The Goodland republic. [volume] (Goodland, Kan.) 1891-1907, 1904-02-12
GENERAL COLBY DRANK POISON
Swallowed the Evidence in q Murder Case
and the jury said scS0t Guilty.
F-o-, ~ ~ 49,

Z SHalloH6u the Evidence In Murder Case
and the jury said ssSot Guilty.
+ From New York Press.
! BTigadier General Leonard ". Colby,
who Is under charges in connection
with alleged misaPproPriation of funds
belonging TO the Nebraska militia, has
figured in the public eye on several oc-
casiOns. He IS inordinately fond Of
show Many years ago ne bought the
white Arabian stallion which was pre-
sented TO General Grant BY the sultan
of Turkey This spread his fame
abroad throughout the land, and the
horse became the center of attraction in
every parade in which Colby took part
and he missed few west of the Mis-
souri, river.
But COlby's greatest claim to notoriety
rests on the fact that he is probably the
only lawyer who ever swallowed deadly
poison in order to obtain a clients &C
quittal- At this time he was a strug-
Cling lawyer in Beatrice, Neb. He was
called upon to defend a woman accused
of killing her husband by poisoning
him with arsenic. The evidence was
practically conclusive, and there was
hardly flaw in the case presented by
the prosecution. The husbands body
had been exhumed, the stomach taken
out, analysed, and the poison found
and placed in a bottle. There was in
dubitable proof that the woman had
administered the poison, and General
Colby did not contest this point. He
merely laid stress on the contention
that the man had died from natural
causes, and that the poison found in
stomach was not sufficient 70 cause his
death. On this point, however, mis- ex-
pert testimony was rather weak, and he
tried to impress the jury by some other
method.
COlby's Office was in a building ad-
joining the court house. When he en-
tered the court house after the noon re-
cess to make his argument for the de-
tense he appeared a little bit more ner-
vOus than usual, but this was attributed
to the high-strung temperament that
seemed characteristic of the born orator.
His speech was eloquent and the per
Grafton dramatic.
Gentlemen of the jury he said in
summing up, Il contend that the poison
my client is said to have administered
to her husband was not enough to kill
any man, to say nothing of one posses
sing his constitution. He died from
some other cause. If that poison would
have killed him It would kill me-"
He picked up the bottle of poison
from the table before him.
There is not enough poison there to
kill kitten, will prove to yo1 that
there Is not enough to kill a man.
Before anyone could prevent him he
pulled out the cork, threw back his
head and drained the bottle. Then ne
stood before the jury, his black eyes
flashing, and Numbered out:
Gentlemen Of the jury, if this poison
kills me you can convict my client. but
If 1 live-as 1 shall-yOu viii have to
bring in a verdict in her favor
With a parting bow 70 the judge and
the twelve men IN the jury box he
walked rapidly out Of the court room to
his Office, where he locked himself in
In twenty minutes he was back in the
court room smiling and confident. 1t
took the jury about three minutes to
bring in a verdict of acquittal.
A few days afterward II leaked out
that Colonel Colby had a doctor in his
Office and that the physician had re-
moved the POisOn-enough to have
killed ten men-with a stomach pump.
OF course, there was an uprOar but
the law says a prisoners life cannot
twice be placed in jeopardy. And then,
as wise old lawyer suggested, Colby
had destroyed the only evidence upon
which conviction could be secured in
the event of another trial.