The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1909-12-17
LEDBETER TRIAL ON
SMITH TRIAL OPENS WITH VIC
TINS BROTHER ON STAND.
VICTIMS DAUGHTERS TESTIFY
Give Rather Important Testimony
Bearing on Mysterious
Murder.

follows: William H. Macbeth, Man.
kato, retired merchant and miller;
Henry Hodapp, DEBORAH, farmer; Ed
ward Bender, Lake Crystal, stock buy
er; Thomas Rooney, Ceresco, farmer;
John C. Bixby, Garden City, hotel
keeper; F. E. Eaton, Garden City,
farmer; R. E. Stanley, Shelby, farm
er; Charles Moses, Lake Crystal, farm
err; Thomas C. Norman, Garden City,
farmer; P. H. Jordan, Mankato, game
and fish warden; Eric Shaw, Butter
nut Valley, foreman.
Seventy-two names were drawn in
getting the jury, and the prosecution
used it's II peremptory challenges and
the defense seven. Smith and the
states attorneys, both are we'll pleased
with the character Of the jury select
ed.
It was a terrible arraignment that
P. A. Ledbeter, telling his story in his
direct and retiring manner, made Of
the defendant, without seeming to
know it, and Mrs. Ledbeter, wife of
the murdered farmer, was brought
into the case repeatedly in the witness
testimony.
The witness told of coming to Man.
kato une 10 to search for his brother,
H. J. Ledbeter, of whose disappearance
May he had been informed. Search
ers from tbs city and Medo and lima
townships armed with iron spears,
augers and shovels, spent two days In
going over the farm. seeking where
the body was buried, as he had suspi-
cions of foul play. Search was reward
ed the second day by finding the body
under a potato patch.
Witness told of conversations with
Smith, who had put him off with diff
ferent stories to account for his broth
er's disappearance, once telling of see
ing him alive on the farm two weeks
after the disappearance, once saying
he had prevented him from shooting
himself just as he was about to pull
the trigger of shotgun with string,
and once saying that he and Mrs. Led
better had planned to STAY Ledbetter
by throwing the ladder out from under
him while he was making repairs to
the top of the barn. The reason this
did not succeed was because Ledbetter
only went part way up and then came
down, remarking he was too old and
nervous to climb as he used to. Smith
had laid at least one of these stories
to Mrs. Ledbeter's ingenuity to shield
him.
The second days developments in
the trial of Frank Smith, charged
with numbering HolIey ]. Ledbeter,
were more favorable to Mrs. Ledbeter
Mrs. Ledbeter's two daughters, Hazel
and Mabel, were put on the stand with
her consent and gave straightforward
testimony. They and their two young
er brothers had gone to bed the even
ing of May 4 soon after o'clock, fol-
lowing shortly after Smith, and heard
no roise or disturbance of any kind
during the night.
Hazel went into her parents room
downstairs and everything there
looked the same as usual. Smith was
of searching for their father. The
evening before a neighbor's children
had been there playing with them and
their father had watched them play
A small dog had bitten him on the
finger and Mabel said she saw her
mother tie the finger up. Neither saw
their father kick the dog or their
mother slap their father. The defense
claims the murder was committed be-
fore midnight and the girls testimony
about hearing their father call Smith
the next morning is new and import
ant.
e. F. Soaring, city editor of the
Daily Free Press, told of a converse
ton be had with the defendant at the
Jail the night of his arrest, and of
what was said later that night by
Smith and Mrs. Ledbeter when
brought face to face. The testimony
was confined to Smiths statement of
alleged illicit relations with Mrs. Led
better before the murder, of Mrs. Led
beter's reply when accused by Smith
of trying to buy poison of Redwood
Fails doctor when she said it was
chlCroform to take medicine stains
from her dress, and of Smiths hav-
ing prefaced the question with, Nov,
Mrs. l edbeter, when you helped me
kill Mr.. Ledbeter didn't you" do so and
so, which he had finally corrected to
bury Ledbeter."
The defense tried to get in the en-
tire conversation, but the state OBJ
1ected, and the jury was sent out
while this point was fought out The
court finally decided that only such
parts of conversations as bore on mat
ters brought out by the state were
admissible.