Raleigh, Jan. 31—Sarah Wyckoff, 76 years old, reached the end of life sentence in the state prison today when she died after 42 years imprisonment, having declined a pardon at the hands of five governors and having lived to learned that a death-bed confession had completely exonerated her of the charge of murdering her husband.
Forty-two years ago Sarah Wyckoff entered the State prison to serve a life sentence, as the convicted accomplice in the murder of Wesley Wyckoff in Alexander county, in the mountains of North Carolina. The convicted principal, a negro, was hanged. Three years ago from the mountains came word that a death-bed confession had absolived the woman of connection with the tragedy. For the fifth time she refused a pardon, explaining that she was being treted well, that time had shattered all her relations with her family in the mountains, and that she preferred to spend her last days in prison.
From the front page of the Winston-Salem Journal, Tuesday, Feb. 1, 1921
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