Governor Pardons Ves Wingler after Three Years for Murder July 29,1925

Ves Wingler is Pardoned. . . Sentenced 30 Long Years

Raleigh, July 29—Today at the direction of Governor Angus W. McLean, the gates of the state’s Prison were opened and Ves Wingler of Wilkes county, serving a 30-year sentence on a charge of murder, walked out a free man. It is the first time that Governor McLean has exercises the full pardon power and is one of the first times in recent years that the chief executive of the state has set aside the verdict of a jury and the sentence of a judge without reserving the privilege of revoking the parole or pardon.

Wingler was convicted at the august term of the superior court of Wilkes county, 1922, on a charge of second degree murder and sentenced to 30 years in the state’s prison. To the prisoner it was a life sentence, for at the time of his conviction he was 60 years of age. The crime for which he was convicted—the slaying of his young wife—was alleged to have been committed 29 years prior to his indictment and conviction.

And now, the governor finds that he was convicted on one man’s testimony, testimony that had been withheld for practically a third of a century and which reached the light of day and the realm of judicial action upon an inspiration that is so apparently of malice and revenge.

The 1,500-word account which the governor relates in issuing the pardon, the third full pardon of his administration makes an absorbingly interesting story. Its outline briefly is this:

Wingler’s first wife, whom he had married in 1891, died two years later from injuries which Wingler said she sustained in a fall from the loft of their house. A coroner’s jury held an inquest and attributed her death to the fall.

Wingler later married another woman of the neighborhood and maintained his residence in the same place. For 29 years he lived in the community, rearing a family which included a child by his first wife. Three years ago, John Sheppard, of the community, claiming that he had “got religion,” made an affidavit before a justice of the peace alleging that Ves Wingler, immediately following the death of his first wife, in 1893, had confessed to him that he had killed his wife with a mattock.

Wingler was indicted and upon Sheppard’s testimony he was convicted and sentenced to 30 years. It was shown in the defense testimony, however, that John Sheppard had made his affidavit after Ves Wingler had issued a warrant for Sheppard’s son whom he charged with assaulting his 9-year-old daughter. John Sheppard’s son fled and is still a fugitive from justice.

From the front page of the North Wilkesboro Hustler, Wednesday, Aug. 5, 1925

newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn92072938/1925-08-05/ed-1/seq-1/