King then said that Grace had offered him a bribe. “If you will confess that you did this crime you will never be locked up long, I have it fixed with the governor,” is what King said Grace allegedly told him. “It will be down in black and white. There is $4600 in Albion and I will see that you get $3000 of it.”
King admitted that sounded good. So he said he lied and told Grace that he and O’Connell did the deed. But now he felt that was wrong.
“I told her we done it and I told her the wrong story,” he said.
“You now say this is entirely untrue,” asked the reporter.
“Yes, sir,” said King.
As Grace made a direct appeal to Governor Whitman, the case—and her defense team—was all a scramble. Kohn and the others were convinced that King’s turnaround was purely political. Kohn and Sophie began working again on an appeal for Charlie. Inez had left for a speaking tour but was checking in regularly over the telephone.
Grace knew that the only way to fix this was to talk to King again, who was still in jail. She knew she could reverse his course, but her every request was denied. Grace had no court order so the sheriff couldn’t let her speak to him. But a thought occurred to Sheriff Bartlett. He went over to King’s cell and asked him if he wanted to see anyone.
“I wouldn’t deny myself to anyone,” King said.
Bartlett brought in the visitor. She was dressed entirely in black.
“I’ve expected you these three weeks,” King said, unsurprised. Grace had to admit that King looked better and didn’t smell of booze. They held the interview in Sheriff Bartlett’s bedroom because the lawyers feared his cell might be wired with a Dictograph machine.
This time, Grace had no time, nor tolerance, for pleasantries. She sat down right in front of King and asked the questions herself.
“King, do you still say I gave you money to make the confession? You’re an honest man, King. You can’t look me in the eye and say I gave you money.”
“I can, too,” King said, looking away from her. “I’d never be here today if I hadn’t met you and been offered money to confess.”
“King, that’s a lie,” said Grace. “You know I never offered you money. Before this case is settled you’ll admit it. Look me in the eyes and tell me you were given money by me.”
King refused both requests.
A month later, Charles Stielow was denied a new trial and was given an unprecedented seventh version of his original death sentence, to be carried out on December 11, 1916. They were running out of hope. Meanwhile, Inez was still in California on a speaking tour. She was riling up a packed suffrage rally in Los Angeles when she keeled over from exhaustion. Consigned to the same rest that doctors had prescribed to Sophie Loeb, Inez called her old friend from her bed to check on the case. When Sophie told her that Stielow was still on the Last Mile and that the governor was debating a commutation, Inez was furious. She talked to her father and made him promise to stay in contact with the Stielow team and render them any assistance they needed. “You will see to it, won’t you,” she finally asked Sophie, “that every effort is made to cheat the electric chair of this innocent man?” Sophie agreed, catching something different in her voice. Inez died on November 25, 1916.
Sophie Loeb wrote a eulogy in the Evening World titled “The Example of Inez Milholland.” Loeb wrote of her “dear, dear friend” by telling readers that you could always find her not in the usual spots for women, but in asylums, Sing Sing, and political marches. “How easy it might have been for so lovely a creature as she to sit idly by,” Sophie wrote. “But no. She could not enjoy the world while it suffered … she went forth to fight and used every asset to gain something for others, even unto the very end.” Inez, according to Sophie, was
An example for the idle rich girl who is poor indeed, whose time hangs heavy because it is full of nothingness. An example for the pretty girl who believes that all life means is to smile and dress. An example of the woman of brains who hides them under her marcel wave because she has become a parasite. An example for the woman who thinks that she can gain love when she acquires a man’s bank account. An example for all womanhood.
Four days after Inez’s death, Governor Whitman agreed to chair a public hearing on the Stielow case. Grace argued vigorously that law enforcement had completely mishandled the case from the start, resulting in a fabricated confession from Stielow. She again referred to her own confession from King, which was made in the presence of several witnesses. Grace also pointed out a clue that she had noticed all the way back when she first met Charlie Stielow. Whitman listened.
A few days later, the governor came out to address reporters. He had made his decision.
“I realize that a governor,” Whitman said, “who interferes with a judgment of the courts of this state, without good and sufficient cause, is himself committing a lawless act.” He continued, even as hearts sank all around him. “I believe that Stielow is guilty,” Whitman said. “And I believe that King’s confession is a lie.” In their heads, the reporters were already making plans for the dreaded final trip to Sing Sing. Whitman said that even though he believed all of those things, the principal facts were not about his opinion. Whitman said he knew, after all his trial experience, that “no jury in this country would have convicted Stielow of murder in the first degree with the King confession before it.” The reporters almost stopped writing. “I commute the sentence of the court to imprisonment for life,” said Governor Whitman.
Soon after, Whitman conducted his own secret interview with King. When King swore up and down that he was innocent, the governor slapped down on his desk a pack of letters that King had sent from jail. They had never reached their destinations. These messy letters had been written to all manner of friends and accomplices. A November 15, 1916, letter from King to Joe Kinnie read:
Friend Joe Kinnie I hear that you Been squealing on me. Know you know that if you tell on me it would Bee the way that they would send me to the Chare. You know what I said to you at parkers Livery. Know one knows But you and you Can save me from the Chare.