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The Murder of Anna Wiese | ||
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EVENING TIMES REPUBLICAN |
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 18, 1894 | |
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HEADLINES APRIL 18, 1894 THE DEFENSE Arguments of Mrs. Bennett's Counsel Against the State's Theory Both Binford and Caswell Vigorously Assail Boardman's Strong Points Caswell's Penchant for Sarcasm Given Free Rein - Able Arguments TUESDAY AFTERNOON - O. L. BINFORD, FOR DEFENSE Mr. Boardman quoted some scripture to you and I will start with a quotation from Matthew: "When ye speak use not vain repetitions as the heathen do: for they think they shall be heard for their much speaking." We think this important and applicable to this case, and do not think it is a case that should be tried on words. The only question to be tried is, "Is the defendant guilty?" and we ask you to investigate this question upon the evidence as given you in this court. There is no need to color the evidence in this case; we do not desire to present this to you in such a manner as to allow you to consider the case in a biased manner. We stand here only pleading for justice; we don't ask anything more than that you would take the case as a matter of the greatest importance to yourselves. Counsel has read a great deal of the evidence in this case, and what has he done it for but to hamper your minds? When you go to your jury room you will begin to inquire, "What has Emily Bennett done?" Boardman has told a story; but I apprehend you will not be likely to do that. Will any man ask you in conscience to say this defendant is guilty because some persons said they saw some stains on their premises that looked like blood? No one has said that defendant's actions were more excited than others, and there is nothing in this that is even a circumstance. The hair that was found on the breast and in the hand was cut from the head of Anna Wiese at the time she was killed. We have nothing to prove in this case. We stand here to disprove; and haven't we fully proved to you that the hair was cut off and not pulled out? Did you ever hear of such a proposition that a mother, who is good and so solicitous for the good of her only son, is to go so far as to cut the throat of a neighbor? There is nothing to show that Arthur Sherlock ever went with or kept company with Anna Wiese, and why have counsel labored so long to show other relations when there is no evidence in the case to show it? Mrs. Sprecker is not entitled to any credit before the jury. She has been shown to be a person of no reputation or character. They have but two witnesses of importance, Mrs. Sprecker and Barney Shultz. If Barney Shultz had been a gentleman he would not have gone to the home of Mrs. Bennett when no one was present and tried to intimidate her; if he had desired to be fair he would not have gone there and called in Mr. Bennett, and done what he went there for in the presence of her husband, and at a time when he could not take advantage of her? Mrs. Sprecker was fairly denied by Arthur Sherlock, who made as fair a witness as ever sat in the witness chair, and he says he never had any improper conversation with Anna Wiese; he stood up under cross examination of Mr. Boardman without flinching. Boardman asks you why didn't we show that Hill or Russie did this monstrous thing; I shall not argue this point; the law does not require us to do it, and any school boy knows us. No one has said where Henry Russie was that night; no one has shown where he was while the boy was watching the colt on the north side of the barn. It is in evidence that no one can articulate when the throat is cut; and yet when Henry Russie and Perry Greggs started down there they heard her scream, and when they got within thirty rods they heard her scream again, and when they got within seven rods of her they heard her moan, and from all this we must understand that she had not yet had her throat cut; and Russie and Greggs are at once by her side. Russie says he thought she had fainted, and he immediately sends Perry Greggs up to Hills to arouse them; when Arthur HIll came the throat was cut. Now, I ask you, when was this throat cut? Russie laid her head to one side and did not discover the throat was cut, and yet when Arthur Hill came down there he at once discovered the throat had been cut; Henry Russie had been there all the time that Perry Greggs was gone to Hill's, and did nothing to discover what was the matter, and did not in all that time even discover she had been killed. Although we are not compelled to discover the murderer, is not this a circumstance for you to consider in this case whether defendant is guilty? This is not only a question of life and liberty, but it is a question with defendant of dollars and cents; these people are poor, and yet we are not begging for mercy - we want exact justice. Prof. Haines was employed at a great expense to examine the hair and waist, and it is in evidence that he was brought her, but he was not put on the stand, and is it not fair for us to infer that Dr. Harris, if he had been put upon the stand, would have said there was no identification by hair, and that his examination of the noted waist demonstrated the fact that there was no blood upon it? There is no subterfuge or deceit in the manner of obtaining the exhibits in this case; the men who swore to the identity of the boards in the gate are as good and respectable men as have been sworn in this case; and yet the sheriff is willing to come in here and swear that is not the board he examined; I would not have believed he would have done it. Bennett was willing to do anything he could and all he could do to help along the investigation. Others did no more. There has been no ill feelings shown to have existed between Mrs. Bennett and Anna Wiese; Mrs. Wiese, Anna's mother, does not say there was anything but the best of feeling between them. Mrs. Bennett has behaved herself like a lady through the whole of this trial; we have not put her upon the stand to deny any of the allegations that have been made against her; we haven't thought it necessary to do so; we did not think it would be necessary to deny the testimony of Mrs. Sprecker, who has been but a year in the country and is not a person that is entitled to credit. The finding of the waist is entitled to consideration. Yeager is pretty cute; he saw this one waist hanging on the line and he took it down and threw it in the box and then in the trunk, and then he reports to have found it; if we must account for it we will do so by supposition, as the state has done in all its points. The possibility of Mrs. Bennett slipping up behind Anna Wiese, who was eight inches taller and weighed twenty-six pounds the most, is not worthy of argument. It isn't a possibility. No motive has been shown. I do not believe it will be necessary for me to say anything about the relations that existed between Arthur Sherlock and Anna Wiese, for there has been no evidence to show they were on intimate terms. That there was a stain on the knob we are not going to deny, but we do not believe you will find it possible for it to have been blood from the hand of Mrs. Bennett after she had come 219 rods, through three barb wire fences, much less to make a stain on the gate with the face of the thumb and fingers. They lay great stress on the fibers found in examining the matter under the nails of Anna Wiese's fingers, and yet it is in evidence that Anna had a red waist on, and the red particles may have come from that. Is this at all convincing? And, again, they say there were such fibers in Mrs. Bennett's head, and none were found like them in the head of Anna Wiese. Why did they not say, in fairness, that Anna Wiese's head had been thoroughly washed? Mr. Binford closed at 4:30 p.m. and Mr. Caswell then began his argument for defense, and had not concluded at the evening adjournment. He spoke substantially as follows: O. CASWELL'S ARGUMENT I don't know as I shall be able to present this case very forcibly or clearly, but I think I shall be able to do so in such a way as to show my client is innocent. You have it in your power to send her to a living grave; more than that, it is possible that you can lock her in a cell, with the conscientiousness that she has done nothing wrong in her life. It is said you have unpleasant duty in this case; I say you have not; it will be a pleasant duty to send this woman home to her family, to live a life as pure as the life she has lived to the present time. The most astounding statement I ever heard in a criminal case was when the attorney, in opening, told you to fine her $1. We are not asking to have the murderer of Anna Wiese released on such a punishment; Mrs. Bennett was arrested and brought to the jail, and the papers said she was the most terrible fiend that any mortal man had ever seen, and the people passed around the cage and looked at her, and told her this was not the first time she had been in such terrible deeds. Let any attorney be employed to defend a great criminal and he becomes the target of the whole community; and it is with this in view that I said I wanted you to be kind to us. I found the opposition had hair they claimed to come from the hand of the murdered girl, and bloody cloths, and knives. I attempted to obtain an investigation of these things and I asked to see them, but I could not get to see them, and I had to go into court and get an order for the hair and the privilege to see the garment. Would you think it possible that anybody would not allow this woman any opportunity to clear herself? And yet the records show it. I got an order for some hair, but I was always suspicious of this hair; I thought I discovered the hair on the shoulder was from the head of Anna Wiese; I saw how the villain who murdered her had cut and haggled the waist and body of Anna Wiese, and the hair lay down on her shoulder, and was cut by that knife. I felt that the life of my client, as the papers put, "hung upon a hair," and being suspicious of those I had, I took as good, reliable men as could be found in the community and went out into Vienna township, and got some of the hair of Anna Wiese, and I did not go there as a grave robber; I went there in an open way and took with me men as good as any I could get. They gave us notice that a man from Chicago would be here to testify - Dr. Haynes. I sent a man to Dr. Haynes, and I have and can produce, questions and answers that I cannot read to you, but the opposition had him here for days, and then sent him home and he did not testify; and we have a right to call your attention to it, and you can draw your own inference. The old button on the waist has been there for months and months, as the iron rust upon the thread with which is sewed plainly indicates. Mr. Caswell here described in a sarcastic way the theory of the state, as told by Mr. Boardman. "His theory, condensed," is, said the attorney. "That Mrs. Bennett wanted her son, Arthur Sherlock, to marry the farmer's daughter; that Anna Wiese came along the road one evening, spoke to Mrs. Bennett and Arthur said 'good night', and passed on; that when Arthur had gone to Green Mountain after the mail, as usual, Mrs. Bennett suspected he had gone to meet Anna on the road between Hill's and Russie's; that defendant then had her husband go out and climb upon the windmill, and look at Anna sitting in Hill's house; that she then disguised herself by putting on Arthur's overalls, this old blue waist and some red garment over her head, and that they both went down into the slough, and while Bennett stood off to one side she quarreled with and then murdered Anna Wiese. If Boardman was ever indicted for a murder and should employ me to defend him, I would put this whole matter before the jury and enter the plea of insanity." Mrs. Sprecker, who the state claimed as one of their best witnesses, after she had accused Mrs. Bennett of all kinds of immoral statements in regard to her, was compelled to say on cross examination that she did not, understand Mrs. Bennett to mean anything immoral by her statement. No one has been brought here to say that Arthur Sherlock and Anna Wiese had ever gone a day or a rod together. Now, isn't this strange? No attempt has been made to do so except by the gossip of Mrs. Sprecker. Arthur Sherlock is one of the most exemplary young men in Vienna township; and the worst enemy Ci Bennett has will not say differently; the mother had no reason to suspect any wrong, for none existed. Women don't attempt murder in that way; they don't go out with a little jack knife and a soft maple club, and unattended, to murder one larger and stronger than she. The man that murdered Anna Wiese cut her throat standing up, and Mrs. Bennett could not do it; it was not done in a crouching position; Anna Wiese fought like a tigress; the doctors all say the throat was cut while standing; they say it, and we say it, and she was fighting until her life blood was let out by that knife. Boardman says defendant killed her because she was red headed; but the state of Iowa does not encourage the conviction of murder by such red headed stories. Mr. Boardman did not tell you of a single principle of circumstantial evidence. A fact to be a circumstance must be of such a character as to point to one person more than another; they should point more in one direction than another; unless they do they are no circumstances at all; unless the facts remove every other hypothesis than that of guilt, you must acquit. Circumstantial evidence is the most unsatisfactory of any kind you can imagine; and yet circumstantial evidence is good if it is strong enough. I expect to show to you that there is no more probability that defendant did this deed than that you or I did it. Boardman says a number of persons have come before you and said they did not commit this murder; has not the deft done as much? Arthur Sherlock was surrounded by such circumstances that if he was not guarded by the truth he would have broken down, but they did not catch him or weaken his evidence at a single point. Mr. Caswell had not finished when court adjourned, till 8:30 this morning. |
WEDNESDAY MORNING - CASWELL'S ARGUMENT CONTINUED I wish to call your attention to the statements of the attorney opening this case. It is said this indictment is drawn so you can find her guilty of murder or fine her a dollar; this is said to deceive you; if she is found guilty, no court can save her from the penitentiary; no court would sustain your verdict for assault; if she is found guilty is it for murder. That statement was made to decoy you so that you might find her guilty and leave her punishment to the court. It is said that if she doesn't like the verdict she can appeal; but my client is not able to appeal, and it is only a bid to deceive you into guessing the case off, in the hope to obtain a conviction. We were not allowed to examine the waist by the officers, and never until we obtained an order from his honor to allow us to; the officers had no more authority to search the house than I have today to go into your house, and yet they charge us with changing gates and placing clubs in convenient places to be found for evidence; it is all in keeping with the appeal to you not to treat this woman kindly, but to treat her harshly. Down in the white city last summer I saw a picture around which a crowd continually passed, and I then saw many a sympathetic person stop and wipe away a tear. There upon a bed lay a man, bolstered up on pillows, and around him gathered his little family and the old grandmother; at the foot stood a man reading a paper; under the picture was written "Foreclosing the mortgage." I could not help thinking what kind of man was foreclosing this mortgage, and I could see him as a man that never smiled, a marble face, and such a one as could stand before a jury and tell them not to be kind to the prisoner at the bar; the sheriff that read that paper was such a man as could take the stand and say the defendant was not sick. On the question of motive, they have only shown that the mother of Anna Wiese had told her the girl was in a delicate condition, and when she was afterwards told it was a mistake, defendant told those she had talked to it was a mistake, and righted that as far as possible. All that they have pretended to show was that she had repeated some things others have said and reported. The last conversation on the Sunday night before the murder was friendly and pleasant, and the last words heard that night were "Good night." It is shown that Anna was introduced to Isenhart by Mrs. Bennett; Mrs. Bennett told Anna that Isenhart had beat a colt while at their house, and a man who would beat a dumb animal would abuse his wife, and warned her against Isenhart, and that he would do her bodily harm. Was this the conduct of a woman fired with hatred and malice? I ask you to consider it. She told Barney Shultz that when they said she talked about Anna Wiese they lied, and she never had any animosity towards her; and isn't that true? Have they shown different? It is said she had the nerve to go and look at the bloody throat of Anna Wiese. Every lawyer knows, and every detective knows that there is no method known that is more likely to discover the murderer than to take the supposed murderer to the scene of the murder, and if he shrinks at the sight it is the best evidence of guilt; these parties have all borne themselves without suspicion when confronted with the bloody deed; the story related by Mrs. Sprecker in which Arthur Sherlock accused Anna with improper conduct with Isenhart in a buggy is manufactured; and if she did do that is it evidence that then she would murder the girl? If it is, every mother in the land is manufacturing evidence against herself when she gives her son or daughter good advice. I tell you it is in evidence that Mrs. Bennett is a good woman; Mrs. Sprecker is an ungrateful woman to come here with so much anxiety to testify in this case against a woman that fed her when she was hungry and clothed her when she was almost naked, and possibly it may have been the blood from a chicken sent to feed this same Mrs. Sprecker that stained the door knob on the door that attracted the attention of four sheriffs. She tells you that Mrs. Bennett said Anna Wiese would do things that other girls would not and on cross examination she admitted to me that she did know as she meant anything immoral. They say she scraped the table and picked the table cloth, intending to convey to your minds that she was absent-minded. I have read - I don't know whether other counsel have or not - that Christ at one time, surrounded by the people, stooped down and wrote in the sand, and yet I have never heard it said it indicated anything wrong, and yet for these little things they would ask you to convict this defendant of murder. The scene at that house that night has been told by Mr. Bennett and Arthur, and they have told it with all apparent truth and candor, and a hundred witnesses would not make it any stronger. They turned out to help hunt the murderer, and who did more than that? If defendant acts calm they say, "Look at the villain!" If she is excited they condemn her for that. Maud Stover, - but let us pass to something deodorized. In passing I might remark that if she did say, "If I suffer others will suffer," it is strictly true; can you think she meant anything else than that the family would suffer? It can't be possible she meant that the boy they say she was willing to risk her life for in murdering a girl was to be disclosed as an accomplice; it is unnatural. It is said she was talking and trying to make others believe the murderer was Isenhart, yet every one was talking of Isenhart; it is a matter of public notoriety that he was arrested and brought to Marshalltown to answer for the crime, and there is more than one today who believes he caused it to be done. Mrs. Wiese says she went over to see her murdered girl; the sympathy of all went out towards that old woman, and they tell us Mrs. Bennett went up and kissed her. Is that the indication of a murderess? If she had murdered that old German woman's daughter you couldn't have induced her to go into the same room; she wouldn't have passed her in the road; she went over to see this old mother a mile the other side of Gladbrook, and wanted to know why Anna didn't come and visit her; all was harmony and there was the best of feeling on the part of the defendant; the answer was that Arthur was mad at her. What condition do we find? The state would have you believe there were intrigues between Arthur and the girl, and yet their own testimony shows they were not on good terms. The old mother seems to have a very opposite idea from the theory of the state; she seems to think the trouble was that Anna had gone back on Arthur and would not marry him. I started out to say there is not a circumstance squinting against this woman, and I now tell you there is not a circumstance, but tending to acquit and in her favor. She went over to Hill's the day of the great search to get the women to go with her to see the murderer hung; still going towards the place of the murder and not acting the part of a guilty person. Laura Hill will not say much in favor of this woman; she is not favorable to our side of the case; she has an animosity to our side, and she may be expected to color her testimony, and yet I ask you, is there anything in her testimony to indicate that she would murder Anna? I have gone now through the testimony of all the witnesses that have testified against the defendant, have given you the worst side of it, and I can not see where there is anything against her; I can not see where there is anything to reconcile; I would be willing to submit this case to you on the testimony of the state in its most unfavorable circumstances; it all goes to show that the defendant is a good woman. All this testimony is what? They say it shows a motive to kill Anna Wiese; we say it all tends to show her a good woman; the whole theory of motive is founded on little pin-hooking insinuations. The state says it was a woman; there were scratches on the victim's face; you remember that Henry Russie said the last scream was muffled; the hand of a strong man was over that mouth. If Mrs. Bennett had met Anna Wiese down there on the road that night, I ask you what in the light of the evidence could they have talked about that would have brought on a quarrel; if she had accused her of being intimate with Arthur wouldn't she have answered that there was no intimacy? There was nothing to quarrel about. We have put all the circumstances upon you to judge from; we are not here trying anyone, and I don't want to insinuate anything against anyone; but it is in evidence that Henry Russie went down there and stood beside the body and watched her; looked down upon her bloody face, and did know she had been murdered; yet I am not accusing anyone. And yet, I submit to you that if they had such a circumstance against my client they would stand here and talk to you about her until Saturday night; all they claim that shows it was a woman is that her face was scratched; they did claim the manner of the cuts were such as to indicate a woman; there were no little cuts; every stab shows the knife was driven to the hilt and the throat was cut with a single sweep - the act of a strong man. There is nothing to show that the person who did this crime premeditated it; a little light stick is not the weapon of premeditation, and I ask you to consider it. I have never heard this woman was in the habit of carrying a knife, to have it at hand; there is nothing to indicate it was a woman and everything to indicate it was a man. They say it was a woman that killed that girl because hair was found; they show the hair was cut. I ask you how Mrs. Bennett could have cut off her hair? This garment shows the haggling about the throat and the evidence is conclusive that the hair was down and was cut by the hand of the assassin; the coroner said he saw the hair and he thought it came from the head of Anna Wiese, little short hairs, not so long as the hand; how could it have broken off? Would it not at least have been as long as the hand? It was cut off. We had Dr. Taylor here to show the great, broad proposition that there is no identification by hair. Every person's hair has different shades and colors, and when you have a few hairs together, you can tell but little about it; a body together is necessary to get the composite color; there is no difference in the color between the hair of Anna Wiese and the hair found in the hand and on the shoulder; it is all from the same head. The great calamity that has fallen upon my client is all because they have made the mistake that Mrs. Bennett had no bangs; they found splits in the hair of Mrs. Bennett, and on that they indicted her. It is shown by their own witnesses that it is impossible to identify human hair from the hair of some animals; I do not refer to this to claim the hair found in the hand was from an animal, but that science has not gone beyond that point; that there is absolutely no identification by hair. The noon hour having arrived court took a recess until 1:30, Mr. Caswell's argument not being completed. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 18, 1894 Continued with the Following Headlines: GETS HIS SECOND WIND Mr. Caswell Will Evidently Outdo Mr. Boardman In Length of Argument Still Taking to the Jury this Afternoon With Tireless Energy Makes a Mastery Defense for His Client, Covering the Entire Ground Fully Caswell Closed at 8 p.m., and Mr. Carney Begins the Closing Argument THE TALK ROLLS ON Mr. Caswell Evidently Intent Upon Making a Day of It - Mr. Carney Begins His Argument Mr. Caswell was still talking to the jury in the Bennett case this afternoon and Mr. Carney began his closing argument for the state this evening. Caswell has made an exhaustive argument, covering the case from every conceivable standpoint, taking up the points brought out by the testimony and opposing counsel in detail and disproving, to his own satisfaction at least, each circumstance that had been construed by the state as pointing toward defendant as the guilty party. It has been asserted that Mr. Caswell expected to make this the single effort of his life in defense of a client. The prediction seems to be verified. No one will gainsay the statement that it is a masterly, sweeping argument, and an honest, all absorbing endeavor to clear what he considers an innocent woman of a terrible crime. The court room has been well filled and the arguments of the counsel have been listened to throughout with marked attention. Mrs. Bennett appeared more interested, more animated today than at any time during the trial. She even ventured a smile at some of the sallies made by her counsel, and there was a look of hopefulness, of calm, confidence, upon her face, and she conversed more than usual with the friends surrounding her. There is, in fact, nothing of dejection, indifference or stolidity in her demeanor today.
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