Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1877-09-28

Sc, &C., SCI &c, "
HARRIsoNBURG. Va,
September 25th.
(Reported for the Staunton VINDICATon.)
On windy day in March, two years ago.
the slanting rays of the setting sun were
shiningtin a gap in the Blue Ridge Noun
tains. twenty miles east of Harrisonburg, as
a farmer named David G. Lawson was
driving his team along the road. A figure
stepped from behind a tree, and taking de-
liberate aim at him, after he had passed,
fired. The unsuspecting man fellfrom his
horse, bullet and buck shot having passed
through his body. Two farmers, WHO had
left him but few minutes before, and
were not far off on another road, hearing
the shot. and the rapid running of the wag-'
on wheels, went back, and found the
frightened horses had stopped and were
standing in the road, and under one Of
them was the body of the murdered man.
The point Of the road was in the full SUM-
shine, and on either side were scrub pines,
mingled with larger trees, behind which
the assassin had hidden. The two men
saw nothing of the murderer, and put
ting the dead man in his wagon, drove
him to the home which he had quilted
alive in the morning.
| THE SUSPECTED PARTIES. .
There were three parties suspected of
being Implicated in this murder, one of
whom has been hanged and the other two
= Of H1,a
was Mrs Louisa Lawson, the wife of the
murdered man. She is woman of medium
| size, born near the scene OF the murder
| in 1913 and is the mother of two children.
| She is Il woman who has in her face the.
traces of remarkable beauty and black eyes
Of strange brilliancy. Her manner is quiz
| ct and collected and she has a habit Of
considering before answering a question
no matter how simple it may be, or how
much disconnected from her guilt, and
| then replying in slow reserved tones &C
companied by quick furtive look of
interrogation. For some time before her
husbands murder the household in which
she lived had presented a scene of moral OBJ
liquity, almost unparalleled A young
white girl WI. Csc name is Rebecca Hall,
who had come as a servant, had become
the favorite of her husband who had set
her up in a separate cottage across the
| road from his own residence, and Mrs.
Lawson herself had taken as her accepted
lover Samuel Hall, the brother of the girl
| a good looking and impudent young man
of twenty-five who had come to work on
the farm. To this young fellow her devo-
ton was blind and intense, her love for
| him induced her to plot the murder OF her
husband who was ignorant Of their in
| timacy, and her confidence in his keeping
her secret has now placed her in sight of
her own galloWs.
The second was Silas Morris, brother of
Mrs. Lawson, about the same age, who
was employed by her husband and lived
with his wife and several children in the
| cottage opposite the main house occupied
also by Rebecca Hall. He is an ignorant
man, how direly ignorant may be judged
from the fact that after his sentence to
death, in a statement of all he claimed
| to know about the murder, he related that
| Samuel Hall had given him S., SO to go to
d fortune teller near Rawley Springs to get
!
his death. ''He told me said the condemned
man in a simple way, that ''God ruled the
world six months i'll the year and the ID v
| il ruled IL the other six and we must get it
done in the DEVILS six months. / didn'.
/ go to tie fortune teller: but [ took his
money and spent it iii Harrisonburg for u
shawl and some toys for my cAlldien and
| then [ went back and told him That the
woman said she had to work from the
f<,4 hoo CHI
work in the fall and spring. [ did wrong
| know | did, to spend his money!
| That seemed to be his conception OF the
| wrong he had done. Ills idea of morality
| may be inferred from the fact. that i'll, his
| statement after s>tilCtuce, he also said that
| he knew of his sisters relations with young
| Hall and in heI husbands absence saw her
| coue out stud tread over Halls tracks. in
| the snow leading from the house, o as to
| conceal the direction, and yet didn't tell
Lawson because he didn't wish to make a
isturbasce In Ji.e family. He Las II sharp
f5.tcilet face aud not d bad expression i'll it
| and an =" piteous way of speaking,
which last he has probably acquired since
the awful sentence was passed Oh him. He
is of small statue. y. 200
The third, and the one just executed,
was Andrew Shinett, who was born on
Christmas of 1913 near Port Republic. He
was five feet, ten inches in height, and
when put in prison weighed 16G lotlds.
He had black hair and eyes, and a face of
suci. marked sinister look that it was the
subject of general comment during til
trial, RE- he sat continually Wetting his
slight black moustache with his tongue
and smoothing it back with lis hand: He
was a soldier IN the Co.. ederate army, and
deserted in 1861, ;tning to Pennsylvania,
where he worked in the coal mines aud on
farms, returning IT, Rockingham in 1868.
His character was that Of Il dangerous but
5iia4sa man, who would be apt to do a m.lr-
der fol- tss0hey, or, as one OF his nelgiibofS
said. q :. man that would kill Il man on a
hog for the sais,ts money, ii it could be done
safely" He had Eve children, to wiom
he appeared much devoted, q d to whose
mother he was married in prison. IL few
weeks before his DEATH -
All the suspected parties 'ere arrested
four days after the murder, and taken be-
fore a magistrate, but there Was no evil |
.dence to warrant holding them, and they |
were set Free -'i+ i+oad p
HOY IF WAS FINALLY DisyELopisp.
The secret was safe, and the rnqrderers |
were free, AND nothing now, save an eyil}
conscience. cOul& h;af.nl them as long as /
they would hold thais bGpgAeg. The neigh /
bors of Lawson, who had baail q thrifty
farmer and peaceabe neighbour RAISED j.
purse of 500, and got a detective named !
Rogers, from Richmond, to come UP and
work up the case, He came, but could And |
20 elpe, and went home.l The ways OF
God ale a2bFe successful than the ways Of
men, and it was destined that these muir
derers should be ia3+ng by their own hands.
After the death of her llalsi2and, Mrs. Law /
son gave her lover entire POSSESSION Of her
house. as well as Of her heart, and in THE
fullness Of her confidence made Linn the
master Of her dreadful secret They lived
as man ana wife for two years after the
murder. She senn message by Hall to
her brother. who WAS liiSls ~ In the noun