Jasper County Democrat, Volume 12, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 July 1909 — ASSERTS SUTTON DIED BY OWN GUN [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

ASSERTS SUTTON DIED BY OWN GUN

Lieutenant Adams and an Orderly Reproduce Fight ADMITS BORROWING $1.59 Marine Officer Testifies That the Man Found Dc"d Was Disliked Because He Mede Others Dance by Threatening to Puncture Their Feet With Fillets—V’lTrs; Tells cf Night of Lc-ligercy Ending In Tragedy. Annapolis. Md., July 20.—The court cf inquiry conducting a second investigation l:;.to the death, cf Lieutenant Ji.; < '■» Ivvi' e Sutton of the United States maiLie corps heard' the testi-

mony of Lieutenant Robert E. Adams, Sutton’s former classmate at the academy and one of the principal actors in the midnight fight which cost the young ofliter his life. At one point In his testimony Lieutenant Adams and an orderly enacted the struggle with Sutton. The witness chair was removed and they both lay prune upon the floor. The witness was still under cross examination when the Inquiry adjourned. Discrepancies In Testimony. Attorney Davis, representing Sutton’s mother, succeeded in bringing out a number of discrepancies tn

Adams’ testimony, compared with his version of the tragedy at the former investigation when the board of inquiry found that Sutton died by his own hand. A rider to camp in an automobile with Sutton and two other officers; an interrupted altercation between Sutton and the witness; a later accidental meeting of the witness and Sutton, and another fight between the two men, with Sutton armed with a revolver in either hand and firing five shots, the last of which he directed at his own head while lying on the ground were the points in Lieutenant Adams’ testimony. "When Sutton was on the ground," said Lieutenant Adams, "I pushed his face into the earth with all my strength to keep him from seeing who it was. He struggled for twenty seconds and then semed to weaken.” Didn’t Pay Back $1.50. Adams told of a previous quarrel i with Sutton over the payment of $1.50 which he owed Sutton. | "bid you pay him that money?” asked Major Leonard. “No sir, I did not pay him,’’ the witness replied. I Lieutenant Adams said he had little to do with Sutton. When he first came to the academy in July, 1897, he was told that Sutton had placed the officers of the day and other officers in such undignified positions by making them dance by threatening to shoot at their feet, that the marines had decided to have nothing to dq with Sutton, the witness declared. |< Davis said that it was not his intention to fasten the responsibility of Sutton’s death on anyone, but that every effort would be made to discredit and ! refute the suicide theory.

LIEUTENANT SUTTON.