Jasper County Democrat, Volume 5, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 February 1903 — JURY FAILS TO AGREE [ARTICLE]

JURY FAILS TO AGREE

FIASCO IN INDIANAPOLIS GRAVE ROBBERY CASE. Juror* Become Involved in Altercacation and Kail to Reach VerdictEvidence Bliowed that Organized Bands Despoiled Cemeteries. At Indianapolis tlie jury in the trial of Dr. J. C. Alexander, indicted on a charge of complicity in grave robbing, was discharged at 10 o'clock Sunday morning after being out forty-eight hours and failing to agree. On the final ballot the vote stood eight for acquittal and four for conviction. There were several serious altercations during the consideration of the evidence in the jury room which came very nearly resulting In blows. The cause of the personal feelings in the matter, it is said, was a result of the wives of the jurors being permitted to visit them. Attorneys declare that tlie imputation that any outside influences were brought to bear on the jury or any member of it cannot affect the result of the case as it now Btands. If, however, a conviction had beeh" returned the “altercation and the causes leading up to it would havo been grounds for the granting of a new trial. Public opinion is divided. Somo are in favor of letting the negroes go now as the alleged head was not convicted, but generally tlie disagreement seems to be acquiesced in. The trial of Dr. Alexander is the outgrowth of disclosures made recently before tlie grand jury. They showed that a form of traffic such as lias never before disgraced an American city has boen carried on in Indianapolis, with the cemeteries there and in the vicinity as the basis of operation. Indianapolis lias been the center of a grave-robbing industry and human bodies have lieeii shipped to all parts of the country. According to one confession over 1,000 graves have been despoiled and the bodies taken from the coffins and shipped to the dissecting rooms iu colleges in Cincinnati, St. Louis, Cleveland, Chicago, Louisville and other large cities. Through the medium of a person whose identity

wai veiled in mystery the lenders of one organization of grave despoilcrs betrayed themselves to detectives who were sent out to gather evidence in the matter, j With the clew furnished the detectives worked persistently on the case until the members of the ghoulish band were placed behind the bars of the Indianapolis jail. The men were negroes. When these arrests were made it was supposed that the nefarious traffic had been effectually destroyed. Twenty-four hours had not passed after the gang mentioned had been placed tL Ail, however, before further evidence was collected pointing toward the startling fact that three other organizations were still operating among the graves of the cemeteries in the central portion of Indiana. The fact was also brought to light that several prominent physicians and surgeons and medical instructors and demonstrators in the middlo West were accused of complicity hKthg nefarious wprk. Among these were Dr. Joseph C. Alexander, demonstrator at the Central College of Physicians and Surgeons in Indianapolis, who was arrested and charged with disturbing graves, aiding in concealment of bodies and failing to keep a record of bodies used for dissecting purposes. Rufus Cantrell, who is known as the 'King of the Ghouls,” made a confession of the manner in which the griteaome business has been carried on. In describing the way in which a grave is robbed, ho showed that ghouls have secret! * n their business ns well as those engaged in respectable callings. The entire coffin Is not laid bare. A hole aa square as the grave Is wide Is dug at the head of a mound. When the coffin haa been reached a man is sent Into the excavation and while he is at work drilling through the casket the light he requires and the noise he makes are both prevented from arousing suspicion by a heavy robe that is thrown across the top of the grave, while he labor* beneath its covering. When the coffin has been opened and an aperture has been made largo enough to permit of the corpee being drawn through, a second ghoul takes the first man's place and drags the body from the coffin to the surface. Cantrell wna formerly n soldier, lie enlieted In Indianapolis in 1807 and was discharged the following year from the Twenty-fourth infantry at Fort Douglas, Utah, for epilepsy, with suicidal and homicidal tendencies.