Condon globe. (Condon, Gilliam Co., Or.) 189?-1919, 1895-11-08
THE LAST ARGUMENT
Durrant Case Almost Ready
for the Jury.
DEFENDANT STILL INDIFFERENT
District Attorney Barnes In an Eloquent
Appeal Makes Out Strong Case
Against the Prisoner.


Against the Prisoner.
San Francisco, Nov. 1.-District At
torney Barnes appeared as the central
figure in the last scenes Of the trial of
Theodore Durrant. While the specta-
tors in the crowded courtroom craned
their necks TO catch every word Of the
speaker, he delivered what is consider
ed in many respects one Of the strongest
arguments ever made to California
jury. Aside from being logical and
convincing in his discussion Of the
testimony, he made two or three
dramatic by-plays that put to a severe
test the iron nerves of the prisoner.
OF these scenes the most impressive
took place in the early part of his ar
gument, when he spoke of how counsel
for the defense had invoked the 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 school girl
clothed in all her innocence and pur-
ity, Mr.. Barnes reached the climax of
the scene. Turning upon Durrant,
who was seated only three feet away,
the district attorney with clenched fists
and in voice of thunder exclaimed:
81 see her now. There she stands
behind him at this very moment; not
praying for vengeance for her deep and
remediless wrongs; not for the laws
retribution upon her murderer, but
with uplifted hands and streaming
eyes, praying God will not put it into
your hearts, by the mockery of ver-
dict of not guilty, to set free this mon
ster to prey upon other souls, pollute
with vile hands the unsullied snow of
other children and defy anew that God
of justice whose ministers you are.''
Durrant was the least affected per-
son in the courtroom. While Mrs.
Noble, the dead girls aunt, wept
silently and everybody else was thrill
ed with the impressiveness Of the
scene, Durrant sat stolid and indiffer-
ent. AS the district attorneys last
words were uttered, the prisoner whis-
pered something to 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, outlining tho
grounds upon which the state bases its
contention that no one but Durrant
could be the murderer. He spoke in
part as follows:
1.-THE individual who perpetrated the
hideous murder, with which the de-
fendant stands charged and which has
narrowed the soul and frozen the blood
of this community, is no ordinary
criminal; and his crime i'll every aspect
in which it may be considered is with
out parallel. 1t was not committed
under blind and furious impulse &c
revenge some real or fancied wrong to
his person, his property or his char
ACItT, uOI lIOlu luOtlNCS VI kd1ly AOk IL
the commission of robbery, nor yet
under the hot spur of jealousy, that
hell of the injured lover. 1t was in
every sense cold-blooded, vicious
murder. 1t was without the slightest
provocation or apparent excuse or pal
liation. The assassin chose for his VIC
tim an innocent and helpless maiden,
in years almost a child, almost 6
stranger in our city, simple school
girl, temporarily residing with rela
tives and engaged in the struggle to OBJ
tain an education as a teacher in the
normal school. She was undevelopet
in mind, pure in life and thought, pure
and unsuspeoting in nature, and pre-
senting in body none of the qualities
which are supposed to arouse the evi
passions of the seducer and libertine
For the scene of his dreadful assault
the murderer selected and evangelical
church dedicated to the worship o
!, God, temple where the doctrines ant
! life of Jesus Christ were taught and il
lustrated in Sabbath assembly, in mid
week prayer meeting and in socia
9 gathering. He took the life of his vic
tim, not with the savage mercy of tn
quick pistol or the silent knife, but HI
tortured her with the lingering proces
of strangulation, driving his cruel fin
\ gers deep into the tender flesh of he
slender throat; and SO fiercely did h
do his DEVILS work that the stigma c
his crime remained until the discover
of the corpse, clearly discernible a
the cause Of death, not only by the e1
pert surgical examiner, but by tn
most unlearned observer. What Other
y if any, wrong was done her before he
soul exhaled and went to heaven W
do not know.
4 "The advancement of natural decon
position baffied investigation and mad
knowledge impossible, but we kno
that either living or dying, or dea'
she was taken by him up the stee
stairs of the steeple of the belfry of Il
\ church, where he supported the po'
= body with blocks of wood, and left