been hanged with still around his neck. The only two local morticians refused to take the deceased Everest and his body was left on the jail floor until the next day, on November 13, 1919. Later published versions, uncritically following the account published in "The Centralia Conspiracy" by the IWW member Ralph Chaplin six months after the massacre, said that Everest had been castrated before he was lynched. According to the author Tom Copeland, Chaplin and his co-author Walker Smith either fabricated the story or were the first to repeat the allegation in print. A police report, filed on the day after the lynching, casts doubt on the castration story. The report includes a set of fingerprints and a description of the body but makes no mention of castration. The Lewis County Coroner, Dr. David Livingston, who led the parade on Armistice Day, was reported to be libeled. He was said by Wobbly sympathizers to be the person who had performed the castration of Wesley with a straight razor on the drive to the Chehalis River Bridge and to be the doctor who had refused to perform an autopsy. Aftermath The captured Wobblies were charged with murder, and the resulting trial was held in Montesano, in nearby Grays Harbor County. After a trial that received national coverage, two Wobblies were acquitted (including Elmer Smith), one was found not guilty by reason of insanity, two were found guilty of third-degree murder, and the other five were convicted of second-degree murder. Judge John Wilson refused to accept the verdict since Washington State law did not recognize a charge of third-degree murder. After a few more hours of deliberation, the jury changed its verdict for those two prisoners. Those convicted were sentenced to prison terms of 25–40 years, which the author Tom Copeland wrote "shocked both the jury and the prisoners." The seven convicted IWW members appealed their lengthy sentences to the Washington Supreme Court, which unanimously affirmed Wilson's judgement in April 1921. As time passed and passions cooled, a public campaign was spearheaded by Elmer Smith. In 1930, one prisoner died in jail, and another was released. In 1931, three prisoners were paroled. 1933, the newly elected Democratic governor, Clarence D. Martin (1884–1955), commuted or pardoned the sentences of three of the prisoners. The last prisoner, Ray Becker, continued to maintain his innocence and refused to be paroled. In 1939, with help