The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1905-08-11
Monuments and Cemetery WORK
other of the more reckless and needless

other Of the more reckless and needless
rioters.
"Then again it was evident to the
Judge before whom Gut was tried, and
to others familiar with the case, that
the other defendants and their infuen-
tial friends were not unwilling that Gut
should be made to appear as the chief
offender, and be offered upon the altar
of Justice in satisfaction of its de
mands And the fact should be stated
that while Gut all this time remained in
close confinement, the other prisoners
all of whom had been bailed out by
their friends, nad jumped their bail and
fled the country, leaving him to face the
music and bear the penalty alone. Or
dinarily prisoners charged with murder
in the first degree would have been re-
fused bail, but at that time the only
Jail in the district was at New Ulm and
the court thought the chances of finding
The prisoners to be better wnen needed
for trial, if out on bail than if out on
no bail, as would most certainly have
been the case, the jailer and the entire
community, with possibly a few ex-
ceptIons, a very few persons who were
silent from intimidation and fear), ac-
lively and openly sympathising with
indicted criminals.
Although everybody considered Gut
richly deserved the infection of the
death penalty, the fact that he occu-
pied somewhat the position of a scape-
goat and that all the other defendants
seemed to have made good their es-
cape from justice; and the further fact
that two or three years had elapsed
since the killing, permitting the hor-
rors of the offense to be partially for
gotten and the sympathies of the peo-
pie to be enlisted for Suffering Grim
inal," as is unfortunately but generally
the case, there was no pressure of pub
lie opinion for the execution of Gut, but
considerable quiet opposition to the in
Fiction of the penalty.
cat least this was the view of the
case adopted by the governor, who first
committed his sentence to life imprison-
ment, and subsequently to ten years
from the date of the commission of the
offense. At the expiration of the ten
years John Gut was discharged from the
Saltwater prison, and, in the mean
time having been furnished with means
by his family in Germany with which
to procure suitable clothing and the
necessary transportation, he at once left
the United States for home, where it
is supposed he Joined his family, never
returning to the country of MS crime
and of his unique and very narrow es7
cape from hanging. But in another re-
spect he was not so fortunate-he was
never to withdraw his name from the
criminal annals of either the state of
Minnesota or of those of the United
States, where every lawyer is made
familiar with the law and the peculiar
itiesI of his case, case liable to be cited
in their briefs so long as our. civiliza
ton lasts.
lol Co. lba dor
but one was ever tried. After some
wears John Nun ventured back to this
country (if indeed he ever left it), was
arrested, it is believed, somewhere in
the state of Iowa. returned to Mime
sofa, put upon his trial in Nicollet
county, Ito which venue had been
changed from Brown county. and where
Gut was tried and convicted), and was
acquitted probably through the same in
huences as saved Gut from the gallows
time and the brevitv of the memory
of the American people in matters of
crime"
Hon. A. A. Stone, the present county
attorney of Nicollet, was the sheriff,
who had charge of the prisoners during
the time of the trial at st. Peter. The
sheriff talks very Interestingly of his
experiences in connection Herewith. AT
one time, after John Nun had jumped
his bond. Sheriff Stone caught him at
Sioux City. But Nun was acquitted
nevertheless.