The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-11-20
THE GOVERNOR INTERPRETERS.
Koerner, the Wife Murderer, Will Not
Suffer the Laws Extreme Penalty.
The Death Sentence COMMITTED to life I'M
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Porter Gives His
Reasons for His Action.


execute the death penalty. In committing the
sentence to life Imprisonment, the Governor
makes the following statement:
''The judges of the Supreme Court, imme
diately after they affirmed the Judgment of the
Circuit Court, unanimously pettioned me in
writing to commute the punishment of the pris-
oner to Imprisonment for life. And the Learned
Judge who delivered the opinion of the court
called upon me last Monday to express his
strong conviction that the punishment should
be eommuted
More than two hundred and fifty of the best
and most substantial German citizens
of indianapolis have also petitioned
me to commute the sentence They
have not asked me in the character OF
countrymen of the prisoner to do this thing,
but as persons who have naturally taken deep
interest in the case have carefully considered
the evidence, have observed the conduct of the
prisoner since his conviction and have sincerely
desired to help me to come to a proper decision.
"A less number. but nevertheless large num-
Der of citizens of American birth have also rec
commended that the punishment be committed.
The clergyman, whose spiritual offices were
invited by the prisoner, who has been most
faithful in attendance upon him and in his min
istrations, and whose strong and practical good
sense has much impressed me, informs me that
from the first he has most earnestly impressed
upon the prisoner that all professions of repent
ance would count for nothing, unless he should
confess his guilt if he really committed the deed
for which he has been convicted. He says that
under all circumstances and even when
under the greatest emotion. the prisoner has
always asserted his innocence This clergyman
is strongly persuaded the prisoner is not guilty.
| Il have read the evidence given mt
! the trial most carefully 1t is wholly
circumstantiai. 1t makes a very strong prob
able case of guilt, but it lacks so much in several
particulars in the quality of fullness' and com
pleteness as not completely to exclude, as. cir
! cumstantial evidence often seems to do, all
| rational possibilities of innocence. The strength
of the evidence against the prisoner is in it's ten
| dency to show that the relations between him
| and his wife had been such, and especially that
some previous conduct on his part had been so
cruel, that deed of extreme violence would
| not have been unnatural. Yet it does
not, think, show any settled
| hate on his part. An estimable lady. introduced
as a witness by the State who several times had
| been called III when differences had arisen be-
tween the prisoner and his wife, and had easily
! reeoncled them, relates in her evil
her interpostion and said that she al
ways seemed to them like a mother
! Both were excitable, an instance being related
| where he used coarse language TO her quite un-
| justly fer having had some hay slowed in
| shed instead of the barn, he had expected it
to be, and she pucked off his cap, threw it some
distance away, and pulled his hair. But she was
undoubtedly good, true and helpful wife, and,
in their quarrels he seems to have been in fault.
'The prisoner WAS dairyman, and his cows
were kept at night in q stable about seventy-hye
feet from the back door or kitchen Of his house,
in a Diagonal direction His hired and he
MIXED these cows, and the prisoner drove the
dairy wagon making ono delivery day and
| collecting the price of the milk. The prisoners
habit when he returned with his wagon,
was to change his clothes for working suit and
to hang his better suit containing the milk
money, i'll his family sleeping room. He also
| kept this money in the house, and ON the day
before the tragedy occurred he had placed on the
mantel only four feet from his wifes head as she
had to
| rent This was covered by the bottom of glass
lamp, and was found the mantel af-
ter the tragedy. He had also $43
in a cigar box over the wardrobe in the
ROOM About 3 o'clock every morning the pris-
oner and his hired man tWamp) went TO the
| stable to milk the cows, leaving lamp dimly
burning and the rear doors of the house
locked The milking usually occupied them
4 about an hour and half. and on the morning of
| the murder the prisoner finished his part of the
| work little sooner than the hired man, and
went into the house. He soon afterward
| shouted to the hired man that his wife
was killed, and for him to come to the house i'm
mediately. The shout was startling that the
man thought the house fire, and that the
prisoner was calling for help. He FASTENED to
the house and found the prisoner apparently in
! great grief. 1t was discovered soon aIterward
that the prisoners trousers had been re moved
! from the nail which they had been hung his
vest remaining, however, undisturbed Almost
Immediately after the hired arrived
4
started out to awake the nearest neighbors. and
to inform them what had occurred. Several
| came immediately to the house. The captain of
the police, the sheriff, and two or three other
persons invested with police powers soon after
ward came separately to the house, and at least
three of them almost Immediately accused the
prisoner of the crime. | do not impeach their
motives the proprietyof their conduct, in do
ing so. They desired. if he was guilty to secure
a prompt confession, and they assumed,
upon what at the time seemed prob
able, that he was guilty. He was
violently excited, but he constantly affirmed his
innocence, and be always since has reufiPmed
it. An expression of his that has been construed
as confession cannot with any fairness be 80
interpreted, and the prosecuting attorney once
said tome that little stress could justly be placed
upon it.
when the prisoner denied that he was guilty
he was asked who, then, in his opinion, had com
mitted the deed. and he first said that maybe his
brother Whose relations with him had been
eoo) had done it: that the brother and the pris-
oners wife had had differences about religion;
but having been told how improbable it was
that his brother could have committed the deed,
ne then referred to a man that had not long be
fore worked for MIN, and who, he said had
stolen q rubber coat from him, concealed it in
trunk, and had made threats against him when
the theft was brought TO light, and he thought
tia perhaps it might have been he and he
then referred to his trousers that had
been removed from the nail on which they had
been hung, and thought possibly thief might
have committed the deed The trousers were
soon afterward found hanging on
rain-water barrel at the northwest
corner of the house, without any
money in them. From an examination of some
tracks made in the snow in the yard it was claimed
by the State and believed by the jury that they
were made by the prisoner, and that the trousers
were placed on the barrel by him for the
purpose of creating impression that
thief had entered the house and
| had killed his wife. There was some evidence
tending to show that the shoes taken from the
feet of the prisoner fitted these tracks, but it
was also shown that the hired man was aeeus-
| toned to wear sometimes similar pair of
wooden shoes belonging to the prisoner and
| sometimes loose boots.
On the morning in question the evidence of
! the missioner that Warnn ,rnrn ,roodnr,