Corrine Skyes

Corrine Sykes was a 20-year-old illiterate black housemaid who stabbed her employer, Freda Woodlinger, to death on the 7th December 1944.

Mrs Woodlinger had hired Corrine three days before the murder. Sykes had given a false name and references to hide the fact that she’d just been released from prison having served 11 months for the theft of jewelery. On trial Sykes claimed that her boyfriend, J.C. Kelly, had threatened to kill her and her mother if she did not steal for him. Doubts were raised as to whether the slight Sykes would have had the physical strength to inflict the stab wounds on her employer. Other doubts were also raised about her delicately balanced mental state. The all-white jury weren’t convinced and convicted her of first-degree murder.

Corrine Sykes was electrocuted on the 14th October 1946 at the Rockview Penitentiary in Belefonte.