Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 263, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 November 1913 — ANOTHER WILLIS ESCAPADE RELATED [ARTICLE]

ANOTHER WILLIS ESCAPADE RELATED

Wife of Monticello Insurance Agent and His 15-Year-Old Sister Tell of Experience. •. , * ■ Another escapade of James L. Willis has come to light and it is not improbable that he will be arrested before his release from jail to answer another charge of a similar nature. The story is told by Fred Callahan, of Monticello, the district manager for the Equitable Insurance Co., and it was his wife and 15-year-old sister who had the experience. According to him, Mrs. Callahan and his sister had been visiting her father, Harry Baxter, on the Otis ranch near Roselawn. It was .about the 25th of July and Mrs. Callahan and the girl started to walk to Fair Oaks when Willis and a 'Rensselaer woman ©ame along in a car. They asked the woman to ride and Willis introduced the woman as his wife. They said they were limping on the river and were coming to Rensselaer for groceries and invited them to come along, saying that they would return that evening and bring them back, t The trip to Rensselaer was without incident. After arriving here they were let out at the home of the woman. Mrs. Callahan and the girl soon came down town and went to the Makeever hotel and Willis told them, so Mrs. Callahan says, that his wife was sick and not able to go back until morning, but that he would take them back any way. They said that they could remain ever night and return to Fair Oaks on the milk train in the morning, but he insisted that he had brought, them down and would take them back. About 8 o’clock he got (the women and started out with them. At.the B.

J. Moore corner he met a young man of this town and asked him to get in and take a ride. The young man asked where he was going and he said he had a trip to make up north. Willis had several bottles of beer, purchased at the river that afternoon and soon after getting out of town he asked his companions to have a drink and tried to induce the little girl to drink but she stoutly refused and it is said she cried because he insisted. According to Callahan improper proposals were made by Willis and he threatened to stop the car and put the woman and the girl out unless they consented, and that he stopped the car, claiming that there was something the matter and said that he would have to go to a farm house and get a lantern and that he tried to induce the woman to go with him. He also threatened to run the car in the ditch, so the story goes, unless the woman and girl would comply with his demands. The young man objected to the proceeding and informed the woman that he would protect them, and Willis continued on the trip, but did not go directly to Fair Oaks,< but drove to Water Valley, twelve miles north of Fair Oaks, and then back, arriving at Fair Oaks at about 2 o’clock in the morning. She informed her husband of the escapade after her return to Monticello and they finally decided to cause Willis’s arrest. When Callahan came here to swear out the papers he learned that Willis had been arrested on the complaint of the Thompson girl. Callahan stated that if the girl’s father learned of the escapade there would be no use of a trial. He would make use of a. shotgun. Mr. Callahan, so it is reported, is willing at this late date to prefer charges against Willis and it may be that will have another chance to fight the penitentiary, Still other stories are being freely told. One involving the Rensselaer woman and a young girl from Wolcott • ) ■lt was upon the strength of stories like these that so many were ready to testify at the trial in Newton county that the repuation of Willis was bad.