Born: 1909
Died: February 23, 1931

Irene Schroeder’s career shared many things with that of two more famous outlaws. But she enjoyed none of the notoriety that surrounded Bonnie and Clyde (see entry). A minor robber, Schroeder became most famous after death—as one of very few women to have been put to death in the electric chair.

One dead cop

Toward the end of 1929, when she was a twenty-year-old housewife, Schroeder met a salesman and Sunday school teacher named Walter Glenn Dague. She left her husband to accompany Dague, who deserted his wife and children in West Virginia. Traveling in a stolen car with Schroeder’s four-year-old son, Donnie, the couple robbed a number of stores and small banks.

Schroeder and Dague’s final robbery took place in Butler, Pennsylvania. After robbing a grocery store, they left by car—and were soon...