Webster City freeman. [volume] (Webster City, Hamilton County, Iowa) 1884-1946, 1914-01-27
GIRL PERSISTS
IN HER STORY
OF KIDNAPPING
Grace Runyon is Witness at Hear
ing in Earle Jones
WAS FRIGHTENED, SHE SAYS
Explains Jones Claimed Actions
First Time Since
Trial.
WAS FRIGHTENED, SHE SAYS


Runyon, Corning bankers daughter,
Tuesday broke the silence she has
maintained since the trial by which
Earle Jones, music teacher, was sent
to Anamosa prison, to testify at a
hearing here, in which states evil
dence is being taken seeking to re-
flute the claim that Jones did not
kidnap Miss Runyon.
In a sworn statement Miss Run
yon reiterates that Jones forced her
to walk to Brooks: that she was
forced to accompany him to Red
Oak, then to Shenandoah, and that
she was under his surveillance
throughout the trip. The statement,
which is of considerable length,
seeks to explain away many of the
claimed incidents of the trip, upon
which Jones attorneys base their
application for parole, on the theory
that she was frightened into SEEM
ing acquiesence in his plans.
Within a few days the parole
board will visit Jones at Anamosa,
and early in February application
for his parole will be considered.
The board decided to disregard it's
rule that no cases shall be taken up
until the prisoner has served at
least a year of his sentence, because
of the strong showing made by Earl
r. Ferguson of Shenandoah, Jones'
lawyer
Miss Runyon's statement aids to
make the case one of the strangest
and most bewildering in the history
of Iowa criminal procedure.
Jones was convicted on the show
ing that he had forced Miss Runyon,
at the point of a gun, to walk from
Corning to Brooks, five miles, that
he had forced her to ride with him
in an auto from Brooks to Red Oak,
and later to Shenandoah, with the
purpose of forcing her to marry him.
Miss Runyon related these to be
facts at Jones trial, and Jones
pleaded guilty to the kidnapping
charge, the lawyer whom he had
hired at Shenandoah, however, not
being present.
Mr.. Ferguson maintains that
Jones pleaded guilty to KIDNAPPING
because he had COMPOUNDED the
meaning, in law, of kidnapping and
clipping, and he has furnished a
mass of affidavits tending to show
that Miss Runyon accompanied
Jones Of her own free will.
The affidavits secured by Jones'
attorney include statements from
practically every person who was in
any way connected with the trip
from Brooks to Shenandoh. The
station agent at Brooks, the drivers
of the automobile that took the
couple to Shenandoah, and DR.. and
Mrs. J. H. Darling of Shenandoah,
at whose home Jones and the girl
stayed over night, unite in declaring
that the girl was in the best of spir-
it's at all times and showed no evil
dence of restraint. Miss Runyon's
affidavit accounts for this condition
by declaring she was frightened
Miss Runyon testified that on the
day of the alleged KIDNAPPING Jones
asked her to take a final walk with
him. She suggested they return,
she stated, when they reached the
"canal bridge" but Jones urged her
to go across the bridge and east
along the road, to which she con-
sented after considerable Directing
When they reached the timber,
she said, he asked her to sit down,
which she refused to do. He then
compelled her to sit down, she said,
and asked her if what she had said
in the afternoon (the breaking of
their engagement was true and her
own desire.
She declared it was all true, and
he seized her by the wrist, saying
that if she did not marry him she |
would never marry anyone else, and |
that they would die there together,
according to her testimony. She de-
clared he showed her a letter ad-
dressed to anyone" which he ask
ed her to read, and which recounted |
that the two had died together.
She says she declared they were
too young to die; that she stated |,
they would return to town, but that