The Cambria freeman. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1867-1938, 1876-02-11

Perry's he might get some. There Capon
had gone. and returned with whiskey, but
without his cap, and with his shirt and the
front part OF his coat all bloody
Brooks added that he had asked Capon
how lie got the blood on him: Capon was
so drunk that he could not give very in
teliigible account of what had happened to
him, but he had said something about hav-
ing had a fall and hurt himself.
Upon hearing this evidence the prisoner
exclaimed
''Yes-yes, that's true-I do remember
it now. / made short cut through the
woods to Mike Perry's house, where got
the whiskey, and returned by pretty much
the same route, when stumbled over some
I thing, and fell"
The jury rendered a verdict against him,
and he was committed for trial. His pock-
cts were then examined, and the ten dollar
gold piece, which Sim Brooks had mention
ed, was found.
CapOn said that Sammis, who had taken
an interest in him, had given it to him.
/ This was considered a very tlimsy falsehood,
/ and everybody was convinced that Jack
! Capon was guilty.
y messenger, with the news of ST. n mis-
muder was dispatched to Pittsburgh,
where it created, profound sensation. 1t
| turned out that the murdered man had
had nearly twenty thousand dollars in
large bank bills on his person. Sammis'
/ brother Mark, n wholesale grocer. and a
very energetic man, accompanied the mess
h. IL
! special counsel to assist in the prosecution
OF CapOu. The latter was tried and con-
victed, but the jury having to fix his pun
ishment, he was not sentenced to death,
but to imprisonment at bard labor for life.
The prisoner was overwhelmed with
grief because Of his conviction. He never
tired of protesting his innocence. and his
! eyes were constantly red and swollen from
weeping. He was taken to the peniten-
tiary at Columbus, where he was at first
very harshly treated but his amiable dis
position was not long in making so agreea-
Bile an impression upon the keepers that
many privileges were granted to him.
These he never abused on the contrary,
! he proved an efficient assistant to the prison
authorities on more than one occasion, so
that they wondered how this good -natured
man could have been capable of committing
so heinous 4 crime.
Five years passed by, when an event oc-
cured which proved beyond doubt that
CapCn WAS after all an entirely innocent
man.
A cotton broker named Wilson, at
Savannah, Ga.r had long been on bad
terms with his wife. Finally he charged
her with adultery, and sued for n divorce.
The wife thereupon accused him of having
murdered q man on the 10th of November,
1871, on the day after leaving Pittsburgh,
Pa, and of having robbed his victim Of
twenty thousand dollars in five hundred
and one Thousand dollar bank bills.
She said that she had to wash on the
next day, when he had unexpectedly
returned to Pittsburgh, her husbands
shirt, which had been blood stained, and
she charged him with having killed some
body. He had confessed to her what he
had done, and they had left Pittsburgh
few days later, and gone south.
Wilson was arrested, and the authorities
at Stcubcuville at once.communicated with.
The sheriff who had arrested Capon, and
who was still in office, came personally to
Savannah with Tequisition from the
Governor of Ohio. When lie had his first
interview with Wilson, the latter, who
was terrified beyond measure by the pros
! pect Of the scaffold, asked him whether a
/ fuIl confession would save him.
/ ''If you are guilty, it viii be. maybe, the
| only thing that will save your life, " replied
! the sheriff.
/ Tboreupon Wilson made a clean breast of
/ it. He said he had waylaid Sammis, who
/ had left his horse at house three miles
! from Steubcnville and had attacked him
with knife. Sammis had offered the most
desperate resistance, and had compelled
him to stab him often before he had sue
cumbed.
When the sheriff arrived with his prison
er at Steubeuville, the exasperated people
there could be barely prevented from lynch
ing Wilson.
/ The governor OF the State, upon receiv-
ing certified copy Of Wilson's confession,
Immediately granted full pardon to Capon,
to whom the legislature, which happened
to be in session a. Columbus a. the time,
voted the sum of one thousand dollars to
indemnify him for the sufferings he had
innocently undergone.
II is needless to try to describe CapOn' S
joy at this unexpected change in his for
tunes. He returned to Steubenville, where
the people received him amid manifesto
tions Of unfeigned JOY.
At the next term of the Circuit Court,
| Wilson was sentenced to bc hanged, the
court saying that the enormity of his crime
had been augmented by his suffering an
innocent man TO be punished for it,
Capon gave a proof OF genuine magma
nim;ty by going to Columbus nd--askiug