Arizona republican., 1908-12-04
VISIT 10 PHOENIX
 0F AN OLD TIMER
Captain Williams of Yuma Comes
 Here Regularly Every Thirty Years.

Captain Williams, captain of the guard at the Yuma penitentiary, was Phoenix visitor yesterday and was quite pleased with what he saw of the city. The captain is considerable of a home body, this being his sec ond absence from the prison in ten years of service there. It is a rule of his life to visit Phoenix every thirty years and as the time was up contemporaneously with the commit
 ment of an insane convict to the asylum, he was sent up here with him to place him under the care of Dr. Ketcherside. formerly the prison physician.
 The last visit Captain Williams made to Phoenix was when he left party at Camp Verde and with a friend journeyed down this way, on to Agua Caliente Hot Springs and then south into Mexico. That trip was a perilous one, and they all but perished on the desert south of Gila Bend and probably would had it been during the hot summer season. As 1t was they left a horse or two along the way that the captain says he imagines is there yet. He has visited many other sections of the territory since then but never happened to have business in Phoenix and notes that there have been some notable changes here in thirty years.
 The captain in speaking of Doug I,, Lot Tlr tod estnf
 eide a few days ago. says he was very remarkable man in some ways. He is the man who robbed the Mesa City postoffice and later gave him self up, serving a term in Yuma for it. His suicide a few days ago fol- lowed a second sentence for robbing the depot in Tucson. Both these stories are now well known but dur ing his prison life a great deal that was interesting was learned of him. He was quite boastful of his prison record. which he told freely and in vestigation proved that his stories in the main were correct, his latest sentence being the ninth he had re- ceived to one pen or another.
 When he returned the last time he had in his pocket a set of false teeth. He handed them over and said: Give these to Blank, number so and so, and tell him I got them for him up in California" His friend Blank on receiving them laughed and said he needed them badly enough but they wouldn't fit him and anyhow he dis liked using them for undoubtedly Douglas had stolen them from some body in California. Douglas had a generous heart in that way and was always trying to do something to help out some fellow crook who need
 ed a good turn. Though it could hardly be said he was respected, he was in a sense liked pretty well.
 Speaking of the suicide of Doug las the captain said he was very determined man and carried out his plan with fortitude. He killed him self with muriatic acid, seemed to know just what it would do and took every precaution to do a successful job. He took it just before noon and did not die until twelve hours later. Fearing it might be discovered that he had taken it and some means be employed by the physician to pump it out of him he was very careful not to burn his mouth. He seemingly opened his mouth wide and gulped it down, leaving no marks on his lips, and in doing so inhaled a lot of the poison. In any event the au- topsy revealed that the entire diges- tive tract was burned to a blister and his lungs were terribly damaged from the effect of the inhalation.
 He lay on the ground in the prison yard some time before he was dis covered and finally when taken to the hospital all he would say for a while was that he had a terrible burning sensation inside of him and did not reveal the fact that he had swallowed the acid until its work was done be- Nnnd any nreNentinn of the end