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A Startling Arraignment by Counsel for the State is Met by a very Plausible Defense ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Array of Attorneys Commenes to Tall and Consume the Greater Part of a week- Mrs. Sneedy and Monday MeFarland. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The opening gun for the Defense. Charles O. Whedon was the first witness sworn on behalf of the defense, and as a resident of the vicinity of the Sheedy home testified to the amicable relations of Mr. and Mrs. Sheedy. He had known Sheedy for years, and his reputation was that of a gambler. Had been at the house, and notified nothing but friendly relations. Never saw Monday about the place. He carried the News to Mary. Lew Franklin was acquainted with Sheedy and his wife, and was in his house frequently as a visitor for a year past; never saw anything but the pleasantest relations between them, as much so as existed in any family. Remembered no particular conversation had between them; had eaten there; his wife did not visit there; never heard Mrs. Sheedy speak of her husband except in the kindliest tones; saw Mrs. Sheedy at 10 o'clock the morning after the assault; she came into the room where witness was with her husband and said that she did not think he would recover; she tried to arouse him, called him "dear John, (?) was weeping at the time. Was at the home after Sheedy was stabbed four years ago; witness at the time offered his assistance; Mrs. Sheedy thanked him kindly and said she was so afraid that he would be scarred that she wanted to take care of that herself; did not remember how long he lay sick from that wound. Cross-examined, witness said his calls were simply friendly ones; generally were simply friendly ones; generally went Sunday mornings; these visits have covered a number of years; the last time he visited there prior to the assault was about the time of the state fairl saw Mrs. Sheedy there at that time; it was during the races; did not think it was Sunday and it might have been in the afternoon; didn't think John was there; went there because John had said that if he won the money he had up on a race he was going to give it to his wife, and witness went there to inform Mrs. Sheedy that "John was a winner;" that was before the state fair; couldn't say what month those races were in; was not in the habit of carrying such messages to Mrs. Sheedy; did simply because he liked Mrs. Sheedy and thought they were both good people. Sheedy had said he was fifity-one years of age. He was a strong man physically and witness never knew him to be sick outside of the times of these assaults upon him. Outside his profession Sheedy was one of the grandest men he ever knew. He was a man of his word, a prouder man never lived, was of high aspiration and his charitable characteristic were grand.
Saw two men run. Wilbur Mayes said he was a real estate man, and boarded at the Transit hotel across the street from the Sheedy residence; on the evening that John Sheedy was assaulted with a cane (didn't remember the date) witness was standing at the stove in the office of the hotel; he heard the first shot. as he reached the door another shot was firedl as he got upon the walk still another was fired, and still another after that; at that time witness saw a man come around on the west side of the house and run down past the west side of the arborl acted as if he was trying to get over the fences on the west side; at the same time a man passed from the rear end of the house toward the alley and both disappeared at the same time. THought the one nearest him would weight about 180 pounds; could'nt tell whether the men were white or black. Witness said he went across to house and a number of people were there; couldn't say whether or not the two men he saw were policemen.
They went on a run. A Hitchcock heard the shooting; was on the south side of O street near Thirteenth; heard one or two shots and walked toward Twelfth street; saw two men running south on Twelfth street and then disappeared there by the opera house; couldn't tell what color they were; they were medium sized men, and thought they had on black hats; went on to Sheedy's house; there were four or five person's there; did not go in; is was about 8 o'clock; did not know anyone he saw there. Cross-examined witness said he was nineteen years old, drove a team, lived at Fifteenth and V streets; father did nothing at present; was with a man named Curry; remained at the Sheedy place twenty minutes; then after walking around some went to Red Ribbon hall; and then to the Methodist church; opened the door and looked into the church, but didn't go in. The two men were in the middle of Twelfth street near the alley back of the Sheedy residences; there were also two men standing on O street west of Twelfth and also saw two men on the northeast corner of Twelfth and O; didn't know who any of those men were; they were all there when the two men ran south on Twelfth street and dissapeared in the darkness. The only particulars brought out by the cross examination were that the witness was a cousin of Billy Hitchoock and that he was around in the Sheedy yard that night with the police hunting for tracks and never told them of having seen the two men.
The boy who saw the Pairel Wages. George Curry, a boy of seventeen, who lives with his parents at Twelfth and T streets, said he was with Hitchcock on the night of the assault; were on O street near Thirteenth; heard four or five shots ran toward Twelfth street; saw two men in the street running southwest; first saw them near the alley back of Burr block; they disappeared in the shafow near the steps of the opera house; thought the men were dressed in dark clothes couldn't tell whether the men were white or black; there were no policemen at the Sheedy house when witness got there; saw none on Twelfth street; there was a hack standing there; the patrol wagon came up immediately. When he left home with Hitchcock they had started for church; went first to Red Ribbon hall and stayed five or ten minutes; then went to the Methodist.
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WEEKLY NEBRASKA STATE JOURNAL FRIDAY MAY 29 1891 11
protection of the accused, so that the defense will know who is to testify for the state. This enables the defense to discover what the testimony is likely to be and to take such steps as are available to disprove it. Mrs. Skinner's knowledge was not revealed to the state until it was too late to endorse her name on the information. A number of other important witnesses have been recently discovered, too late for service, which would probably not have been the case had the papers been permitted to secure and print the facts revealed at the coroner's inquest. The same rule of law does not apply to the witnesses for the defense.
Made me Dicker With Goldwater.I
An exasperating delay of fully a half hour ensued at this point because the remaining witnesses summoned in rebuttal were not present. At length Hon. R. B. Graham was brought in and asked whether or not himself, Malone or Melick, as far as he knew, had ever made any arrangements with Goldwater whereby he was to be paid for identifying the cane.
The defense objected to the testimony as improper and calculated to impeach Mr. Goldwater as against Mr. Burr., the latter having testified that Goldwater had so told him. Mr. Strode said that those who knew the standing of the two men in this community, would hardly credit the testimony of Hymen Goldwater against that of Mr. Burr. "Mr. Burr has never been arrested for petit larceney." said Mr. Strode.
"No," rejoined Mr. Hall, "but he has been disbarred for disreputable practice as an attorney."
Judge Field finally decided to permit the testimony to go in, and Mr. Graham denied ever having conversed with Goldwater concerning the matter, and had never been present at any such conversation in relation so the reward or any part thereof.
S. M. Melick was called and also denied every having promised Hymen Goldwater any reward or any part of a reward for the identification of the cane, and had never been present at any conversation wherein any such promise was made.
He related how young Goldwater had once come to the police station and asked to see Malone. Witness had inquired what he wanted Malone to pay him $200 which the latter had promised him out of the reward. Witness asked Malone subsequently if he had promised the boy any reward and he had replied that he had not.
Young Curry's Unwitting Mistake.
After some further delay Bob Malone was brought in. He testified that he was driver of the patrol wagon at the times of the Sheedy assault: the patrol wagon did not go over to the Sheedy house.
W. W. Carder was called and said he was not sure whether the patrol wagon went over that night or not; the record kept by him at that time would show it if it did.
He was shown the police record; said he made it himself, or thought he did; didn't know whether he was positive that it was his writing or that of Walter Melick. The record did not show that the wagon had gone out, and the witness said that he thought it had not gone out, and the witness said that he thought it had not gone to the Sheedy place that night.
This was to rebut the testimony of young Curry, one of the boys who claimed to have seen the two men running away and who said that the patrol wagon drove up soon after he got there.
The state had been waiting and calling for Joe Scroggins, but as he was not brought in Mr. Hall finally said:
"Your honor, the officers of the court do not appear to be able to find the witness. We do not care to inflict any further delay, and have therefore concluded to announce that the state rests."
Judge Field said that a request had been made that the opening argument be postponed until Monday and if there were no objections it would be done. Non were heard.
"I would like to have a definite understanding, however, among attorneys that this case is now closed, and positively no further testimony can be introduced. Mr. Bailiff, remove the jury."
Mr. Snell Opens for the State.
At 9:25 Mr. Snell took up the opening argument for the state. He began by describing the premises accurately and in detail, and how at 7:30 on that Sunday night John Sheedy stepped out of his door and was fully assaulted and murdered.
"When darkness folded her sable mantle and wrapped its pall over this city on the evening of January 11 last, there had been planned and was on the even of execution a murderous conspiracy, which for devilish malevolence and hideous cunning, and depravity stands but bold and alone in the criminal annals of Lancaster county. I refer to the assault made that evening upon John Sheedy, and which culminated in his death the following day. The preliminaries for the commission of this murder had been arranged with careful reference to detail, and the parties concerned would, perhaps, have escaped punishment had not, the principal actor in the assault, strung to remorse by a guilty conscience, revealed the infamous conspiracy by a confession, which revealed the details in all their hideous deformity, and pilloried the accomplice before the gaze of a startled community."
He detailed the arrest and preliminary proceedings after suspicion had settled upon the defendants and showed how Monday McFarland had been a barber employed occasionally at the Sheedy home in dressing Mrs. Sheedy's hair, and that while so employed, an hour or more at a time, in such instances Mrs. Sheedy had ample opportunity to sound him and ascertain in what way she might avail herself of his services in securing her freedom.
"No man ever committed the awful crime of murder without a motive. What, then, was the motive that startled the nerves and seared the conscience of Monday McFarland? What prompted him to the commission of the most awful crime known to our statutes? There was a motive; what was it? It was Mary Sheedy, the wife of the man against whose life she was conspiring, and she urged him on not alone by the promise of great financial reward, but, as he says in his confession, by the sacrifice of her chastity to him. Still he could not nerve himself to attempt the life of a man who had been his benefactor, and to whom he had every reason to consider he owed a debt of gratitude he could never repay."
He dwelt at length upon the efforts of the defense to show that the most amicable relations existed between Mr. and Mrs. Sheedy by such witnesses as E. H. Andrus, C. O. Whedon and W. J. Marshall. witnesses who would not be at all likely to ever see John Sheedy pounding his wife or hear Mrs. Sheedy [acoiding?] her husband like a fish woman. The defense had purposely called witnesses who knew nothing of the facts and had studiously failed to ask any of their own witnesses, who were qualified to know, whether or not Mr. and Mrs. Sheedy lived happily, not even Mrs. Dean, the sister of the defendant, who lived in the family.
He then took up the evidence of the witnesses for the state--that of Mrs. Swift and Mrs. Hood, who unwillingly testified that their relations were anything but amicable, and that of Johnnie Klausner, who said that he had found Mrs. Sheedy once in tears and she had said she was going to get a divorce.
The record in the case failed to disclose that nay domestic infelicity had ever agitated the Sheedy family until after she had returned from Buffalo, bringing with her the picture of young Walstrom, and said that while the defense will endeavor to make it appear that Mrs. Sheedy's friendship fro Walstrom was a harmless one, still it is probable that each member of the jury will reflect that when a married woman evinces such an interest in a young man and exhibits his picture so proudly to her friends, he will arrive at the conclusion that he would prefer it were somebody's else wife than his own
The speaker referred to the relations existing between Walstrom and Mrs. Sheedy; how he came to the city soon after her return, hunted up Johnnie Klausner and introduced himself as the young man of whom Mrs. Sheedy had already spoken to Klausner; how they went together to a room in the Heater block, Walstrom paying two-thirds of the room rent, how soon afterwards Johnnie Klausner began carrying sealed notes, which were not addressed, between Mrs. Sheedy and Walstrom. If those notes were harmless notes why in the name of Mrs. Sheedy's innocence had not the defense brought at least one of Walstrom's notes, which were undoubtedly in their possession, into court to show how innocent they were. And it is a little remarkable that Mrs. Sheedy never sent any lunches to Klausner's room until Walstrom came to room with him, as Klausner testifies himself.
He took up Monday's confession and fave its chief points briefly, showed how every after fact confirmed the story, and now utterly impossible it would be for Monday or any other man to invent such a story.
Mr. Snell picked Monday's confession to pieces and told in detail how every known circumstance brought out in the testimony corroborated the entire truth and wonderful accuracy of that remarkable story of the criminal conspiracy.
Mr. Snell's closing point was the best he had made. It was to the effect that it would have been simply impossible for anyone to have made the assault on John Sheedy as it was committed unless he had had a confederate inside of the house to signal him when Mr. Sheedy was coming out, just Monday McFarland claimed Mrs. Sheedy signalled to him by raising the window blind. The plat will show that the north end of the house is but about twelve feet from the sidewalk. The testimony shows that Mr. and Mrs. Sheedy were sitting in the north room near the north windows, the curtains of which were up. The east window, opening out of the next room to the south, could afford no view of them. It would have been impossible for an intending assassin to watch their movements through the north windows, and he would have certainly been detected by the people constantly passing along that much travelled street. It was too light upon the porch for an assassin to have escaped observation had he chosen to crouch there while waiting for his victim to come out. any loiterer about the porch or from windows would certainly have attracted attention. But back about thirty feet or more from the fence, directly on the east side of the house, was an arbor, behind which the assassin must have secreted himself, just as Monday McFarland says in his confession that he did secrete himself. From this point it would be impossible to have discerned when Mr. Sheedy was coming out, bad not someone signalled his coming, just as Monday McFarland says in his confession she did, when he stepped upon the porch and struck that blow with the cane.
"And what does Mrs. Sheedy say in her testimony before the coroner? The east window that opens upon that porch opens out of the sitting room, wich is just south of the parlor. The door leading to the porch opens out of the parlor. To get to the kitchen from the parlor one passes through the sitting room. Mrs. Sheedy says that she helped John on with his overcoat and hat, and then started for the kitchen. Then it was that she raised that window curtain in the sitting room to let Monday McFarland know that her husband was coming."
Judge [Welr's?] Argument for Mrs. Sheeddy.
He was followed by Judge Weir of Mrs. Sheedy's counsel, who took up the forty minutes prior to noon, in introductory remarks, congratulating the jury upon the progress of the case toward completion and explaining how he came to be in the case--as a friend and neighbor of Mrs. Sheedy's uncle. Mr. Biggerstaff. He dwelt in an impressive manner upon the importance of the case, not only to the defense, but to the state. He said that without any semblance of flattery he could say that the chief counsel for the defense had done their duty faithfully, honestly and ably, and if he had been able to suggest to them one valuable thought or idea that would assist them in their work, he had done his duty. He complimented the jury upon the attention they had given the evidence. He then explained the duties of counsel for the state to be to honestly, fairly and impartially endeavor to see that crime meets its just punishment. He had no criticisms to make in relation to the counsel for the state. They had done their work faithfully, zealously and ably. When an attorney for the state exhibits undue zeal to secure conviction of a party accused he becomes a persecutor instead of a prosecutor.
The speaker then took up the two chief propositions of law involved in the case and detailed in the most minute manner their bearing upon their verdict. The first principle, one upon which counsel would all agree, was that the law presumes the defendants innocent until they have been proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt; not a doubt that might be conjured up, but a doubt that is reasonable. He quoted many principles and maxims of the law designed to serve as a shield for the accused and thoroughly fixed in the minds of the jurors the duty of considering the accused innocent until convinced of their guilt.
After discussing the law Judge Weir attacked the the theory advanced by the state as to the motve of the crime. He said the state endeavored to ;show that John Sheedy and his wife lived in great discord, and that the latter was therefore anxious to get rid of her husband; that to that end the state had shown that on one occasion she had said she had wanted to get a divorce. This was the strongest evidence shown by the prosecution on that point: that up to July last she was afflicted with a disease peculiar to women; that she was solicited to go east and put herself under the treatment of skilled physicians; that she did go, accompanied by her husband, who left her there: that while there she met and fell in love with a young man named Walstrom, and that she procured him to come to Lincoln. And the theory of the state was that it was because of her love for Walstrom that she was led to imbrue her hands in the blood of her kind and affectionate husband.
He said that the state had failed to bring any evidence. except a few isolated facts, in support of their theory , and all in the nature of circumstantial evidence. He explained at length the distinction between direct and circumstantial evidence, and urged the necessity of the establishment of a continuous chain of circumstantial evidence in order to convict, from which there must be missing not a single link.
He then returned to the fact that John Sheedy was a gambler and that the wife did not approve of the business. It also appeared that he was a king among gamblers and very naturally excited jealousy among others in the same business. Hence, very naturally and very reasonably, he had enemies among that class.
When the crime was committed and he was laid upon his deathbed by a blow administered at this own door, the question arose as to what was the source of that crime. Did it emanate from the jealousy of his companions in business, or did it emanate from the wishes of his wife. Which is the more reasonable theory? Could it not have been committed by same other than Monday McFarland? The speaker quoted the threatening letter received by Sheedy only four days prior to the assault, telling him that unless he let up on the other gamblers he would be killed.
He said that it was not until some days after the tragedy that some circumstance fastened suspicion upon Monday McFarland and at once the policemen and detectives saw a chance offered by this tragedy to make money. He dwelt at length in criticism of the methods adopted by the officers in extorting the alleged confession from Monday, and said that although God, in His inscrutable wisdom, had made him black, he was a human being, endowed with a human soul, and was entitled to the protection of the law, which was in this instance denied him. He urged at length the incompetency of that alleged confession because it was obtained by threats, violence and promise of immunity. If the jury was of the opinion, from the evidence, that that confession was obtained by threats or promises, then, the court would instruct them, they must exclude it from their consideration.
To prove that it was so obtained he referred to the fact that Marshal Melick at the very time of making the arrest, had made the first promise of immunity. He said: "If you make these disclosures it will be easier for you." He referred rather less courteously to James Malone, who, he said, seemed to be the centre of the prosecution and was called upon the testimony whenever testimony was needed, and related the testimony of W. W. Carder to the effect that Malone had endeavored to make Monday believe that a mob was being organized outside of the jail to hang him, and that as soon as it reached a hundred it would come for him. [Actusted?] by the fear thus engendered Monday had made the alleged confession. That was early Sunday morning. Later in the day this poor creature, feeling that he was deserted and that his life was in danger, was brought before the mayor and the marshal ad Dennis Sheedy, with a shorthand reporter behind the curtain, and there, still laboring under his violent sense of fear, had related the story introduced in the testimony.
The speaker also referred to the repetition of the confession before the coroner's jury as having been similarly obtained by threats and promises, all having been practically a part of the same transaction. He contended that there was testimony to show that Monday was sworn when he recited the confession, and said that if the jury so found from the preponderance of testimony, that confession should not be considered by them.
"We contend," said Judge Weir, " that the confessions proposed to be considered here were confessions extorted from this poor, miserable,ignorant black man by a violation of law, and if they were extorted from him by a violation of the law provided for his protection, they are powerless against him as evidence."
He also contended that these confessions, whether true or false, could not be considered as evidence of the guilt of Mrs. Sheedy. But the story itself need only be considered to convince one that it is absolutely false. He contended that no man could believe that the story as told by Monday McFarland about "this good woman" was true. It was contrary to human nature.
"It is not true; it's against human nature: it is preposterous, and should be spurned with contempt from the consideration of every upright, honest, unprejudiced and impartial man.
The theory of the defense is that Mrs. Sheedy, in connection with the negro, murdered her husband; that while he was lying upon his bed languishing and dying from the effects of that blow, she was so lost to the sentiments of humanity that she mixed the fatal does in coffee. and unknown to the physician in charge, administered it to her husband."
He dwelt upon the improbability of such a theory because of its repugnance to the idea of wifely affection. Then followed the autopsy and the analysis of the contents of the stomach. in which no poison was found. Then they brought a chemist from Chicago. took up the body again, submitted other portions of the body to an analysis in their real to fasten the crime upon the wife. yet all the appliances of science had failed to reveal the presence of morphine poisoning or any other poisoning. He thought that at this point the prosecution would have paused to reflect upon the persecution of this woman and that Dennis Sheedy, who appeared to be furnishing the means therefor, would have foregone further persecution, and in a burst of eloquence denounced the course of Dennis Sheedy as a malignant effort to persecute and destroy the beloved and innocent wife of his dead brother. He denounced the inference that there was any criminality in the acquaintance with Walstrom, and contended that the state had wonderfully magnified her little attentions to him into a crime in order to show that she had motive to murder her husband and had committed the unnatural crime of adultery with the negro to secure that end. It was a preposterous theory, yet it was the theory upon which the state would ask the jury to convict this good woman of the awful crime of murder, a crime punishable by death.
"Can you in view of these few and isolated and innocent expressions of friendliness--can you put the brand of infamy upon her? Can you because of them fasten the awful crime of murder upon this ill-used and persecuted woman?"
He denounced the prosecution as the result of the love of money, the root of all evil. and said that he did not believe that jurors could be utilized as factors in the perpetration of such persecution.
"Down there in that little home--It was not majestic in its appointments, it is true, but it was a home in which this loving husband and this loving wife had spent many happy years together--"
Here it was that Mrs. Sheedy burst into tears for the first time, but it was but a momentary indulgence, for in an incredibly short time she had dried her eyes and resumed her contemplative gaze at the base of the dais in front of her.
Mr. Weedward's Argument for McFarland
In opening his review of the evidence in behalf of Monday McFarland Mr. Woodward said he expected to show from the evidence that this prosecution was the result of a conspiracy as black as hell itself. He said that in the opening of the case practices had been resorted to by counsel for the state more damnable than any that had ever been unearthed beneath the dome of heaven; that Mrs. Sheedy was a woman without issue and by the laws of this land was entitled to half the fortune of her dead husband. If convicted of his murder it went to others. Hence it was, he expected to show, that under the law of the land the eminent counsel for the prosecution, secured by Dennis Sheedy's blood money, had no right whatever to be there. He said that when it was discovered that no poison had been found in the stomach of John Sheedy the state no longer had any case against Mary Sheedy, and she ought to have been discharged and probably would have been but for this conspiracy. Instead, thereof she was held until her persecutors had gone down into the grave in search again of poison upon which to convict her, and even during this trial Mr. Hall had gone to Chicago in his eager search for that poison. When the second analysis failed to reveal the presence of poison, the attorneys in this conspiracy come into court still contending that poison had been administered and that it had passed out of the system and could not therefore be found.
Mr. Woodward then took up the admissibility of the confession and spent some time in the discussion of the testimony in relation to the threats or persuasion used to secure them. He quoted Mayor Graham who said that "considerable persuasion" was used, and contended that if any were used it was enough to take the confessions out of the consideration of the jury. Marshal Melick, whose word no one will doubt, testified that he had told Monday that it would be easier for him if he would tell the whole story. Even Jim Malone's admitted that Monday had told him that he was afraid of a mob. The speaker raked the testimony of Malone all over, pointed out that he had told Drank Waters, B. F. Prinneo, Mr. Strode and Mr. Philpott that he had scared the confession out of Monday, and in view of his denial that he had had so told them, his testimony was unworthy of the slightest credence. He detailed the testimony of Officers Splain and Kinney to show that Monday was badly scared that Sunday morning, and told how, while the officers were in there urging Monday to tell the story, others out in the office struck the floor with their feet to make it appear that the mob was coming, and then it was that Monday McFarland, with visions of the mob and the rope in his brain, told his story in fear and trembling, but not until he had protested that "If they hang me they will hang an innocent man."
He called attention to the testimony in reference to Malone's methods and claimed that Klausner had testified that Malone had imprisoned him for two weeks and refused to liberate him, trying meantime to get some statement out of him against Mary Sheedy.
"And this is the man whom this miserable, blood-thirsty prosecution would have you jurors believe to be a quiet, lamb-like gentleman, as gentle as a dove, who would not have done anything to injure or frighten this miserable negro, Monday McFarland, into telling this miserable story.
He went on to show that the confession before the coroner's jury was made under oath, and contended that none of the confessions could be considered unless the jury was convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that they were voluntary.
The speaker then said that he not only claimed that the confession was not voluntary, but that it was a lie from beginning to end.
"It has been said that there was a negro in the wood pile, but I propose to show you that there is a Caucasian, or [word?] Caucasians in the wood pile this time."
He said that in his early days he had been a school teacher himself and he was prepared to assert that Monday's alleged story would prove of itself that it was a lie from beginning to end, made up out of what Monday knew of the relations of Mr. and Mrs. Sheedy and interpolations of other parties.
"Monday McFarland is an ignorant negro barber. Let me read you some of the expressions found in that confession. The 'consequences of this act!' What does Monday McFarland know about the word 'consequences?' If he had met it in the big road, he would not have recognized it."
This assertion created considerable laughter and Monday grinned with undeniable pleasure at the reference to his ignorance. The attorney also pointed out the words "intimate," "inducements," "she pictured out to me," "she gave me a limited time to commit the murder," and other similar expressions as ones such a person as Monday would not have been likely to make use of, and that they must have been put into his mouth.
Mr. Woodward called attention to the fact that the law books show the names of a hundred people who have been executed upon circumstantial evidence in cases where subsequent evidence proved them to have been innocent. He referred to the recent attempt at suicide of William Windnagel, the Randolph street butcher, who was found nearly dead in the rear of his shop with his throat cut, while a man named Carr was seen in the room with a bloody knife in his hand, and as soon as someone entered, had started to run. He told how if Windnagel had not recovered to tell that he had attempted suicide, the man Carr would have fallen a victim to circumstantial evidence.
Mr. Woodward contended that it was possible to conceive that John Sheedy was never murdered at all. "I have grave suspicion." said he, "that if no medical gentleman had ever crossed the threshold of John Sheedy's home that night he would have been alive to-day."
He told of the discrepancy of the expert testimony as to the cause of death. and ridiculed unmercifully the inaccuracy of the medical theories advanced, but in any event four out of the six physicians introduced had sworn that the blow administered by Monday did not cause death. He dwelt upon the possibility that the druggist might have given Dr. Hart something other than sulfonal, taken in connection with his many wounds and diseased organs, might have caused his death. Certain it was that the doctors had not definitely found the cause of Sheedy's death. First they had declared it to have been caused by compression due to the blow, and after the autopsy, when they found that they had made a mistake in their diagnosis, they had to find an excuse for that mistake.
The speaker then took up the confessions of his client and endeavored to show that many of the things he was reported to have said were very impossible. He ridiculed the idea that Mrs. Sheedy had ever frightened Monday as the latter claimed in that confession that she did, and contended that it was very improbable, as Monday must have known that had he gone to Sheedy and told him all. Sheedy would undoubtedly have protected him. He read from the confession wherein Monday had told of having once borrowed a revolver with which to commit the murder, bit had returned it and didn't remember from whom he had borrowed it. He contended that this was improbable, because the detectives had never discovered from whom Monday had borrowed any such weapon, which they would certainly have done if he had ever borrowed one.
He dwelt in ridicule and denunciation upon Monday's story of how Mrs. Sheedy had beaten him and even referred to his client as "this poor, miserable negro," to the confession as "this poor, miserable statement," and to the state as this "blood-thirsty, miserable prosecution."
"I challenge these gentlemen to explain to me one thing. If Monday McFarland had made that confession voluntarily to Jim Malone, why did they subsequently secure a stenographer and have it reduced to writing?"
"Was there anybody else connected with this assault? I claim that the evidence points to the fact that there was; that it points mere unerringly toward somebody else than it does toward my poor client."
He reverted to the fact that no one saw Monday McFarland around the house at that time, but on the contrary Henry Krause was seen running, not toward the alley, but the southwest corner of the yard, and he had said that the man ran down the alley. How did he know? Krause says that John Sheedy shot one shot at him, and that he got behind a tree. The testimony of Krause wherein he explained how he came to be at that point was commented upon in ridicule.
"I don't say that Mr. Krause had anything to do with the assault, but I do say that this conduct on that occasion can not be explained upon any other theory than that he was connected with it."
"And there is one thing I want to ask the counsel for the state, and if they know it will take very little time for them to tell this jury. Where was Frank Williams on that eventful Sunday night? Where was he. I say? Have they told us? No. One witness says he was at work at Bradeen's and another that he was somewhere else. Now where was he? I don't know where he was at the time of the assault, but I know where he was a few moments afterward. Across the street, not a block away from the Sheedy residence, at the same place where Monday McFarland was also, at Bud Lindsey's. Don't you believe, gentlemen of the jury, that Frank Williams knew something about that crime? I don't believe that Gleason had anything to do with it. Ab Carder swears that Sheedy meant Gleason when he said the 'big man.' I don't believe it. If he had meant Gleason he would have said the tall man. When he said the big man he meant the heavy set man. And it is a little remarkable that Frank Williams, as the evidence shows, skipped to Denver when this prosecution came on."
"The same man who fired that shot on the 9th of December was the one who committed that assault on the 11th day of January, and it was a white man. Which would you believe in reference to that matter--the confession of Monday McFarland that he did it or the testimony of Mr. and Mrs. Hosman to the affect that the assailant was a white man?
"Why, gentlemen, I undertake to say that had Mr. Hall been there and noticed a handsome woman in that vicinity, or had Mr. Lambertson been there and a fine thoroughbred bulldog been about that vicinity, a Comanche Indian might have gone down that street in full war paint and they would not have seen him. Their attention would have been elsewhere; and so it was with those policemen. Their attention was elsewhere."
Frank Bell's Powerful Argument.
It was 10:45 when Mr. Hall took his place before the jury and launched into one of the most forcible, clean cut and convincing arguments ever presented to a jury in Lancaster county.
Now we come down to the examination of the connection of these defendants wit the murder of John Sheedy. This in some respects is a crime as we believe originated by a woman, using Monday McFarland as a tool for the purpose of carrying out the designs that she has hatched out in the silent hours of her meditation in her home, and our purpose shall be to show to you that Mrs. Sheedy is the guilty party and that Monday McFarland is no more than a [pliant?] tool in her hands, used, perchance, for dealing the blow because he had the muscle to deal a more deadly blow than the woman.
I think Mrs. Sheedy had the nerve and the wicked intent of purpose and the heart to have stood opposite that door and slugged John Sheedy as he came out if she had had the physical strength to have done it. If you think for a moment that she did not have the courage you do not know the woman.
I must confess to you that Monday McFarland has some sympathy from me in this transaction. If ever I sympathized with a criminal arraigned here and being tried for murder in the first degree, it is Monday McFarland. I tell you frankly and I tell you candidly that my sympathy does go out for Monday McFarland--my sympathy goes out for any man who has lost the power of controlling his own desires and his own wishes in connection with a matter of this kind. While of course, nobody can excuse Monday McFarland for allowing himself to be used as an instrument of murder, while he ought to be punished, and I believe he will be, yet I am persuaded that this jury agrees with me that Monday McFarland had no murder in his heart until it was put there by this woman.
This murder of John Sheedy was not a murder in a fit of passion. It was not the murder of revenge. It was committed as a matter of pure dollars and cents. Now if you can find any palliating circumstances, any mitigating facts about a murder that has been concocted, that has been planned, that has been schemed for three or four months before it is carried out, apply them to Monday McFarland.
It seems to me that the attitude of Mrs. Sheedy in connection with this murder ought to be enough to paralyze the strongest heart, to break down the strongest mind, either male or female. Why in the name of God, look at the devastation that has been caused and spread behind this murder. Who was Monday McFarland when he was employed to commit this murder? You are told he was a barber, that he has a family. What is to become of him? To be hung? What is to become of his family, a widow and orphan children, with the father punished for crime? Why, it seems to me that the very thing itself ought to deter a woman or anybody from ever hiring a man who, so far as we know, had been an honest, upright citizen up to that time, to commit a murder, and for what? Aye, for the purpose of enabling this woman to satisfy a guilty love. Her's was the master hand, her's was the master mind. her's the genius that planned this murder and laid out the manner in which it should be carried out. It is beyond my comprehension how a man can get through the facts in this case honestly and carefully and reach any other conclusion. You do not believe for a moment that Monday McFarland went there and murdered the best friend he had on earth out of a spirit of revenge or in a mood of vengeance. No, you do not believe that.
You know that there was a controlling power behind Monday McFarland. He tells you in his own evidence that he tried in every way upon earth to escape committing that murder. He had gotten into it so far that if he backed out he thought he was liable to be killed, and if he committed the murder he was liable to be murdered, so the poor devil was halting between two opinions. It mattered little to him which he did. He had not the power to resist the impulses that were instilled into his mind by this woman, yet he hesitated to commit the deed, and it was only when this woman had infused into his mind and heart the poison that was in here; it was only when she had infused into his mind the courage that was in here; it was only when she was enabled to give him a nerve of iron from her own, that he could muster up courage enough to commit this crime.
WHEREVER THERE IS A CRIME THERE IS ALWAYS A MOTIVE.
Whenever a crime is committed and and anybody is charged with it, you immediately commence looking for the motive. What was the motive in this case? Monday McFarland, as you see him here, is a colored man with family; had been a barber in this town for a good many years; so far as we know had never been accused of any crime; so far as we know had never murdered anybody; had been, so far as anything appears before this jury, about the same as any ordinary colored barber of a city of this kind would be. Now, what do we find? We find him budded out, in three or four months, into a full grown murderer. You have no doubt that Monday McFarland struck that blow. I don't believe there is a man on this jury that doubts that Monday McFarland dealt that deadly blow to John Sheedy. Now, if you believe that, what was it induced him to strike the blow? Nothing is shown but the best of feeling between Monday McFarland and John Sheedy, and Monday McFarland himself says he has always been a friend of his.
I will tell you what I think it was induced him to do it. I think it was the prisoner, Mrs. Sheedy; and how did she do it?
Why, she appeared to him in more alluring form and shape than did satan when he tempted Christ on the mountain. She first holds up to him the alluring temptation of money. The price that he was to receive; the amount that was to be counted out for him, which would have made it a mere matter of dollars against ounces of blood. "Oh, most pernicious gift, can thus seduce." He did not take kindly to the scheme. Then, the next thing, after she had dazzled his eyes with the gold, and wit the sparkling diamond, after she had dazed his senses with what he expected to receive--he was to become rich--her next step was to unfold to him her deplorable condition. She was abused: her husband had threatened her life, thus arousing the man's sympathy for a woman's wrongs. What next? Knowing that she must have this man in her power completely and absolutely, after she had appealed to his sympathy, after she had appealed to his [cupidity?], after she had held up to his gaze the allurements of wealth to barter away for murder, she then offers to barter away her virtue and her womanhood; and for what? For the murder of her husband. Great God, was ever womanhood and virtue thus bartered away for such a commodity?
The defense will answer that by saying she did not allow this negro the privilege of her body. That she did not sell her womanhood and virtue for murder. If I did not believe that, I would not state it. If you take and read that confession and show how she gradually unfolded this scheme to this man, it is just as natural as a, b, c. Tell me that a woman that has got murder in her heart would hesitate to sacrifice her virtue for its accomplishment. The negro, thus captivated by the woman, not only by promises of money, but by his sympathy for the woman in her wronged condition, as she said she was, where her husband had abused her and threatened to shoot her, then was added that stronger passion of affection for the woman, and then it was that this poor negro's manhood and self-control and self-possession departed, and from that day on he was nothing more nor less than a pliant tool in the hands of this woman. Didn't he tell you he went away not expecting to return, but when he went along the streets she called him in? He showed by his confession that he was trying to break away from the snares that had been thrown around him? He says himself that he was vacillating back there. As I said before, he had gotten into the net so deep it was easier to go forward than it was to go back, and so he did. His very conduct shows that. It tells you when he there to strike the blow his arm was unnerved, and immediately upon striking the blow the cane flew from his hand. He fell down as he was trying to get away from there. His mind was paralyzed with fear, and he was almost unable to get away from there at first. Now, how was he worked up to do this deed? He was coaxed, he was prodded, he was coerced, he was pushed with all the pressure that a determined woman could command, to force him to commit this deed. But, you say, would Mrs. Sheedy do it? Why should she hire a man to murder her husband? She must have had some motive. Aye, that was true, and that motive was a double one.
In the first place I desire to call your attention to this fact, that nothing seemed to be wrong in the Sheedy mansion until this woman had formed the acquaintance of Walstrom. With her acquaintance with him commenced the domestic trouble between Sheedy and her. Mrs. Sheedy tranferred her affections to another man, and if the truth could be known, if some one here could tell the whole truth in connection with her relations with John Sheedy they would tell a different story from anything you have heard yet. They would tell you that woman loathed and despised John Sheedy, so that his very touch was repulsive and a punishment to her. This commenced with her acquaintance with Walstrom. Following up the acquaintance with Walstrom which was begun there in Buffalo, N. Y., Walstrom soon comes to Nebraska.
What was about the first thing she tells Monday McFarland? That there is a man coming to take her away. Do you believe that? How do you think Monday McFarland would have started that, to have told such a story as that? He had forgotten the man's name. And when mentioned to him. he says, " Yes, Walstrom is the name."
Hadn't she grown pretty familiar in a very short space of time? Have you heard of her presenting any other friends with night-shirts on that occasion?. Was there nobody in the city of Lincoln with whom she had been acquainted longer and more intimately than with Mr. Walstrom? Johnny Klausner had been a young man around the house for a long time. Did she send him any hose, neckties, or any night-shirts, or any ring pouches? Why, it seems that Walstrom was the only man on God's earth that Mrs. Sheedy had thought enough of and known long enough and know intimately enough to make numerous presents to on Christmas day. Have you heard of her making any presents to her husband, John Sheedy? If that great and glad day of Christmas had impressed itself upon this woman's mind so as to arouse her with its genorosity to her friends, why in the name of God didn't she make her own husband some presents instead of Walstrom? Nothing wrong about a married woman making presents to a man she had met in Buffalo three months before? Is that the kind of decorum and good order that a man is to adopt in his own household? How did she know who Walstrom was, where he came from, or what kind of a man he was, if she had only casually met him in the hospital in Buffalo, N. Y.
If she had met him only as she meets other people here, why was she so solicitous to have young Klausner room with him when he came here? Had she ever hunted anyone to room with Johnny Klausner when he was there at the house that you heard of? Was she so solicitous about anybody else other than Walstrom? And yet they tell you there is nothing wrong about this, merely giving presents to a young friend in the shape of neckties, in the shape of hose, in the shape of a ring pouch, and in the shape night-shirts. Why, it is true it is no crime for a woman to give anybody night-shirts, or to give him presents of these other articles, there is nothing criminal in that. She had bought them and paid for them. They were hers, she could bestow them where she pleased, but don't you think these clothes went where the woman's affections were, and if they did, why had a married woman like Mrs. Sheedy any right, any lawful right, or any right in good morals, to be carrying on such conduct as that? Nothing wrong about that? Well, now, it is strange. I concede the fact that a married woman may write a man a letter or she may write him several letters. That, in itself, is no crime: but what we complain of is the contents of the letters. Did John Sheedy ever know of this clandestine correspondence? Tell me that. The man had been to Sheedy's house; had been seen out riding with him; had dined there; yet that John Sheedy knew this clandestine correspondence was being carried on between his wife and this importation from Birmingham, Alabama.
She knew Courtnay was the bosom friend of Mr. Sheedy. She knew [Low?] Franklin was the lifelong friend of her husband. Did she send the courier to him? No. Walstrom was the only man that she thought was interested in knowing that John Sheedy had been murdered.
There is an old saying, I believe, that is fraught with great truth. That is the proposition that "murder will out." It is true that crime may go unpunished for a time, but tardy justice will o'ertake it soon. So in this case, there was the fatal mistake that was made in connection with this murder, like every other murder, almost. There was the terrible mistake that Mrs. Sheedy made when she entrusted the murder of her husband to Monday McFarland. When she thought that Monday McFarland's mind could be made the safe storehouse for that secret. There is where she made the mistake. There is where made a blunder in thinking that such a diabolical crime as that could be locked in the mind of Monday McFarland and nobody should ever know of it.
Great God, in all this universe, has not made a single nook or corner where can be ever safely hid the crime of murder. The human mind is so situated that murder in the mind and heart is repugnant to every other natural faculty or natural thought. It is at war with all your desires. It is at war with your very nature, and when a man thinks he can commit murder and because, forsooth, he does it in the night, when no man sees, when no man knows, that therefore it is locked from the world in his own brain and heart, he makes a mistake.
Why that secret was in Monday McFarland's mind. It had occurred through his blood. It had permeated ever fiber of his body. It beamed in his eye. It was in his countenance, so that he thought that every man, woman and child who saw him could see it; could read it in his face; could detect it in his eye. He knew he was suspected. He knew that 1,000 eyes were searching and looking upon every inspiration and every act, till the secret took possession of him and lead him where it would. This was why Monday McFarland made the confession. That confession forced itself out of him. It broke down his manhood, it paralyzed his [sout?], until the only relief that Monday McFarland could see was to unburden his mind of that deadly inhabitant. And that is why he told it. He told it, not because he was afraid of Jim Malone nor the mob, but because he knew he was guilty. It was an unwelcome occupant of his mind. And I will venture the assertion that he never felt so good since this murder as when he had vomited forth his awful confession. When he had got rid of it, got it off his mind, got it off his heart. Then is the first time that Monday McFarland straightened up and felt that he was a man again and could breathe. He had been oppressed and could not sleep. Do you think you could sleep, gentlemen, were such a load as that on your mind, the first night after doing the deed? Do you think you could be composed or collected? That part of the programme seems to have been left to Mrs. Sheedy. She is the only cool, calm, collected, indifferent, sereme person in this prosecution. Why, from her conduct during this trial, you would be led to think she was not one of the people on trial. So calm, collected and serene, so absolutely unconcerned relative to this prosecution is she, that you would think it was not her. She has played her part well. But remember while she was playing that part, she omitted to play the part of the heartbroken, grief-stricken wife. While that part of the programme has been well maintained. I ask you whether her conduct in this court room during this trial has been that of the loving, affectionate, broken-hearted, bowed-down woman, whose husband has been brutally murdered. It is a pretty difficult thing to play a double part. It is pretty difficult to be a woman of iron nerve and to be a loving, affectionate wife at the same time. To brace up, to be resolute, to be firm, to be undaunted. Why the defendants would have you believe that nobody could mention John Sheedy's name without tears would gush forth and this woman would weep and mourn, filled with emotion. Has she manifested any of that here? No, she was playing another part. Do you think the woman that lost her husband and was brokenhearted on account of his murder, do you think a woman of that kind can sit here undaunted and unconcerned under what has been going on in this case.
He took up the confession and showed how in countless instances,it was corroborated by the testimony. Anna Bodenstein corroborated it in that Monday went often to [dress?] Mrs. Sheedy's hair. Mrs. Hood and Mrs. Carpenter corroborated it in that they had seen Walstrom's picture in the photograph album. And Mr. Hall dwelt upon the fact that Monday knew this as proof that Mrs. Sheedy had taken him into her parlor, told him of her lover and showed him the picture.
Monday's confession was corroborated by the finding of the gold ring he said she had given him; by the testimony of Goldwater and son as to the purchase of the cane and by its identification, agreeing with him even as to the price; by the testimony of Mrs.
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Sheedy when she told of having gone out to get a pitcher of water on the night of the assault; by her own testimony as to the window curtain of the east window; also by Tyndall; by Stepney, Monday's cousin, and Mattie McNeal, as to the exchange of overcoats; by the same witness as to his going to George Botts' after the murder, getting his wife and going home; by William Chinn as to his subsequent whereabouts that night, and his lameness from his fall just after he struck the blow; by Courtnay and Anna Bodenstein that he went to the Sheedy house next day to see Mrs. Sheedy and get part of his reward; by Mrs. Coll to the effect that he had hung around the Sheedy residence awaiting a chance to commit the crime; by Mr. and Mrs. Hosman to the effect that he fell down at the corner of the porch after he fired the shot early in December. These are but a few of the many details in which Mr. Hall showed that Monday's story was corroborated by the other testimony.
Mr. Stearns for Mary Sheedy.
Mr. Stearns took up the confession and pointed out the fact that Monday claimed that Mrs. Sheedy met him on the back porch that fatal night, hugged and kissed him, gave him a goblet of whiskey and did a number of other acts which it would have been impossible to perform in less than ten minutes, and yet the testimony shows that in less than ten minutes before the assault Mr. and Mrs. Sheedy were sitting in the parlor together. He said further that the testimony of William Chinn would show that Monday's story was untrue and that his presence at Chinn's place as Chinn told of it could not be accounted for upon the theory that he had struck that blow, which was struck between 7 and 8 o'clock.
He then took up Jim Malone and denounced his methods in general. In referring to Hymen Goldwater and his boy he denounced them in particular and the Jews in general saying that they descended from a pawnbroking race whom Christ had scourged from the temple. He said that Malone and Goldwater had conspired to hang an innocent woman to secure the reward, and recited the testimony of L. C. Burr to show that Goldwater had admitted that Malone had offered to pay for the identification of the cane; that he had admitted to Burr that it made no difference whether or not he had ever had the fatal cane in his shop, he wanted his money all the same. He quoted the testimony of Carder and Barnes to show that the cane was one formerly owned by Carder instead of the one Monday had purchased from Goldwater. Goldwater had testified as he did because he wanted to stand in with the officers.
So with the ring. It was claimed that it was also found in the possession of a pawnbroker, and his pawnbroker had joined in the conspiracy that he might stand in with the police.
He thought it no wonderful coincidence that Monday knew all of the facts necessary for him to make up his story, as they had all been made public by the press, and in connection with this argument Mr. Stearns strained his lungs somewhat in a bitter denunciation of the press as an enterprising disseminator of news. He claimed that every fact needed for Monday to make up that story and make it fit the surroundings could have been attained from reading the news papers prior to Monday's arrest.
He took up the fact as shown by the evidence that that cane was not found on the Sheedy porch for some twenty minutes after the assault and that the officers had previously looked all over the porch with a lantern for traces of the blood of the assailant.
He reverted but briefly to the methods employed in securing Monday's various confessions and said he was content to leave the competency of them as evidence entirely with the jury. He believed the testimony was sufficient to convince them that it was incompetent, but even if it were not there were some things in it that stamped it as totally untrue. Some portions of that confession are so contrary to every principle of human nature, so opposed to anything that one ever encounters, that they are beyond the power of belief upon any evidence. The countsel had depicted Mrs. Sheedy as a woman devoid of refinement. The hand of the Holy Father was always legible. The pictures that he draws and the line he writes upon the himan countenance are always easily read, and he pretended to say that no on could look into the face of Mary Sheedy and say that she was not a cultured woman, endowed at least with the instincts of her sex. He went on to depict that revolting nature of the accusations against her and contended that all nature refuted them. He contended that there was no record of anything so revolting as was her charged, probably in the whole United States.
He ridiculed the idea that, Monday McFarland being overwhelmingly in love with Mrs. Sheedy, as is claimed, should be the one selected to whom Mrs. Sheedy should appeal for the murder of her husband, telling him at the same time that she wished it to permit her to enjoy another lover. No such accommodating lover had ever existed, yet this was the theory upon which the great state of Nebraska depended for a motive in the case, and which the jury was expected to believe was enough to induce Monday to commit the crime.
He ridiculed the theory advanced by Mr. Hall as to Mrs. Sheedy's motive. It was claimed by him that Mrs. Sheedy desired John Sheedy murdered because she was afraid of him, and yet in another place Mr. Hall had said that she was a woman of such nerve that she could have murdered Sheedy herself had she only had the physical strength. He said Sheedy was an all-around sport and had his little loves on the side, so that Mrs. Sheedy could have easily secured a divorce, had she so wished. Divorces were not hard to get. They could be obtained on short notice and at small cost. They could be had second handed and were to be found in the pawnshops. They were about as common as anything we have, and it was all balderdash to say that Mrs. Sheedy could not get rid of her husband without murdering him if she so wished.
He contended that the jury had no right to indulge in any presumptions as to the contents of those notes sent between Walstrom and Mrs. Sheedy. The state had grieved a great deal because those notes were not introduced in evidence to prove the innocence of their contents. Those notes had been destroyed and could not be produced in court. He did not know what was in those notes and didn't want to. All he would care to know was wheather or not there was any incentive in them for the murder of John Sheady. The state had made entirely too much of those notes, many a man had received notes unknow to his wife and vice versa, and it is probable that many post-office boxes are rented for that purpose in Lincoln, but there is not record of any murders having ever arisen out of it.
Mr. Stearns Resumes.
Promptly at 9 o'clock Mr. Stearns resummed his argument in behalf of Mary Sheedy, and began by denying that there was any evidence to show that the night shirts, socks and neckties purchased by Mrs. Sheedy were the same found in the possession of Walstrom, and that, therefore, this alleged evidence of the criminal intimacy of Walstrom and Mrs. Sheedy was valueless, as it was necessary for the jury to convinced of it beyond a reasonable doubt. If there was any criminality. Walstrom was as guilty as Mrs. Sheedy. Why had he been allowed to go? The law doesn't make any distinction between man and woman in such crime. He had been allowed to go because there was not more than a shadow of suspicion against him. The utmost endeavors of the state to establish criminal intimacy between Mary Sheedy and A. H. Walstrom had signally failed.
The speaker then took up the state's argument that no one could have delivered that blow as it was delivered that night unless he had a confederate upon the inside. He said that it was not so light that one might not have stood at the door and awaited John Sheedy's coming, as Henry Krause had told how, when he started out to pursue the assailant, he did not see the lattice work and ran up against it.
"And by the way, what was Edenmuses freak doing around there at night? I would like some one to explain that to the jury. His own evidence indicates that at least one of Sheedy's shots was aimed at him and that he hid behind a tree, Mrs. Sheedy had called to come to her assistance, and assured him he would not be hurt. He rushed into the yard; she asked him him to come in and then asked him to go for the priest. He did neither, but rushed toward the back of the house and against the lattice work. If the curtain of the east window had been raised, as he claimed it was, could he not have seen that lattice work. Would not the light from the window have been very apt to disclose it to his view.
"I cannot conceive what motive could actuate an attorney to such an utterance. There is absolutely no evidence upon which to base such a cruel statement. What in the name of God, I ask, could have been done for him that was left undone. Was the wife not there beside him wiping the dew of death from his brow and moistening his lips in his hours of suffering? Was there not a consultation of physicians called and did she not willingly consent to abide by the decision of a majority of them? What, I ask, could she have done further? She did all that the msot zealous wifely devotion could prompt for a dying husband, and the assertion of counsel is brutal and unwarranted."
Mr. Stearns denied the assertion that circumstantial evidence is the strongest kind of evidence; it is the most unreliable in the world and has resulted in more mistaken convictions than any other kind of evidence. A number of instances were recited where the evidence had been most convincing, convictions and executions followed and the murders were subsequently found to have been committed by others.
He said that in view of the conflicting nature of the testimony in relation to poisoning, he did not think that the jury were prepared to believe that John Sheedy was ever poisoned. The doctors who were in the pay of the prosecution had been enabled to change their minds about what caused death because of the money there was in it. If they had noticed those symptoms they claim to have noticed on the day of their consultation, why in the name of God didn't they do something to relieve the sufferer? The speaker roasted the physicians unmercifully and claimed that they had been trained by "Dr." Lambertson, especially Dr. Winnett, who, Mrs. Stearns contended, had been trained by Lambertson to hold up John Sheedy's skull in court daintily, like a bouquet in the hands of a school girl as she tripped to school, to create a sensation, while Lambertson's bull dog grinned through the open door at the cunning of his master.
He then reviewed the testimony of Wilber Mayes to show that Krauso could not have been one of the men whom Mayers saw running away from the hose just after the shooting, as Krause was not in the yard in time, having been restrained from entering because he thought Sheedy's last shot was fired toward him.
He contented that Monday McFarland's confession was not true, and if it were true the jury should never fail to remember that it was powerless to affect Mary Sheedy. He characterized the evidence connecting her with the crime as too remote, too uncertain, too slight to ever permit of a thought of her conviction.
The speaker closed with an allegorical picture of Mercy pleading for the creation of man and promising to guide him through life, and he invoked in an eloquent manner the fulfillment of that promise of mercy.
Colonel Philpott began his argument in behalf of Monday McFarland at 9:50 a. m. by attempting to revite in detail the history of Monday McFarland, but Mr. Snell objected and the court required him to stick to the evidence. The speaker then turned his vocal attainments to vigorous discussion of Monday's confession. He said that the only evidence of miscegenation between the two defendants was in that confession, and the story therein told was abhorrent and dis probed itself. He contended that the confession had been obtained by threats and promises and should not therefore be used in evidence. It was useless for the state to cry out "Why don't you disprove the confession?" The state itself had used every endeavor to keep the jury in the dark as to how this confession was obtained, but in spite of every effort the facts had come out that the most damning methods had been restored to in order to get Monday to tell the story he did tell.
Colonel Philpott took up the testimony to show how Malone had tried in every way to frighten a confession out of Monday. He also read from the confession the many implied promises it contained, how it would be better for him to tell it all; if he wanted to save his life he must tell what was reasonable and could be believed and how there was no more danger in telling it than what he had already told. He delt upon the fact that long after Monday had begun his confession and had told what made nine typewritten pages, when asked if he didn't go down there and strike that blow, he had replied:
"No, if it is the last word I ever utter, I didn't do it."
After reading the many parts of the type-written confession showing that Monday had been led to believe that it would be better for him to confess all, the speaker turned savagely to Mr. Lamberson and exclaimed:
"Now, sir, you who are said to never take a dare, I challenge you to meet the record I have made as to the inducements offered Monday McFarland to make this alleged confession. Can you do it? Dare you do it? No, you cannot do it, any you know it. I challenge you to do it if you dare," and the diminutive speaker glared savagely at Mr. Limbertson, who sat unmoved to even a smile, although sitting down he was about as high as the speaker standing up, a fact which did not escape the spectators and did not fail to excite considerable quiet amusement.
The colonel took the testimony of each of the four physicians who had testified that death was due to morphine poisoning and pointed out the technical points in which each had exhibited a lack of information and knowledge, and condemned them for coming into court and by their halting and lame opinions attempting to swear away the lives of human beings. He referred to Dr. Hart as one of the two doctors who had testified that death was due to the blow, and referred to his remark when on the stand that he did not attend the autopsy to assist in it, but was there for private reasons, that some charges had been made against him. The speaker contended that it might be that he was there to see whether or not anything was developed to show that Sheely died from malpractice. He was the doctor who had been at the house all night. Might he not have been at the autopsy to see whether or not poison had been administered by him by mistake?
The advocate dwelt with stirring emphasis upon the utter inability of the physicians to agree as to whether death ensued from the blow or from poisoning.
The next tack of the argument was to show that because assistant counsel had been retained for the state in the case of Quinn Bohanan was not a reason why it should be justified in this case; the circumstances were vastly different. In this instance there was a fortune estimated at about $75,000 at stake.
At this point in the colonel's discourse, at 10:55, Mr. Lambertson, who, it has been noted, seldom removes his eyes for long from a study of the jurors' faces, called the attention of the court to the fact that one of the jurors was ill. A James Johnson was leaning his face forward upon his hand, with his eyes closed as if in a faint.
An investigation revealed the fact that he was too ill for duty, and as he expressed a desire to be permitted to go to his room, Judge Field adjourned court until 2 p. m.
It was learned that Johnson has been ailing for several days with a sore throat and had declined to permit the officers to call a physician, even at no expense to himself. As soon as he reached his room yeserday, however, he asked that Dr. Everett be sent for, which was accordingly done upon the order of the court.
Colonel Philpott Concludes.
Colonel Philpott resumed his argument at once and pointed to the financial interest that Dennis Sheedy must have in the prosecution, and how the attorneys had employed could well afford to remain in court for four week looking after this prosecution. They had two strong incentives-first the desire to win this great suit, and second the there is in it. This money would be no inconsiderable sum, and it must come either from the pockets of Dennis Sheedy or the estate of John Sheedy. He complained bitterly that Dennis Sheedy had not been brought into court for examination on behalf of the defense in compliance with the promise of the attorneys for the state. He inveighed against the assertion of Mr. Hall that the prosecution of Mrs. Sheedy could come from brotherly duty on the part of Dennis Sheedy, alleging that it was a persecution to secure the share of the estate that would otherwise fail to her.
Colonel Philpott denied that there was any evidence of Mrs. Sheedy's alleged infidelity with Walstrom and that it was damnable for the opposition to intimate it.
The speaker then recited a striking instance of where an innocent man had been executed for the murder of a man who afterwards turned up alive, and held that if there was the slightest room for reasonable doubt from the testimony, of the guilt of the accused, the defendant was to have the benefir of that doubt.
Is there no other theory upon which the murder of John Sheedy can be explained. Monday had said that he bought that cane for a stranger. "Suppose that the gamblers who had it in for Sheedy, or anybody else, had wanted to murder Sheedy, might they not have got Monday to go and get that cane, and if they had wanted someone to get that cane, who would be more likely to be selected by them than Monday McFarland, who had been about the sheedy house so much?"
He contended that anyone could have made Monday's confession from having read the newspapers, and that the parties to whom Monday had made his alleged confession had put the answers into his mouth by the questions they had asked. He harmonized the testimony of on the 9th of December and contended that the assailant was a white man. He showed how conflicting the state's testimony was as to the condition of the east window blind, which it was alleged Mrs. Sheedy had pulled up as a signal to Monday. Some of the state's own witnesses had sworn that before the shooting that curtain had been up and immediately afterwards it was down. He contended that at the time of that assault there were four persons there-John and Mrs Sheedy and two assailants, and quoted the testimony of Wilber Mayes and young Hitchcock and Curry to substantiate that theory. He took the testimony of the two boys who saw the men running south on Twelfth street and showed how utterly the state had failed to break it down in a material point. There were discrepancies on some immaterial points, but Matthew, Mark, Luke and John did not agree as to the facts relating to the Saviour and similar minor discrepancies might be found in the views of more fallible witnesses as to how they see a thing.
The speaker pointed to the fact that the state had found it advisable to attempt to prove by gambler allies an alibi for Williams and Gleason, and contended that the whereabouts of Williams and Gleason had by no means been accounted for. He reverted to the fears that Sheedy had entertained-not for Monday McFarland-but for those tow men. When asked by Ab Carder after the assault who had struck him he had replied "the big man." The state had shown that when Monday McFarland had struck the blow he had on Stepney's overcoat, but John Sheedy said the man had on a short coat.
He then return to a discussion of the admissability of the confessions. If the jury found from the evidence that the first confession was obtained by threats and promises it was not only incompetent itself, but every subsequent confession was in the same category.
Colonel Philpott closed his argument with a forcible explanation of his refusal to permit Monday to turn state's evidence, and said that he had in his thirty-five years of practice never have permitted his client to perjure his soul to hang that woman.
Colonel Philpott's remarks were of the most earnest, forcible character, well calculated to nourish a suspicion or doubt that might be entertained by the jurors. It was an aggressive speech and it appeared very much at time as if he contemplated picking Mr. Lambertson up gently and dropping him from the neighboring two-story window. The fervor with which he roared and hussed the name of Kim Malone was very much appreciated by that personage, whose accustomed blush was converted into a perennial grin. When he closed Colonel Philpott had talked altogether a little over two hours, and looked as if he was satisfied that he had done his duty.
Mr. Strode Begins His Argument.
At 3 o'clock Mr. Strode, with a bright pink flower in his lapel, extended his condolences to the jury for the long time they had been engaged in their responsible duties, and congratulated them upon its approaching close.
He criticised in a pathetic manner the comments made upon the deportment of the defendant. If she had cried the gentlemen of the press had said that she had broken down. If she nerved herself to bear the ordeal the counsel for the state had said she was a hardhearted woman. He had a great deal of experience in that line of the law, but he had never known of any case where any human being had ever had nearly so terrible an ordeal to bear as had this defendant. He directed his criticisms especially at Mr. Lambertson and said that should that gentleman ever have a daughter or a sister on trial he hope no man would ever find the cruelty in his heart to say such words as he had spoken of Mary Sheedy. He said that the bitterness of the prosecution had been apparent, and that had John Sheedy left no estate of value it would not have been so. He said that ever since the death of John SHeedy the press of the city had published some of the most damnable lies ever uttered to the statements made concerning her sisters, and said that even they, whom he invited the jury to observe as they sat beside her in court, had been vilely slandered in the press. No rumor had been so utterly damnable or baseless concerning Mary Sheedy and her family that it had not found ready repetition in the public press.
He recalled the fact that during his work as a prosecutor one of the first cases he had ever had in this court was against John Sheedy. John Sheedy was then the prisoner at the bar, just as Mary Sheedy is not. He did not attempt to justify murder, but when Mr. Snell and Mr. Hallstood up in court and alluded so John Sheedy as a pioneer whoes removal was a great calamity to the community, and the loss of a benefactor, and that he died there like a dog in his own home, he wanted to say that because of John Sheedy many a wife had been treated like a dog in her own home.
He criticised severely the action of Dennis Sheedy in failing to return for examination by the defense in accordance with the promise of counsel for the state. He delt with great fervor upon the failure of the state to introduce Dennis Sheedy, jr., who lived at the house and was present during the tragedy, and who was certainly an important witness, although his name was indorsed upon the back of the information and although the state had the entire wealth of the SHeedy estate behind them, while the defence had been denied even the $38 per month allowed by the state. The defense had a right to expect them both to be here, as they had been indorsed on the information. He said that Dennis Sheedy, st., had not appeared because he knew the domestic relations of John Sheedy and his wife; because John Sheedy had recently told him how happily he had been living with his wife; he had not been pit on the stand because he had settled up John Sheedy's affairs after his death, had gone and settled with the gamblers and got his money from the safe, and nobody knew how much money there was in that safe.
"Your honor," said Mr. Lambertson, rising to his feet in apparent irritation, "there is nothing of this kind in the evidence. Mr. Strode may go outside of the testimony and discuss such matters if he pleases, but I want to give him due notice, your honor, that when it comes to my turn to address this jury I will meet him on his own ground."
"Mr. Courtnay testifies, your honor, that Dennis Sheedy secured that $550 and put it in the bank to her credit," replied Mr. Strode.
"Yes; but, your honor, he did not say he got it from the gamblers."
"Mr. Stode," said the [?] "confine your remarks to the evidence."
Some further remarks between the attorneys led to a retort from Mr. Lambertson that Mr. Strode had got the $550 down in his pocket, and had no right to object to gamblers.
Mr Strode came back vigorously and told how he had been compelled to use that money in payment of the Sheedy debts, mentioning a number of debts he had paid.
"We had to pay the hired girl $20 which was owing her and which you refused to pay," said Mr. Strode passionately, fairly screaming it at Lambertson in a menacing tone and manner as he approached to which arm's length of him.
"Yes, and by that means you bribed her to keep her mouth shut when you did so."
At this juncture, while the two were glaring at each other, Judge Field interfered and said he had hoped a simple admonition was sufficient, but it seemed not, and the first one who went outside of the evidence in his argument would be fined. It was evident that the court meant what he said, and that neither subsequent transgress or should be permitted three trials, as was Mr. Carder.
Mr. Strode then proceeded to read the testimony of Mary Sheedy before the coroner's jury, wherein she told of-Dennis Sheedy having told her how, once when John was visiting away from home with Dennis had asked him why he did that and he replied that someone might have slugged or shot them.
The state had referred to the fact that Mrs. Sheedy had been married three times, and Mr. Strode, in tones of pathetic earnestness, said that while he might not go outside of the evidence, there might have been things happened to Mrs. Sheedy which justified her separation from her former husbands. He asked if the state would permit him to tell where her first husband, Horace McCool, is now.
"You may tell, if you will let us tell what we know about him," said Mr. Lambertson. The matter was referred too no further.
Mr. Strode then took up the statement of counsel for the state that Mrs. Sheedy had married John Sheedy for his money.
"Where is there any testimony, I would like to ask, that she married him for his money? I would like to have you point it out."
"It is in Monday's congression," remarked Mr. Lambertson.
"Aye, in Monday's confession, so it is," fairly shouted Mr. Strode. "And you know as well as I know that Monday McFarland's confession is not permitted as evidence against Mary Sheedy. You have been trying Mary Sheedy all through this case upon Monday McFarland's confession, when the court has already told you that it was not evidence against this defendant. It was the burden of the arguments of Mr. Hall and Mr. Snell, although they knew very well that the court will instruct the jury that that confession is not to weight against Mary Sheedy. Why didn't you go to the records to show that Mary Sheedy married John Sheedy for his money? Can you find any record that John Sheedy had any money or property nine years ago? If you can why didn't you do it. There is nothing to show how much wealth John Sheedy had when this defendant married him, or where or what it was. She may have helped her husband to accumulate this fortune now estimated at $60,000 or $70,000, and yet you say that she shall not now have a single dollar of it, if you can help it. Who can show that Mary Sheedy married Sheedy for his money?"
He said that while the state laid great stress upon the fact that they were married away from home in New Orleans, as a damaging circumstance against her, he deemed it a credit to her that, after having been dragged down by John Sheedy, she insisted upon his doing in New Orleans what he had failed to do at home-to make her his lawful wife.
He denied that there was any ground for the broad assertions by the counsel that Mrs. Sheedy had been holding clandestine meetings with Walstrom. There was no evidence of her having met him away from home by twice once when Walstrom met Mrs. Carpenter on the street and walked home with her and her sister, and the latter went over after Mrs. Sheedy, and one other time at Mrs. Carpenter's house. There were people present with them on both occasions and there was no room for a presumption that anything criminal had transpired.
In relation to the statement of Mrs. Swift that Mrs. Sheedy had told her that she would rather be the wife of a laboring man who got his pay day by day than the wife of such a man as John Sheedy, Mrs. Strode read from Mrs. Sheedy's testimony before the coroner's jury to prove that she had more probably said that she would rather be the wife John Sheedy, a laboring man than of John Sheedy, a gambler. In her testimony before the coroner she had told how strenuously she had endeavor to persuade him to quit gambling, and how he had made her believe for a long time that he was not pursuing that line of business any longer.
He then returned to a discussion of the confession. If that confession were taken away there was not a available of testimony against either of the defendants. Without that confession there was no testimony against even Monday McFarland except the identification of the cane, and he contended that the cane had never been identified. The court would instruct the jury that in any event that confession could not weigh for one moment against Mary Sheedy. That confession would not weigh even against Monday McFarland if it should appear to the jury that it was obtained by threats or promises.
He then recounted the many inducements held out to Monday to make that statement, and announced the startling conclusion that durin Thursday, Friday and Saturday preceeding the darkey's arred Jim Malone was somewhere with Monday McFarland posting him what to say. He told how Mr. Melick, when he arrested Monday, had, told him it would "evidently be better" for him if he told the whole story. He took Carder's testimony to show that Malone had scared Monday McFarland into the confession by intimating that a mob was forming outside of the jail. He quoted Officer Kinney who had testified that he had told Monday that he thought he would get out easier, if there were any more implicated with him, bu giving them up, than if he was alone. He told him he thought he would stand a better show.
He took that expression and asked what was the intent of that question, concluding that it was only necessary to look back over the proceedings of the coroner's jury to realize that they were all the time trying to get him to implicate Mary Sheedy, and said that all that night in the jail Jim Malone had been making Monday believe that if he didn't implicate the other the mob would take him.
"Now, gentlemen of the jury, do you believe that Monday McFarland struck that blow and then went on and told this story about it freely and voluntarily? Do you believe it? Candidly [?] jurors on your oath can you believe it? It would be an unnatural thing for him to do."
Mr. Strode then proceeded to show that the second confession was made while laboring under the same fear that prompted the first statement. Else why did Mayor Graham say the very first thing said to Monday, "Well, Monday, I understand that you have made up your mind to make a clean breast of it." Who had told the mayor that Monday had concluded to tell the story? Jim Malone. If it was so obtained it was not admissible as evidence.
The speaker called attention to the fact that after Monday had been talking an hour or more he still protested that it was not himself who had struck John Sheedy, and that "if it was the last word" he ever uttered he was not the mand. From this expression, Mr. Strode contended, it was evident that up to that time, under the stimulus of their threats and persuasions, he had been endeavoring to make it appear that Mary Sheedy was the guilty party.
In a similar way Mr. Strode went all through the numerous things said to Monday to induce him to tell that story, calculated to lead him to expect clemency if he did or fear disaster if he didn't, and emphasized them to express their significance. This he said he did for the benefit of Monday McFarland, as it could in no way operate against Mary Sheedy.
"I don't believe there is a juror in this box who, in the light of his oath, can honestly say that he believes that either one of these confessions of Monday McFarland was free and voluntary. I do not believe that any honest man could reach such a conclusion beyond a reasonable doubt or beyond any doubt. It was contrary to human nature and the evidence does not warrant such a conclusion."
In regard to the confession before the coroner's jury he compared the testimony and claimed that Coroner Holyoke and Stenographer Wheeler were the ones best calculated to know whether or not that confession was made under oath. They had testified he was sworn. The court would instruct the jury that unless it believed beyond a reasonable doubt that Monday McFarland was not sworn, it could not consider that third confession.
The speaker devoted over forty minutes to a strong and vigorous argument against the admissibility of those confessions, at the end of which, after he had been talking an even two hours, he called the attention of the court to the fact that it was 5 o'clock, and said that as he was somewhat tired he would be pleased to have the privilege of closing this morning. He thought it would not require more than forty minutes more for him to finish.
She Wanted $10,000.
Yesterday the jury in the case of Mrs. Joanna Nichols against the Rapid Transit Street Railway company, which has occupied the attention of Judge Tibbets for two days past, brought in a verdict for the plaintiff and assessing her damages at $4,000. Mrs. Nichols some months ago was thrown from a buggy and testimony was adduced showing that she was seriously injured. She brought suit for $10,000 damages against the Rapid Transit company, claiming that the horse she was driving was frightened by a steam motor, and that the company was guilty of negligence. It is understood that the case will be appealed to the supreme court.
One of the times when you ought to be sure to love your neighbor as yourself is when you trade horses with him.
A miser keeps everything under lock and key, and even bolts his food.
244
TUESDAY
Ever since the first week of the Sheedy trial, rumors have been rife of a serious difference between counsel for the defense, and though efforts were made by the reporters to get at the bottom facts, they were so carefully concealed during the progress of the trial, that nothing tangible was developed though rumblings of discontent would crop out at occasional intervals, only to die away without having revealed their true character.
Since the close of the case the true inwardness of the prevalent dissatisfaction has floated to the surface, and discloses that there was very little harmony between counsel for defense.
The trouble appears to have begun with the appearance of Col. Biggerstaff and Judge Wier upon the scene. From one of the attorneys for Mrs. Sheedy it was learned last Saturday that when Judge Wier, whose presence in the case was at the behest of Col. Biggerstaff, upon reaching Lincoln and learning of the fee - $15,000 - agreed upon by Mrs. Sheedy, payment of which was made conditional upon her acquittal, took immediate steps to have the fee modified, claiming that it was excessive and disproportionate to the benefits to accrue from a favorable verdict. This brought the judge and Col. Biggerstaff in violent friction with Counsel Strode and stearns, who were the proposed beneficiaries in the even of success, and a row ensued. It is claimed that an attempt was then made by Stearns & Strode to crowd Judge Wier out of the case, with the result that the eminent counsel, through Col. Biggerstaff, made an appeal to Mrs. Sheedy, who thereupon took a hand in the controversy and decided to see that Judge Wier was accorded the recognition due him.
The next move is alleged to have been an attempt by counsel for defense, led by Judge Weir to insist upon separate trials for Mrs. Sheedy and McFarland. This mode of preceedure was suggested because of a well grounded fear on the part of counsel for Mrs. Sheedy that in view of the prospective evidence a conviction was likely to follow, and, of course, carry Mrs. Sheedy down with the negro. The proposition, as detailed to a representative of the News, by one of the attorneys for defense, was, to put McFarland upon trial first. Should he be convicted and sentenced, an effort was to be made to postpone the trial of Mrs. Sheedy until the following term of court, when, public sentiment having abated, the prospects of her acquittal would be largely improved. The negro, if convicted, would have been sentenced, and sent to the penitentiary, and when brought upon the stand to testify against Mrs. Sheedy, would stand to testify against Mrs. Sheedy, would stand in the infamous attitude of a convicted felon, to whose testimony no great degree of credence would attach. This would all militate in favor of Mrs. Sheedy and operate as a powerful factor in accomplishing her acquittal. It is alleged that one of the attorneys for Monday McFarland expressed a willingness to consent to this proposition, but when brought to the attention of Col. Philpott, the fiery little gentleman denounced it in unmeasured terms and impetuously exclaimed:
"By G-d, gentlemen if this in your game, go agead with it at your peril. My nigger holds the key to the situation and by the great horn spoons I'll see that he uses it. He's ready to hang anyhow, but if there is a neck tie party, Monday McFarland will have white company on the scaffold. If you want to sacrifice him go ahead but another will assist him to tread the measure in the dance of death."
The determined stand taken by Philpott is said to have broken the combination and resulted in a joint trial, the result of which has now passed into history.
However, harmony failed to fold her whitened opinions over the camp of counsel for the defense, and for some reason not yet disclosed, Col. Billingsly withdrew from active participation in the case and continued to stand gloomily aloof until the close, his place being taken by Mr. Woodward.
There had been, since his successful effort to have the $15,000 fee reduced, a disposition on the part of associate counsel to crowd Judge Wier into the shade, if not out of the case. The judge resented this invasion of his right, and again an appeal was taken to Mrs. Sheedy, and again he was sustained. She is said to have insisted, against the protest of her leading counsel, that Judge Weir should be accorded generous recognition in the cross-examination of witnesses, and this he did. Then, near the close, an attempt was made to bar him from making an address to the jury, but again he triumphed and made a masterly argument on behalf of his fair client. The case then terminated with anything but good feeling existing between Judge Wier and local counsel for defense. Then followed a denouement known to only a few. Through some secret influence, it is claimed, Mrs. Sheedy sought to violate her obligation to Judge Weir, and for a time the distinguished advocate from Idaho was at a loss to know from what source to expect pay for his services. As a last resort he is reported to have held a consultation with Col. Biggerstaff and intimated that in the absence of remuneration from Mrs. Sheedy he would hold the colonel responsible for his fee of $3,000. This aroused the lion in Col. Biggerstaff and he paid a visit to Mrs. Sheedy and demanded an explanation. Receiving little satisfaction the colonel sought to become temporarily oblivious to sublunary affairs and succeeded in doing so through the medium of valley tan. While wrestling with the demon of red-eyed ruin, he collided with one of counsel for defense and became involved in a violent quarrel, during which he threatened to perforate the corporal anatomy of said counsel with leaden pellets of the regulation Idaho calibre. The distinguished legal advocate, conscious of the imminent danger and not being in a moral condition to don angelic pinions, resorted to strategy to avert the impending calamity. Striking a tragic attitude counsel launched out in a speech, and in less than two minutes the only sound to break the harmony of his own voice was the gentle cedence of half dozen snoring auditors, chief among whom was the sanguinary colonel from Idaho. Col. Biggerstaff recovered consciousness the next day after repeated applications of the hose, but the other unfortunate auditors still sleep on.
The serious dilemma in which Judge Wier was placed induced him to consult a well known attorney yesterday, having in view an intention to commence suit to recover his fees. Learning of this, Mrs. Sheedy sent for ex-Marshal Melick, who has been appointed administrator of the Sheedy estate, to call upon Judge Wier and effect a settlement. Mr. Melick and Judge Wier met at the Columbia National bank, where, following a lengthy conference, Melick paid Judge Wier $500 in cash and gave him a note for $1,000, said to mature in thirty days, when it is hoped to have effected a settlement of the estate and realized sufficient money to liquidate current indebtedness. It is said Col. Biggerstaff will pay Judge Weir the difference between $1500 realized, and his fee of $5600 offered the judge for his legal service in the case.
Prior to his departure for Idaha, Col. Biggerstaff is reputed to have called upon and held a stormy conference with Mrs. Sheedy, who he told in emphatic terms he desired nothing further to do with her.
The potential part played by by Col. Philpott and Mr. Woodward or Col. Billingsley in the case, in inducing Monday McFarland to maintain silence on sever occasions when he was on the eye of squealing and making further damaging disclosures, entitles them to consideration, and they will be recognized to the extent of several thousands of dollars in recognition of services rendered. Strode & Stearns have filed their mortgage on portions of real estate belonging to Mrs. Sheedy, to secure the payment of their fee of $12,500, and they retire from the case amply compensated.
Meantime it remains for the future to make public a number of disreputable transactions attempted and consummated in connection with the Sheedy case that would bring the blush of shame to the cheek of a wooden cigar sign. The freed and infamy of several of these transactions stamp the parties concerned as a greedy pack of human wolves, who would, if given opportunity, rob one of his faith in Divinity.
245
WEEKLY NEBRASKA STATE JOURNAL FRIDAY JUNE 5 1891
ALL RESTS WITH THE JURY
[WORD?] ARGUMENT IN THE SHEEDY CASE.
Mr. Strode Brings His Brilliant. Earuest Plea for the Life of His Client to a Thrilling Close.
And Mr. Lamberston Reviews the His tory of the Crime With Telling El equence and Vigo---litracing Up the Jury.
A Passionate Outhburst of Consel.
Never in the history of the city has public interest in any event been so thoroughly demonstrated as was Thursday the interest in the Sheedy case. Pepole began to arrive at the court house before 8 o'clock. hoping theraby to secure desirable seats ere court opened at 9. As the hour of opening approached long lines of pepole were to be seen pouring from every direction en route to the court house. Every neighboring hitching post as brought into service for the lethering of horses and vehicles. At 9 o'clock it was almost impossible to crowd one's was through the court room. No regard was paid to the railing enclosing the large space usally alloted to the court and bar. Every foot of standing room in that large court chamber was filled, and more than filled. The ladies, who largely predominated, had invaded the very steps of the throne of justice, and Judge Field's platform was flanked on either side by banks of feminine faces and gay and fluttering readger. If there was a single inch of [word?] space in all that crowded room outside of the few feet square in front of the jury box, it was imposible to locate it by a veiw from the judicial dais, Even the defendants were brought into uncomfortable proximity with the eager thronge. Whose chairs were crowded directly up against them. No such assemblge of beauthyy. fashion, wealth, integnce. Mixed with their various reverse has even been witnessed in a lincoln court of Justice, or anything nearly approching it. while hundreds were turned away, not becouse the doors were closed, but because it was utterly impossible to push one's way in. There was a musical but deafening hum of conversation as the jostling. Pushing audience pushed into more or less uncomfortable positions. content even with the poorest accommodation, glad even that there were permitted to stand up to see and hear the procedings. Such as audiance was well calculated to bring out every latent power of logic and eloquence from the brains and lips of the gifted consel, and most truly did it exert its full capabilities in that line. There were old ladies and old gentelmen there, whose wrinkled visgers and while locks had never adorned so impressive a scene. There were young men and youths who were arderning their views on the case. Young and fashionable and young girls. stood along in rows and veiwed with critical eyes. the rattent of each other. Hundreds of marriel ladies were there looking out for best seats, fluttering their fans and holding themeselves in readiness to be ouched to tears. Their readiness in that direction was brought to frequent proof. It was a little remarkable that with such multiude crowded and pressed into slight a space the order through out the day was, with one exception, beyond crticism or reproof. Only once was the court called upon to indulge an admonition. That vast audience was most thoroughly impressed with the gravity and solemnity of the sitution and the alliness of death reigned through most of the day, broken only by the impassoned pleadings of the counsel to the jury. The crowd in the afternoon to hear the closing argument of Mr. Lamberston was simply beyond description. So dense was it that one middle-aged lady standing up in the aisle fainted late in the afternoon and it as actully impossible to take her out. So intent was the crowd on hearing Judge Field's in instrution to the jury, then being delived, that few noted the incident and those in the immediate vicinity, with the assiatance of Bailiff Taylor, applied restoratives and in a few minutes had her so that she could sit up and renew her interst in the proceedings. When Mrs. Sheedy came into court in the morning her sisters fairly carried her along the narrow passage made for her through the crowd. She was evidently very ill and weak. Her attorneys had consulted as to the advisability of bringing in a couch for her, but the [dr?]hearted, resolute little woman had insisted that she would be equal to the ordeal. As she came in it looked as if her attendants support was all that kept her from reeling and falling to the floor. During the pathetic argument of Mr. Strode she alternated between expression of absoulte exhaustion. During the afternoon session while lamberston was relentlessly picuring the evidences of her guilt and arraiging her in no tender terms and tones for the crime charged against her . her old calm and determined strength appeared to have returned. She resolutely faced the conunsel and jury. but no expression of feeling, of approval or disapproval, was seen to flit across her paliid face through all that terrible impeachemnt, and when she left the court room she walked erect and firm and a bearing that indicated the dauntless spirit that has marked her demeanor through the twenty-two days of the trail. Mrs. Morgan and Mrs. Dean joined in her tears at the mention of their mother, and were much more easily moved to tears than was she. Monday McFarland wore the same dared, atolid experssion he has worn since the argument of the case began. He appoars to realize that there is absolutely no hope for him. The sympathetic appear made to the jury had had no refernce to him. He has had to gain all the consolation vocuchefed him in the arguments from the efforts of his consel to prove him a negro who was much abused in order to get him to confess and a monumental liar when he did so. He has seen his counsel conternding that his confession could in no way impicate Mary Sheedy even though it consigend him to the gallows. And he realize the meaning of it all. He has had tthe finger of denucation pointed at him and again as the murderer of John Sheedy. but his sodden eyes evined no sign of fear or recognition. He sits surrounded by a group of colored women, but he never appears to be aware of their presence. Mr. Strode's Last Urgent Apeal. Every breath of sound in that crowded room vainshed when Mr. Strode stepped before the jury to resume the argument he had begun the previous evening. He recounted briefly the points he had made on opening ere he branched off into a correction of Mr. Hall's refernce to " the murder of King Clandius." In the latte connection he said that as he remembred having read the story, King Claudius was not murdered, but that it was his brother, King Hamlet. Mr. Strode then recounted a well known case in Vermont where two brothers had confessed to having murdered a brother in-low, were convicted and were about to be executed years after the missing man's disappearance, when by more chance the latter was discovered living in New Jersey. He also refered to the case Winduagel, The Randolph street butcher, who at tempted sucide, to prove the reliability of cricumatantial evidence, conteding that his room-mate, Kyle would probably have been convicted of his murder, had her not recovered. He detailed these two cases with all the fervor he could command to impress the jury with a lack of fiath in confessions and ericumatutial evidence. Then he took up Monday's confession, reiterating the statement with emphasis that it could not weigh, under the law, against his client. Mary Sheedy, and recounted all the inducenets that had been held out to Monday to induce him to confess, conteding that neither of the confession were voluntary and were therefore not adwissable in evidence. In turning his attention to the work of detecives he refered to the alleged fact that a Pinkerton man had been brought here from Chicago in order that no stone would be left unturned to hound down Mary Sheedy, in order that her portion of the Sheedy estate might go to the Sheedy heirs, He thought it very appropriate with the line of this proscution that Pinkerton man should be brought here for that purpose. Mr. Hall, of counsel for the state, was a member of the law firm Marguett. Deweese & Hall, who were attorneys for the B. & M. railroad in Nebraska. It would probably be remebered that these Pinkerton men had been called upon before to do work in Nebrasja, and for that company. Mr. Hall was promptly upon his feet at this utterance and it was evident that he indignant: " Now, your honor, I think there is no such testimony as that in this court, and I think that such a statement ought to be severely condemned by this court. Such a statement sincerning the C. B & Q. railroad is made with the hope of unfairly and unlawfully inflawfully infuencing this jury, some of whom may belong to the farmers alliance, and I want to brand it as cowardky, unmanly, unwarranted and unprofessional. " The speaker for the first time since the opening of the case, evinced anger in his face, and his fervor increased as he proceeded until the court broke in with " That will do Mr. Hall. Mr. Strode there is no such fact as that in evidence. " " Your honor, Johnine Klausner testified that a Pinkerton detective was employed---" "Yes, but there was nothing about their employemnt by the C. H. & Q." " I will admit, your honor, that that was rather outside of the evidence. " " I had hoped, Mr. Strode, that you would endeavor to be fair in your argument. You have tried the case fairly so far, and dislike to see you mar it in your argument. [dr?] [dr?] from any further statements of that charnter." Mr. Strode then called attention to the eminent counsel which had been employed to proscute his client, intinating that it was apparent thereby that he was being persecuted so that the Sheedy heirs would profit by it. He called attention to Mr. Lamberston's wide reputation as a public prosecuter, having been engaged in that line for many years in the United States. He told this services in liberating the city council from imorisonment in the Grandpa Burris case, and told of his apsoinment as prosecutor for the interstate comerce commission. He declared him to be eminent for his qualification in that line: eulogized Mesers. Hall and Snell and said that when he thought of the cousel engaged in the prosecution he trembied for his client He warned the jury not be misled by the eloquence and sophistry of counsel to condemn his client. Mr. Strode then called for the ring which had been introduced in evidence as one which Monday in his confession had said that Mrs. Sheedy had given him. Its production was the begining of a dramtic scene. " Mr. Hall," said he, " called your atention to the fact that Monday McFarland's confession was corroborated by a ring found in a pawn shop. Now I ask you what evidence is there that Mrs. Sheedy ever owned such ring? there was no evidence that went to show that against Mrs. Sheedy, you cannot consider that confession against her. Yes, they stand here by the hour telling you of things that are in McFarland's confession. He says she placed that ring on his finger and the ring was identified as found at a pawn shop. What mark is there upon it? Nobody should say it was Marry Sheedy's ring or ever had been, and the pawn broker tell you that the ring had no mark upon it except the flueness of the gold of which it was made. That he put a tickt upon it. McGarland save in his confession this is the one Mary Sheedy gave him, yet there is not a sintilla of evidence that Mary Sheedy ever owned such a ring. I do not believe she ever owned such a ring. I do not believe such a ring ever had nay existence except in the imagination of Monday McFarland. I don't believe he ever got it of Mary Sheedy. " Put that ring on your finger," said Mr. Strode, advancing with extended hand toward the prisoner. In a moment Mr. Lamberston was upon his feet protesting : " Your honor, we object to that. That would be getting evidence from Monday McFarland unfairly. Why didn't they put him on the stand if they wanted his evidence? We would have been glad tp have them do so. If they persist in this unfair attempt to secure evidence from him we shall content for the right to cross-examine him. " " It occurred to me when I tried to place it on my finger that it is not Monday McFarland ring. It would scarcely go on my finger. Look at that man, look at his szie, and tell me if he has a finger that ring would go on? Yet they try to affect Mrs. Sheedy by saying Monday McFarland had a ring that she had placed upon his finger. " He got warmer as he talked and seemed to have just made an important discovery. " You have been playing some kind of jugglary on me. some trickery wish this ring. Then there this hair. Mr. Hall tells in his argument, why don't you prove this not Mary Sheedy's hair. Doubless it may be a part of her hair. McFarland was combing her hair and dressing her hair, she did not deny that. There is no evidence but what that had been done. And if that were true, how easy it was for him to have obtained some of her hair in combing it and dressing it. And he could have saved some of the combings if he wanted to. Whether he did or not. I don't know, This lock of her hair looks to me, darker than any hair I have ever seen on Mary Sheedy's head. I simply ask you to look at it. These detectives have been working up this testimony," and he laid the darker trees against Mrs. Sheedy's golden bangs while she sat resignedly with eyes upon the floor. " We object to that, your honor, That would be putting her upon the stand, and when that is done we want the opprotunity to croes exxamine her." " You can't sneak testimony in that way which you were afraid to introduce by the proper method, and when you charge that we have manfactured testimony I denoynce you as an infamoulair. " " Go on, Mr. Lamberstton, you can't scare me, " calmly replied Mr. Strode. " Gentlemen, that will do, " syernly admonished the court. " There is no ocasion for any such language as this. Mr. Lamberston, I am suprised that you use such language in court. There is nothing courageous in calling a man ac hiar in court. and I want to say that you have committed an ungentlemanly and uprofessional act. " The crowd brust into applauso at the severity of the court admonition, atested by the clapping of hands and murmurs of approval, This renewed the displeasure of the court, and Judge Field seriously and somewhat feelingly threatented to clear the court room if there was such another demonstration. " This is to serious a trial to permit of any such expresions. Nothing that is saud there is intended for the benfit of the audenice, or for the approval or diapproval, and if this audience cannot remain quiet must be cleared from the room." Thereupon Mr. Strode continued. " Mr. Hail asks why we don't prove that this is not Mary Sheedy's hair. I simply ask you to look at it and look at her head. Do you say this is Mary Sheedy's hair? I am more conbinced than ever it is not. You have been placing in that negro's possession testmony by which you expect to convict this woman. I tell you that hair never came from Mary Sheedy's head. I ask you if you cannnot see the contrast even from where you sit. It never came from Mary Sheed's head. Mr. Lamberston, and you and your detective know it. You know that you have trunped up here some injured testimony with which to try to effect this women. No man with an iota if discretion can look at it and any that ever came from Mary Sheedy's head. Now I simply ask you, do you believe that is Mary Sheedy's ring? In the face of the facts that have come to light, do you believe Mary Sheedy ever placed that ring on Monday McFarland's finger. You see how large a man he is. While I do not know whether it would go upo his finger or not, I venture the assertion, it will not go over the first joint. I say this some manufactured evidence of Jim Malone and the Pinkerton detectvies who are coming to the front in the winding up of this trail in my judgment." Mr. Strode then went over all the evidence [dr?] [dr?] by piece as it presented itself most favrable for his client, and d welt at length to prove that there was postivevly no testimony that Sheedy had been poisoned. He also read a number of medical authorites to show that the symptoms of poisoning are shown much quicker than were the symptoms in this case and that death had never been so long delyaed in but once instance on recard. His refernces to his client were frequent and most touching and pathetic, moving many of the ladies to tears and his concluding appeal was most impressively mad as follows: AN APPEAL FOR MERCY. " Adopting the sentiments of another. let me say : Taken this case. I surrender into you hand the issue of life and death. As long as you live a more important case than this you'll never be called to try. Consider it, therefore, well in all its bearings. Justice, under the evidence and the law of this case, demands an acquital of them defends at your hands. when you have returned to your homes may be you be able to say that in justice we remembered mercy to these defendants. " Being member that life is an awful and scared thing: Remember that death is terrible at any time and in any form. But when to the frightful mein of the grim monster, when to the cilled visage of ths spirit of the glass and soythe is added the hated, dreaded specter of the gihbet we turn shuddering from the accumated horor. God spare my client, and those who love ber from such a scence of [dr?] She may have lived a somewhat careless life, she may have done many things to justify reflections upon her course of conduct: but she guilence of the crime charged in this information. You cannot find her guilty of the charge becouse of anything in her past life that may not have been as circumsatnce as it cought to have been. Human nature is weak. Thousands of women in our land have been driven by brutal men to live more sinful lives than she has lived. They are to be pulled rather than condmened in many cases. If life who made the earth and bung the sun and moon and stars on high to give light, and created man a joint heir of etermal wealth, and put within him an [dr?] sperk of that clestial flame which surronds his throne could remember mercy in executing justiced when whole plan of divine goverment was assalted and deraying: when the purity of Edeuhad been defined by the presance and councel of the serpent why so can you and so can I. remember mercy towards this woman a prisoner at the bar. who, when she was in her early womanhood, allowed John Sheedy to lead her from the paths of virtue and pure womenhood. But she become his wife, and her devotion to his has been shown, she has made every atoremnet in her power to make for whatever wrong there may have been in that. Let not anything that has been mad against the character of this woman by consel who proected her wigh in your minds unless supportted by the evidence. What has been shown does not show her guilty of the charge in the informtion in this case. [dr?] it, therefore, from your minds. Charity in the paramount virture all else is an sounding brass and [dr?] symbols. Charity sufferth long and is kind. Forbid not to come into your delibrations : and when your last hour comes, the memory that you allowed it to plead for this unfortunate woman will brighten your passage over the dark river and raise by your side as an intealing angel in that day when your trail as well as hers. shall be determind by a just but mercful [dr?] It is asked that after death there shall be a [dr?] and that we shall mevt again. If that holy [dr?] is true that [dr?] where the only plea that will save you or me from a worse fate than can await these defendants, should you find then guilty, will be mercy. Then, gentemen of the jury, let me ask you to restore my client to her identiy: restore her to the [dr?] THIS WHOLE PASSAGE IS VERY HARD TO READ...
That aged mother now has [dr?] THE PASSAGE IS VERY HARD TO READ AND WRITE.
FORTH COULUM NEEDS TO BE WRITTEN STARTING HERE.
THEN FIFTH COULUM..... THEN THE SIXTH..... THEN THE SEVENTH....