Press and daily Dakotaian. (Yankton, Dakota Territory [S.D.]) 1880-1889, 1886-06-23
9ailg gress ANIL 9akotaiaa
FOR A WoMAR's SAKE.

r1-a4L 81 l
An Innocent Man Spends Seventeen
Years in Prison.
Chicago. June 17.-The iron doors of
the Joliet penitentiary were thrown open
last Tuesday afternoon and q mar came
slowly out of the stone Enclosure. He was
36 years old and almost half his Life had
been passed in the penitentiary. This
man was Thomas Stewart, who March liz,
1869, was sent to Joliet for life for MUIR
der. Stewart now, for the first time,
AYERS that he never committed the deed.
The story of the crime as told by him to
| q friend the night of his release from
prison is a most singular chapter in the
narrative of strange experience. The
| friend to whom Stewart laid bare his BE-
eret was his halt brother, Cap. P. o.
Feensy, an attorney we'll known in the
courts in this city. The recollection of
two men went back seventeen years,
when Stewart was a lad of 10.
He was an industrious young fellow
Of S~cotch-Irish ~parentage, and had the
lively temperament of the one race and
1.-THE frugal, steady habits of the other.
He was employed as clerk in o grocery
store on South CLARK street. and while
working there became infatuated with q
woman who used to make her table pur-
ohasss of him. This woman, Elizs Reilly,
was q frail creature, rather pretty, and
who lived on jackson street, near La
Sale. Stewart visited her frequently.
Among other visitors the woman had
was Harry Hurlbert, alias "Dice," q sailor
from Buffalo. He was a burly fellow.
harsh in his treatment of the woman and
they had many quarrels.
The second week in January 1869, Hurl-
bert spent nearly all the time in the wo-
mans room, One evening the noise of q
quarrel was heard. The tumult increas-
ed, loud voices were heard, then q shot
was fred. When the police ran
up stairs they found Hurl-
bert dead and Stewart and. the
woman in the room The two latter
were arrested and bound over to the
grand jury by Justice Mulligan.
Stewards friends believed he fred the
fatal shot. and his lawyers found them
selves with u very lame case. Judge
trial. 1t lasted only q few days.
Stewart listened to all the evidence with
out saying o word. Al that time the
defendant in q criminal action could not
testify in his behalf, 80 that Stewart
WAS not put on the stand. The woman
was still under indictment, and che
could not testify. The state entered q
nolle prosque IN her case, but not until
Stewart wal convicted. His sentence was
for life.
LII now turns out, according to Capt
Feeney, that Stewards boyisb devotion
to the woman caused him to voluntarily
go to the penitentiary for life. He is
reported as saying last night that he wal
not present when the killing took place
According to his story the woman
and Hurlbert had been
engaged in one of their frequent quar-
rels. He was so abusive to her that as {
, means of self-protection she armed her
self with q revolver. Hurlbert wal
violent and swofe he would beat her. 81,
I did strike her, and the woman shot him
z She was standing with the smoking
revolver in her hand, too terrified tt
move, when Steward entered. She gave
him the revolver mechanically, and hal
frightened at the sight of the dying man
l he held the weapon III a nerveless clutch
: while the woman tried to staunch the
!. flow OF blood from Hurlbert's wound
The next instant the police entered
They found Stewart with the revolver il
his hands and Immediately surmise,
: that he was the murderer. He says tina
purely on account of the woman he neye
. opened his lips to the contrary.