Year: 1871

The Rp,oG Murder Case-The PrIsoner Pleads


BINGHAMPToN, Jan. 1.-THE long line of
witnesses summoned in the Ruloff murder trial
piled fact on fact so strongly, that before the
prosecution closed the case for the prisoner
seemed hopeless, By all the ingenuities of in
ference and circumstance the fatal web of
evidence was drawn more tightly about the pri-
soner until apparently no single loop-hole re-
manned for escape or evasion.


The evidence of James Flynn, Chief of the
Police of this city, was the most fatal and con-
elusive of all the points made against the ac-
cused His was the work of stationing guards
at every outlet from the city, and large patrols
on every street and lane. The principal part of
his evidence, however, was when he came to
identify manuscripts, burglars tools false-faces,
ard many other articles, which had been
delivered to him by Detective Reilley of New
York, and which the latter had taken from the
room of Ruloff at No. 10 Third avenue


Among these articles was the slip, seven
eighths of a column in length, cut from New
York journal of July Is, 1870, which had been
taken from valise found in field here, and
identified as belonging to the prisoner. The
mutilateo newspaper caused a profound sensa-
tion. 1t was exhibited, and the jury shown how
exactly the slip found in the prisoners desk
fitted the space left by cutting out the article.
One of the claims of the State was thus made
good, and it was established that valise be-
longing TO the prisoner had been found near the
scene of the murder, which contained copy of
the paper which had been mutilated in the room
of Edward Leurio, at No 10 Third avenue, by
the cutting out of an article which had been left
behind in the desk of the prisoner, Ruloh.


Edward g. Jakob identified the prisoner as
man who had rented a floor in his fathers
house at No. 10 Third avenue, New York city
under the name of Leurio, and by photograph
shown him identified the drowned burglar,
Jarvis, as the man who had lived with Leuro
under the name of Charles g. Curtis Upon
these important points young Jakob was not
shaken by cross-eXamination, but upon the
identity of the shoes and the valise he was not
H. too 4
usually worn Oxford ties, similar to the shoes
found at the scene of the murder and the valse
found here was like one he had seen in the
prisoners possession prior to his leaving the
house.


Ruioff said in conversation that if it were
not for that shoe he would beat the District At
torney and he certainly showed himself of that
opinion by his vigorous and earnest cross-eXa'
mination of this witness. His efforts were prin-
cipally directed to making Jacob state that he
had worn boots when last at the house The
manuscript book on language was identified by
witness as in the handwriting of the prisoner,
and the work on which he had seen him en-
gagged for long time while in the house.


None of the witnesses OF the defense respond
ing to fhe call of the crier, Ruloh, after some
preliminary cross questioning of Burrows, arose
with his notes and made the remarks he pro-
posed at the beginning of the trial. He urged
in a piteously tremulous voice and with in
creasing agitation that the papers introduced
were inadmissible because the prosecution had
not proved, nor offered TO prove when or under
what circumstances they left his possession and
went into that of the dead man. The conspi-
racy, he said, had been fully proved.


The State had established that three men were
felOniOusly in the store of Halbert Brothers; and
for what they did there they were answerable,
but the question was who were those three
men? He denied the right of the State to claim
that he was one of them, because paper 10 his
handwriting was found upon the person of q
drowned man. who was assumed to be one o.
the burglars. Certainly he said, it would be
taken as evidence against him If the paper lef
his possession five years, or even five weeks
before the crime; but as the prosecution wer,
unable to show when II left his possession, i
was clearly not competent.