The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1903-05-15
FEARED SANE FATE
Wife of John CumminS Be-
lived He'd Kill Her
A MOST BRUTAL MAN
Detail of the Crime are Most
Shocking

Wellington. Kan, May 14.-After the
first trial of the case of the people of
Kansas against John Cummins. in which
he was charged with the cruel murder of
Anna Dishman. girl of 10. who was
under his care, the reading and listening
public was glad to forget the details of
crime so horrible as to challenge COM
parison with the famous murder trials
found in legal annals and criminal his
tory
The details of the crime are most shock
ing and furnish an evidence of wantoH
cruelty, seldom equaled. Though familiar
TO many the details viii be new to some
who will want to follow the case as it
proceeds.
John Cummins, his wife and two sons
live in the southeast part of Summer
county, near Portland. In 1897, or 1898.
they took 10 their home a young girl
named Anna Dishman, whom they were
to keep and educate for her services.
Annals mother was very poor and unable
TO provide food and shelter for both of
them, and as she was told that Cum
Minis and wife would give her good treat
ment, she thought she did well to get her
a home with them. After going there to
live the girl was treated snamefulIy, by
both Mr.. and Mrs. Cummins. They beat
her, cursed her and heaped all manner of
indignities upon her youthful head One
day in August, 1889, while the family was
at the breakfast table, Cummins claims
that she spat in some cooked potatoes
which she was bringing to the table. He
jumped quickly from the table. rushed at
her, seiZing a broom as he ran, and struck
her on the temple with the handle. She
did not seem TO suffer much from this
but a few days later, the place where
the blow had fallen, began to swell. The
girl had been forced downstairs from her
bedroom to sleep. and afterwards Cum
Minis demanded that she sleep outside the
house entirely. She then went to a coal
house TO sleep. Blood poison attacked
the wound made by the broom and the
Sunday following the injury she died in
horrible agony and with no attention
whatever either medical or otherwise.
After death, Cumins dragged her body to
a hollow and buried it, A year later he
took it up and burned it in a straw stack.
Some of the bone snot being entirely con-
sumed, he burned them in the kitchen
stove. The crime was not discovered for
three years, when Mrs. Cummins pur-
sued by a nimaginary Nemesis, revealed
the crime to the officials and when Cum
Minis was arrested, he confessed it.
Mrs. Cummins was on the stand yester-
do 1fS nd foll ta oh s,+
as she had told it on the first trial. She
is very nervous and viii not testify unless
the testimony is taken down in shorthand
by Miss Emma Barndollar, stenographer
in the county attorneys Office.
She still imagines that she is being pur-
sued by "slim legs and will not stay
in town nights because she says that he
will hypnotic her. Judge Mcbride ex-
amined her for the prosecution. He
handles her very cautiously because Of
her mental unbalance, and succeeded adj
mirably in keeping her on her feet while
recounting the horrible details of the
crime. When she told of telling Anna S
mother that Anna had gone away with
why she did that when she knew that
it was untrue.
why. ne wanted me to do it," she said,
as she looked at her husband, who sits
on the north side of the attorneys table.
Certainly" said Mcbride, but why
did you want TO conceal his crime?"
And then she began to turn uneasily
in her chair. as she usually does when
about TO make any tragic statement, and
then shot a piercing glance at her hus-
band, as she almost yelled: why, 1
thought if I did not do what he asked, he
would drag me down to that same hollow
and bury me-
Mrs Cummins was on the stand when
court adjourned last night and she did nci
get in today until nearly noon. She said
the roads were so bad she couldn't She
is being cross.examined by c. Z. Elliott