writing prompt

Woman Accused of Theft, After Breaking Parole, Collapses When Plea Is Denied.

  When Edna Wilson, called by the police “the beloved thief,” came before Judge Collins for sentence in Special Sessions yesterday, she collapsed as soon as she was ordered back to Bedford Reformatory, from which she had broken her parole.

“Don’t send me back to that place. Don’t send me back to Bedford,” she screamed. She was carried from the court room by attendants.

Judge Collins held that despite the girl’s plea not to be returned to the institution she must be sent back for violation of her parole. He said he would extend extreme clemency in pronouncing judgment relative to the latest charge against her, explaining that he would withhold sentence pending her good behavior for the remaining sixteen months she must serve at the reformatory.

The girl’s latest escapade, for which she came up for sentence yesterday, was the theft on March 29 of a coat valued at $2,900 and various other articles of clothing and jewelry from Mrs. Pearl Reed Myers of 680 Riverside Drive, wife of a tobacco manufacturer. The girl had posed to Mrs. Myers as “Elsie Robinson,” a newspaper writer, and she was invited to spend the night at the Myers home. Next morning the girl had disappeared with the valuables. She was soon arrested and indicted.

In pronouncing sentence the Judge referred to her as “a white Topsy,” saying she was a girl who apparently never could resist temptation.

“She just can’t stop stealing,” said the Judge. “She gets into the good graces of respectable people and then robs them. Although better educated than was the famous character of Mrs. Stowe, nevertheless she is a white Topsy.”