Oxford, Georgia resident, W. R. Branham, writes the Kansas State Prison Commission of Topeka (Shawnee County) for information on the effect the abolition of capital punishment has had on murder rates in Kansas. Kansas abolished its first capital punishment law in 1907 and did not reinstate legal executions until the 1935. Prior to 1907, the state hanged nine persons under state law between 1863 and 1870. No state executions occurred between 1870 and 1932, although historians suggest that as many as ninety illegal executions (lynching) occurred in the state during that period. See William Eaton Hutchison to W. R. Branham, March 23, 1925.
Kansas Memory
Kansas Historical Society
W. R. Branham to the Kansas State Prison Commission