The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1901-09-30
new COLLINS FIND
A ssConfessIon'' in the Hands Of
Attorneys.
Convict Died in Penitentiary
and Told a Story.
HORSE WAS HIRED.
johnson Jordan and Jess Harper
Got 1T.
Used on the Night of the
Murder.
The Statement Comes Second
Hand, However.
HORSE WAS HIRED.
on the Night of the
Murder.

John Collins attorneys have in their
possession a statement, supposed to be
the death bed confession of Thomas
Hawkins. a colored convict who died
in the Kansas penitentiary at Lansing
last April, to the effect that young Col
Inns j. innocent of the murder Of his
father. J. S. Collins, May IL, 1898, and
that johnson Jordan and Jess Harper
We're the real murderers.
Welch & Welch, the attorneys for
John Collins. who are trying to secure
a new trial on the grounds that he was
denied the right of appeal, have in their
possession written statement made
by Ellsworth Hacker purpOrting to be
the death bed confession of hawkins.
Hacker was a nurse in the hospital at
the penitentiary when Hawkins died.
Attorney WEIGH refuses to discuss the
new phase in the Collins case and will
not allow the written statement to be
seen. The attorneys will not state
whether they place any credence in the
supposed confession or not.
Hawkins died at the penitentiary
April Is and on May 2 Hacker wrote
what he claims was Hawkins death
bed confession The confession was sent
TO Mrs J. S. Collins soon after it was
prison authorities. The confession is
combined with statements made by
Hacker to the effect that Hawkins was
employed in q Topeka. livery stable in
crime was committed Johnson Jor
dan and Jess Harper, the two
notorious negroes who figured
in the Collins case, came to the barn
where Hawkins was employed and
hired a. horse and buggy, and that the
buggy was not returned to the barn
until the next Gay, and then by others
than Jordan and Harper
The statement is made by Hacker
that while Hawkins was in the hospital
he talked of an innocent man being
confined in the p0niten tiary, and in his
delirium he talked of John Collins
The night he died he was very weak
and told Hacker the story. He said
that afterwards ne went to Lawrence,
and while there Harper came to him
and told him IbSt he and Jordan were
trying to fix the crime on John Collins,
and that If Hacker told of the buggy
that Jordan and Harper might get into
trouble, and threatened him if he told
Hacker claims that Hawkins used the
names of several men and women in his
confession which he can not remember.
He says that Hawkins said that Harper
told him that ne and Jordan went to
the house to rob, and that Collins woke
up and that they had to kill him.
Hawkins was sent to the penitentiary
from Lawrence November 20, 1899, for
highway robbery. He was in the hospi-
tai six months before he died on April
%. Hacker is a life man sent to the
penitentiaIy from Pratt county in 1894
for completely in a county seat fight
murder.
Hacker claims that Hawkins said
that Attorney Hayden talked with him
during the Collins trial but that he did
not like Hayden and would not tell him
his story. Another convict named Clark,
from Hutchinson who is a lawyer, says
that Hawkins told him he knew of an
innocent man in the penitentiary and
asked him If he should tell what he
knew. Clark told him he ought to.
Hawkins told him the N an was John
Collins but did not tell the story. E. L.
Hawkins. an officer at the penitentiary,
also claims to know something that win
substantiate the Hawkins story. Tt is
claimed that John Collins never saw
Hawkins.
The story has its weak spots and the
weakest is that Hawkins kept quiet so
long.