Emeline Meaker

Emeline Lucy Meaker (sometimes reported as Lucy Emeline Meaker) (June 1838 – March 30, 1883) was the first woman who was legally executed by Vermont. In 1883, Meaker was convicted of and hanged for the murder of her husband's half-sister Alice in Duxbury, Vermont.

The crime Sometime in the spring of 1879, a child welfare worker approached Meaker and her husband, Horace, to ask if they would consider taking Horace's eight-year-old half-sister Alice and her brother Henry into their home, as the children were living in an overcrowded orphanage. Horace was offered a stipend of to care for Alice, and so he agreed. Emeline Meaker was not pleased with the arrangement and beat, starved, and otherwise mistreated Alice, threatening to kill her on numerous occasions.

Over 125 spectators gathered in the prison guardroom at the Vermont State Prison in Windsor County, and it was reported that the sheriff was besieged with requests for passes to witness the hanging. When Meaker was finally led to the gallows, and asked (by slip of paper as she was deaf) if she had anything to say, Meaker said in a low voice, "May God forgive you all for hanging me, an innocent woman. I am as innocent as that man standing here," indicating a deputy. None of her family was present at the execution and her husband and children did not accept her body for burial after the execution.