Omaha daily bee., 1895-10-31
READY FOR THE JURY
Nothing but the Judges Charge Remains
to Be Delivered,
ATTORNEY BARNES MAKES A STRONG PLEA
Lawyers Finish the Arguments and
IL IL Expected that n Final Ner-
diet VIII Re Rendered by
Tomorrow Evening.

90
| SAN FRANCISCO Oct. 30.-Distric, Attor-
ney Barnes today appeared as the central
| figure in the last scene of the trial of Theo-
dUre Durrant. While the spectators in the
crowded court room craned their necks to
catch every word of the speaker, he delivered
what is considered in many respects, one Of
/ the strongest arguments ever made to Cali
fornia jury Aside from being logical and
convincing in his discussion of the test-
mony he made two or three dramatic by
plays that put severe test to the iron
| nerves OF the prisoner. OF these scenes
! the most impressive took place in the early
| part of his argument when he spoke OF
how counsel for the defense had invoked the
I spirit of Blanche Lamont and voiced her
thoughts by saying. Let him go free: he
harmed me not" While looking intently at
| the frame bearing Miss Lamont's dress
which stood near the jury box, and telling
! how, through the long days of the trial. he
! had seen the young girl clothed in all her
! Innocence and purity, Mr. Barnes reached
| the climax of the scene. Turning upon Dur
rant, who was seated only three feet away,
! the district attorney, with clenched fists and
in a voice of thunder, exclaimed:
Il see her now. There she stands behind
| him at this very moment not praying for
vengeance for her deep and remedilass
wrongs, not for the laws retrbution upon
her murderer, but with uplifted hands and
! streaming eyes, praying that God will not
put it into your hearts, by the moCkery of
| a verdict of not guilty, to set free this mon
| ster to prey upon other souls, polute with
vile hands other children and defy anew that
God of justice whose ministers you are"
DURRANT WAS UNMOVED.
Durrant was the least affected person in
the court room While Mrs Noble the dead
| pi silently nd yhod oil
was thrilled with the impressiveness of the
| scene, Durrant sat stOlid and Indifferent. AS
| the district attorneys last words were ut
tered the prisoner whispered something in
| the ear of his mother who sat near him. and
| smiled as If pleased at the wit of his own
remark.
Mr.. Barnes began his argument by dwelling
upon the personalities of Miss Lamont and
| Durrant, and outlining the grounds upon
| which the state bases its contention that no
| one but Durrant could be the murderer. He
| spoke in part as follows:
THE individual who perpetrated the hide
| Gus murder with which the defendant
stands charged, and which has narrowed the
soul and frozen the body of this community
| is no ordinary criminal, and his crime In
| every aspect in which it may be considered
| Is without a parallel. 1t was not committed
under a blind and furious impulse to revenge
some real or fanoied wrong to his person,
his property or his character. nor for motives
| of gain nor in the commission of robbery
nor yet under the hot spur of jealousy. 1t
in every sense cold-blooded, vicious murder
1t was without the slightest provocation or
| apparent excuse or paliation. The assassin
chose for his victim an innocent and helpless
maiden. She was undeveloped in mind pure
| in life and of simple and unsuspecting ma
ture, and presenting in body none of the quail
tiles which supposed to rouse the evil
passions of the seducersand the libertine.
For the scene of his dreadful assault the
murdered selected an Evangelical church, ded-
icated to the worship of God He took the
life of his victim, mot with the savage mercy
of the pistol or the knife, but he tor
tured her with the lingering process, of stran-
gulati0n, driving his cruel fingers deep into
the tender flesh of her slender throat and so
fiercely did he do his devils work that the
stigma of his crime remained until the dis
covery of her corpse, clearly discernible as
to the cause of DEATH not only by the eX-
pert surgical examiner, but by the most un-
learned observer.
what other, If any, wrong was done her
before her soul escaped and went to heaven
We do not know. The Advancement s'of
natural dt comp s t on baflied investigation and
made know ledge impossible; but we do know
that either living or dying or dead she was
taken by him up the steep stairs of the
steeple of the belfry of the church. where he
supported the poor body with blocks Of wood
and left it there to rot in nankedness and
wither in the cool western wind that swept
through the lofty spire. He hid the remains
where he believed they would remain undis-
covered and have no promise of Christian
burial.
NO WITNESS BUT GOD.
''None saw the crime save God, whom
he feared rot as he extended the naked and
slender fern on the belfry floor. laid the
thin arms across the undeveioped bosom,
propped the head and Strengthened the mea-
ger body in the dust. Not a human being
had beheld his retreat from the awful pres
ence OF the death which was his work and
the secret was safely locked in his breast.
There lay the speechIess and untestifying
corpse and what was it now to give him
fear? 1t had been nothing but a girl after
all, and concerning her there would be the
same old story, to which he could help to
give Currency--the same old story of van
ished girl, distracted family, an ineffective
and perfunctory search among the houses OF
ill-repute, a reluctant conclusion that this
little one, like others of Ewes daughters, had
gone to her moral destruction; picture
turned to the wall, name never spoken, and
oblivion, personal and social, for poor, lost
! Blanche Lamont, And he was right for the
moment. The murderer went his guilty
way with his undiyulged crime unscathed
and unwhipped of justice, while his victim
lay in the spre that pointed its slender figure
to the sky. as If reproachng its Ruler for
His unmoving indignation"
Mr.. Barnes then related the circumstances
in connection with the discovery of Miss
Lamont's body, and from the facts drew the
member Of the church who had keys to the
building, and in whom she had confidence
l The murderer must also have been man
whose cunning was sufficient to enable him
to stife the natural feeling of timidity which
always accompanies innocence, and induce
her to go along with him to the darkened
church in which they both worshiped or
| Sunday. Such a man, he said, is Theodore
Durrapt Only a monster capable OF taking
the life Of an innocent girl, he said, could
> remain cool, impassive and almost defiant
when accused of such a crime.
"Gentsmen," continued Mr.. Barnes, "such
a man is such al rare quality that if con
fronted at last with the proofs of his crime
, whose recital has shocked all civilization. he
could and would as he has done. sneer
ingly smile in the awful presence of tbs
6 her stirening body, and exhibit nsther pas
: sion nor emotion, neither sympathy nor re
. gret. for the unfortunate child he had brought