Kansas City daily journal., 1897-02-11

whether he pities the course of the af-
fiicted mother or dispises the folly OF the
father, yet his heart must go out to that
poor mother.
To Find Out the Truth.
I'VE are not here to crafty our personal
feelings; We are here to find out the truth
in the case. trust 1 shall show this jury
that no fair and impartial set of men will
lay their hands on this defendant There is
no half way point She is either guilty or
she is innocent You must say wether she
goes from this court room 10 the gallows
or free woman
the case and followed it step by step up 20
the evidence introduced. What facts were
established? How had they been estab-
lished?
You are the sole judges of the facts -
he told the jury. Il have in my own heart
charity enough to believe that nobody
Brother Worthen said; it lays between
three people. With a family of children,
one of them a 2ls-year-old boy. too small
TO understand the significance Of these
things, one may have at some time been
attracted by the soda can and taken It
down and in some way mixed 1t with
Strychnine.'
The major then took up the eating cf
the apples by the children and said it was
not past happening that these apples had
poison in them. He told the jury that
| it was absolutely impossible for it to find
a motive for either the defendant. the
| father or the mother to have poisoned
| the children.
According to the instruction of the court
| the jury's duty is to find the defendant
| guilty or innocent of murder in the hrst
| degree, but the punishment Is to be fixed
| by the court He appealed to the jurymen
! to not allow their prejudices to influence
| them in making up their verdict
Il seriously question that Mrs. Torrence
| died of strychnine poisoning" said the
| ma jor, and he then reviewed the teStt-
| mony of the witnesses TO sustain his be-
| lief. This murderess," said the major.
| pointin. his finger at Alice Platt, was
| there administering to the dying wants of
her victim; this murderess did everything
| in her power to relieve the suuer1ng OF
| the stricken woman.
| You have seen things. gentlemen, said
| the major later, 'yon have seen things
J nesses may have had some little malice in
| their hearts. People don't wear malice
like they do diamond. Those two volu,
| bic women colored their testimony end
| YOU know Ii. When BrutuS saw the spir1s
| a, midnight and asked who IT was II re-
| piled. I am thy evil spirit and VIII meet
| YOU at Philippi-' 1t did meet Brutus at
| Philippi Did he see that spirit or was
| it Il creation of his mind?
| Judge worthen's Address.
Mr.. worthen then began to address the
| Jury. He thanked the jurymen for their
| close attention to the evidence, and said
| that the most remarkable case in the Grim
| inaI history of Jackson county was draw
| ing to a close. The case. in some import
| ant instances, depended upon cireumstan-
| tial evidence
You act said Mr.. Worthen. upon cir
| cunstantiaI evidence in all the affairs OF
| life The main fact in this case, the faci
! of a crime does not. in my theory, depend
| upon circumstantial evidence. A crime has
| been committed, 4 crime as black and
danning as any in the criminal annals oi
| the state Go 10 the Mussey household
| There YOU find perfectly healthy children,
! unsuspicious of approaching disease. They
| went down from that front parlor, and
| when they came back ten minutes later
they had within them the dose that pro
| duced their death. In that ten minutes
! This deed was done Those children were
not stricken by any contaSious disease
| When they were brought back upstairs
| each of them had swallowed strychnine
and that poison was administered by hui
| man hand Three medical men have tes-
| titled that those symptoms were produced
| fIy strychnine. and that no other drug, nc
oher cause will produce such symptoms
| That evidence alone should convince this
! iurv that the cause of the death of those
| Children was strychnine poisoning In ad
dition to that evidence We have the tes-
timony of the chemist who analyzed the
! stomach of Elizabeth Mussey.
1.-THE question that you are to determine