William Perry Leeth

Other Events:

• Name: Shorty Leeth
• Census: 1880, Rushcreek Township, Logan County, Ohio, United States; as Wm. Perry Leeth, son, in the household of James Leeth
• Newspaper: 10 Oct 1936; Mansfield News-Journal (Mansfield, Ohio), 10 October 1936, p1
• Newspaper: 16 Oct 1936; Mansfield News-Journal (Mansfield, Ohio), 16 October 1936, p1

Notes:

Newspaper:

Denies Cruelty
Father Jailed for Sending Son to School in Chains.
—A step-father held for padlocking a 10-1/2 foot log chain around the frail body of 10-year ol Robert Feucht insisted today "I have always tried to be good to the boy."
—William Leeth was held in jail whithout charge while county authorities sought a new home for his stepson, who trudged to school yesterday dragging the chain.
—Leeth admitted to Probate Judge Paul Capell that he chained Robert to a kitchen stove because "he ran away."
—Robert told the judge Leeth locked the chain around his neck because he went into the kitchen to get a piece of pumpkin pie denied him at meal time.

Newspaper:

Judge Scores Parent; Homes Offered Son
Ohioan Sentenced to Serve 90 Days After Youth Drags Log Chain to School.
—Probate court officials investigated offers of homes for ten-year-old Bobby Feucht from all over the country today while the boy's stepfather, William P. Leeth, 55, began a 90-day jail sentence for padlocking him to the kitchen stove and forcing him to the kitchen stove and forcing him to drag a 15-foot log chain to school.
—Probate Judge Paul R. Capell, scoring Leeth in a lengthy decision, passed the sentence last night and disclosed receipt of numerous additional offers of homes.
Charged With Torture
—Leeth declared when first held last week that he chained the boy because "he ran away." Probate officers placed in charge of "torture and cruel punishment" against Leeth.
—Judge Capell said that investigation had shown the boy to be "incorrigible" and deserving of some punishment, but "not to the extent of placing him in chains, which constitutes cruelty and torture and for which you owe a debt to society in the form of punishment."
—"If you were a person of average intelligence," he told Leeth, "penalty in the maximum would be made, but the report of psychiatrists who have examined you and found you to be subnormal warrants consideration."
Don't Condemn Child
—He asserted parents' insufficiencies frequently were more responsible for children going wrong than the children's own delinquencies and added, "when parents permit conditions to grow and exist and if the child happens to step out of our ideas of right action, we can not condemn the child."
—It was charged that the boy was chained after he went into the kitchen to get a piece of pumpkin pie denied him at dinner.

Family/Spouse: Luretta Ann Feucht. Luretta was born on 11 Jun 1893; died on 30 Jan 1960. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]