The Dalles daily chronicle. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1890-1948, 1895-10-31
Durrant Case to Go Before
the Jury Thursday.
TO BE CHARGED THIS MORNING
District Attorney Barnes Draws a Hor-
ribIe Picture of the Motives
Prompting the Crime.

SAN FRANCISCO, OcC. oU.-DlsIrlcI Al
torney Barnes today began the closing
argument on behalf of the state in the
trial of Theodore Durrant. The court
room was crowded to its utmost capacity
and close attention was paid to the
speaker. Mr.. Barnes spoke, in part, as
follows:
''The individual who perpetrated the
hideous murder, with which the defen-
dant stands charged and which has har-
rowed the soul and frozen the blood of
this community, is no ordinary Grimm
al; and his crime in every aspect IN
which it may be considered is without
parallel. 1t was not committed under
blind and furious impulse to revenge
some real or fancied wrong to his person,
his property or his character, nor from
motives of gain, nor in the commission
of robbery, nor yet under the bot spur
of jealousy, that hell of the injured low
er. 1t was in every sense cold-blooded,
vicious murder. 1t was without the
slightest provocation or apparent excuse
or palliation. The assassin chose for his
victim an innocent and helpless maiden,
in years almost child, almost a strang-
er in our city, simple schoolgirl, tenn
porarily residing with relative and en-
gagged in the struggle to obtain an edu-
cation as teacher in the normal school.
She was undeveloped in mind, pure in
life and thought, pure and unsuspecting
in nature, and presenting in body none
of the qualities which are supposed to
arouse the evil passions of the seducer
and libertine. For the scene of his
dreadful assault the murderer selected
an evangelical church dedicated to the
worship of God, temple where the doc
trines and life of Jesus Christ were
taught and illustrated in Sabbath as
sembly, in midweek prayer meeting and
in social gathering. He took the life of
his victim, not with the savage mercy of
the quick pistol or the silent knife, but
he tortured heI with the lingering pro-
cess of strangulation, 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 discovery of
her corpse, clearly discernIble as the
cause of death. not only by the expert
surgical examiner, but by the most un-
learned observer. What other, if any,
wrong was done her before her soul ex-
hailed and went to heaven we do not
know.
"The advancement of nature decom-
position baff1ed investigation and made
lynOUladua inoOssjh1a but we know th IA f.
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
nakedness and wither in the cool west
ern wind that swept through the lofty
spire. He hid the remains where he
believed they would remain undiscov-
cred and receive no promise of Christian
burial. There he left her. She was
dead, but he fancied himself safe from
detection and exposure. The heaven
pointing spire OF the Redeemer's church
was his only confidant and accomplice.
No human eye had witnessed his assault
upon Blanche Lamont. No ear had
heard her first shrek of terror and
amazement as this monster fell upon
her, or the last stifled moan of dying
agony that perceded the awful silence of
her final rest. None, save the God
extended the naked and slender form on
Highest of all in Leavening Powe