Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 October 1895 — PREACHER TO PRISON [ARTICLE]

PREACHER TO PRISON

HINSHAW FOUND GUILTY OF MURDERING HIS WIFE. Jury Out Only Two Hours When It Brings in a Verdict Defendant Killed His Wife and Said a Burglar Did It. Sentenced for Life. Rev. William E. Hinshaw is guilty of the murder of his wife and will spend the remainder of his life in prison. Such is the verdict of the Danville, Ind., jury after being out two hours and twenty minutes. Jan. 10 last William E. Hinshaw was found on the road in front of his house in Belleville, Hendricks County, with seventeen razor cuts on his person and two pistol wounds. He said robbers had entered the house and shot his wife. He had engaged in a deadly encounter with them and they had inflicted the wounds before leaving. He directed those who found him to hunt his wife, and she was found unconscious with a bullet in her head. She lived sixteen hours, but never spoke. Hinshaw lay in bed for ten days and was then well. His story was believed at first, then sv.soieion began to grow that the burglar story was not reasonable. In the snow on the ground his tracks could be seen, but no tracks of a burglar. His conduct was flippant and he continued to preach. He was popular with the women and it was common talk he was a very light-hearted widower. The grand jury convened and he was indicted, arrested, and lay in jail since May. His friends gathered around him and visited him constantly in jail. Sept-. 4 his trial commenced. The trial has covered four weeks, one week of which time was lost through the sickness of a juror. The trial has been most bitterly contested, there being expert testimony of the highest order on the point of whether the woman could have walked and talked after receiving the fatal wound in the head. Both sides had expert testimony on this. The case was argued five days and onehalf most exhaustively and the short time the jury was out showed that the jury determined every point as they went along. The verdict meets public approval. When the defendant refused to go on the stand in his own behalf there was nothing more needed to convince most people that he was guilty, although a hanged jury was the most they expected out of the trial. Hinshaw’s attorneys will file an application for a new trial, which, if granted, will result in a change of venue.