The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1909-12-17

| it alone and asked me toIgve him lift He took
the rope over fia shoulder and | gave him a lift
and he dragged it isusssouider, for short ways
! and then stumbled manure and fell down
and said: "Now you have got to help me-
! We then took the body, having hold of one leg
and Mrs Ledbeter the other, and Schwandt having 1t
! by the shoulders arm and got it to the end OF
the pasture. There we threw it down and got a
stick which we placed under the back and Schwandt
and each took one end of the stick, while the two
women held the legs and thus balanced the body We
crossed the creek by the bridge and went to point
forty fifty rods from the barn to the edge of a
wheat field, where fence divides it from pasture
Bundles of cornstalks piled along the fence in
the field, to be fed to- cattle in the pasture We threw
the bundles to side and Schwandt took the spade
and dug for awhile and then dug. Finally he said
that the hole deep enough, being three feet or
more. The night was dark it was hard to see.
We put the body into the hole, with the blanket
and rope around lit, and eSehwandt and 1 filled the
hole with earth and tramped it down and put the
The four of us then went back to the house, and
Mr.. and Mrs. Schwandt went upstairs. Mrs. Led
better gave me the shotgun and shells and told me
10 stay outside to see whether anybody was watch
ing, and to report to sber if I anyone. I took
them and watched until daylight, and did not hear
anyone In the morning Schwandt got up early to take
the train and came to me and shook hands and said
that it was ell right and that had done pretty
good job, and that he thought that the thing
working all right. He said that he would come back
again in short time. but he did not come again.
WHEN MRS. LEDBETER BEGAN WORRYING.
When P. A. Ledbeter arrived and began to organize
la searching party, last week Mrs Ledbeter began
worrying She saw the account in the paper and was
scared She feared that the cornstalks would be
thrown aside and loose ground found and Friday
morning she wanted to throw the stalks the
fence and pillow the ground and plant potatoes I
did this that day. Mrs Schwandt then said for me
to 60 and dig two three holes in the ground and
pile up the dirt, to deceive the searchers when
they dug into them and found nothing. Mrs Led
better said that this would not do, but for me to
make big hole close to where the body was
buried and leave the ground loose, with little vel
low dirt on top and if the searchers dug this up and
found nothing they would not look further in that
vicinity. / dug the hole Friday, ordered.
Early Saturday morning Mrs. Ledbeter told me to
drag the potatoe patch and also where had dug
the hole and / did Friday afternoon I had
started to pillow corn, but about four o'clock Mrs
Ledbeter came to and told TO stop and come
to the house, she had work for me. did so and
she had ME cut down the underbrush all along the
ditch and throw it Into the ditch and the dirt
off some, so the searchers would spend lot of time
there and be disappointed and 60 home. l did this
and it took until seven o'clock to complete it, and
she and the children helped, also.
The hole that dug near the body was twenty or
thirty feet away l was with the men who dug the
hole up Saturday afternoon, when they found moth
ing Mrs Ledbeter told me that if anyone asked why
dug the hole to tell them that did it for spitewor
on the searchers and told them so.
MOTIVE FOR THE MURDER
Smith was asked closely by the reporter as to a
motive for the murder. He said in substance: Mrs
Ledbeter had been quarreling with her husband and
trying to get him to leave for month before ;lc
murder. In fact since last fall she had been talking
to me against him. She said that he too old
and smelled in bed and she couldn't sleep with him
any more with any comfort. She showed me a ring
and said that she had carried it for five years, and
that fellow had given it to her and had told her
that when Ledbeter died he going to marry her.
She said that he rich and was after her then
and had been all the time This statement was made
by her last winter I had become infatuated with
her and she had been showing affection for me, and
asked whether she going to throw me over
for the other man, and she said that she was not.
She told me that when were with others we
would act mad toward one another to throw people
of had been intimate with her since last fall but
Mr. Ledbeter never suspected this so far as know
Early in the spring Ledbeter was hard up, and she
always wanted great deal of money, and she began
to talk OF poisoning him; and wanted to buy
some stryehnine She quarrcled with him the last
month before his death to get him to leave but lie
would not answer her. but got that he hung his
head and said that he would do anything that she
wanted him to, He was always good to her. but she