Newspaper Items for Wyandotte County, Kansas

WYANDOTTE COUNTY, KANSAS

Newspaper Items

LAW PROFESSOR ENTERS LOWELL ANDREWS CASE

TOPEKA---Richard C. Allen, law professor at Washburn University, has entered the case of condemned murderer Lowell Lee Andrews.

Allen said he entered the case at the request of Andrews' court-appointed attorneys, Buford Braly and Harry Hayward. He added that he is preparing for a habeas corpus hearing in federal court in Kansas City on March 16.

Andrews, 20, was convicted of shooting to death his parents and sister and sentenced to hang. The Kansas Supreme Court set the date of his execution as March 9, but the execution was stayed Tuesday by the federal district court.

Allen said he had followed the Andrews case from the beginning. He added, "and I am in this case now until Andrews' life is saved or lost."

The professor also teaches a course in law and psychiatry at the Meninger Foundation School of Psychiatry.

"I became interested in the case first of all because I am a lawyer and secondly because I am a teacher of law," Allen said. "And I am concerned that the state of Kansas is going to executive a sentence of death on a boy who committed murder by reason of his mental illness."

He said he would attempt to show that the former University of Kansas student's constitutional rights were violated. He said one example was that the court received the young man's confession as evidence in the trial. (Great Bend Daily Tribune ~ March 9, 1961)

COURT SETS NOV. 30 FOR EXECUTION OF LOWELL ANDREWS

TOPEKA, Kan., ---The state Supreme Court has set a new execution date for Lowell Lee Andrews, former University of Kansas student convicted of killing his family.

The court Thursday set the date for Nov. 30.

Andrews was accused of killing his parents and sister during the 1958 Thanksgiving day holidays. He was convicted Dec. 22, 1959.

The two previous execution dates were delayed by appeals.

In the latest appeal Andrews was unsuccessful in asking the U. S. Supreme Court to issue a writ of habeas corpus.

James Ahren, a Washburn University law school professor who is one of Andrews' attorneys, said he is considering an appeal from the latest decision. (Moberly, Missouri, Montor ~ November 2, 1962)

'MODEL BOY' IS HANGED IN KANSAS

LANSING, Kan.,---Lowell Lee Andrews, the "model boy" who said greed led him to murder his family four years ago, died on the gallows today. If he repented his crime, he didn't show it.

Calm and composed, even a bit aloof, Andrews stood silently on the gallows trap, lighted by the glare of a single unshaded bulb.

Warden Sherman H. Crouse asked if he had any last words.

"No, I don't believe so" replied the 22-year-old killer, smiling slightly.

The warden repeated the question.

"No," Andrews said flatly.

The Protestant chaplain of the State Penitentiary, the Rev. James Post, removed Andrews' glasses. Guards slipped the noose around his neck; the death mask over his fact.

At 12:21 a.m., the trap covering a hole in the concrete floor of the execution chamber-- corner of a rambling prison warehouse--was sprung. Eighteen minutes later, Andrews was pronounced dead by the prison physician. He was the 11th man to die since Kansas resumed capital punishment in the 1930s.

In his signed confessions, Andrews said he killed his father, mother and sister because he wated his father's 240-acre farm and $1,800 in a savings account.

But the utterly senseless violence of his crime cast doubt upon this motive. Using two guns, Andrews fired 24 shots. Seventeen bullets hit his father, William Andrews, 50. His mother, Opal, 41, was shot four times. His sister, Jennie Marie, 20, was hit three times. (Hight Point, North Carolina, Enterprise ~ November 30, 1962)