The Plea: The True Story of Young Wesley Elkins and His Struggle for Redemption by Bryan, Patricia L.

2023 Midwest Book Awards in Nonfiction - History, Regional, winner

On a moonlit night in 1889, Iowa farmer John Elkins and his young wife, Hattie, were brutally murdered in their bed. Eight days later, their son, eleven-year-old Wesley Elkins, was arrested and charged with murder. The community reeled with shock by both the gruesome details of the homicides and the knowledge of the accused perpetrator--a small, quiet boy weighing just 75 pounds.

Accessible and fast-moving, The Plea delivers a complete, complex, and nuanced narrative of this horrific crime, while shedding light on the legal, social, and political environment of Iowa and the country in the late 1800s and early 1900s.


Author: Patricia L. Bryan, Thomas Wolf
Publisher: University of Iowa Press
Published: 07/21/2022
Pages: 212
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.62lbs
Size: 8.40h x 5.50w x 0.70d
ISBN: 9781609388393

About the Author
Patricia L. Bryan is coauthor of Midnight Assassin: A Murder in America's Heartland (Iowa, 2007) and coeditor of Her America: "A Jury of Her Peers" and Other Stories by Susan Glaspell (Iowa, 2010). She lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Thomas Wolf is coauthor of Midnight Assassin: A Murder in America's Heartland (Iowa, 2007), and author of The Called Shot: Babe Ruth, the Chicago Cubs, and the Unforgettable Major League Baseball Season of 1932. He lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.