The Sentinel=record., 1914-01-11
SECOND DEGREE MURDER VER- DICT RETURNED IN CASE
 AGAINST NEGRO WOMAN.
VERDICT RECEIVED STOICLY
Negress Who Run the "lndian Club" Shows Little to Indicate Realiza- ton of the Punishment When Yer dict Is Read.

A verdict of second degree murder, carrying with it punishment in the state penitentiary at hard labor for fifteen years, was returned in circuit court at 1:15 o'clock this morning against Millie Tolliver, the negress who had operated the Indian Club" in the south part of the city and who with beer bottle on the night of No vember 1 of last year so wounded Charles Bowen, a young country boy, that he died six days later from the injury.
 The jury received the case and re tired to the jury room promptly at midnight Judge Gotham had told the jury he would wait thirty minutes to hear from them. When that time had elapsed, and the jury had not reported any disagreement, the court decided to give the jury another half hour, and waited until a few minutes after l o'clock, when the judge had Deputy Sheriff Downen inquire of the jury if verdict was probable.
 Give us ten minutes more,' came a voice from the jury room, and the request was complied with. In about ten minutes the jury announced 1t was ready to report.
 The jury was composed of John w. Campbell who was made foreman and who made the report: James NJ. Anderson. Peter Muse, l. B. Forbes, H. A. Kizzia, Simon Lockwood, Red mond Joyce, w. A Kirk, Joe Kemp ner William Borman, Ernest Simms and w. T. Hawkins.
 As the jury filed into the court room to make it's report there was a general craning of necks on the part of those who had awaited the cru cial moment. Attention was divided between the negro woman who haG sat like a sphinx through the whole of the trial, and the jury that had her fate in their hands.
 Have you reache da verdict" ask ed the court.
 We have"
 Read it."
 We, the jury. find the defendant guilty of murder in the second de- gree, and place her punishment at ff- teen years in the state penitentiary. ]"
 The verdict was received quietly by the crowd. There were no eMpres- sions of disappointment or satisfac- tion. Judge Gotham thanked the ju- TOTS for their patience and for their promptness in securing a verdict, and the crowd began to break from the court room.
 The verdict means for the negress practically a life sentence She ap- pears to be something past 40 years of age now, and should she serve the full sentence she probably would be about through with life,
 The defendant had been out on bond through the progress of the trial but with the returning of the verdict she was delivered into the custody of the deputy sheriff, who placed her in the county jail.
 There will likely be a further legal fight in the case, which probably will go into the supreme court, but the prosecuting attorney and his deputy have handled the case throughout with this in anticipation, and believe that there has been left no opportu- nity for reversible error. The defense introduced but one witness in the main facts of the case, that being Mlllie Tolliver. She went on the stand and testified as to be- ing the operator of the Indian Club and of the coming there that night of a number of men. She testified that she was in another part of the house, and that she heard or receiv- ed word that a rock had been thrown through the glass part of the door of | the entrance, and that she went to the stairs and saw the window brok- en
 She testified that she then saw the form of a man through the broken door pane. and that she stepped back into the hall, and picking up a beer bottle that had been there, she threw i it through the opening.
 q did not know that it had hit anybody" she swore. She testified that she went back to room anC took pitcher to throw, and thai when she returned to the head o the stairway she did not see any fur ther trouble, and did not throw it.
 Her evidence was that she beliey ed that her house was being stoned