Down at Olive Branch the latter part of last week, two men named Brown assaulted officers who had them under arrest and Deputy Sheriff Silas Coleman was so badly injured that he died the following Monday.  He was beaten over the head with a bludgeon.  The Brown brothers are said to be regular desperadoes and have been the terror of that section for a long time, everybody being afraid of them.  One of their favorite pastimes was the capture of trains on the new Chicago and Eastern Illinois railroad and they had even planned a hold up and train robbery.  The ruffians have friends among the lawless elements, but his last outrage will likely be the culmination of their criminal career and may bring them to the gallows.
    The Brown brothers took refuge in a cave inthe northwest part of Alexander county and a posse of deputy sheriffs went out from Cairo Sunday determined to get them dead or alive.  
(Source:  Jonesboro Gazette, Jonesboro, Illinois, 23 Feb 1901)

    Bud and Luni Brown, who used to be around here (Springville, Union Co) a good deal, have come to serious trouble in Alexander County.  A bill was found against them in court last week for shooting into a train on the C & E I R R a few months ago.  On Thursday last week two officers were sent out to arrest them and found them at Olive Branch.  They captured the boys and Bud told one of the officers who had him that he would like to have a private talk with him and they stopped out behind a store house and Bud got the drop on the officer and slugged him in the head and then both boys made their escape.  A reward of $200 is offered for their return.  (Source:  Jonesboro Gazette, Jonesboro, Illinois, 23 Feb 1901)

    Authorities of Alexander county have offered a reward of $200 for the capture of the Brown desperadoes.  There is a rumor that these fellows went through Jonesboro last Monday in a freight car talking to acquaintances here who said that they were heavily armed and defiant.  A number of people in Jonesboro are more or less acquainted with the Browns.  (Source:  Jonesboro Gazette, Jonesboro, Illinois, 2 Mar 1901)

A man accused of taking part in the kidnappings, rapes and mutilation murders of 18 women was executed by injection early Wednesday.
Andrew Kokoraleis, 35, sighed three times, licked his lips and appeared to be speaking quietly to himself before he died.
He was sentenced to death for one of the killings -- the 1982 murder of Lorraine Ann Borowski, 21, who was abducted on her way to work at a real estate office. Her mutilated body was found in a cemetery.
Defense attorneys unsuccessfully argued that Kokoraleis was coerced into confessing. They also argued that new information cast doubt on the credibility of confessions by two co-defendants who accused Kokoraleis.
The execution comes against a backdrop of renewed debate over the death penalty in Illinois, prompted largely by the exoneration of two condemned inmates last month alone.
In this case, the discussion was muted by the horrifying details of what authorities say was his role in a cult blamed for the killings of as many as 18 Chicago-area women in the early 1980s.
Kokoraleis, who had been sentenced to life in prison for another murder, was the first prisoner executed at a new super-maximum-security prison in (Tamms) southern Illinois.  --Associated Press Archive - March 17, 1999; transcribed by A. Newell.