The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1933-11-23
z ECCENTRICS
FACE TRIAL IN
GOAT MURDER
Members of Great Families
Charged With Staying of
Famed Beauty.

Eg United Press
NATCHEZ, Miss, Nov. %
Octavia Dockery and Richard H. G.
Dana, odd suryivals of great fami-
lies, came into historic old Natchez.
yesterday to face trial for the
alleged murder of Jane Surget
Merrill, once a beauty in European
courts.
Eight hundred people gathered
around the little courthouse to gaze
in wonder at Miss Dockery, daugh-
ter Of a hero Of the Confederate
army, and Dana, whose great uncle
was the famous editor, Charles
Dana, of the New York Sun.
The days court proceedings we're
brief. The case of the Two
defendants were severed and Miss
Dockery was ordered TO trial on
Monday The sheriff was disquali-
fed and the coroner was appointed
to draw a jury panel of 200 Court
then adjourned for the week
Eight-Inch Beard
Miss Dockery beamed upon the
crowd. Dana grinned from behind
an eight-inch beard, set off by Two
neckties-a red bow tied over a
green four-in-h hand
Jane Surget Merrill, u. was
slain in her 120-year-old colonial
home, Glenburney, just outside
the city limits of Natchez, on the
night Of Aug 4, 1882.
Two bullets we're fired into her
body as she stood between the liv-
ing room and bedroom of her home.
The house was ransacked The
body was dragged outside and left
in a thicket, 100 yards away.
Possemen searched the grounds
all night The alarm had been
spread by Duncan G. Minor, her
neighbor, her girlhood sweetheart
and her only intimate during her
many years of seclusion.
Daughter of Ambassador
Wild excitement followed the
Staying. Negroes fled the vicinity
in terror, spreading tales of ghosts
and "ha ants"
Miss Merrill had been a legend
in the unwritten annals of old
Natchez. Once she was a figure in
the court of st. James, and the Bel
gian royal court.
A native of this city and ia
nous beauty in her days, she had
inherited the estate of her father.
the late Ayers P Merrill, United
States ambassador to Belgium and
friend of President Grant, only to
shut herself away in solitude in the
family mansion.
There had been a feud between
Miss Merrill and the two strange in
hsbitants of an adjoining estate,
which towns folk called Goat
Castle" There lived Richard H. c.
Dana and Miss Octavia Dockery,
sharing the ruins of Danas once
magnificent plantation home, with
goats and chickens.
Battle Over Goats
The goats frequently prowled onto
the well-kept Merrill estate, and
Miss Merrill shot one of them once.
A quarrel of unusual bitterness was
said to have occurred between the
two women a few days before the
Staying.
The feud was common knowledge
in the town, and Sheriff c. P.
Roberts Immediately saw a possible
motive for murder. He arrested
Dana and Miss Dockery and charged
them with murder.
Miss Dockery is the daughter of
the late Brigadier- General Thomas
Paine Dockery, confederate hero.
She was Dana's housekeeper and
was appointed his guardian when
his actions in woods about his home.
CARRIED in burlap bags and sitting in
trees, caused townspeople to have
him adjudged insane.
Negro Is Indicted
Dana and Miss DoCkery spent sew
eral days in Jail. They were re-
leased without bond when towns
people protested their incarceration,
and several of the SouthS ablest
lawyers came to their defense.
The climax was reached when
George Pearles, Negro gunman, was
slain in Pine Bluff, Ark, while re-
SlSting arrest. He was indicted for
the murder after his death.
Miss Merrills will was filed for
probate. 1t left an estate estimated
at Sl50,000 and named Minor sole
heir and executor.
A few months ago, Mrs. Nellie j.
GriSt, Of Greenfield. Ind, filed suit
contesting the will, claiming that
she was an illegimate daughter OF
Miss Merrill.