Year: 1871

A murder trial of extraordinary inte- rest was closed short time since in the Brown county Circuit Court at Mt. Ster- ling. The facts are of thrilling interest. Two years and half ago two men started from Texas in wagon, labeled in large letters, "P. Kimball, Dallas, Texas. They travelled through Arkansas and Missouri, and crossed the Mississippi river at Hannibal

 Almost immediately afterward Kimball was missing, but his travelling companion continued on in Pike county, offering to, and finally selling the team and wagon, and on reaching Pittsfeld, Pike county, registered his name as Wm. H. Stout. The body of the man Kimball was shortly afterward found in slough in Pike county, evidently having been murdered.

 Nothing more was heard of the sup posed murderer after leaving the hotel at Pittstield for over two years. In the mean time the counties of Pike and Menard, where the murdered man had relations residing, each offered $500 re- ward for the apprehension of the murder CT. Finally, some six months ago detec- tives got track of Wm. H. Stout, tele- graph operator of Grand Island, Nebras-

 

 Kimballs companion. They got a acquisition, went to Nebraska, arrested him and brought him to Pittsfield, from where the case was taken by change of venue to Brown county.

 On the trial, the City Marshal of Hanni- bal identified the prisoner as Kimball' s companion when passing through that city. Three others recognized him as the one who crossed the river at that point with Kimball, while others testified that he is the same man who continued on with and sold the horses with the wagon.

 On the other hand, it was in evidence that the prisoner (Stout) handled the despatches in reference to himself as the suspected murderer of Kimball, and was thus advised just when he might expect to be arrested, and yet made no effort to escape that while confined in the Pitts field jail, the prisoners confined with him broke out and escaped, but he re- fused to go, and went himself to the iailor and informed him of the escape of his fellow prisoners and that when asked why he did not escape also, replied that he was innocent, and would stay and fight it out on that line if it took all summer"

 Four entirely trustworthy and respon- sible men-one of them @ member of the State Constitutional Convention came all the way from Grand Island, Nebraska, distance of seven hundred miles, at their own expense, to testify in behalf of Stout, whom they believed was an innocent man, and did testify that for three months before the murder of Kim ball, and for six months thereafter, the prisoner was not and could not have been absent from Grand Island three days at any one time.

 The dispositions of four other residents of Grand Island were read in testimony to the sane effect, and with the additional proof that the prisoners name was on the register in the Grand Island Hotel, and that he was in bed there the very night it is supposed Kimball was mur- dered. Yet, strange to say, Brown county jury concludes that all this evi- dence in the behalf of the prisoner is not sufficient grounds upon which to base a reasonable doubt'' of his guilt, and therefore return a verdict of guilty, and send him to the penitentiary for 20 years.