The White Pine news. [volume] (Treasure City, Nev.) 1868-1906, 1870-08-04
The Toles Homicide.

Half an hour after the District Court
met yesterday morning a full panel was
accepted in this case, consisting of the
following jurors: G. E. Underhill, ]. E.
CLAYTON, Jacob Kaufman, Geo. W. Ly-
ford. w. It. Hanford, Robert Merrill,
Geo, Currier. John O'Leary, John Stout,
T. G. Gammons, James Deleyan and j.
F. Parke.
The prosecution examined a large num-
her of witnesses as TO the circumstances
of the homicide, and the defense did not
ATTEMPT to traverse the testimony. IL
was proven that Toles, on the morning
of the 9th of July, about 8 O'Clock, took
n n~osition in front of a dry goods store,
about go feet below the Stone Saloon,
and remained there, as if waiting for
somebody, about half nm hour. A box.
with goods upon it, stood between the
defendant and the saloon. At the time
of the shooting, deceased, Tommy
Beehan, was standing or leaning against
the lower pillar in front of the saloon.
After the shot, Beehan staggered to-
wards the middle door and fell to the
sidewalk. During this time, Toles was
seen to walk up towards deceased, with
n pistol in his left hand resting on his
riobt. and stopping at the edge of the
sidewalk and looking towards deceased,
whom he kept covered with his weapon
until he was arrested. Toles remarked
10 tho man who arrested him that he
wanted TO deliver himself up.
The defense, in stating the line they
would pursue, said they would confine
themselves to the plea of insanity, and
show that from an antecedent collision,
between the deceased and the defendant,
the latter had received n knife wound in
the arm, from which he was incapaci-
tated for work and rendered incapable Of
supporting his dependent mother and
sisters. That this calamity 20 preyed
upon his mind that he became an altered
man-broken down, discouraged, and of
q morbid intellect; and that he so
brooded upon his crippled condition and
the cause of it, that he was incapable OF
reasoning correctly on the subject and
not il n state of mind 20 be responsible
for his act. The weight of the testimony
of the witnesses was directed to this
point, and mooted rules of law relating
to insanity were discussed, and authori-
ties produced at various stages of the
trial, on both sides, to restrict or enlarge
the latitude of the testimony. The de-
Tense showed by n large number OF wit
nesses that Toles had undergone a great
change in habit and alteration in mind
from the time he realized that he Ind
permanently lost the use of his right
arm. One witness testified to the effect
that the mother of defendant was at one
time insane for four or six months, from
a fright; and that three blood cousins had
died from temporary insanity.
Several witnesses were examined as to
the facts of the collision in which Toles
lost the use OF his arm. They are briefly
TO the effect that about one year previous
to the homicide, in a saloon in Sherman
town, the deceased approached the de-
PENDANT, and pushed his hat over his
head. Defendant told Beehan he had
had but a very slight acquaintance with
him, and that be did not permit famili-
arities of that kind from his sort. anyhow.
Beehan went off and came back in O few
minutes and said his kind were as good
as his (Toles') sort, and wanted 10 fight
him. Toles put out his arm as IL to shove
Beehan away, when the latter cut him
across the arm, resulting as above stated.
At q late hour last night, witnesses for
the defense were still being examined.