Laura Jane Harvey Murder: Party Twenty

Perhaps as to be expected when a sentence that excited the general public wasn't carried out in front of the general public, McComb still lived on in the news for a time. Several people claimed that McComb was still alive in the days following the hanging and one woman who saw his body on display afterwards at the Court House claimed McComb had winked at her. Yet another woman claimed that McComb had laughed in her face. 

The Rockford newspaper published a brief stating that McComb's remains had reached them three days later on the Monday following his execution and that they had been given to his relatives to commit to McComb's final resting place. I have found no word of where that final resting place ended up being. 

McComb had been prophetic about future reported confessions because a couple weeks later, one of McComb's lawyers related that McComb had confessed over the course of many conversations they had over the courses of his trials. According to M. J. Williams, Esq., McComb had revealed that he had indeed been in Ottumwa with Lawrence and the girl at the time charged, that he had gone to Eddyville with them and crossed the river with them in the wagon, that Lawrence was dead and that he had left both of them behind in this county. Williams then theorized that if not privy to who killed Lawrence and Harvey, he must have been the one to commit the deed. 

Five years after McComb's execution and ten years to the day after Laura Harvey's murder, a former classmate, Mrs. L. Matilda Fletcher,  sent a poem to the newspaper for publication. It read:

The darkly flowing river, that

Glides by Ottumwa's feet,

Hears every morn for me a wall,

A wall with woe replete.

For one I love, you found her there,

In the mornings misty light,

And dropper your stranger tears, upon

Poor Laura, cold and white.

And I, I caught the fearful news

O'er the mystic wife, and wept,

That foully murdered, cold and dead

A cherished playmate slept.

I knew her well, a calm sweet mind,

Executive and deep,

Yet tinged with romance, till sometimes

Throughout her soil, would sweep

A wild desire to do something,

Should take the world by storm,

The world, that only knew of her

To work her a fearful harm.

An active, restless, yearning soul

Without a single sin,

What wonder, that her untried feet,

Slipped o'er the brink of shame.

Poor Laura with her tender smile

In the freshness of her bloom,

Struck down by the vile assassin's hand,

And laid in an early tomb.

The country rang with wild alarm,

Bribe after bribe of gold,

Was offered until those who would,

The mystery unfold.

Time onward past, you caught at last

The villain doubly dyed,

And vengeance swept your every heart

Into its wildest tide.

His wretched soul, soon fled the earth,

By the gallows fearful throe,

Sights of relief escaped your hearts

When justice laid him low.

Will you believe, when I assert,

The criminals are still,

Tho' not unpunished, free today

To walk the earth at will?

Who poisoned with frivolities?

Her young heard genial flow?

Who taught her that the whole of life

Was to dress and catch a beau?

Of earth they streets are thronged today,

With parents, who like them,

Take from the hand of God a life,

A fair, immortal gem.

And wreck it, on the frowning reefs,

Of idleness and woe,

Then horror smitten stand and say,

"Another dealt the blow."

Of hear my words if you would keep,

The young heart fresh and clean,

Build 'round its holy faculties,

A fair, enduring screen.

Wrought from the iron bars of toil,

With gleaming pearl between,

Of Hope, of love, of patient throught,

Then happiness serene.

Shall fold its snowy pinions, bout

The blooming life, and truth

Clothed ever more the expanding soul

In liver of youth.

Benjamin A. McComb was hung on February 17, 1865 and would be the last one to suffer that fate for some time. Five years later, Iowa would abolish capital punishment and that lasted for about five years before due to an increase in murders, Iowa reinstated it again in 1870.  Still it was not used for another 17 years before Chester Bellows, convicted of murdering Alice Waterman, was hung to death in 1887 and he has the distinction of being the last person to die by hanging in Iowa. It would not be until 1965 before Iowa abolished capital punishment in its entirety and it remains that way to this day.