Philadelphia County PA Archives News.....MRS. WHITELING HANGED, THE WOMAN WHO POISONED HER WHOLE FAMILY IN PHILADELPHIA July 4, 1889
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Phyllis Thompson mandpthompson@bellsouth.net August 24, 2005, 5:54 pm

The Georgia Enterprise, July 4, 1889 July 4, 1889
     Mrs. WHITELING, who poisoned her husband and two children, was hanged 
Tuesday morning in the jail yard at Philadelphia, Pa. The drop fell at 10:07 
o’clock, and the body was lowered and removed at 10:41. The woman’s hearing 
throughout the terrible ordeal was the most remarkable exhibition of fortitude 
and resignation to her fate. During the entire morning she never for a moment 
showed the slightest evidence of weakness, and frequently expressed her 
pleasure at the prospect of  meeting her husband and children.” Several 
physicians who were present at the execution, and who have, more or less, 
frequently been with the condemned woman since her incarceration, expressed 
surprise at the woman’s exhibition of calmness in meeting her death, although 
they agreed in the statement that she has at no time shown any evidence of an 
unsound mind. Physicians say her death was instant from strangulation, though 
the heart continued to beat spasmodically for sometime thereafter. The body was 
turned over to Dr. Alice Bennett, of Norristown hospital, for the insane, for 
an examination of the brain, after which the body will be buried by the side of 
her murdered husband and children. The only witnesses of the execution were the 
sheriff and his deputies, prison officials, physicians, and about a dozen 
newspaper men. This was the first execution of a female in Philadelphia County. 
There have, however, been several women hanged in other counties in 
Pennsylvania.


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