The Time Capsule: Life and death in Cellblock 100
It was 80 years ago about now, with Thanksgiving approaching, that Arch Breeding was shackled, taken from his jail cell, and led up the stairs of the courthouse. With his attorney, Leroy Johnson, Breeding stood before a district court judge and became the only person in the history of Montgomery County to be sentenced to death.
Rejecting his lawyer’s advice to plead not guilty and present a defense, Breeding repeatedly told the court, the press, and anyone he spoke with that he had murdered his wife and deserved the electric chair.
This tells us Arch didn’t study much law. Iowa, even in 1934, was going green. The state conserved electricity by using a rope. While the end result would have been the same, a few weeks on death row convinced Breeding this wasn’t a great place to be. He modified his story, saying his wife had been partly responsible. He wouldn’t have shot her if she’d have called off the divorce, so the crime wasn’t entirely his fault. He also noted that a few weeks earlier, during a domestic altercation, police had subdued him by a rap on the head with a sap. His mind, he said, had not worked well after that.
A citizen’s group from Red Oak, motivated by their moral objection to the death penalty, began a legal and political effort to spare Breeding from the gallows. What transpired over the next few months remains an intriguing legal drama. The two primary players would be Clyde Herring, then Iowa’s governor, and a Red Oak attorney named Paul Richards. County Attorney Lester Orsborn and Leroy Johnson, Breeding’s lawyer, got the interviews and were quoted and referred to repeatedly in news stories as the appeal process played out. The real key, however, was held by Richards—and the final decision-maker was Herring.
During the 1990s my work took me to the Ft. Madison Penitentiary several times. One of the stops was in what was known as Cellblock 100. It was then unoccupied, but remained much as it had been during the 17 months Arch Breeding spent there.
Isolated from other buildings in the prison complex, Cellblock 100 was a foreboding concrete and stone building. There were two entry doors, both plate steel, both having numerous locks inside and out. There were two tiers of maximum security cells, each tier two cells wide and, as I recall, about a dozen long. Although there’d been some deviation due to population and need, the lower tier was primarily for the most violent and high-risk offenders; those who could not be permitted to mingle with other inmates. The upper tier was death row.
Breeding’s cell was said to have been farthest west, facing north. On the east end was a cell containing the shower, where Breeding was taken every other day. It was on this end of the building that the gallows were erected. On execution days a tall curtain screened the east part of the building from the cells. Folding chairs were set up and witnesses brought in—and the corpse taken out—through the back door. Statute required that the sheriff of the county of conviction pull the lever, so Montgomery County Sheriff John Conkle was, on three different occasions, prepared to do his duty. Each time Breeding was granted a stay. Each time, as the day approached, Arch Breeding could see the gallows when he showered. He was weighed and measured and from his cell he heard the sounds as the hangman tested equipment.
The Supreme Court, in a majority ruling, found with the lower court. Gov. Herring was the last chance for clemency. In February of 1936 Breeding’s only child, Bernice, then 19, was called to a meeting in the governor’s office. Later events indicate the purpose was to prepare her for the worst. Just days after the meeting, Gov. Herring announced his decision. He wrote that Arch Breeding had not only committed premeditated murder, his victim had been the one person he had taken a sacred vow to love, honor, and protect. For this he deserved the sentence rendered, and would hang on Monday, April 27, 1936.
There was no other avenue of appeal. Herring’s decision was issued in the strongest language possible. For him to change his mind at the eleventh hour was unthinkable—and yet he did.
Why? Paul Richards, in his minority opinion as a State Supreme Court Justice, played a role. Political influence did as well, and we can read between the lines and make educated guesses to fill in some of the blanks. I doubt, though, that anyone now living knows all the details.
Arch Breeding would live out his natural life, eventually being released to come home to Red Oak to die. His final resting place is in Evergreen Cemetery, where he lays next to the wife he shot to death in 1934.
Roy Marshall is a local historian and columnist for the Red Oak Express. He can be contacted at news@redoakexpress.com.