The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1924-12-18
The Hight Case
Bv HERBERT B. LITTLE
Omitted Press Staff Correspondent

(Unlted Press STAN correspondent
Mt Vernon, Ill. - The story of Elsie
Sweetin and Rev. Lawrence M. Hight
is story of love and monotony, God
and the devil, small-town gossip and
sex repression, death and children.
One evening last April Hight, Meth
odist Episcopal pastor at Ina, Jeffer-
son county village of 400, south of
here, met Elsie Sweetin, in the aisle of
his church. He felt an immediate
attraction for her. She and her cousin
took him home.
Three months later the pastor gave
Elsie Sweetin small quantity of pow
dered arsenic, which she put in choc-
olate-drops which her coal-miner hus-
band, MILFORD Sweetin, ate. He be-
came i'll, but later grew better. Hight
gave the woman more arsenic, which
she gave her husband in oat meal. He
was i'll again and the wife, at Nights
suggestion, gave him third dose of
arsenic, in tomato soup. The first
dose of poison was given on July II,
and the third on July %.
Rev. Hight visited the husband fire.
quently in his official capacity as the
representative of God. After the third
dose of poison, he converted Sweetin
"to religion" and baptized him into the
church.
Sweetin died Sept. %, and Rev Hight
preached the funeral sermon. Taking
as his text the verse from st. john:
"Let not your heart be troubled; Ye
believe in God; believe We also in me;
IT, arSe we
sions -. :" Rev. Hight preached
what he himself told member of
his congregation was "the best funeral
ever preached"
tI didn't want to come to this pulpit
to preach" he said. "But now I see
that the Lord had reason for sending
me here. 1t was to convert this good
man, who is now resting under His
benefcent smile"
Poisoned His Wife.
Hight had told Elsie Sweetin he
would poison his wife, Anna, in SINH
lar fashion, following the meeting Of
the southern Illinois conference of his
church, which, he expected, would
transfer him to a new pastorate. The
conference was to meet Sept. a. But
on Sept. 6, Mrs. Hight became i'll. The
pastor administered dose OF arsenic,
which caused her death Sept. IL. The
pastor ascribed the death to ptomaine
poisoning and the physician who at
tended the woman agreed.
But the little village of Ina had not
been asleep. Secret meetings between
the pastor and Elsie Sweetin had been
watched. Before his death Sweetin had
been warned that his wife was pretty
thick" with the pastor, but he brushed
the suggestion aside. The pastor was
his friend, and Sweetin liked him.
Ina had noticed too that Rev. Hight,
getting milk for his family from the
Sweetins, invariably went for it per-
sonally, instead of sending his 16-year-
old daughter or 14-year-old son.
Ina had noticed too that Rev. Hight
walked down the street almost daily
to pile of lumber in view of the
Sweetin house, hopping his brow and
waving his handkerchief as in signal
ling. Some of the town boys had fol-
lowered Rev. Hight and Elsie Sweetin
in walks they managed to take.
Ina noticed that Rev. Hight came to
the house in the evenings when Sweet
in went to the nearby town of Benton
to do nightwork in coal mine.
Ina noticed that Rev. Hight was cold
to his wife. She lived with him 26
years.
So Ina talked. At the inquest over
the body of Mrs. Hight, the rumors
came to Coroner Jesse Reece, who or
dered an autopsy and had the viscera
of the dead woman sent to Chicago
chemist for analysis.
Word came that arsenic in deadly
quantities had been found and Rev.
Hight was arrested by Sheriff Grant
Holcomb the same day, just week
after the death of his wife. Coroner
Reece ordered the body of Sweetin
exhumed and the viscera was sent to
Chicago for analysis. Hight was ques-
toned at length by States Attorney
Frank Thompson, but he persisted in
stout declaration of innocence.
Preacher Compressed.
Two days later, Sunday, Sept. 81,
telegram came announcing that arsenic
had been found in the viscera of
Sweetin. Hight, who had been praying