Napa County CA Archives Obituaries.....Williams, Mollie May 9, 1875
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Regina Gualco rmgualco@yahoo.com August 4, 2006, 10:19 pm

from History of Napa and Lake Counties (1881)

Murder of MOLLIE WILLIAMS, alias Swartz.---This murder took place in
Spanishtown, Napa City, May 9, 1875. The woman had been in a house of
prostitution, but had become enamoured with a man named Henry Pearce, and had
become engaged to be married to him. She thereupon went to live with his sister.
On the day of the murder Pearce got drunk and was going along the street in
Spanishtown when the woman came to him and tried to induce him to go home. This
he promised to do, but made some excuse for going further up the street, and
they separated. She turned after proceeding a short distance and came up with
him again, and begun her importunings, going so far as to put her arms around
his neck, thus to persuade him to accompany her home. At this he out with a
knife and stabbed her two or three times. She did not scream, but sprang over a
fence and started across a lot, but fell in the middle of it. Parties who saw
her went to her, but found that she was dead. The Coroner's jury charged Pearce
with her murder, and his trial came up October 9, 1875. The jury found him
guilty of murder in the second degree, and he was sentenced to the State Prison
for a term of twenty years.

Additional Comments:
Source: [Lyman L. Palmer], History of Napa and Lake Counties, California (San
Francisco: Slocum, Bowen & Co., 1881), pages 153-154.

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