The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-09-28

The Morrison case attracted as much
attention at the time in the west as
any of the famous murder cases of the
past decade. Miss Morrison killed Mrs
Castle, ten days bride, during 4
fight, cutting her throat with razor
Both women loved Olin Castle a clerk
in. a dry goods store. Castle married
Clara Wiley Miss Morrison tried to
see him after his marriage. Failing Ill
that, she went to the Castle home and
in frightful struggle slashed Mrs.
Castles throat with a razor. The bride
died few minutes after receiving the
wounds. She could not talk but wrote
on a piece of paper, Jessie Morrison
killed me-"
Miss Morrison pleaded self defense.
She was tried three times for tho
crime The first trial resulted in
for conviction. At the second trial she
was given five years in the peniten-
tiary. She should have stopped there,
but she secured a new trial and in that
court was given the twenty-five year
sentence she is serving now She aD-
pealed to the supreme court but the
lower court was sustained.
Governor Stubbs' Reasons.
Governor Stubbs gave his reasons for
granting the parole as follows:
In the first trial of Jessie Morrison
the jury disa greed. nine voting for ac-
quittal and three for conviction "f
manslaughter. In the second trial she
was convicted of mauslaughter with ii
five year sentence. 1 am convinced
that the first trial was the fairest trial
she had and taking into consideration
the fact that at the second trial she
was awarded a sentence of only five
lars, l believe the twenty-five year
sentence which she received at the
third trial is excessive punishment She
has already served three years longer
than she was sentenced at the second
trial"
Miss Morrison has been the good
angel of the prison. She has acted as
nurse in the women's ward and has
been model prisoner.
a Woman's Story of the Murder
Alice Robe, writing less than year
ago for a western paper about the
Morrison case, described graphically
the events leading up to the crime, and
undertook to analyze the feelings of the
two women principals and the man
they loved. Her story in part is as fol-
lows:
On June %, 1902, Jessie Morrison
was found guilty by jury IN her
home town of Eldorado, Kan, where
the crime occurred. of murder in the
second degree, and Judge Altman sem
fenced her to twenty-five years at
hard labor and close confinement at
the state penitentiary at Lansing
victim of the murderous outburst of
jealousy, avenged, but the young
bride who had won the red-cheeked,
blonde young clerk could not know
that the hand of retribution had dealt
so severely with Jessie Morrison, and
is was only after three trials and the
most splashing of columns of senSa-
tions through the papers of the west,
that Jessie Morrison, daughter of a
former probate judge, was placed in
a murderers cell.
The woman. Jessie Morrison. will
stand out a scarlet fame of crime for
ever. splashed on the history of loves
which know no restraining hand.
If Jessie Morrison had been a
daughter of the hot and passionate
southern cline of Italy the crime
would have been blended in the usual
but the daughter of a Kansas judge,
| living in a Kansas town, held round
by the narrow and small conventions
of a little western village is not the
woman one looks for in a tragedy
where jealousy overleaps the bounds
and flies at the white throat of a wo-
man to slay her in wild-eyed horror.
On June %. 1900. Jessie Morrison
entered the home of Mrs. Olin Castle,
| bride of ten days. and with a razor
belonging to the young wife's husband
slashed and cut so furiously and saw
agely about the neck and throat that
| death ensued shortly after the bride
wrote upon a piece of paper Jessie
Morrison killed me-
| Whether Jessie Morrison entered
the house with intent to kill, goaded
| by her violent jealousy. or whether
she was called into the brides home
| by the successful rival and reproach-
| ed for repeated attempts to see her
| husband was the point upon which
| the fight at the three trials was made.
Jessie Morrison claimed she acted in
| self-defenSe. but had she been con-
! tented with the verdict at the second
| trial of manslaughter in the second
| degree, with five years sentence,
| she would have today been a free wo-
| man.
| Jared Worse Each Trial
The story of the Kansas judges
! daughter lost force as the three trials