The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1898-01-27

death penalty to Imprisonment in the
for life ON the ground of
applicants mental unsOundness. There
is no claim in this application of appli-
cant's innocence. In the trial, which re-
suited in the death penalty the plea of
ough investigation was made. Learned
physicians who qualified as experts on
and other persons who by their
relations with applicant, socially and in
business, were qualified to express an
opinion, were carefully examined. DR..
r. s. Graves, city and county physician,
testified. 81 think he is perfectly sane
and just as sane as he ever was. don't
believe his mind is in such condition
that he can not understand what is 60
ing ON here in the court room. | be-
right and wrong as well as any person."
DIR. j. A. Davis testified that he has
had about Eve years experience in the
treatment of insane persons at the Aus
tin asylum for the insane; that he knew
applicant well and had conversed with
him nearly every day for four or FIVE
months past, including July of that year
(the month of the homicide.) The state
then propounded to this witness an hypo-
thetical case, embra1in5 all the facts
brought out on the trial, commencing
subsequent conduct to his arrest in Chi
cago, and asked his opinion, based on
this recital of facts, whether applicant
was sane or insane on the oath day Of
July, 1896 (the day of the homicide.)
The witness answered: SIN my opinion,
on the facts stated, the defendant, w.
r. Burt, was sane On the night of July
"a, 1896" On cross-examination this
witness said: "From the history Of de-
PENDANTS family as detailed to me, in
sanity may affect some of the members
thereof and may not and may jump
several generations and then. crop out,
the intermediate generations showing no
evidence of the disease. y If
there had been no faint of insanity in
the defendants family the possibility is
he would have been d better balanced
man than he is now with that faint. A
man coming from tainted ancestry would
be more likely to go into insanity than
one of pure blood" On redirect exam
ination the witness said: 81 see no evil
dences about the defendant Indicating
that he is a congenitdl neurotic, nor do
| see any physiological conformations
II. d. WOoten testified that he, together
with his two sons, Drs. Goodall and
Joe Wo0t"n, made a thorough eXamina-
ton of app. cant in the Jail by taking t4e
measurements of his head, and by Other
tests, and that he had compared the
measurements of his head with 13OC
normal cranirI S and, found that apIli
cant's head We a normal one. AfteI q
careful examf4 alton of this witness bor
the matter of moral perversion and don
genital moral perversion, he said: "You
ask, is the defendant degenerate? Well
yes; there are some reasons to tHlnR
that he is, but that is hard subject to
determine. i think there must be- o
weakness of the will power and of the
judgment in the defendant, but there is
no evidence of any form of insanity
about him that is laid down in thu
books; at least I could discover none.
The state then put to the witness the
following Hypothetical case: Suppose
the defendant was married man with
wife and two children, the children
being about 2 and = years. that On thu
night of the 9th of July, 1Sae h" an
his wife We're at home a.
o'clock, when by THE m
child was delivered y
to the wife; that aft
| little while he vert to hi. -
filled "A bottle with milk tor such youn.
er child, then took the younger chile
UP in his arubs and with the bottle Of
milk went upstairs to the room where
his wife and Ithe children slept, leaving
the wife, the elder child and the servant
in the lower rooms; that this was the
last ever seen 'of the younger child alive
After a time the servant departs anC
does not return until IL o'clock. All il
quiet ian the house Mt that time. A day
or two before this he was seen coming
from the sta bic with grass sack in his
hand which contained something. Al
some hour of the night, in their bed
room. the defendant killed his wife ant
two children by striking each of then
in the right temple and side of the face
with a ratchet, crushing the bones OF
the face and fracturing the skulls; thai
he then tightly tied around the throa
of each Il handkerchief, sufficiently. 81
to produce strangulatiOn and suffocatiOn
then enveloped the body of his wife, ex
cept the feet, in "a blanket and wount
around the blanket ropes so as to keel
the blanket in place and the body en-
veloped; he tied the hands and feet o.
the two children with wires and othel
ligatures, they being in their nigh
clothes He then conveyed the bodies b,
some means, in his arms, Tor by thu
lowering of them from window, o.
through it, casting them OUT, from thu
upstairs room to the lower floor ant
thence transporting them through 1
an underground cistern in the basement
of the house and cast the three bodies
therein, and then nailed down the top o.
the eistern, which had been ripped off t.
admit the bodies; there was the water il
the cisstern sufficient to submerge the bod
les; the water in the cistern was in daily
use by the household heretofore. He
took the handle off the eistern pump ant
secreted it. By some means or care uset
not stain of blood had been left on the
floors, ON the walls or furniture in the
room where the killing WIS done, nor OF
the way from thai room. inside or outside
of the house, on the way to the cistern
The servant returned at about II o'clock
and slept in the house, but heard ne
noise, except faint dreamlike remem
brance of hearing child cry. The nex'
morning at about o'clock he tapped al
the servants door, awakened her, re-
qucsted her to rise and go to market, n
thing she was not in the habit of doing
He was not seen again until the servant
returned from market On her return
she took the teakettle proposing to fill il
with water, and in taking hold of it made
quite a noise, when defendant said TO her
Don't use water from the cistern, as a
t ION about the wife and children arose
,ihen he said that he had had some trou
lie in the night. and had sent them ia
san Antonio on the o'clock q. M train,
but that they would be back on Tuesday
or Wednesday, when everything would
be ready to go to housekeeping at the
Scott place. His breakfast being pre-.
pared, defendant gave note to the serv-
ant to be carried to cartman, directing
him to go to the store of defendants
brothers and procure and bring to the
house some boxes. He also gave her
money to buy some nails and bring to him,
all of which Was done a q directnd a nd tho