Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1885-10-15

| first place took them to the spot in the
woods where the murder had been commit
ted. Jack Capon, who had been mean
while heavily ironed, was also conveyed
where the corpse of the murdered man had
lain were not very distinct, but they seem.
ed to correspond exactly with the soles OF
Capon's shoes.
swore Sim Brooks, who by this time had
become perfectly sober, and who stated
that last night about half past ten O'Clock,
Jack Capon had come to his cabin and asked
him if he had any whisky. He had given
him half-a dozen drinks, whereupon Capon
had wanted still more, but he had no more.
gold piece, and asked him if he knew where
any whisky could be bought. He had
answered if he would 60 to Mike Perry's he
might get some. There Capon had gone,
and returned with whisky, 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 he got the blood on him. Capon was so
drunk he could not give very intelligible
account of what had happened to him, but
he had said something about having had
fall and hurt himself.
Upon hearing this evidence the prisoner
exclaimed:
"Yes-yes, that's true-I do remember
to Mike Perry's house where I got the
whisky, and returned by pretty much the
same route, when I stumbled over some
thing and fell"
The jury rendered verdict against him,
and he was committed for trial. His pockets
were then examined and the ten-dollar gold
piece, which Sim Brooks had mentioned,
was found.
Capon said that Sammis, who had taken
an interest in him, had given it to him.
This was considered very 1imsy false
hood, and everybody was sure that Jack
Capon was guilty.
A messenger, with the news of Sammis'
murder was dispatched to Pittsburg, where
it created a profound sensation. 1t turned
out that the murdered man had nearly
twenty thousand dollars in large bank bills
on his person. Sammis' brother Mark, a
wholesale grocer, and very energetic man,
accompanied the messenger back to Steuben-
vile, and engaged special counsel to assist
in the prosecution of Capon. The latter
was tried and convicted, but the jury hav-
ing to fix his punishment, he was not SEN
fenced to death, but to imprisonment at
hard 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 penitentiary
at Columbus, where he was at first very
harshly treated; but his amiable DISPOSE
an impression upon the keepers that many
privileges were granted to him. These he
verabused; 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 helm
Gus crime.
Five years passed by, when an event oc-
Cured which proved beyond doubt that
Capon was after all entirely an innocent
man.
A cotton broker named Wilson, at Savan-
nah, Ga, had long been on bad terms with
his wife. Finally he charged her with
adultery, and sued for a divorce. The wife
thereupon accused him of having murdered
man on the 18th of November, 1871, on
the day after leaving Pittsburg, Pa, and OF
having robbed his victim of twenty thous-
and dollars in five hundred and one thOus-
and dollar bank bills
She said that she had to wash on the next
day, when he had unexpectedly returned to
Pittsburg, her husbands shirt, which had
been bloodstained, and she charged him
with having killed somebody. He had con-
fessed to her what he had done, and they
had left Pittsburg few days later and gone
South.
Wilson was arrested, and the authorities
at Steubenville at once communicated with.
The sheriff who had arrested Capon, and
who was still in Office, came personally to
Savannah, with a requisition from the Gov
ernor of Ohio. When he had his first in
terview with Wilson, the latter, who was
terrified beyond measure by the prospect OF
the scaffold, asked him whether Il full con-
fession would save him.
eff you are guilty, it will be, maybe, the
only thing that will save your life," replied
the sheriff.
Thereupon Wilson made clean breast OF
it. He said he had waylaid Sammis, who
left his horse at house three miles from
Steubenville, and had attacked him with a
knife. Sammis had offered the most des.
perate resistance, and had compelled him to
stab him often before he had succumbed.
When the sheriff arrived with his prison
er at Steubenville, the exasperated people
there could be barely prevented from lynch
ing Wilson.
The governor of the State, upon receiving
a certified copy of Wilson's confession, i'm
mediately granted full pardon to Capon,
to whom the legislature, which happened
to be in session at Columbus, at the time,
voted the sum of one thousand dollars to in
demnify him for the sutferings he had inno-
Gently undergone.
1t is needless to try to describe Capon's
Joy at the unexpected change in his fortunes.
He returned to Steubenville, where the peo-
pie received him amid manifestations OF
unfeigned joy.
At the next term of the circuit court Will
son was sentenced to be hanged, the court
saying that the enormity of his crime had
been augmented by his suffering an inno-
cent man to be punished for it.
Capon gave proof of genuine magnanimi-
ty by going to Columbus and asking the
governor to spare Wilson's life but the gov.
ernor refused to interfere. So Wilson was
hanged at Steubenville on the 18th Of Janua-
ry, 1916.