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Charles Fiester really, really didn’t want to die. Fair enough; most of us don’t. His wife, Nancy, hadn’t wanted to die either; but she’d been trying to leave their 30-year marriage and had taken up with another man, a Mr. Mudd. And, well, one thing had led to another and the next thing anyone knew Fiester was dragging her by the hair to a mud puddle and drowning her in it, while their three youngest children looked on in horror. As a result, on Sept. 30, 1895, he found himself facing a jury in a Josephine County court. And those jurors weren’t turning out to be particularly favorably disposed toward him. They took just 40 minutes coming to a verdict: Guilty of first-degree murder. Fiester wasn’t too worried at first. He seemed pretty sure that he would be able to get the Supreme Court to overturn the conviction or commute it into a prison sentence. Sure enough, a few days before his scheduled execution date, the Supreme Court issued a stay of execution to buy it a little time to review his claim of insanity. And it was just after this that Fiester abruptly went into a catatonic state. He lay there on his bunk, neither speaking nor responding to anyone around him, staring straight at the ceiling, all day. And all the next day. And the next.... (Kerby, Josephine County; 1895) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1803a.fiester-murderer-faked-insanity-515-days-485.html)