AN INVITATION TO A HANGING

NORMAN  V.  KELLY

 

Go back with me to the Third of April, 1926 as you sit on your porch on Moss Avenue in Peoria, Illinois. You are opening your mail when a letter comes to you from the Peoria County Sheriff.  Since you are a pretty politically active person you are happy to get the letter.  There is going to be an execution by hanging here in Peoria, Illinois and in order to be a witness the Sheriff had to send you a personal invitation.  You eagerly open it and there it is. Oh, there will be hundreds of other people there at the hanging but only fifty of them will be allowed into the County Jail.  There, up on the third floor a gallows has been built just outside the holding cell occupied by one Jose Ortiz, a convicted and condemned killer.  The sheriff carefully selected his choices for the fifty witnesses, all men, and he was certain they would all come for the ‘Public Hanging.’  He was absolutely correct.

 

                                           April   15, 1926

 

It was a little after eight-thirty in the morning when you stepped off the streetcar at Main and Jefferson. What you saw stopped you dead in your tracks because over at the courthouse square all you saw were people, hundreds and hundreds of people.  They were milling about, watching each other.  It took you over twenty minutes to finally get through the throng and in front of the Peoria County Jail.  Another twenty minutes to get in line with the other men that held the same invitation that you did.  Finally the county sheriff’s deputies allowed the fifty hand-picked men inside.  Now what?  While you are waiting maybe

I should tell you a little bit about “Mexican Joe,” which is the way that Jose Ortiz was known here in Peoria, Illinois.

 

Joe Ortiz lived in a shack in what folks called the “Mexican Colony,” which we now call Morton Square. He always said he was a descendant of an Aztec king, but no one ever believed him.  He was just a disheveled, scary man that most people tried to avoid. He lived in a shack near an alley that did not have electricity, water or anything else.  He lived more like an animal than a human being.  He held an occasional job here and at one time worked at Commercial Solvents.  One day he mangled his finger and the company got him to a hospital.  The next day they called him in, fired him and gave him $86.00.  Joe bought a bottle of whiskey, a pearl-handed pistol and went back to his shack.  He never had to seek another job; robbery and intimidation were good enough for him.

Across the alley lived a seventeen year old girl named Eniliana Martinez. Joe fell in love with her and chose her as his very own.  Of course Eniliana never knew the bearded, scary man, but that did not bother Joe.  One day he heard her talking to a ‘white man’ named Virgil Hill.  Through Joe’s alcoholic haze he deemed Virgil a threat to his true love.  He grabbed his gun and headed toward Virgil who was now walking down the street.  He was not aware of the crazed, drunken threat until Joe was but a few feet from him.  When Virgil turned around, Joe shot him in the face, smiling as he saw the young man fall to the ground. Heroic Joe Ortiz walked back to Eniliana expecting praise for his knightly deed.  Instead she lashed out at him screaming at the top of her lungs.  “Oh, you like the white man, huh?” he said as he shot her first in the arm then the right shoulder. As she fell to the ground screaming he shot her in the neck and then the stomach.  All this was witnessed by more than a dozen people.  Joe ran to his shack…got his coat, hid the gun and walked toward the Illinois River.  Ed Van Sickle and Herman Truck took out after Joe and jumped him as he walked along the bank of the river.  Soon the entire City of Peoria knew about the Aztec Prince and his heinous crimes.

 

                                           THE TRIAL

 

On March 23, 1925 the Peoria County Court House was bulging at the seams as the jury was picked to hear the murder case of Joe Ortiz. It was a wild, agitated crowd that stood outside the courthouse trying to hear something… anything… since they had no hope of getting inside.  It took little time to conclude the trial and on March 26, 1925 the local newspapers had a field day selling their newspapers.

               PEORIA SLAYER GETS MUST HANG VERDICT

 

There were jubilant celebrations downtown, mostly in the local taverns and saloons as local folks expected to see this ‘animal’ hanged in very short order.  But…they were wrong. They were stunned that some higher court granted some kind of appeal and the local folks were in a fowl mood indeed.  There was talk of storming the jail and hanging that ‘bastard to the tallest tree.’  Of course there was always that kind of talk in the local taverns, but Mexican Joe was more than safe.

 

                                              APRIL  15,  1926

 

So there you are; you are inside the jail with the other fifty men and you are told that you can watch on the third floor, or the second floor or the first floor.  You chose the first floor where two doctors and some deputies were waiting for the body of Ortiz to come to a screeching halt not eight feet from where you were standing.  What is the delay?  No Sheriff!  That’s right the sheriff is not there yet and the nervous witnesses are looking at each other and staring up to the third floor, wondering what’s up. Finally at 10:11 A.M., the sheriff appeared.

 

It is eerily quiet now and suddenly from above the mumbling of the old padre is heard… then silence again.  The sheriff asked Joe if he wanted to say something but nobody heard what he said.  The hangman put the black mask drape over Joe and affixed the rope.

 

10:18 A.M.  The trap door made a loud noise as it snapped open and down came Joe Ortiz hurtling to the first floor.  After the shocked guests stifled their gasps, the body of Joe Ortiz began to rotate slowly clock wise then counter clock wise…then stopped.  There was

not a sound to be heard.

 

10:23 A.M.  Most of the witnesses had turned away by now; some even walked away.  Not you.  You stayed right there and took it all in.  Both physicians examined the hanging man’s body.  They nodded at each other and declared aloud that Joe Ortiz was dead!

Editor’s Note: Norm is a Peoria Historian and True Crime Writer who contributes monthly to   Adventure Sports Outdoors.         norman.kelly@sbcglobal.net