Clemency File: Drinking, Smoking, ‘Unwholesome’ Ties

Westfield Superintendent Anna Kramer (right) greets a women’s group that toured the New York women’s prison in 1962. (Reporter-Dispatch, White Plains, New York) 

Did the superintendent of Westfield State Farm for Women dash Madeline Webb’s hopes for clemency in 1958?

That’s one of the surprises buried in a 750-page file I recently received from the New York State Archives. It documents Madeline’s many clemency petitions at Westfield, where she was serving a life sentence for a 1942 murder in New York City.

Anna Kramer had just taken over as head of the prison in Bedford Hills, New York, following the retirement of Henrietta Additon, a long-time advocate for Madeline’s freedom.

Officially, Kramer also supported clemency for Madeline. Unofficially, maybe she didn’t.

In June 1958, guards found a quantity of heroin in cans of facial powder that had been sent to an inmate at Westfield. Correspondence in the file shows Madeline claimed credit for tipping off Kramer to the smuggling method.

Kramer told Correction Commissioner Thomas McHugh she couldn’t recall such a tip-off and suspected Madeline was trying to boost her case for clemency. Kramer added that guards had recently searched Madeline’s cell because they suspected prisoners were “drinking and smoking” in the library, which Madeline operated.

Nothing was found in the search, but McHugh made sure to include the library rumor in a report to the office of Governor Averell Harriman.

McHugh added, apropos nothing, “it is suspected by institutional officials that she (Madeline) has recently developed an unwholesome relationship with an inmate by the name of Lea Schultz, who was sentenced from White Plains, N.Y., and who is suspected of being a homosexual.”

Leah (not Lea) was a 32-year-old flight attendant serving a two- to three-year term for burglary.

Citing McHugh’s report, the Parole Board urged Governor Harriman to reject Madeline’s clemency petition that year.

Harriman did so.