Does Wish Sheppard Haunt the Caroline Jail?
THE ALLEGED CRIME In July of 1915, Aloysius Wish Sheppard was arrested for raping young Mildred Clark of Federalsburg. Later that year, he was convicted and sentenced to death by hanging. Wish Sheppard lived in Federalsburg with his mother and was approximately 19 years old at the time. He confessed to the crime, but later recanted stating he was coerced into confessing threatened with being released into the hands of an angry mob if he didnt confess. And the mob was angry. Originally, the hanging was set to be held inside a barn near the Denton jail and courthouse, with no public witnesses, only a few close to the case. However, the venue was changed to outdoors once rumors surfaced about a mob, hungry to watch the rapist hang, intending to burn the barn down the night before the scheduled execution. He was hanged from gallows erected on a slight slope behind the Caroline County Jail in Denton just along the Choptank River. Hundreds attended the hanging and observed the gory event fro
