May 14, 1908
Unprovoked Murder by a Pueblo Negro
Pueblo, Colo., May 14 - Without apparent cause, James Lynn, a negro, at midnight last night burst into the home of Mrs. Julia James, a white woman, and after beating her unmercifully, drove her and her daughter Sarah, aged sixteen, into the street where he shot and killed the girl and mortally wounded the mother. After the shooting Lynn escaped, going toward the river bottoms. A large number of officers are on his trail. Five other children of Mrs. James were in the house at the time of the assault and they say they do not know the cause of the trouble. Lynn's wife is also unable to account for the tragedy, though she says he has been talking of killing people for some time.
-Telluride Daily Journal.
May 15, 1908
Negro kills two women
Without any apparent cause
A large number of officers are now on his trail
Pueblo, Colo., May 14 - Without apparent cause James Lynn, a negro hod-carrier, broke into the home of Mrs. Julia James, a white woman, 422 East River street, just after midnight last night and, after beating the woman unmercifully, drove her and her daughter Sarah, aged 16, into the street, where he shot and killed the girl and then the mother.
After the shooting Lyn made his escape, going toward the Arkansas river bottoms. A large number of officers are on his trail. The police have not found any clue to the motive for the crime.
-Aspen Democrat
May 16, 1908
Jealousy the cause
Pueblo, Colo., - May 15 - Jealousy is now said by the police to have been the motive for the killing yesterday by James Lynn, a negro hod-carrier, of Sarah James, aged 16 years, and the perhaps fatal wounding of her mother. Mrs. James is at St. Mary's Hospital. Lynn has not been captured.
-Aspen Democrat
May 21, 1908
Pueblo, Colo., May 14 - James Lynn, colored, 42 years old, early this morning broke into the home of Mrs. Julia James, a respected white woman living at 422 River street, and after severely beating Mrs. James and her daughter, Sarah, aged 16, drove them into the street where he shot and killed the daughter, and mortally wounded the mother. Every available policeman and the coroner rushed to the scene of the tragedy and a posse organized and is chasing Lynn, who made his escape on a bicycle. It is possible he will be lynched. In the house at the time of the tragedy were five children, some of them quite small.
-Durango Wage Earner
May 22, 1908
Capture of Murderer
Colorado Springs - Jim Lynn, the negro who murdered Sarah James, a white girl, sixteen years of age, and fatally shot her mother, Mrs. Julia James, at Pueblo last Thursday, was arrested Saturday at Limon Juncion, Colorado, while seeking friends with whom to hide, and was brought here Sunday morning at 2 o'clock for safe keeping, it being feared that n attempt at lynching would be made if he were returned to Pueblo.
Sheriff Fields fully identified him and brought the prisoner here. Lynn made a statement after his arrest to the effect that he did not intend to kill either Miss James or her mother. He said he was returning home late, and looking in through the window saw Joel O'Neill, a white man, in the house. He cried out to O'Neill, telling him to go home. O'Neill, he said, drew a gun and fired at him. Then, Lynn says, he returned the fire, intending to shoot O'Neill.
O'Neill denies that he had any battle with the negro, and the officers do not credit Lynn's story. At the jail in Limon Lynn begged for a knife so that he might kill himself, saying he would rather kill himself than return to Pueblo.
-Fairplay Flume, Littleton Independent, Longmont Ledger, Wray Gazette
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Well apparently the first articles were a little wrong. Sarah's mother Julia survived.
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May 22, 1908
Pueblo Mob Seeks Negro
Hundreds Gather at County Jail to Try to Lynch Murderer - Foiled by Absence
Only Desist After Committee Has Thoroughly Searched Building -
Denver - A Pueblo dispatch Monday night says: Believing that Jim Lynn, the negro who last Thursday morning here at Pueblo murdered Sarah James, a sixteen-year-old white girl, after which he wounded her mother, is confined in the county jail here, a mob of 400 tonight visited the jail and demanded that Lynn be turned over to them. The mob, after beating down the outer doors, would not disperse until Sheriff McMillan had allowed two committees to search every nook and cranny of the building. The mob was thoroughly organized, and evidently desperately in earnest. Reports have been prevalent all through the evening that Lynn had been brought in to the city, and excitement was high. About 9 o'clock a man on horseback, with a rope trailing along the ground, rode through the streets, calling for men to accompany him to the jail. He was quickly accommodated, and within half an hour a mob surrounded the place, and was threatening to storm the building. Several heavy planks were secured and used as battering rams. The outer iron door was quickly broken and the officers, realizing that the door could not hold much longer, began to parley. The result of the conference was that a committee of five was appointed to search the jail. When it reported, the members of the mob refused to believe the report and began threatening to again storm the doors. Another conference was held and a committee of twelve was sent through the building. When it reported that the man was not there the mob dispersed. Lynn is now in Colorado Springs and will not be brought here until the excitement has quieted. Practically all of the county officers and the police were summoned to the jail tonight as a result of the mob's visit. Feeling here is against Lynn and although his trial has been arranged for June 9th, it is believed to be unsafe to bring him to Pueblo. The trial of Lynn, who was arrested at Limon Saturday night, will open here June 9th. Sarah James, who was killed by the Negro, was buried today, the funeral being largely attended. Julia James, her mother, is holding her own at the hospital and may recover.
-Wray Gazette, Fairplay Flume
May 23, 1908
Bullet Found Near Skull of Mrs. James
Pueblo, May 22 - A bullet which had struck on the skull and glanced under the skin about two inches from the point of entrance was removed yesterday morning from the head of Mrs. Julia James by County Physician C. V. Marmaduke at St. Mary's hospital. Immediately following the shooting by Jim Lynn, Mrs. James was taken to the hospital and the swelling that resulted from the wound prevented the immediate location of the bullet. When the bandages were taken off yesterday afternoon the swelling had gone down and the position of the bullet was plain. It had struck the forehead on the right side and glanced beneath the skin, causing as far as the doctor could tell, no serious injury. The caliber was that (of) a 32 revolver - the same as the gun which Lynn is said to have twisted out of Mrs. James' hand after he forced his way into the room last Thursday morning. The bullet which caused the other wound, having pierced the right lung, Dr. Marmaduke says protrudes the skin at her back. He states that the bullet will not be removed for sometime yet as it would be merely furnishing another opening for infection and the bullet in its present position causes no harm. Mrs. James was yesterday informed that Lynn had been captured. "I am glad they've got the brute," was the reply. Indications at present are that Mrs. James will recover.
-Aspen Democrat
June 18, 1908
Woman shot by Lynn is taken to Seattle
Pueblo, June 17 - Mrs. Julia James, shot by Jim Lynn, who at the same time killed Sarah James will leave for Seattle tomorrow with her five children. Her sister, Mrs. Mary Callahan, came into here today and will take the woman to her own home. She was shot in the head and through the lungs by Lynn, who was convicted of the murder of her daughter.
-Aspen Democrat
June 25, 1908
Mrs. Julia James, who was shot and seriously wounded by James Lynn, who at the same time killed her daughter Sarah, has left Pueblo with her five children for Seattle, Washington, to make their home with her sister. Mrs. James has practically recovered from the wounds Lynn inflicted. Lynn is under conviction for murder with the death penalty hanging over him.
- Golden Transcript
July 2, 1908
Jim Lynn to hang for murder of a Pueblo girl
Pueblo, July 1 - Jim Lynn, the negro who murdered Sarah James, a white girl, May 13, was sentenced to be hanged during the week ending October 10 by Judge Esser, in the district court today. Lynn did not show any emotion, but pretended not to know what it all was about. Hi attorneys made a motion for a new trial but it was overruled.
Lynn broke into the house of Mrs. Julia James and, after an altercation with a white man who was there, drove Mrs. James and her daughter into the street. He then shot both, killing the girl and badly injuring the mother.
Lynn escaped but was captured in Limon. While he was in jail at Colorado Springs, where he was held for safe keeping, a mob broke into the Pueblo jail bent upon lynching him. Mrs. James is now in Seattle.
-Aspen Democrat
Oct 8, 1908
Jim Lynn will pay penalty for crime - may hang Friday.
Pueblo negro gives up hope of clemency or interference by friends to stay sentence.
CANON CITY, Oct 7 - Jim Lynn, the negro who shot and killed Sarah James, a 14 year old white girl, and seriously wounded her mother, Mrs. Julia James, in Pueblo, on May 14, and a month later was found guilty of murder in the first degree before Judge Esser of the district court and the death penalty imposed on him, under the terms of his sentence, will be hanged here some time during the current week, probably Friday night. Lynn has been kept in solitary confinement since his arrival at the penitentiary on June 14, and ha abandoned all hope of intercession by his friends to secure executive clemency or a postponement of the sentence of the court.
For some time after his incarceration Lynn believed that his relatives and associates would exert themselves in an effort to secure for him a new trial or at least a temporary stay of execution but as nothing of the kind has been done he has stoically accepted the situation and is awaiting death with apparent bravery and composure.
Although eighteen men have been hung in the Colorado state penitentiary in accordance with the degree of the law, Lynn will be the second colored man to pay the extreme penalty for his crime, the other one being William H. Davis, No. 2595, who was hanged here Sept. 22, 1891, by Warden W. A. Smith. Davis, like Lynn, was convicted and sentenced to death for murder in Pueblo.
-Aspen Daily Times
October 9, 1908
Negro Murderer to Pay Penalty
Canon City, Oct. 8 - Some time tonight between 8 and 9 o'clock unless Warden Cleghorn's present plans miscarry or are unexpectedly changed, James Lynn, colored, will be hung in the execution chamber of the state penitentiary for the murder of Sarah James, the 14-year-old white girl of Pueblo whose mother he shot and badly wounded at the same time. Lynn had been in the habit of calling at the James home to see the mother and when he found a white man there one night he was told his company was no ------------
(The article was to impossible to read at that point)
-Aspen Democrat
Oct 14, 1908
Negro Murderer will hang tonight
Special to the courier.
Canon City, Colo., - Oct 8 - James Lynn, colored, sentenced to hang for the murder of Sarah James, a young Pueblo girl, will pay the penalty on the gallows at the penitentiary tonight.
-Fort Collins Weekly Courier
There seems to be some conflicting info as to Sarah's age, most of the reports list her as 16, a few list her as 14, and according to the cemetery she's buried in: Date is Interment at age 18.
From the Colorado Public Defender
Catalog of Colorado Executions
JAMES LYNN. October 8, 1908. Pueblo. B-W. Hanging/Broken neck. On May 14, 1908, the front-page headline in the local newspaper shocked Pueblo residents: “Negro Drives Two White Women from Their Home and Shoots Them Down in the Street.” The article identified a neighbor, James Lynn (a Pueblo resident for twenty-two years), as the shooter. Sarah James, sixteen, was dead, and her mother, Julia, was wounded and “expected to die at any moment.” Julia, however, a widow with six children, later recovered. She and her daughter had fled their home when Lynn burst into it at one o’clock in the morning. The wages Sarah earned as a “servant” to a local physician supported the entire family of seven. Lynn, a day laborer, was infatuated with Sarah, and was jealous when another man, who left by the rear door as Lynn came through the front, was spending the night with her. Lynn had a prior arrest for assaulting a man with a poker. After his arrest, Lynn was kept in Colorado Springs to prevent a lynching. His trial occurred exactly one month after the murder, and Lynn maintained his innocence. The jury, however, returned a guilty verdict after only fifteen minutes of deliberation.
I should add that I have found Sarah James is buried in Roselawn Cemetery in Pueblo, Colorado.
I wonder if her mother stayed in Seattle the rest of her life.
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