Jeannace June Freeman
Jeannace June Freeman was the first woman ever sentenced to death in the U.S. state of Oregon, and remained the only woman ever sentenced to death in Oregon until 2011. Her conviction that was upheld by the Oregon Supreme Court, though she was not in fact executed.
She was sentenced to death in 1961, after throwing her partner's two children into the Crooked River Gorge, at Peter Skene Ogden State Scenic Viewpoint. When Oregon voters abolished capital punishment in 1964, Gov. Mark Hatfield commuted her sentence to life imprisonment. Freeman changed her name to Wilma Lin Rhule, and was incarcerated again later in life. She died in 2003.
