The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1905-05-26
"bluEbEARD" HoCH
RAVES AT JUEIES
Under Death Sentence For Wife
Murder, Man of Many Wives
PLEADS THAT HE Is INNOCENT
Claims the Newspapers of Country
Have Started the hue and Cry
AGAINST Him Which Will Cause his
Death.

lice in your great country OF tue Unit
ed States. You pride yourselves up
on your courts, and yet you have
doomed me, an innocent man, to death
Bah! Your justice is a farce and your
courts are simply schools of perjury,
said Johann Hoch, the convicted wife
murderer.
The newspapers have hung me.
They started the hue and cry against
me; they kept it up until no one in
all the length and breadth of the land
did not know of Johann HOch, did not
believe him to be an inhuman monster
for whom hanging was too good.
DO you tell me that the II men
on the jury had not made up their
minds about me from newspaper talk.
long before they came into the jury
room?
Il know better. Look at the time
in which they returned their verdict.
do not think they took any more
time than would enable them TO write
their names.
Then they feasted and rejoiced
that that they had doomed me to
death
And this in the face of five weeks
evidence and GO counts of Instructions
They did not even read them over.
Is that the way they would wish to be
dealt with if they were on trial for
their lives?
Il do not care how quickly death
comes now. | am an innocent man
and l am going to die game. But l
wish they would hurry up and kill me
quick. l do not like to be waiting
Apparently the least unconcerned
person in the Cook county jail, Johann
Hoch is spending the few days that
remain to him of life in sleeping eat
ing smoking and visiting with his jail
! mates.
HE appears to care absolutely moth
ing about his sentence" said one Of
his guards. except to be very angry
at the newspapers who, he declares,
are responsible for his sentence.
! He sleeps like a top, eats heartily
! and is quite as jolly and cheerful as
ever"
| He is a little curious about being left
alone. however. When the other pris-
, Cners were locked in their cells at )
O'Clock this afternoon H0eh asked Jail
! er Whitman if he might stay in the
+ corridors with the guards.
I Il feel nervous he said in a plead
! ing tone
! Ja:Ier Whitman aSSelted. and HOch
sat in a corridor on the fifth tier OF
= cells and smoked while he listened to
the singing of the negroes in the tier
OF cells below him.
! One negro prisoner with much lung
, power. sang Every Little Bit Helps
! HOch laughed loudly and wriggled
in his Chair Il guess that's right"
he said. Every little bit helped to
bring me here
That Hoch made a pitiful appeal to
the druggist, Saisner. of whom he
bought the medicine for his wife, was
revealed today in the contents of a
letter written to Sleisner by Hoch and
now in the possession OF the states
! attorney.
From its contents is revealed the
fact that HOch claims the druggist put
arsenic in the powders of the prescrip-
ton by mistake.
The letter in part follows:
MIR. SIeisner: Dear Sir-Pardon
the liberty l take in writing to you.
| must say | am surprised at you that
you cannot remember when l was al
| your drug store Jan. 10, at midnight
| with that last prescription given by
DR.. Reese. Please think back and be
sure of that. My life is in your hands
! Everyone else who was on the stand
told the truth, why will you not? Jo
ham Hoch."
| Assistant States Attorney Harry OF
sen said today that he would be read,
to argue the motion for a new tria
! for Hoch next Saturday.
Il, Farmer Shoots TWO Negroes.
Minor Hill, Tenn, May 24.-Henr.
Jackson, a prominent young farmer O