Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 March 1896 — TO HANG A RICH MAN. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

TO HANG A RICH MAN.

PLEA OF INSANITY WILL NOT SAVE ARTHUR DUESTROW. Missouri Millionaire Committed a Brutal Crime, and a Jury Says He Must Pay the Penalty, His Great Wealth Notwithstanding. Slew His Wife and Babe. 'Arthur Duestrow must hand and there are not many people in Missouri who will regret his death on the gallows, says a Union. Mo., dispatch, for by that punishment will be expiated, so far as this world goes, one of the most brutal crimes in the history of the State. The several trials through which conviction was arrived at

have held public attention for two years as has the trial of no other criminal iu the recollection of the oldest citizens. That this man has at last been convicted of the murder of his wife .and child in Febru*ary, 1894, is a surprise as- well as a source of gratification to the public, for .so potent is the influ-

enee of money and so much uiouey had Duestrow that the belief was general that he would get off lightly. Insanity was the first plea on which the defense based their hopes. By the law of Missouri, if the sanity of a person charged with murder is questioned a jury must first decide the matter before the accused can be placed on trial for the murder. Over a year ago this question was submitted to a jury, whose members could not agree. Then another jury was picked out and lawyers and experts ar-

gued and wrangled and did their , best to get the jurymen rattled. But when the latter were finally given the question to decide they agreed to a man that Dues-tro-w was sane. Then came the trial’of the prisoner on the charge of murder. This trial was held last September and, as in the case of the first sanity investigation, the jury disagreed. About a month ago the ease again came to trial, with the result, as above stated, of conviction of murder in the first degree, which, in this State, calls for the death penalty. An appeal will probably be taken. Duestrow’s crime, and the circumstan-

ces which led up to it, were not such as to gain for him much public sentiment and sympathy. The young man is the son of a capitalist of St. Louis who left a vast { fortune, so placed, however, that Duestrow could not lay

his hands ou it. with the exception of SIO,OOO a year. The subsequent death of his mother, however, made him a millionaire. This was about seven years ago, and the young man was then studying medicine. He naturally left the medical college and presently married a beautiful woman. All went well in the magnificent home which he fitted up until Duestrow began to imbibe too freely of intoxicants. Attendant vices, added to his growing love of liquor, brought wretchedness to his wife, and made of the handsome, refined and cultured young husband a Brute, a drunkard and a rake. The arrival of a baby in the unhappy household did not seem to mend matters, and Duestrow continued in his evil ways, going step by step farther into the depths of vice and wick-j edness. Things were thus on Feb. 13, 1894. A servant of the family, Katie Hahn, testified as to the occurrences of that eventful day, when the cruel husband slayer of ins wife afid'his’cinKfr' ’ J *'' " v Duestrow went out/and as usual “got a jag on,” in vulgar pari ante. / The liquor had evidently gone to aroused some demon there, for iie went home and picked a quarrel with bis wife and began to abuse the servant. Katie Habii. When he threatened to strike the latter his wife interfered.; “Strike me if yoti must -strike some one,”- ’she said. "All right,” responded the Brute, and he proceeded to carry out her suggestion. Twice he struck her and then ran from the room. Back in an instant with a*' revolver, he flourished it in a manner that .scared the servant out of the room. Then she heard a shot. She ran up stairs and heard another. Down she ran again and as she passed the door she saw her mistress prostrate and Duestrow with the baby held at arm’s length, abouttjq.Mqvj .out its brains. Katie turned her head and on the Instant came the report that told her tlredlttle one was through its earthly troubles. Then she ran from the house and summoned help. Duestrow was arrested, but. that didn’t bother him much. He didn’t like the prison fare, so he had his meals sent in from one of the swell cases of the city: his bare cell walls shocked his aesthetic taste and the cell was at once magnificently furnished. Then! this pampered tool of the devil wanted a valet, and he got one. Everything- he could think of that would add to his comfort was done for him; and all ow.ing to the magic influence of gold. But right and justice and the law have prevailed, and Ware he as rich as Croesus, it ig very

donbtfnl if Atthur Duestrow—the product of an unreal civilization, the victim of his own pernicious indinadbns. a brute far lower than the brujes—could be saved from that death which twelve tried and true men have said he shall suffer.

ARTHUR DUESTROW

MRS. DUESTROW.