Made Criminal by Sight of Prison
February 24, 1906
Summary
A criminal claims he was destined to go to jail because an “influence beyond his control made him bad.”
Transcription
Strange Dual Existence of An Iowa Man
Raised in Shadow of Jail
Crimes Committed by Him Laid to This Fact-- Convicted of Killing Father in Law, but Paroled by Governor.
Anamosa, Ia-- Condemned to be a criminal by the fact that he chanced to live within sight of the state penitentiary, led into a Jekyll and Hyde life by an irresistible attraction drawing him toward the prison doors, Emmett Seymour, paroled by GOv. Cummings from a life sentence for murder, will spend the remainder of his days where he can never see a penitentiary and will endeavor to free himself from the mysterious spell cast over his life.
The ties of church, the instincts of good breeding, the full knowledge of the consequences of his life, were insufficient to restrain this unfortunate man from committing the acts he knew would put him within the walls of the Anamosa prison, upon which he had looked every day since he was a mere boy.
“Seymour’s case is a rare one, but I believe he speaks the truth when he says an influence beyond his control made him bad, and it is reasonable to suppose that the prison was responsible for the influence.” said Dr. Grant J. Ross, of Sioux City, an alienist of state reputation, after talking with the man just paroled.
“It is my belief the young Seymour got the idea into his mind while a mere boy that he was a hereditary criminal. He said he would look at his face in the glass when a boy and wonder if it was the face of a criminal. Then the little crimes gaben, and Seymour gradually persuaded himself that he was predestined to be a great criminal and to be one of the boys in striped in Anamosa prison.”
The crime for which Seymour was serving a life sentence was the killing of his father-in-law, George Fifield, whose body was found on the railroad take a short distance from the home of his son-in-law. During the search for the murderer suspicious settled on the son-in-law as the guilty person. He was well to do, respected by everyone in Anamosa and active in church work. But finally he was arrested for stealing, and at the trial it came out that Seymour had been leading a dull existence and had committed many crimes and had stolen things from his most intimate friends.
Emmett Seymour, a pillar in the Baptist church and a man of great integrity, was not the man who would be suspected or wholesale, high-handed thievery, but it was made plain that he had two personalities. ONe night he was caught with a bob sled in a lumber yard, and whipped up his horses to escape. A careful examination showed a notch in one of the runners and there was a ridge left in the snow behind the fleeting bob sled. It was followed ot the Fifield home, but Seymour had fled without unhitching the horses. The sled was loaded with lumber.
In the cellar was found sugar by the barrel, coffee by the sack, canned fruit by the case and everything which could be of uses which could be stolen from a grocery store.
Fifield was believed to have discovered the peculations of his son-in-law, and as he was an honest man the court found a motive for his murder in the trial of Emmett Seymour for the larceny of a load of lumber. It was believed that Fifield would have exposed his daughter’s husband had he lived. But dead men tell no tales. Fifield died. Seymour was arrested while working in a livery barn in Red BUd, Il., and while in jail awaiting trial it is said by another prisoner he confessed to murdering a man.
It was asserted that he could not sleep, something was on his mind, and that one morning before daybreak, in his anguish and misery, he told the story. This was never admitted by Seymour, and he was brought to trial on the grand-larceny charge, found guilty and sentenced to three years in Anamosa. When he had served his term he was met at the prison gates and arrested for murder. At the trial he was found guilty of murder and sentenced to spend his life behind the walls which he had looked upon practically all his life.
Raised in Shadow of Jail
Crimes Committed by Him Laid to This Fact-- Convicted of Killing Father in Law, but Paroled by Governor.
Anamosa, Ia-- Condemned to be a criminal by the fact that he chanced to live within sight of the state penitentiary, led into a Jekyll and Hyde life by an irresistible attraction drawing him toward the prison doors, Emmett Seymour, paroled by GOv. Cummings from a life sentence for murder, will spend the remainder of his days where he can never see a penitentiary and will endeavor to free himself from the mysterious spell cast over his life.
The ties of church, the instincts of good breeding, the full knowledge of the consequences of his life, were insufficient to restrain this unfortunate man from committing the acts he knew would put him within the walls of the Anamosa prison, upon which he had looked every day since he was a mere boy.
“Seymour’s case is a rare one, but I believe he speaks the truth when he says an influence beyond his control made him bad, and it is reasonable to suppose that the prison was responsible for the influence.” said Dr. Grant J. Ross, of Sioux City, an alienist of state reputation, after talking with the man just paroled.
“It is my belief the young Seymour got the idea into his mind while a mere boy that he was a hereditary criminal. He said he would look at his face in the glass when a boy and wonder if it was the face of a criminal. Then the little crimes gaben, and Seymour gradually persuaded himself that he was predestined to be a great criminal and to be one of the boys in striped in Anamosa prison.”
The crime for which Seymour was serving a life sentence was the killing of his father-in-law, George Fifield, whose body was found on the railroad take a short distance from the home of his son-in-law. During the search for the murderer suspicious settled on the son-in-law as the guilty person. He was well to do, respected by everyone in Anamosa and active in church work. But finally he was arrested for stealing, and at the trial it came out that Seymour had been leading a dull existence and had committed many crimes and had stolen things from his most intimate friends.
Emmett Seymour, a pillar in the Baptist church and a man of great integrity, was not the man who would be suspected or wholesale, high-handed thievery, but it was made plain that he had two personalities. ONe night he was caught with a bob sled in a lumber yard, and whipped up his horses to escape. A careful examination showed a notch in one of the runners and there was a ridge left in the snow behind the fleeting bob sled. It was followed ot the Fifield home, but Seymour had fled without unhitching the horses. The sled was loaded with lumber.
In the cellar was found sugar by the barrel, coffee by the sack, canned fruit by the case and everything which could be of uses which could be stolen from a grocery store.
Fifield was believed to have discovered the peculations of his son-in-law, and as he was an honest man the court found a motive for his murder in the trial of Emmett Seymour for the larceny of a load of lumber. It was believed that Fifield would have exposed his daughter’s husband had he lived. But dead men tell no tales. Fifield died. Seymour was arrested while working in a livery barn in Red BUd, Il., and while in jail awaiting trial it is said by another prisoner he confessed to murdering a man.
It was asserted that he could not sleep, something was on his mind, and that one morning before daybreak, in his anguish and misery, he told the story. This was never admitted by Seymour, and he was brought to trial on the grand-larceny charge, found guilty and sentenced to three years in Anamosa. When he had served his term he was met at the prison gates and arrested for murder. At the trial he was found guilty of murder and sentenced to spend his life behind the walls which he had looked upon practically all his life.
About this article
Source
Location on Page
Upper Right Quadrant
Topic
Contributed By
Emma Roberts
Citation
“Made Criminal by Sight of Prison,” Black Virginia: The Richmond Planet, 1894-1909, accessed January 20, 2026, https://blackvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/386.