An Innocent Man was Executed

Mexico, MO.

Aug 25 1889 

Perry Thrall, who died Friday at Macon, Mo., confessed just before his death to having committed the crime for which another suffered the death penalty. In 1864 William Vanderventer and wife were murdered in their house a few miles from Florida, near here. Bill Duly, a colored man, was arrested, tried, convicted, and hanged for the crime at Paris, Mo., a few months after the tragedy. Thrall made confession of this crime on his death bed.