The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1900-07-17
ON A BLOODY SPOT
Concentration of Interest in
testers Trial.
HULEN'S LANE EVIDENCE
Description of the Court Room
and Jury.

The greatest point OF interest in thu
Jester trial is the now famous Hulen':
lane where people testify they saw {
circle Of blood in the snow the day Jes
ter left that part Of Missouri.
The theory of the prosecution is thai
Jester cut Gates throat, put the body il
one of the two wagons, went to an ad-
joining stream and slipped the body IN
der the ice.
Captain Hugh Stewart Of Monroe coun-
ty testified that he saw Jester travelling
through Hulen lane near Middle Grove on
January "A, 1911. There was snow on the
ground His wife was with him in the
buggy They saw pool of blood in the
snow in the read. The snow was oe-
pressed where the blood was. as # hot
water mad been poured on it. The blood
looked fresh, small streams and spots Of
blood were in the road between the POOL
Of blood and the wagons. The blood was
dripping from the rear wagon while it
jostIed along.
After Jester passed out of the Hulen
lane he took a private road that led into
the timber. He was driving two teams
and wagons, one following the other, and
Gilbert Gates was not to be seen in either
r. OF them. 1t was at this point that Gil
bert Gates disappeared.
a number Of Witnesses testified to the
road leading out Of Middle Grove toward
Paris, ali saying that Hu]ens lane was
clear Of timber and did not afford con-
ceaIment for committing a murder with
out the possibility Of detection.
James Moore, a nephew Of TESTERS said
detectives went to Sedgwlck county, Kan
sas, and dug along Jester creek for a box,
which they said Jester had buried, but
could not find it. The box contained let
tiers that belonged to Gilbert Gates.
john c. Lebens, who is az present at
the trial, gives some interesting side
lights on the proceeding. He writes:
Public sentiment in the Jester case in
Rails county is vastly different from pub
lie sentiment a. Paris, Monroe county,
No, where the preliminary hearing was
held last September Monroe county was
whore Gilbert ". Gates, the LAD with
whose murder Alexander Tester is charg-
ed, disappeared in 1871.
Rails county Seems not to feel the same
absorbing interest il Middle Grove
Aliens Creek, Gidding's Farm and the in
tersection of Hulen's lane with the West
Madison road, where one clustering Jan
uary day, in 1871. a red hollow was seen
in the snow where warm blood mad melt
ed its way to the ground These are
realities in Monroe county. They are
only indistinct images in Rails county.
They are places on a blueprint map in a
court room and nothing more.
Monroe county has had the Jester case
at meals for over a quarter Of a century
First there were the movers wagons,
one of them containing q wonderful live
buffalo calf. They passed through Non
roe county in the late winter Of 1871.
Then in the spring and summer of 1871
came a. A Gates. father Of the missing
boy. He hunted all over Monroe county
for the remains Of his boy and the re-
ward he offered for the recovery of the
body got every Lad in the neighborhood
of Aliens Creek TO searching swimming
holes and dark, dank underbrush for hui
man skeletons
Then came the arrest Of Jester in Sep
at Paris. Monroe county. Then his escape |
from jail at Mexico, No. then the IN
ayailirg search for the fugitive, then his |
arrest twenty-eight years later in Shaw !
nee, o. T., and his second preliminary
hearing at Paris last September.
Is It wonderful that Monroe county's !
sentiment should be different from Rails !
county's and it wonderful that Jes- |
ter's attorneys should have asked for a |
change Of venue from Monroe county? |
20 Paris approved the change of venue. |
He can set as fair a trial here as any |
where" said the Parisians. TESTERS at |
torneys thought not.
There was a struggle for the venue of |
+he Jester trial Hannibal, Bowling |
Green and Mexico wanted It, It promised |
10 confer greater benefits on a comnu- |
nifty than state convention. The money |
Of John w. Gates. younger brother of the |
missing Gilbert Gates, millionaire, chair |
man of the Steel and Wire Trust Girec- |
tory at Chicago. was at The disposal Of |
the prosecution. Attorneys. detectives. /
witnesses, stenographers. judge, Jury.
newspaper men. telegraph operators |
would attend the trial and spend money !
for six weeks at least in the town that /
got the trial
New London was not even competi- |
tor for the prize, but then, Cinderella got |
the prince. Then Hannibal and BcNiirg |
Green and Mexico. the proud sisters. |
laughed loud and long and predicted the /
inability Of New London TO entertain Tire |
swarms Of visitors that came with the |
JriaL
They said We couldn't" exclaimed the |
New Londoners now. but amt We doing /
it?"
You bet we are 'exclaim the attor-
neys and others and then they 20 in,o |
an adjacent fence corner and swear at /
the town. The inhabitants. tse lodging. |
the food, the climate the vsrer. the ho- /
tells, the houses and the court room.
New London has thrown open her 4
homes 10 guests. and. all things oQaSid- 1
cred. PLAYS the host remarkably well
The defense scored a point in the Sc
lection Of New London The fact that
only one day was consumed n the selec- /
ticn or jury shows how little Rails
county cared about the case IN. panel /
OF forty jurors Nss secured cut Of fifty
men examined. Only ten men were dis /
qualified Cor cause such rs that they had /
formed and expressed an opinion regard /
ing The case. In Paris q week. AZ least. 4
would have been consumed IN getting a /
jury.
TIE Jury contains an exceptionally |
large number OF young men.
They call the jury my kindergarten
SAYS Sheriff Richard Jones. Indignantly. /
''Wry. the ages OF the twelve men foor /