The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1900-03-01
FOR HIS LIFE.
George King Confessed to MUIR
der While Innocent
To Gain Time He Weaves a
Plausible Tale.
A NIGHT OF TORTURE
Brought Him a Life of Ease and
a Fortune.
WOuld-Be LyncherS Glad to
Settle For, $25, 900.
A NIGHT OF TORTURE

King, 7S years old, for many years
highly respected citizen of Indiana
died in his home, near Lafayette, last
week. having lived for nearly 40 years
in easy circumstances as the indirect
result of a night of torture and conse-
Qaent confinement in JAIL through
which he passed as victim of circum
stantial evidence. 1
Late in the sos Mr.. King was the
proprietor of a hotel in Oxford, twenty
six miles from Lafayette. In 1853
stranger arrived at the hotel and gave
his name as DR.. Rowe. He told King
that he had no money and asked to be
trusted for his board till he could get
practice in the place, promising to pay
him promptly as possible. King con-
scented to the arrangement and Rowe
soon became a faVor1te with the peo-
pie on account of his companionable
disposition and superior intelligence.
The DOCTOR however, fell deeper and
deeper in debt. He had been at the
hotel for nearly year when King re
minded him one morning that he had
not paid anything on his board bill for
three months. The Conversation, it af-
terward appeared, was overheard by
some one in the hotel, though nothing
was thought of it at the time.
A week after the conversation Rowe
was called out late at night to see a
patient and failed to return Days
passed without any word from him and
his disappearance soon was connected
with the conversation that had passed
between him and the landlord about the
unpaid board. One night three months
later a party of disguised men entered
the hotel and, overpowering King, took
him to a woodland adjoining the town.
He recognized the voices of several of
| his captOrS and especially of the leader,
| who told him that he was suspected of
| confess. King stoutly maintained his in
nocence, and the leader of the mob or
dered his companions ito string him up
| A rope was placed around his neck, a
| dozen men pulled down a stout limb, over
| thrown, and When the limb was released
| it carried King off his feet and left him
| conscious when let down and again or
! dered to confess.
| GENTLY to understand what was said to
| him and he again refused, declaring his
mhaf had e Become yn o Re Rows Sa not second
time he vas strung ny, up and a Sc second md
| tinct and he was much longer in being
| restored than before.
| The luckless landlord knew he could
! not pass through another such ordeal and
| live, so he consented to confess. He pur-
| posely heightened the confession in order
| men, named Rogers and Haggard, had
| poisoned some whisky and induced Rowe
| to drink it, and after his death they had
buried him in a hollow some distance
away. It was nearly daylight when the
confession was made and the lynchers de-
| termined to take King to Jail in Lafayette
and then arrest Rogers and Haggard;
Before the jail was reached day had
| dawned, and King recognized his captors
/ as members of the Horse Thief Detective
company of Benton. Warren and Tippe-
canoe counties, nearly all of whom were
| known to him. Confident of his guilt the
/ identity. So great was the excitement and
| so intense the feeling against King that
/ IA III 10
| establish his innocence.
/ From the jail at Lafayette King ad-
| dressed letters to editors of papers in Gin
| other cities, setting out the circumstances
| of his confinement and asking them to
| that it might fall under Rewe's notice.
! The appeal was pathetic one and was
copied into many papers throughout the
1 northwest.
Two weeks after its first appearance
! DR.. Rowe rode into Oxford, and, attended
| by number of citizens, proceeded to La
/ immediate release of the accused land
| lord. In explanation of his disappearance
/ Rowe said he had left his home in the
east on account of domestic troubles; that
he had learned that his wife was on her
| way to Oxford and he had determined to
leave the place secretly in order to pre-
! gone He had gone to a little town in
| Southern1Illinois, and it was there that
| he learned that the man who had be-
| friended him was suspected of his MUIR
/ der and was in Jail in Lafayette.
As soon as King was released he
| brought suit against thirty-two members
| 5000 each and also against the company
! as a corporation Thomas A. Hendricks,
afterward vice president, was his coun-
! sci, but the case was not allowed to come
! to trial, the lynchers compromising by
/ paying King S25 600. With this money he
purchased farm near Lafayette.