Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1880-06-20
THE TRACES OF CRIME.

Il
A gentleman who is now Judge of the
Supreme Court, in one of the Western
States, not long since related to friend the
following story which shows how hard it
is for murderer to destroy some traces of
| crime:
"Some few years ago, when held the
Office of District Attorney in the interior of
the State of New York, man came to my
Office one day, and stated that he and his
brother were engaged in the business of
hawking or peddling jewety, and that they
had always been accustomed to meet at GER
tain points on their route, to compare notes
and exchange goods. For the first time since
they had begun to travel, his brother had
failed to keep his appointment; and as he
could find no trace of him in their customary
round, he had reason to fear that he was
murdered
After gathering all the information from
him that 1 could, I collected large posse of
citizens and proceed to make thorough
search of the whole region
d" In the course of two or three days we
came to retired spot, far from any human
habitation, where the appearances were such
as to indicate that the ground had been re-
Gently disturbed; and, on digging down a
few feet we found the body of the missing
peddler. Raising it to the surface, I OBJ
SERVED Ona Or 1oora cy,ooJJ bIao1y b,,o,, oro1yI
| ing about, which knew to be such as are
produced by animal decomposition but as
the dead body before me had not begun to
decay, knew they could not have originated
here. There also fell from the pockets and
crevices of the dead mans clothing, little
sand, while the sod from which we had
taken the body was of clayey nature, with
no sand mixed with it. I, therefore, came
at once to the conclusion that this was not
the place whdre the body was originally de-
posted and we accordingly renewed our
explorations.
In process of time we lighted upon a
sandy region, just on the outskirts of lit
| tie village, where again it was observed that
the surface of the ground, although slightly
frozen, had been not long before dug over.
At the depth of few feet, we came upon
the decayed body of horse, teeming with
the same species of bug that I had before
detected, which led me to believe that this
was probably the spot where the poor ped
der had been first buried. I was confirmed
in this suspicion by the fact that in the
earth thrown out from the pit we found a
tallow candle partly consumed. The pre-
sumption now was that the criminal lived
in the adjacent village and thought it
very likely that the half-burned candle, of
which I took possession, might furnish the
clue to his detection. 1t was what is known
as an old-fashioned dip not much used in
these days; and my first steps were direct
ed to finding out in what families in the
village such candles were burned It was
not long before was able to identify the
locality; and ascertained that the family
occupying the house consisted of an aged
couple, feeble and bed-ridden, and three
sons. also learned that the young women
of the village had received from these boys
presents of jewelry, which upon examination
were identified as having been part of the
murdered mans stock"
next proceeded to search the house
and premises where the young men lived,
and after tumbling the hay out of the barn,
we found, concealed, the pack which had
belonged to the peddler. 1t was very cer-
tain that one or more of these boys had
committed the murder, and I submitted
each of them to searching scrutiny in pri-
vate. The result of this was such as to sat-
isfy me that while the two younger had re-
ceived portion of the plumber from the
elder brother, he alone was responsible for
the murder. He was accordingly tried con-
victed and sentenced to the gallows. On
the morning of his execution he acknowl-
edged his guilt, adding, with an oath, that
he would die game"
1t would seem as though this criminal had
at first efectually concealed the traces of his
crime, but a farthing candle revealed his
footsteps, and lighted the way to his death.