The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1905-06-25

INTO court with ciTcumstantial case
Of great strength. Personally I was
confident of being able to present such
evidence as would convince any uu-
prejudiced juror Of the guilt of Nellie
Bailey, or REESE.
The physical circumstances surround
ing the death Of BOthamley. had the
accused been a man, would have gone
far OF themselves toward convicting-
These circumstances. considered iu
connection with the history OF NelIi7
Bailey from the time of her marriage.
the disappearance OF her husband, the
finding of the human bones and flesh.
her possession of his jewelTy and
money. her marriage to REESE and her
1 confidence that Bailey would never
bother them, the evident attempt on
her part to secure title TO BOthamley's
Tanch-all these things and many mi
nor circumstances seemed to me to
constitute case Of much merit from
the legal viewpoint. In this view Colo
mel HalloweU agreed with me The
genial United States district attorney
and / differed however, on one ma
terial point-the chance Of securing
conviction.
Remember. Tyrrell" he said. that
It's woman on trial. and a pretty
woman"
The trial of this remarkable woman
was one of the most memorable in the
history of Kansas. She had ample
means and had retained able counsel
Colonel HalloweIl. in his capacity as
United States attorney. represented the
prosecution as the crime had been com
mitted I'm the Indian Territory. where
/ there were no local courts The gov
eTnment'S array Of CiTCumstantiaI evi-
dence was maTshaled before the Jury
with much skill and force by Colonel
HallOwell and display of correlated
foo II
an ordinary defendant TO weaken. But
the little blue-eyed woman remained as
calm. as the discriminating CircUm-
stances were piled up against her. as
she had been from the first. Counsel
for the defense made the best OF the
somewhat meageT case they had. but
when ths evidence was all i'm there was
wide margin in favor of the prose
cution- After the summing up by the
, lawyers Colonel HallOwell said To me-
we dre are UP against it. Every
man on that jury knows she is guilty
and not one of them viii vote for
conviction
cases where women were the defend
ants was accurate. After due deliber-
alton the jury filed into the room and
submitted to the court its verdict-"\Ut
guilty Judge Foster. who heard the
| case, said after the trial that there was
not the slightest doubt in his mind of
the Woman'S guilt But she was free
Robert REESE had come to Kansas to
attend the trial. and Immediately after
/ the verdict disappeared with the Wo-
man I believed to he his wife and who
was his lawful wife If the bones and
I flesh found in Dakota had been those
of Shannon Bailey.
I found afterwaTd that while the jur-
ors almost unanimously expressed
themselves as believing the. prisoner
guilty they had applied to thecase their
sense Of rough frontier Justice, reason
ing that BOthamley had been a man
whose early advantag es and intelli-
genCe should have led into A different
4 life. and that If he met his death At
the hands Of one woman after he had
led another to desert him. besides de-
SertinE his own wife and children he
was meeting with no more punishment
than he deserved As man I have
no quarrel with this reasoning. As an
officer Of the law at that time 7 felt
much disappointed at seeing the hard
work of months go for naUght, espe-
CiaIly as that hard work had developed
what to my mind was a sound case.
So far as I have been able TO learn.
Shannon Bailey has never been heard
Of since the day ne disappeared 7
have recently written to his brother
who formerly lived in Ohio. but re-
Ceived no answer 7 will stake my rep
Utatiou that we found all that was
mortal of him on the Dakota plain and
in the cellar of his former home in De
Smet.
Next Sunday Captain TyrTeli viii re-
veal the true story Of The Missouri
Land LeaEUers." Watch for this in
teTesting narrative of the Secret ser
vice.
Copyright. 1905, by Marion g. Scheit-
lin)