Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 240, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 October 1914 — JURY DISCHARGED IN HACKSHAW CASE [ARTICLE]

JURY DISCHARGED IN HACKSHAW CASE

Spent Night In Deliberation About Shooting Scrape Which Occurred in North Jasper. The case of State of Indiana vs. John Hackshaw, charged with assault with intent to commit murder was begun before a jury on Friday forenoon and occupied the attention of the court during the balance of the day. The prosecuting witness, Ed Mutchler, whose farm adjoins the defendant’s farm, testified that he was repairing a fence and heard a rifle shot pass near his head and upon raising up he saw Hackshaw standing about 25 rods distant with a gun pointed toward him; that he then yelled at the defendant not to shoot but that he then fired two additional shots; that the defendant then came up to Mutchler carrying his rifle at his side; that Mutchler then told defendant that he would have him arrested and that defendant warned Mutchler not to\ bother his fence and that Hackshaw then went back toward his Jiouse. Mrs. Mutchler testified to hearing the shots but did not see Hackshaw in the act of shooting.

The defendant testified that on the morning in question he went to a neighbor’s house and told him that if he would come over he would give him some pigs just bom the night before. That his neighbor, "Yocum, then came back with hdm and on reaching defendant’s barnyard they noticed the chickens coming down the hill from the grove and they discovered a hawk flying into the grove. That the de fendant and Yocum then went to the house and defendant got his rifle and coming out of the -house they saW the hawk fly from the timber across the cornfield. That de fendant then fired several shots in . rapid succession at the hawk. That then the defendant went up over the hill and Yocum remained at ttie house. Defendant then went down the hill where he saw Mutchler fixing the fence. Mutchlsr’s and Hackshaw’s testimony coihdded as to what was said abthat time. Yoeurn waited for the defendant to return and that he did return in about ten minutes and put his gun in the house. That in the meantime Yocum’s son had arrived at the Hackshaw home with a rig and that then the defendant caught three pigs and loaded them into the rig and Yocum and his son drove away. Yocum -said he heard no other shots than the shots fired at the hawk and from the position in which the defendant stood when he fired the shots at the hawk it would have_been almost impossible to have seen a man standing Where Mutchler said he stood, on account of the cornfield. That it was a distance of 33 or 34 rods. Elwood Davis, another neighbor, testified that Hackshaw on the same day came to his house and gave him some of the pigs of the same litter and that he went to Hackshaw’s house and took the-pigs home. The evidence of both state and de sense was that Hackshaw made no attempt to shoot Mutchler while talking to him at the fence and that he could have killed him as he was not over 25 feet away. There was evidence of ill-feeling between Mutchler and the defendant of several years’ standing. W. B. McNeil testified that he tried the gun supposed to have been used and that it would not carry up the distance Hackshaw stood from "Mutchler when shots were fired. That the rifle was a 32 Marlin, shooting a rim-flre short cartridge The jury got the ease at 6 p. m. and failing to agree Were discharged by the court at 10 a. m. Saturday morning. P. R. Blue and Moses Leopold de fended Hackshaw and C. M. Sands and A. Halleck represented the state.