The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1890-07-13
e you'd mot protect his child or apybody

he would not protect his child or anybody
else
Then Potts was put on the stand. He
corroborated his wife's statement about
finding the letter and the manner in which
kawcett came TO his death; said that after
tacwett shot himself, he sent his wife out
OF the room, picked up the dead body and
put it on the bed and sat there until nearly
daylight thinking, when he wrapped the
body III blanket, carried it down i'll the
cellar and locked il up. That the next
night he went to Fawceti's ranch, got his
pick and shovel, took his bedding and other
| things i'll his cabin, loaded them on the
sleigh, made fire and burned all of Faw
cett's papers III the stove and got back to
Carlin about midnight when he went down
| in the cellar, dug the grave and buried the
body; that his wife left the next day;
that when she had been gone three months,
tearing that the body might be found, he
concluded to dig it up and burn 1t; that he
dug it up in the night, chopped the head
feet of with an axe, put the head III the
fire and tried to burn it. He found that he
could not burn it whole, took it out and
mashed 1t up with the axe and tried to
burn the pieces; took the axe and chopped
| the feet up and put them in the ire, but
| finding that the stencil overpowered him,
he discontinued trying no burn the body
and wrapped the trunk up in the blanket
and put 1t back in the grave, took the
pieces of the head and feet, threw them in
the grave, reburied the remains, scattered
straw over the cellar floor to conceal all
traces OF the grave and left the cellar
In that condition. When asked on
the trial why he or his wife
or his son Charley did not give the alarm
when Fawcett killed himself, he said they
were afraid that people would think he
had killed him. When asked even if peo-
l. l.. II.
wlfe's letter as reason for killing him he
replied, 81 never thought of that" When
asked why he had taken everything out of
t'aWcett's cabin, and burned his papers he
replied that 'he had taken Fawcett's
things to repay him for the bedding which
Fawcett's dead body had ruined by bleed
ing upon, and that he had burned up the
papers because he was afraid people would
not believe that Fawcett had gone east,
and lett his papers behind him." When
asked if ne had put Fawcett's head in the
fire, and tried to burn it whole, how it was
that the hair still adhering to the pieces of
the skull, was not even singed 1.-THE pieces
of the skull with the hair was hele exbibi-
ted in COURT he merely replied
that he didn't know Charley was also put
upon the stand. but his story was so evi
IDENTIFY made up by his parents, that upon
| examination he was made to contra
dict everything that he had said, and
| finally admitted that he he knew nothing
about it, except that he knew Fawcett was
in the cellar, and that his father and mother
| had told him when he was asked about the
old man, to say that he had gone east, and
to say nothing else
The above is short synopsis of the
| testimony for the defense, drawn out with
great trouble, and hundred contradictions
of the witnesses. There were sixteen wit
nesses for the prosecution whose testimony
formed an unbroken chain of circum-
stances as to the guilt of Potts and his
wife. 1t was proved that no shot could have
been fired in that house (Which was a
mere SHELF at 9 o'clock, without
some of the neighbors or passers-by hear
ing it. That Potts and his wife contradicted
! themselves in their statement of how Faw
cett went east. That when Mrs. Potts left
she gave out that she was going to Omaha.
took the eastern train, went about thirty
miles east, stopped at hotel, but didn't
register; took the next west bound train,
passed through Carlin and tried to escape
observation, and went to San Francisco.
That the signature to the bill of sale had
| been forged by Mrs. Potts that the letter,
charging Fawcett with a criminal assault
upon the child had been concocted and
written after Fawcett's death; that it was
not received by the deputy sheriff of Carlin
until Mrs. Potts had left the country; that
the body had been robbed after death, as
no piece of money as large as 50 piece
could have escaped the searchers when
they sifted the dirt in the cellar. q neg
| lected to state that both Mrs. and Mr.. Potts
swore that they had not robbed Fawcett's
body or taken anything from his person.
In short, there was an unbroken chain of
circumstantial evidence, proving beyond a
shadow of doubt, that the Potts husband
and wife, had murdered Fawcett for the
purpose or robbery, as well as to prevent
him from revealing some criminal act in
Mrs. Potts past life; that after killing
him, they had taken an axe and hacked and
mashed the body into fragments to prevent
identification should the remains be found
The Potts were put on trial for their lives
in March, 1cS9. The trial occupied five
days. and after the case was given to the
jury, the verdict of murder in the first de-
gree was rendered in thirty minutes. The
case was appealed to the supreme court,
who affirmed the decision of the district
court. 1t was then taken before the board
of pardons, who refused to interfere. The
court then re-sentenced the Potts to be
hanged on the 10Th day of June, on which
day they were hanged until they were dead,
from the same scaffold.
After the burial of the murderers the
remains of Miles Fawcett, which had been
used at the trial, were also buried.
Very respectfully,