Crawford avalanche. (Grayling, Mich.) 1879-19??, 1896-08-27
'clRcvMsrAN1iAl EVIDENCE.
An Instance in Which II Sent the Wsong
Man 70 tho CaIIows.

An instance in Which II Sent the Wsong
Man to tho calIows.
speaking OF circumstantial EVIL
dence.v said an old attorney. Il am
free TO confess that consider 1t hardly
the thing to hang man on, though II
has been done In many cases. / can
recall nm instance when was young
ster Of IL or IA, In which my father,
who was a leading criminal lawyer,
defended man who was hanged on
merely circumstantial evidence. The
facts were as follows: Living Just in
the edge of our town was man OF
wealth, who had grand old house,
occupied only by himself and servants.
There were various stories about how
rich he was, and what large Sums Of
money he always kept near him, but
he was never disturbed until one night,
shortly after midnight, there was tier.
rife disturbance In the old house, ac-
companied by pistol shots, and when
the people who came to see what the
matter was got In they found the
owner dead with bullet through the
eve. and the butler with his hands
full Of jewelry and watches lying In
the doorway Of the old gentleman's
room, with a bullet somewhere In his
head, but he wasn't dead.
"His revolver lay by his side, and az
far as could be seen the whole story
was told right there. The butler, who
had been in the house only about six
months, had attempted to rob his mas
ter, had been caught in the act and
shot, but had killed the old man in the
fight. That was the only translation Of
II. and there was no other for several
days, because the butler had very
serious wound, and was deliriOus for
q week. However, II was not fatal
and as soon as he was himself he
made a statement to the effect that he
had been awakened in the night by
footsteps and had taken his pistol,
which had only two loads in ii out Of
the five, and gone down into the hall
below to see what the noise was.
'He noticed that his masters door
was partly open at the far end of the
hall. and hurried toward it. AS he
approached it he heard his master
speak to some one asking who was
there, and with that there was a pistol
shot, and he. jumped into the room,
grabbing aburglar as he did so, and at
the same time getting shot in the
head from his masters pistol. Beyond
that he remembered nothing more. His
story was generally disbelieved, for
there was no evidence of any other
person i'm the house with evil designs,
and all the plumber that he had not
caught in his hands was lying on the
floor about him, so that there was no
apparent reason why a burglar should
be there. All the doors were found
locked by those who came in response
to the alarm, and there were absolute
~ no signs Of any burglarizing from
the outside.
Another strong point was that the
bullet which was found in the buffers
head exactly fitted the pistol of his
master, showing conclusively that it
was the master and not the burglar who
shot him. This was the condition OF
the affair when my father took charge
of 1t, and, though he really believed
the buffers story and tried to prove
1t, he couldn't do 1t, and the man was
finally hanged.
"A year later burglar was shot by
a policeman in the city nearest to us,
and he confessed on his deathbed that
he was the murderer of our rich man.
He had hidden in the house early in
the evening, had collected all he could
OF jewelry and other portable valua-
bles and was about getting out when
he was caught both by the old gen.
tleman and the butler, and then the
butler had got the bullet intended for
him, as he had run into the room just
rs the old man fired. Dropping every
thing in his sudden surprise, he had
rushed down stairs and hidden i'm the
hallway, from where he had slipped
out as soon as the front door was
opened. In the excitement he was not
observed, and he got away without
any trouble Mt all, as the nearness to
the city made strangers so common
that their presence excited no suspi-
cion. I'll never forget that incident,
and I'll never be in favor of the death
on circumstantial evidence,
don't care how strong it is. Evenlynch
law is less unjust" and the writer felt
that the attorney was more than half
Star.