Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1899-12-24

shown to have been the result of a
misunderstanding with the agent. In
seeking to avoid a village scandal Ran
som had dishonored himself and fam
lily and brought up in prison.
Another case was that of a female
convict sentenced for life for the muir
der Of her husband by poison. This
was altogether a case of circumstantial
evidence. She was the wife of a far
mer, and although they had lived to-
gether for fifteen years they had al
ways quarreled and tangled. On a GER
tain occasion she had been heard to
wish him dead; she had inquired about
poison; she had wished herself dead.
One day the woman was bitten by a
neighbours dog. She made threats Of
what she would do and a bitter quar-
rel was the result. A week later Ghe
called at the village drug store and
complained that her house was in
lCSJSu Win IdNo anu UOu5AI q Yuan
tity OF strychnine. A few days later
there was another quarrel and she !eft
the house. On the highway she met
a neighbor and told her all the details
and added that she had fixed" her
husband so that there would never be
another quarrel. Two days after that
he wG5 found dead in the house. and
an autopsy proved that he had been
poisoned with strychnine. Suspicion
fell upon the wife, of course, and when
her trial came on her lawyer made but
a poor defense. 1t was a plain, straight
case, and the jury were not over half
an hour in bringing in a verdict of
guilty.
Mrs. Sherman, as the oma was
named, had been in prison a year Of
more before she told her story to the
matron. Each and every prisoner has
a 9tory to tell, and that story always
makes the teller innocent Of crime, but
one learns to sift out and retain the
pointers if there are any. The woman
seemed to have awakened from a
trance and to realize for the first time
where she was. While she admitted
buying the poison, she declared It was
for the dog, and that he had really been
put out of the way. What she meant
by fixing her husband vas that she
knew he stole a lot Of wheat from a
neighbor and could be sent to prison
for it. He had the poison in his own
possession, knew what she bought II
for and placed It in the meat thrown to
the dog. How he came to take 1t was
more than she could tell, unless with
the intent to commit suicide. She had
been gone two days when he was found
dead, and the doctors said he had not
been dead over twelve hours when the
body was discovered. There was a
point there Sor her but it was not
worked out She gave me many other
points not related above, and as a re-
suit / set a detective to work on my
own account. The first thing that he
found was that the dog had been
poisoned at the time she stated. The
next was that about 30 bushels Of
wheat had been stolen at the date she
gave and that her husband rested under
suspicion as the thief.
The wife left home Of a Wednesday
morning. The detective soon hunted
up several people who had geen heI
husband about the place even up II
nine o'clock Thursday morning. No
one OF these people had been called Al
the trial. II they had been the pros
ecution might have claimed that tbs
poison was so placed that the man did
not get hold Of it until next day. Tbs
detective therefore went further. Il
took him two weeks to do it. but he
hunted down a tramp who had called
at the farm house about ten O'Clock