Oliver Canfield pretended to lean over and kiss his sweetheart when he instead shot her. After he was arrested, he requested to see her as she lay dying. His request was granted, and upon seeing her he openly wished he could finish her off.
Mollie died of her injuries and a mob soon took care of the rest.
From 1884:
He Played the Fiend
The death of Mrs. Mollie Gherkin yesterday morning, the victim of Oliver Canfield’s brutal treachery, threw this community into a high state of excitement. It will be remembered that Canfield called the woman to him, put his arm around her neck as if to kiss her, and then shot her. This occurred on Tuesday night of last week.
She was conscious but once after she was shot.
Yesterday, Canfield, who is in jail, told Officer Rumer that he would like to see the girl, and he was granted the privilege.
When he entered the room where she was lying, he looked at her and laughed. Officer Rumer took him out of the room and asked him what he thought about it.
“I would like to finish her,” said Canfield, with a fiendish grin, and then he burst out laughing.
The excitement that began when it was learned that the girl had died, and further learned that Canfield, on visiting her, laughed and said he would like to finish her, resulted in Canfield being mobbed last night.
It was shortly after midnight that the party of lynchers, masked with white handkerchiefs, proceeded from their rendezvous to the jail, fully equipped with heavy iron sledge hammers and a rope.
There were no great attempts at resistance by the jail officials, and none by the police, who knew that any interference would be futile.
The work had all been mapped out at the place of meeting, and every man knew his place.
There was no shouting, no loud issuing of orders. In less than half an hour the jail had been forced and Canfield taken from his cell.
Once outside the jail the lynching party filed off with their prisoner toward Dalton & Montgomery’s lumber yard, but Canfield begged to let him die as near as possible to the place where the murder was committed.
Accordingly he was taken to a telegraph pole in front of the house where poor Mollie’s corpse lay.
He acted coolly, said he had prepared as well as he could for death, but was not sure as to what he would meet beyond the grave.
Anyway, he was not sorry for killing Mollie and if he had to do it over he would do it again.
He confessed to have shot his sweetheart because of a little personal quarrel growing out of jealousy.
He felt that he deserved his punishment, and only desired that his body be given to his mother.
Meantime, the rope had been thrown over the crossbeam of the telegraph pole.
Canfield had been pinioned and blindfolded, and at the sound of command Canfield was rushed up ten feet into the air and left dangling. He died of suffocation without a struggle.
Officer Heidenreich, who had followed the party, was warned away before the final act.
Before leaving the spot the crowd pinned a note to the body, warning the coroner not to cut it down till noon.
All the city has been out to see it this morning. The white handkerchief tied over the face conceals the distorted features, but the dangling body is a gruesome sight. Yet everybody says it served him right.
According to the statement of the Sheriff, Canfield, who was mobbed this morning, was almost dead before being taken from jail. He had not eaten a bite for three days, being sick with a loathsome disease, which had assumed dangerous proportions. The body of the dead man will be transferred to Washington today.
Source: Daily evening bulletin. (Maysville [Ky.]), 25 June 1884.
