oregon Historical Society, 2006.