Morning journal and courier., 1888-01-26
THE COFFEE CASE.

udge Blydenburgh Moves For q New
 Trial-What the Prisoner Says-HIs
 Claim of HnnOcenee-FEis Alleged
 Secret.
 Coffee, the condemned, averted in his prison cell most stoutly yesterday that he was innocent of the murder of Way. He was terribly depressed and cast down. He had appeared stolid and indifferent at the trial,
 but yesterday with a lifelong incarceration
 behind grates and bars and within solid stone
 walls, shut out from life, before his contem-
 plation, he broke down and shed bitter tears.
 He said that feeling in Stony Creek had been
 dead against him and that the feeling was
 unjust, based probably upon the fact that he
 had at times been hard drinker. He had
 drank too much, more than was good for
 him, but of murder he said he WAS not gull
 ty. This bitter feeling against him had had
 much to do, he thought, with the jury's ver-
 dict. 'The three men in the jury from Guil- ford and vicinity" he continued, "evidently considered me one of the hardest wretches in the State, and yet God knows that with all my faults did not kill Way and the verdict is cruelty unjust I say foolish and absurd things when in liquor. I am not student or scholar or & man of polished words or ideas. My innocent words have been con- strued and distorted into evidence against me. I am not villain, much less a finished will lain. My words are clumsy, but they tell against me, and yet they are all easily ex- plainable in my own favor. When in liquor I say and do foolish things and don't recol- lect next day what said. am shoemaker by trade, born in Ireland forty years ago, | and worked seven years at my trade in the I old country. My wife and had three thou 1 sand dollars when we started in matrimony. ! lived fifteen years in Branford and kept a ! saloon there. We built little house at | Stony Creek and kept saloon there and 1 worked at Beatty's quarry. All our three thousand dollars is most gone The last | cent was spent in this trial I can't yet re- | veal what, when revealed, will make me a | free man. I am withheld by my counsel at present. would be free man tomorrow if told my story. I had nct the slightest idea any jury could find me guilty. did not go on the stand and tell my story because my lawyers didn't want me te. was ready to make a clean breast in the grand jury room, but the foreman told me not to, that they didn't want to hear it. am not guilty of that murder. am in nocent, and if the truth were known would ' not go to prison. I lived two months ir Stony Creek after Ways death. Did I run | away? NoI I stood my ground. Why ' Because was innocent of murder. I would N A~e 4oAV0 II my C6ll uOOE were CDTOWu WlCe open, because I am innocent"
 Judging from Cofees talk he has some secret that he is confident will hberate him when it is known, and if there is big secret | 1t will be withheld until it is decided whether ! Coffee can have a new trial. It is the suppo- sition that if new trial is granted Coffee will imperil the necks of one or two other persons to save himself. Otherwise if he has got startling statement to make the place where he can make it will bs before the board | of pardons.
 Judge Blydenburgh yesterday filed notice \ that he would take the case up to the Su- preme court
 No case has excited more general interest \ in several years than this case has since ! the jury rendered the verdict, and expressions \ of surprise that the jury did not disagree were to be heard everywhere yesterday about | town and there has been a vast amount oi discussion of criminal law in the stores, horse
 cars and thoroughfares for the last day oI two.