Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 69, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 March 1919 — IN JAIL HERE, MURDER CHARGE [ARTICLE]

IN JAIL HERE, MURDER CHARGE

DAN HARTNETT FACES CHARGE OF HAVING KILLED BRAKEMAN EARL HUGHES. Dan Hartnett was arrested in Frankfort Friday -by Special- "Constable Harvey Moore, of this city, and brought here and lodged in the county jail where he will answer to a charge of having murdered brakeman Earl Hughes near McCoysburg on the 24th of last October. * His arrest came as a result of an affidavit filed by Mrs. Edith Hughes, wife of the dead m)an, with Justice S. C. Irwin. At an inquest held in November it was decided that Hughes was the victim of foul plajL and since that time Mrs. Hughes, with her attorneys, have 'been investigating the iase in an effort to gather evidence which will show that her husband was murdered and did not come to his death through accident. It will be remembered that Hartnett Was the switchman who rode frt>m Shelby to Monon in the caboose of the freight train on which Hughes was a ibrakeman, and that statements made at that time indicated that thqre had been an altercation a short time before >the disappearance of Hughes from the train and that Hughes, who was said to have been intoxicated, objected to permitting Hartnett to ride in the caboose; that he had characterized Hartnett as a ‘‘'Snake” and that after having upset the work table of the conducter, Fred Ball, and scattered his papers ion the floor of the caboose, Hughes was slapped and shaken up by the conducter,.and that shortly after this occurred he went to the rear platform of the caboose and was not seen again until his mangled remains were found between the rails the following morning, between McCoysiburg and Monon. When arraigned Friday, Hartnett stuck to the story he has told on several occasions since the death of Hughes, which is to the effect that neither he nor Ball saw Hughes after he staggered out of the back door of the caboose, and in a thick Irish brogue he indignantly protested against the efforts of the railroad detectives to induce him to give “manufactured and medicated” evidence to indicate that Ball “deliberately and 'deliciously” (pushed Hughes off the train. (Hartnett was remanded to jail until the preliminary hearing which will be held next Tuesday, It is understood that Hartnett is a switchman by trade, but that at the time of his arrert he was not employed by anyone and was making his home in Frankfort.