The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1921-03-17
DRAMATIC PLEA



a stealer of virtue. She did not winch;
she was Unconditional. Champion
called jurymen by their first names
during the address.
when Jake Hamon sent this girl
to college she was a brown-eyed coun-
try girl in her teens-he wooed, -coaXed
and won,'' said Champion. He
wouldn't have taken crooked girl
into his life and sent her to college
to become an office associate.
she was chaste, pure sweet girl.
He knew her in the town where she
lived. He took her because of her
clean life. He took her that she
might ultimately yield her body to
his brutal passion. Hamon almost
snatched. this girl from the cradle to
debauch her
Clara wept internationally during
Champions TRADE against Jake Ha-
A sensation was sprung when Cham
pion charged ''that Frank ketch has
his clutches safely fastened onto the
millions CT the dead man."
Record fc- Speed.
The state, it is generally conceded.
has had very weak case against the
defendant and has been unable to
shatter the case of the defendant.
The speed with which Clara's trial
has been rushed thru has been a rec
ord for sensational murder trials.
1t started just a week ago. The jury
was completed the first day The
state. in two days presented its wit
nesses who testified that Hamon was
not drunk on the day he was shot and
that before he died. the oil king made
dying declarations that he had been
deliberately shot by his paramour-
Slightly over d day was consumed
by the defense in proving its conten-
ton that Hamon was drunk and that
Clara shot him in self defense after he
had beat her and swung a chair at her
During the trial it was brought out
that Hamon exiled his wife and two
children to Chicago and has lived with
the defendant for eight years in his
dingy love howell in the second rate
Randol hotel.
Testimony also brought out that
Hamon was "a power politically and
that when he was MORALLY wounded,
his concern was to get his friends who
the Republican column taken care OF
with political jobs.
Shot at Zenith of Power.
One of his last requests to w. D.
Nichols was "to go straight to War
rem Harding to get my friends taken
care Of"
Hamon was shot on November 21 in
his rooms at the Randol hotel. He
walked to the hospital and the next
day statements were given out he ac-
cidentally shot himself while cleaning
a gun. All of lannon's friends at
the time stuck by this story.
Russell Brown, county attorney at
the time. started an investigation be-
fore he died. He filed charges of i'm
morality against Clara Smith and
Hamon and charged her with shooting
him.
The day after the shooting, accord
ing to testimony given by Frank L.
Ketch, thousand dollars a week bust
ness associate of Hamon, Clara was
given $4,000 by Ketch and ordered to
leave Ardmore and not to come back.
She fled to Mexico and while there
confessed that she shot Hamon and
returned to face trial.
! All of lannon's friends then repudi-
ated their statements that Hamon had
been accidentally shot and got behind
the prosecution. These were the chief
witnesses for the state.
Many believe that Hamon went to
his death saying he shot himself to
save his seeretary-protegee from pun
ishment.
Whether he did or not was not defi-
| nitely established at the trial-the
defense said he did and the prosecu-
ton said he didn't.