The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1900-01-11

his father and mother have come from
Baltimore to tell the jury which is try
ing him.
The attorneys for the defense opened
their side of the case this morning, and
in outlining the defense to the jury At
torney Hogan said:
THE defense will admit in the main
that Mr.. Leach inflicted wounds on
Fennell with a, baseball bat from
which Fennell died. The defense for
this action will be that the defendant
was insane at the time, and had no con-
troll over his will
In order to do this it will be neces-
sary to go back into the past; to dig
up the history of the defendants family
for a generation past; to disclose the
skeletons in the closet.
THE defendants father. that old
gentleman sitting there, is Benjamin
Leach. His father was John Leach,
who was married three times, Benjamin
Leach being a son by his first wife.
John Leach was an excessive drinker,
and three sons by his third wife were
idiots. A sister, when she arrived at
the age of maturity, became afflicted
with spells of insanity, and later died
a raving maniac in an asylum. =
This man." pointing to the father of
the prisoner. inherited some of this dis
position. He was a hard drinker up to
about 1890, when he took the pledge and
became sober man. In his early life
he fell in love with the daughter OF his
aunt and married her. his first cousin,
a relationship prohibited by the laws of
God and man. Ten children were born
to this union. The boys seemed to in
herit the degeneracy and the weak
nesses of their ancestors. The boy older
than this one, the prisoner, grew to the
age of IS, when he committed suicide,
as crazy as he could be.
This boy, Joseph, could not learn
anything. He was stupid. He had eV-
cry advantage of the schools, but he
can not now write his own name he
can scarcely read. At the age of 10 to
16 he began to have a predisposltlon TO
pecuIiarities. In 1892 the boys who as
sociated with him knew him as crazy.
His associates have called MIN zip
and ''BughOuse," meaning that he was
not right mentally. Other relatives
carefully excluded him from aSsociating
with them They considered him unfor-
tunate At the age of II or Is, with
out any provocation he began to want
to kill his dearest friends-his father
or his mother His cousin, Mrs Ahart,
had a baby Is months old, which the
boy loved as his own life, but during
the spells he had a great desire to kill
the baby Outside of these spells ne
was as kind and affectionate boy as
could be. His father had him confined
in iail finally when he had these spells.
IN 1896 he enlisted in the army with
out the knowledge of his family, but
they let him go, believing it would do
him good to be disciplined"
when the train which brought the
| soldiers west came through Baltimore
Joe was met at the depot by his friends
| and to them he introduced Riley as his
| closest friend. I have one friend l can
! depend on he said, and he cried as he
| bid his friends goodby, and Riley cor
| roborated what he said.
He had become addicted to the NOR
| phine habit, but he was never an eX-
| cessive drinker. A day or two before
| the homicide he went to a man in
| Junction City, the testimony will show.
| and begged for some laudanum, as he
was very despondent and threatened to
take his own life
| Mr.. Hagan then went over the events
| of the evening before the crime, stating
! that while he had told the defendant to
| tell him everything in connection with
1 it. the boy would not admit that he
| used a knife on Riley. Mr.. Hagan said
| Leach had no recollection of anything
| on that night after the lights were put
| out in the saloon The next thing he
! remembered was the day when he heard
| the runor that something dreadful had
| happened during the night. Mr.. Hagdn
| pointed to the fact that Leach did not
run away after committing the assault
on Fennen and Riley, as a criminal
would do but wanted to go back and
finish the job
During the recital Of the history OF