Jasper County Democrat, Volume 7, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 October 1904 — WILL PLEAD IGNORANCE. [ARTICLE]

WILL PLEAD IGNORANCE.

A dispatch from Lafayette to Monday’s Indianapolis News says: John F. McHugh and Messrs. Haywood & Haywood,of this city, attorneys for the McCoys, assert that they know who wrecked the McCoy home at Rensselaer a week ago last night, and they say that the authorities of Jasper county are equally as positive as to the identity of the guilty person, and that at the proper time he will be arrested. They also assert that the bloodhounds placed on the trail soon after the explosion, followed the scent to the hiding place of the culprit, and since then testimony has developed, clearing away all doubt. The attorneys are preparing for the forthcoming trial of the McCoys, and they have a mass of testimony that will consume several weeks in its introduction. The defense is that the McCoys always felt that they were solvent, and that the failure of the bank was due to circumstances beyond their control. It is also pleaded that if the McCoys had been permitted to dispose of their property, they would have been able to satisfy all claims. Tom McCoy has visited Rensselaer several times since the explosion, and he met with a more cordial reception than was before accorded him. The above dispatch was evidently edited by McCoy’s attorneys, and is false in most part. Neither did the bloodhounds go to one “culprit’s” house more than another (they went up to several) and the authorities here say they know nothing of who committed the crime. If Tom McCoy has set foot in the town since the blowing up of his house it must have been in a most quiet manner, for no one here knows anything about it, therefore the “reception” accorded him must have been a warm one indeed.