This is a transcription of the original newspaper article as it appeared in The Mountain Echo on April 3, 1885.
SEXTON HUNG. A DULL THUD AND ANOTHER SOUL ANSWERS THE CALL--DENIES HIS GUILT TO THE LAST--SCAFFOLD SCENES.
At 4:55, standard time, last Friday evening, John Sexton was hung at Barbourville in exiation of the crime of murdering George Routen near Woodbine July 21st, 1884. For several months, Sexton has been confined in the Lexington jail for safe keeping until the day of execution should arrive, from where he was taken late on Tuesday evening of last week by Sheriff Corum and a strong guard from Knox County and conveyed to the Knox County jail where they arrived Wednesday before noon where he remained with the exception of a very short time until the hour arrived for his execution. Tuesday evening he was taken to prayer meeting at the M.E. Church, in which he seemed to take considerable interest, kneeling at each prayer.
About 10 o'clock, he and his wife retired, his wife being permitted to stay with him all the while he was in Barbourville until he started to the gallows, and rested only tolerably well, but was sleeping soundly at 6 o'clock Friday morning when jailer Catron called him up to breakfast. He ate a light breakfast and was baptised in the jail at 7 o'clock by the Rev. S.F. Kelley of the M.E. Church, and whiled the day away as pleasantly as it would seem one could under such circumstances, talking to friends and relatives until noon, when he ate a very light dinner. Prayer services were held at the jail at 1 o'clock by Rev. G.B. Foley of the Baptist Church. A few minutes before 4 o'clock, he was dressed and at exactly 4 he took leave of his wife and father at the jail and started to the gallows about one hundred yards away, under heavy guard of about ten men, and sheriff Corum and the guard of fifty picked men, and arrived at the gallows at 4:06. Sexton rode to the gallows, seated on his coffin in a one-horse wagon, without being handcuffed or confined in any way with a guard seated on either side of him. He mounted the scaffold situated just in the rear of the new jail with a firm step and with as much composure as though he was only entering a dining room to eat a man's victuals and listened with an attentive ear to the reading of the death warrant by the clerk. Rev. G.B. Foley then quoted this passage of scripture: "Truly the Lord liveth and as thy soul liveth, there is but a step between me and death", sung and prayed. Sexton kneeling and engaging in the prayer. At 4:26 Sexton began talking and talked until (unreadable) stoutly maintaining his innocence, but said James Carter, his wife's brother, was the guilty party according to Carter's confession to him. He said that Carter told him that he did the killing and robbed the body of $783, and then promised to pay him and his wife $50 if they would never tell it. He also saw Carter coming away from where Routen's body was found with Routen's valise and clothing, and that Carter told him that in addition to these thngs, he had two hats, one of them having two bullet holes in it, a pistol, razor, brush, pocket-book, et., all worth about $17. Of the $50 that Carter had promised to pay him and his wife, he had only paid $15, and asked him to pay the balance to his wife and children.
He said that besides this he was accused of two other murders, but guilty of neither, that he had never killed a man, never had plotted to kill anyone and had never known of any plot previous to the crime, if he had, the day could never have been too bad or the night too dark for him to have gone and informed the parties. He said he was prepared to die and was going to a better world than this where there was probably not so much mud as here. He advised all of the boys to obey their parents, let cards and whiskey alone and escape the end he had now come to. He gave Brother Foley a note and asked him to talk to his children, brothers, etc., and then asked the public to see that his wife and little children never suffer. The black cap was then drawn over his face, and the rope adjusted, and the trap fell at 4:55. At 5:10 life was pronounced extinct by the atending physician, Dr. B.F. Herndon and B.F. Nelson; at 5:12 the body was taken down and placed in the coffin. The remains were immediately taken to his father's, Mr. Calvin Sexton, and buried Sunday.
SKETCH OF HIS LIFE
John Sexton was a son of Mr. and Mrs. Calvin Sexton, was born in 1856, married June, 1872 to Miss Alice Carter, to whom five children have been born, all of which are still living and reside about 3 1/2 miles East of Woodbine. He and his wife joined the M.E. Church about two years ago, Rev. Samuel Jarvis being their pastor.
SEXTON'S CRIME
On the 30th of last July, John Sexton, one of the most notorious characters of Woodbine, a station on the Knoxville branch of the L&N Railroad, sixteen miles west of Barbourville, a place known prior to the building of the railroad through it as Joe Fields, notoriously known throughout the country for the past quarter of a century for the host of desperate men who inhabited it and the number of murders that have been comitted within its limits which have covered the pages of its history common, learned there was a young man from Chicago, named George Routen, at work at Davis and Hammon's sawmill near Whipporwill post office in Laurel County, about five miles north of Woodbine, and that he was known to have about $200 in cash. On learning this, Sexton at once set about devising some plan by which he could decoy Routen off and rob him, and if necessary, take his life.
TO CONCEAL HIS CRIME
The idea at once struck Sexton that he would go and see Routen and represent to him that he could get a permanent position in a mill on Indian Creek, in Knox County, and at a highter wages than he was receiving, and that if he could induce Routen to change his position he would accompany Routen to Indian Creek, which was about ten miles from where he was at work. He would improve the best opportunity offered while on the route to execute his purpose conceived in a murderous heart.
Armed with his scheme well nurtured in his brain, and goaded on by the weakness of his heart, he started at once to see Routen and put his design into execution. Arriving at the mill he called Routen to one side, and in undertones, told him he had been looking for him for more than a week; that he had secured him a permanent position on Indian Creek, at wages 25 cents per day more than he was getting.
Credulous boy that he was, he accepted Sexton's flattering story, immediately settled accounts with his employers and left the same evening with Sexton, but it being quite late when they started, they only went as far as Woodbine that night. Early next morning they started again on their journey, stopping a few minutes at the store of S. Dowis & Son, about four miles east of Woodbine, where Routen bought a pair of shoes, a shirt, and some cartridges, and in paying for them exposed quite a sum of money. Mr. Dowis gave him a box to put his shoes in. Routen then put on his shoes, giving his old shoes to Sexton, and they left together. They had not gone over one and a half miles until they came to an unfrequented spot near Sexton's house, but a considerable distance from that of anyone else. Sexton conceived the thought that this was his most proptious time and place to
EXECUTE HIS HELLISH PLOT
so he told Routen that he had made arrangements with a sporting woman to meet them at that time a short distance in the brush, and that if Routen would go with him they could have a jolly time for a season. Routen at once consented and they immediately started for the dense brush to the point designated. They had gone but about one hundred yards when Sexton fell in the rear, drew his pistol, and shot Routen in the back of the head, robbed his person, threw the reamins in a "nap" of a fallen tree and left for home.
He was seen coming out of the woods where Routen's body was afterwards found, and enter his house with Routen's shirt box under his arm by Frank Elliott and Tolbert Helton. Next day he and his wife visited several stores in the neighborhood where they bought quite an amount of goods, displaying a considerable roll of money. As Sexton was a worthless character, and was never known to have any money before, and as Routen was mysteriously missing, Sexton was at once suspected of having murdered and robbed him and was arrested, a search instituted for the body of Routen which was found on the 6th of August with a bullet hole in his head, one in his mouth, and one in his hand, and his body wrapped in an overcoat and quilt, which were afterwards proven to belong to Sexton.
On the examining trial, Sexton was held over without bail, and at the subsequent term of the Knox Circuit Court, was tried, convicted, and sentenced to be hanged on the 3rd of November, 1884, but pending an appeal his sentence was respited until March 27, 1885.