Paula Angel and Adolphus Monroe: New Mexico & Illinois

Paula Angel was hanged twice from a cottonwood tree in New Mexico in 1861. Five years earlier in Charleston, Illinois, a mob hanged Adolphus Monroe after the governor reprieved him for shooting his father-in-law, Nathan Ellington.

Paula Angel was about 19 when she killed Juan Miguel Martin, a father of five, in March 1861. Judge Kirby Benedict told the jury it could consider only first-degree murder, and she was hanged on April 26, 1861, with her appeal still pending. She is the only woman ever legally executed in New Mexico.

In Charleston, Illinois, Adolphus Monroe shot Nathan Ellington, the county's first clerk, in October 1855 and said it was self-defense. A jury convicted him of murder in January 1856 and sentenced him to hang. Governor Joel Matteson granted a reprieve, the sheriff handed out copies of it, and a mob broke into the jail and hanged Monroe on February 15, 1856.

Content note: a hanging that failed and was carried out a second time, a lynching, and a body paraded through a town square.

Foul Play, Season 40: America's 250th Anniversary. Fifty states, fifty crimes. This is Episode 10.

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