Poster Boy | Criminal Podcast | Forensic Files

Steve Wendl: We all would like to have things kind of packaged up in a nice, neat package
for us to be able to understand. There was a moment at 3 a.m. one morning when he viciously butchered the two people closest
to him in life. Now, why he did that, I don't know. [Music.] Phoebe Judge: John and Hattie Elkins were murdered in their bed in the middle of the
night on July 17th, 1889. John was 45, a Civil War veteran. Hattie, his third wife, was 23.
They lived in rural Iowa. Steve Wendl: The only survivors to the whole thing was a young boy and a young baby.
Phoebe Judge: Steve Wendl is a retired counselor who used to work at Anamosa State Penitentiary
in Iowa. He and University of North Carolina Law Professor Patricia Bryan have been working for years
to sort out the details of this story, which, for everyone involved, has always been hard
to make sense of. Patricia Bryan: It was early on a morning of July 1889, and a neighbor saw this young
11-year-old boy in a buggy coming down this very small dirt road. He asked him where he was going and he said, really without much reluctance, that his parents
had been killed in the night. He said it was an intruder. He had been sleeping in the barn, didn't know who had done it.
Steve Wendl: And when the scene was investigated, they found the very, very much mutilated corpses
of the pair. The father had been shot in the head, and then the mother, her head had been bludgeoned
almost into an unrecognizable state. And then when the father started to groan, apparently not quite dead, the perpetrator
did the same thing to him, as far as with the club. The heads were almost unrecognizable.
Phoebe Judge: A reporter followed the police around the scene. He called it "the worst crime in the history of Clayton County."
The house was half a mile from the road and half a mile from the nearest neighbor.
Outside the house, they found the club that had been used lying in the bushes, still covered
in blood. But there were no suspects. Patricia Bryan: They investigated and they really couldn't find much evidence.
The only person who could have known anything, I suppose, was Wesley, the 11-year-old boy,
but he claimed he had been sleeping in the barn. He knew nothing. Phoebe Judge: When he talked to the police, 11-year-old Wesley Elkins said he'd woken
up around 2 a.m. when he'd heard a gunshot and his stepmother scream. He'd been out in the barn because it was summer and it was cooler up in the hayloft than in
his bedroom. After hearing the scream, he said he was scared and stayed hidden in the barn for about an
hour before going into the house to see what had happened. He said he picked up the baby from between the two bodies, changed it out of its bloody
clothes, and that was that. He hopped on the family buggy to go tell someone. Eric Mennel has today's story about the search for the killer and for an explanation.
I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. [Music.] Eric Mennel: That next week was a strange one for Clayton County.
News of the murder was spreading across the country and the town was consumed by it.
The governor offered a $500 reward for the killer, nearly $12,000 in today's money.
But there were still no obvious suspects. Except, you know, there was something a little off with that kid who had been sleeping in
the barn. Steve Wendl: The fact that the young boy, this Elkins, this young Elkins, John Wesley,
was so cool and so seemingly unperturbed by this horrific event that he had just been
in such close proximity to was considered very suspicious. Why was he not more emotional?
Eric Mennel: So people started investigating on their own, watching Wesley's every move,
floating their own theories. Steve Wendl: They would literally lift him up off the ground, testing his weight, in
some sense, I suppose, testing in their own minds whether this slight little youth was
capable of such a horrific crime. Eric Mennel: They would pick him up. Steve Wendl: They would pick him up, exactly.
Is the magnitude of the crime related to a person's size? They had to grapple with a lot of different things that didn't make sense to them.
Patricia Bryan: But the thought that an 11-year-old boy could commit such violence was really
unimaginable. Eric Mennel: That is, until he confessed. Patricia Bryan: "My name is John Wesley Elkins.
Two or three days before the murders, I began planning to kill my parents. And when I came home from milking that night, I went into the old grainery and got the club
and placed it on a chair in my room." Eric Mennel: He wrote up this incredibly eloquent letter, and it was published all over.
In the confession, Wesley says he had tried to run away, but his dad wouldn't let him.
Wesley also said he had to do too much work around the house. Steve Wendl: One would like to think that it would take something much more serious
than chores to butcher one's parents, but then again, who knows. Eric Mennel: With the confession in hand and no other suspects, in 1890, the state of Iowa
convicted Wesley Elkins of first degree murder. At 4'7", 73 pounds, he was sentenced to life in prison.
[Music.] Just to be upfront about this, it seems pretty clear to everyone, even now, that Elkins did
murder his father and stepmother. So if you, you true crime podcast-loving audience, were hoping for a story about a wrongful conviction
of a child, sorry, he almost certainly did it. But it's this certainty that actually makes the story all that more
perplexing. How could something like this happen? Now, a lot of people reacted the way you might expect when a kid goes off the rails: blame
the parents. Steve Wendl: Many folks thought that he had the mark of Cain on him.
Eric Mennel: Which has to be the most 19th-century insult I've ever heard. Steve Wendl and Patricia Bryan say that back in the 1800s, the prevailing theory of criminality
was that some people are innately evil, that bad behavior is a result of heredity.
It gets passed down through the bloodline. People around town knew Wesley's father, John, pretty well.
So they looked to the parent they didn't know so well: his birth mother, Matilda.
Steve Wendl: She apparently was a rather bad actor. She had tried to kill her husband on more than one occasion, including once when she
was pregnant with John Wesley. Eric Mennel: Lots of theories circulated about Matilda's character.
She had tried to kill her husband, John, three times, once with poison, once with a gun,
and once by positioning some heavy logs in such a way that they might fall on him.
Now, to a lot of people, it actually seemed like a great explanation. Patricia Bryan: That she had tried to kill her husband when she was pregnant and that
that had somehow come through to the fetus. Eric Mennel: Wesley had lived with Matilda until he was seven years old, that's when
she died. But even if the heredity was a little too far-fetched an explanation, there were other
ways to show Wesley's criminal instincts. People could actually measure them. Steve Wendl: You know, at the time the "science" of phrenology was in vogue, where they thought
they could divine a person's criminal tendencies by the shape of their skull. They'd say, "Well, just look at his skull.
He's got the bumps in all the right places." Everybody was looking for reasons. Why did this happen?
How could such a thing happen? Eric Mennel: When Wesley Elkins got to Anamosa State Penitentiary, he was mixed in with other
criminals: murderers, chicken thieves, all sorts. The New York Times said he was the youngest child ever put in a maximum security prison
for life. So people watched him, closely. They were trying to pick up on clues that would show his true nature.
But what's clear from all official accounts is Wesley Elkins was actually a model prisoner.
Steve Wendl: He made very, very good use of his time. He was a bright boy, clever.
He was smart, he was very capable. Eric Mennel: He worked as the warden's assistant and eventually in the library.
While he was there, he discovered he'd been given one of the harshest sentences in the
state's history, and he argued that because he was so young, there's no way he could have
really comprehended what he had done. There was even a legal precedent here. So after seven years in prison, Wesley Elkins applied for a pardon.
He wanted out. Needless to say, some people had no interest in that idea. Patricia Bryan: There was a terrible letter about him that was printed in the Daily Republican.
Eric Mennel: The letter was written anonymously by someone who claimed to have inside knowledge
of Elkins' thinking about the crime. He called Elkins a "fiend with murder in his heart".
Elkins, who's 18 at this point, fired back in a letter to the local newspaper. It was the first time people had heard from him since his grisly confession, seven years
earlier. Reader: In reading an article in your paper this morning, I was surprised at the mistakes
and misrepresentations in it. I have been all my lifetime, I might say, in prison.
Eric Mennel: It was eloquent and impressive, caught a lot of people off guard. Elkins sent his pardon request to the governor, but it wasn't enough.
The request was denied. [Music.] While the pardon was a failure, the attention it drew was a huge benefit to Elkins.
The letter he wrote to the newspaper was so shockingly well-composed, many people began
to question their impressions of the boy lifer, as he'd come to be known. Patricia Bryan: It sort of showed him as a very emotional, vulnerable young man who had
hopes and dreams, like other men. Eric Mennel: And what arises is essentially a coordinated PR campaign, because around
this time, people are starting to think maybe criminality is not inherent. Maybe people can be reformed or cured even of their criminal tendencies.
And Wesley Elkins might be the perfect example of this. Reader: I'm not looked upon as a dangerous character, and instead of being the most closely,
I am the least-watched of any man in the prison. Eric Mennel: Elkins started writing more letters, showing the public how much he had taught
himself, how much he had changed since his childhood crime. He wrote to supporters in academia and to the governor.
Reader: In the years I've been confined, I have devoted my time to study and I've done
all in my power to improve my mind and fit myself for a different position in life.
I committed a terrible crime, that I know, but has not my punishment been severe?
To spend my boyhood behind prisons walls. I was so young when the crime was committed that the question of punishment is removed
entirely from your consideration. The question to be decided by you is: am I capable of becoming a safe and useful member
of society? Patricia Bryan: But Clayton County residents said, "It's a mask. He's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
He can put on this educated appearance, but beneath that, he has an impulse to kill.
Wesley Elkins could not be let out or he would kill again." Eric Mennel: He was in a tough spot, a sort of poster child for whatever argument you
wanted to believe about criminal nature. Either, he was a good young man guilty of a horrible crime but who had atoned for his
sins, or he was a psychopath using his intelligence to mask his actual corruption, a wolf in sheep's
clothes. And the fact is, nobody really knew what he was or what he was capable of.
[Music.] Elkins went through the pardon process again and again, and he kept getting rejected.
It took five years for him to gain any real traction. When Iowa's General Assembly finally did debate his parole on the floor of the legislature,
one guy actually pulled out the club he claimed Elkins had used to butcher his parents.
He waved it around to remind everybody just how violent the crime had been. Elkins had been in prison for 12 years at this point, more than half his life, when
it finally came down to a vote. Patricia Bryan: 47 to 46 — one vote separated the opponents from the supporters.
Eric Mennel: One vote. Patricia Bryan: One single vote, right. Eric Mennel: That he was not going to be pardoned.
Patricia Bryan: That he was not going to be pardoned, exactly right. Eric Mennel: The people afraid of Elkins had won, but ...
Patricia Bryan: There is, then, one legislator who calls for a revote. Eric Mennel: In a good old-fashioned political flip-flop, one legislator stands up and says,
"I had promised my vote to the people of Clayton County who wanted to keep Elkins in jail.
I gave them my vote once. Now, I'd like to change it." So, they called a revote.
And it passed by a handful of votes. Wesley Elkins was set free at age 23. [Music.]
For all intents and purposes, Wesley Elkins went silent after he got out. He spent some time in Minnesota and then in Hawaii, where he met a girl and they got married.
They moved to California, where he became an accountant. She died 37 years later and then he died two years after that, in 1961.
They never had any kids, and it's actually not clear if she even knew about his crime.
Whatever people thought they saw in Elkins as a kid, he managed to either escape it or
conceal it in the end. His obituary made no mention of the crime, it made no mention of his time in prison,
and it made no mention of the night that he pulled a baby from between his dead parents,
changed its clothes, and rode into town on a buggy. [Music.] Phoebe Judge: Eric Mennel.
Criminal is produced by Eric, Lauren Spohrer, and me. Our episode artwork is by Julienne Alexander.
You can find out more about our show at thisiscriminal.com. We're on Facebook and Twitter, @CriminalShow.
One of the other Radiotopia shows you might like is The Truth by Jonathan Mitchell.
Their latest episode is about a house that's not haunted by ghosts, but by memories.
[Excerpt from The Truth.] Speaker 1: All right, you ready? Scare away the rats. Hello?
Speaker 2: Oh my God, the smell. Speaker 1: Oh! That's rotten food or rotting meat.
[Excerpt ends.] Phoebe Judge: That's the latest episode of The Truth. Radiotopia from PRX is made possible with support from the Knight Foundation and MailChimp,
celebrating creativity, chaos, and teamwork. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.
Jingle: Radiotopia. From PRX.

On July 17th, 1889, the residents of Clayton County, Iowa woke up to news of the worst crime in their history. A Civil War veteran John Elkins and his young wife Hattie had been murdered in their bed in a grisly attack. Their two children escaped to raise the alarm. But something was off. There were no suspects. There were no clues. To quote the local newspaper, the whole thing was “surrounded in a veil of mystery.”

Criminal is a show about people who’ve done wrong, been wronged, or gotten caught somewhere in the middle. Hosted by Phoebe Judge. Part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. https://link.chtbl.com/n33u0HsA

Say hello on Twitter (@CriminalShow), Instagram (@criminal_podcast), and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/ThisIsCriminal/.

Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice https://bit.ly/accomplicenewsletter.

We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery.

Artwork by Julienne Alexander http://www.yssrs.com/.

Check out our online shop https://store.dftba.com/collections/criminal.

Episode transcripts are posted on our website https://thisiscriminal.com/.

Episode 16 originally published 2/20/2015 https://thisiscriminal.com/episode-sixteen-poster-boy-2-20-2015

Brief Summary

The episode details the 1889 murders of John and Hattie Elkins by their son Wesley, his confession, and his life after prison.

Key points

The Gruesome Murders of John and Hattie Elkins. In July 1889, John and Hattie Elkins were brutally murdered in their home, leaving only their young son as a witness.
The Suspicion Surrounding Young Wesley. Wesley Elkins, the 11-year-old survivor, became the center of suspicion due to his calm demeanor after the murders.
Wesley's Shocking Confession. Wesley confessed to planning the murders of his parents, shocking the community and leading to his conviction.
The Pardon Process. After years in prison, Wesley sought a pardon, igniting a public debate about his character and potential for reform.
Wesley Elkins is Set Free. After a contentious legislative debate, Wesley Elkins was pardoned and released from prison at age 23.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Why he did that, I don't know.

0:22WatchOct 29, 2022

Tension

75/ 100High tension

More from Criminal | A Podcast About Crime

Solve the Crime

Read a real case one clue at a time, then see how your call held up against the investigators.