The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1878-03-06
RANDE.
The Most Infamous wretch Unhung.

RANDE.
The Most Infamous Wretch UnhunG.
[Chicago Tribune.l
The contamination of the latest legal
outrage, the escape of Frank Rande, the
blood stained bandit of ST. Elmo, ellison,
Sparta and st. Louis, from the vengeance OF
the law has already been telegraphed from
one end of this country to the other, and
has awakened in the hearts and minds of all
good citizens an indignation which words,
however strong, are powerleSS to express.
But in order that the people may fully
appreciate what the Knox county farmers
have done in allowing this moral mOnstros-
ity TO evade the most Just and righteous
doom which in any other civilized country
would have been meted out to him. the
Tribune furnishes this mornings necessarily
brief history of his'known misdeeds. The
crimes of which he is accused, with more or
less evidence to prove them upon him, would
require book for their setting forth-a book
which Frank Rande, the only person fully
competent to tell them, will write when the
grace of some weak kneed or Yenal executive,
or by the exercise of his own diabolical
ingenuity, he walks forth free from the walls
of .R6lek.
Charles C. Scott, who, under his alias of
Frank Rande, now stands condemned to
imprisonment for life, was
BORN IN PESNsYLvENIA
in 1889, his father, Meechi Scott, being a
blacksmith. Twenty-Five years ago the
family moved to Fairfield. Iowa, about 40
miles from Burlington, where the old man
and some of his children still reside. The
future desperate attended scapol, afterwards
becoming teacher. and meantime assisting
his father in his business. At the age of %
he married, and few months later his wife
died-happily for her. Up to this time the
innate devilishness of this unexampled
scoundrel, the TrOppmann of America, had
not manifested itself in the commission Of
actual crime. But the dawniDg sign which
nature placed upon his countenance as q
warning to all of his disposition and charac-
ter was not to be gainsaid. After some time
spent in the wilds of Minnesota, where be
hunted and trapped in order to obtain a
subsistence, he returned to the neighbOrhoOd
of his home and blossomed out in his
adopted career OF sneak thief burglar and
coward. 1t was not for 10 years thereafter
that his record of crime was completed by
murder-wholesOme murder of unarmed
men.
The first authentic record of an offense
against the laws by him Is found at Fairfield
ten years ago. He committed a burglary
and was sentenced to seven years in the
penitentiary, but escaped from the officers.
Then, with the stain of crime upon his soul,
and the fear of recapture pressing upon him
all the time, he began his life as a wanderer
and tramp. A sneak thief and coward by
instinct and murderer at heart, he roamed
the country-his hand against every man,
bis ready weapon prepared for murder wher-
ever and whenever the hellish necessity
should arise.
In September, 1872, Scott was committed
to the Northern Indiana penitentiary at
Michigan City on a five years sentence for
grand larceny. His alias given at the time
of his arrest in Fort Wayne for this offense
VII A Nar1 for inv ffr,f,
names and committing murders he is equally
ready. In the prison his deprayed character
manifested itself to pitch only restrained
by the severest discipline of the institution.
The ball and chain and the ''cat," solitary
confinement aud deprivation of food other
than bread aud water, all were tried in vain
on this intractabe and Obdurate scoundrel,
and in the five years which he served there
he was one
CONTINUAL SOURCE OF TROUBLE
to the authorities. Engaged in constant
broils and quarrels with other convcts, he
always got the worst of it, and the miserable
whelp. when punished, would moan and
howl like mongrel cur. Finally he was
discharged MAY 2 1871 and in the six
months following. up to mis- arrest in st.
Louis in November last, the records of three
states at least were stained by wholesale
murders committed by his hand, to say
nothing OF burglaries and robbenes almost
impossible to recapitulate.
On Tuesday, the 5th inst, the case was
called for trial Three days were spent in
obtaining Jury, and nearly 200 Jurors were
passed upon before ~ men were found
acceptable to both sides The II selected
were farmers, apparently fair looking set,
and Of at least ordinary intelligence. As the
trial proceeded the proof rolled uD so
strongly against the prisoner that it seemed
impossible that he could ever escape his
NAI - 1Af-
sanity and the iilegality of
the attempted arrest. Counsel for
the people ably argued against the
latter contention, and the first fell through
of its own weight. Yet, spite of ali this, and
spite of the fact that the identity was proven
beyond the shadow of doubt, these twelve
mon, sworn to find a true verdict on the law
and the evidence, stultifed themselves and
outraged the community by finding that this
bloody banded murderer was not quite bad
enough for the gallOws Had there existed
one loophole of doubt as to the identity, and
had they declared their inability TO agree
upon that point there might have been
some excuse for them. There was none, AMI
yet these miserable libels upon the fair
fame of Knox county had the effrontery to
return a verdict that Rande was guilty of
murder. but that his sentence should be i'm
pTisonment for life.
After this there remained but one duty for
the sheriff TO perform. A sworn officer of
the law, he was bound TO preserve the peace,
and in no other way could an uprising Of the
people be avoided than by smuggling Rsnde
out of the county and starting him for Joliet
before the news got abroad.
THE LAST CHANCE
that he might reap his Just reward vanished
when the party boarded the train which,
most unfortunately, had been delayed. Had
the sheriff missed this opportunity no other
n ha1n nff he In
from Gibson bore with it large number of
determined men, friends and neighbors of
the poor fellow so foully slam, who were
determined to execute justice upon the
murderer in the event of any such contin-
gency as the criminal action of such jury.