The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1870-11-08
circumstanuiaI Evidence.

Reviewing the history of its State, a
newspaper in Virginia recalls a case in
which that insiduous kind of evidence
which is styled "circumstantial," ;" failed
to rob Il man Of his life only to leave
the remaining years of that life a prey
to something more cruel than death. In
the summer of 1907, about four years
after her marriage, the wife Of John
Sigans, young man residing in lay
lor county, was missing from her home
one morning nor could any trace OF
her be found, or any reasonable expla-
nation Of her absence devised. She had
retired to slumber, as usual, with her
husband and infant, on the preceding
night; and her husband, according to
his own steadfast assertion, ,awoke in the
morning to find himself and the babe
sole occupants of the couch. Being un-
able to offer any kind of help towards
the clearing up of the mystery, Sigahs
presently became an object Of ominous
suspic on, and upon the testimony ofa
neighbo- named Current, was taken be.
fore magistrate for examination.
The witness" testified that on the night
of the alleged disappearance he had
been aroused from his sleep by the fir.
ing of gun in or near Sigans' house,
followed by sound like female cry.
He also testified that he believed" a
murder had been committed, and a
woman's body buried under a heap of
stones near his neighbor's house This
last piece of testimony went for moth
ing, as the minutest search failed to re-
veal any hidden corpse but that about
the gun firing, though insufficient to
hold the accused in any legal bond,
,leepened the suspicion Of the public
against him.
The unhappy man, despite his pro-
test of innocence, was stunned from
that day forth by all hi eormer friends
and neighbors; and even his relatives,
taking his child to their own care,
trained the little one to judge and dcs-
pise bis father rs his mothers murder
er. The boy, as he grew up to man
hood, actually prosecuted his parent
until the latter died Of a broken heart.
and then seemed TO share the relief
avowed by his other kindred at their
riddance from one who had been nor.
ror and disgrace to them, In fact, for
no less than forty years, Currents tes-
timony was accepted as establishing
the moral certainty Of John Sigans'
guilt, really incOnsequent as that testi-
mony had been; but at the end of
nearly half a century from the night OF
the wife's disappearance, after Sigans
a-d Current had both passed away,
Mrs, Sigaus herself re-appeared in her
old home She confessed, says the
Grafton Sentinel, that she had meyer
beeL over one hundred miles away ;
had fed by night from the side Of her
unsuspicious, sleeping husband, to the
protection of another; had changed
her name, and wished to be as one
dead to those she had deserted. The
"gun" heard by Current must have
been the noise she made 10 falling upon
the stoop of her home as she fed, and
the female cry" her involuntary ex.
clamition of pain and terror Thus,
upon the strength of purely circum
stantlal evidence, and that so trihing,
an innocent and cruelty wronged mau
had been placed under ban of excom.
munication from all that is merciful in
life, and rersecuted into dishonored
grave by the hatred oe his own child