Jasper County Democrat, Volume 14, Number 66, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 November 1911 — THE POOLE TRIAL [ARTICLE]

THE POOLE TRIAL

A Start Is Made In Noted Murder Trial at Lafayette. Lafayette, Ind., Nov. 18.-—The first week of the trial of John W. Foole, for the murder of Joseph Kemper, ended Friday .evening with the announcement that Em-

ory Poole, son of the defendant, would be placed on the witness stand Monday morning. Mrs. Poole, Miss Grace Poole and two former employes of Poole were on the stand Friday, and it became evident that the state would be compelled to prove that the body found on the Poole farm was that of Joseph Kemper. The defense, by its questions, indicated the identity of the body would not be admitted.

While the state, in using Mrs. Poole as a witness, was not privileged to force from her any statement involving anything that her husband might have

told her in confidence, it was able to get from her a story of the Kemper affair that materially assisted in clearing up much of the mystery surrounding the relations between Poole and Kemper. After telling of Kemper disappearance and Poole’s explanation that he had gone to Chicago, Mrs. Poole told of finding practically all of Kemper’s clothing in the house, a discovery that puzzled her greatly, as she could not understand why Kemper had gone away and left his' only clothing behind. Iri her crogsexamination Mrs. Poole said she recalled having beard Kemper say, several days before he disappeared, that he was thinking of going away.

Mrs. Poole said her husband did not appear to be at all excited on the evening of the day he is alleged to have coolly murdered Kemper and .hidden his body to await an opportunity to cut it up and bury it. When she returned from Swanington in the evening, Poole greeted her as usual and helped her unhitch the horse. The son Emory, she said, told her nothing at that time of his suspicions of homicide. They played cards, she said. Poole played poorly, and Emory criticised him for it. The next day, when they were driving to Fowler, the son told his*Thother of his suspicions. Grace Poole, age twenty-one, who is teaching school at Wheatfield, told much the same story as her mother. Miss Poole said she was sure her father paid Kemper at least part of what he owed him, the state having contended that to avoid paying. Kemper was Poole’s motive for murder. J Her father, she said, frequently shot rabbits in the yard at home, but he seldom went hunting. She said her father and Kemper were always on friendly terms, and she recalled incidents showing that Poole had no hard feelings against Kemper. The court refused to allow the defense to ask her any questions about Kemper’s relatives ever making any inquiry as to his whereabouts, and the jury was excused while the attorneys argued the point. Edgar E. Mills of Scranton, Pa., who worked on the Poole farm from spring until Tall in 1910, told of being at work out in the east corn field and of finding in a straw pile evidence of digging having been done. He called Poole’s attention to loose dirt in the straw and Poole told him to work somewhere else in the field, he said. He remarked to Poole that he thought the corn field was haunted because he had heard strange noises there. Poole he said, went out to investigate immediately and .came back and told him the noise was caused by a paling rattling on a pole. On one occasion, he said, Poole and his son Emory quarreled and Poole exclaimed to his son : “You look out or I’ll put you where I put the Dutchman !” t Albert B. Haines of Bell countv, Kentucky, jthe next witness for the state, said he became" acquainted with John Poole in January, 1908, when he and his father leased Poole’s farm in Jasper county. Haines worked fo j Poole and had a conversation* with him in January, 1908, at the Jasper county*-" farm. In his conversation Haines said the

was told by Poole that Joe Kemper had gone away from the Benton county farm, takitig with him some of Poole’s clothes, some money belonging to Poole and some money belonging to Emory Poole. According to the witness Poole said: “If Kemper ever comes back I’ll kill him.” “You wouldn’t do that would you?” asked Haines. “Yes, I would,” replied Poole, the witness said, “and if got in trouble over it I would -tell them I once had a sunstroke and was crazy and I would get out of it that way. 1 ” .

On cross-examination Haines admitted that he and his father and mother had all had trouble with Poole. His mothe r once filed an affidavit against Poole, but Poole was acquitted.

Lafayette, Ind.,( Nov. 20. Sitting directly in front of his father, John Emory Poole, 19 years old, told on the witness stand today of his work as an amateur detective that ended in the accusation before the coroner of Benton county that ibis parent, John W. Poole, was guilty of the murder of Joe Kenipcr, a farm hand, whose body was later found on the

Poole farm. The youth told with evident eagerness of his observations concerning the mysterious fate of Joe Kemper, and of remarks that made him think his 'father was guilty of crime. He was subjected to two hours of grueling cross-examination, but did not alter his direct testimony, except in one two immartial instances. /

The inception of his detective work, he said, came when Kemper, after a brief absence, returned and asked for money he ( Kemper) said was due him. The elder Poole did not pay him. The son testified that Kemper left the house, walking toward Swanington, then asked the witness and his mother to help him care for some hogs. As they left the house, thie witness testified, he heard his father exclaim ;

“That fellow is going to Swanington to make me some trouble; if he does. I’ll get him.” Kemper returned that night, however, and nothing was done, he said.

The young man testified that he went armed for months following the disappearance of Kemper, and prior to his father's arrest, fearing that his parent would kill him. He said his father had threatened to “put him where Kemper was.” The attorney for the defense made the lad admit that he tried to persuade his mother and sis-' ter from engaging counsel for his father, but he denied the charge made by Attorney Barce of the defense that he told his aunt he would take the law into his own

hands if ,his father did not pay t ! be penalty for his crirrie. The courtroom was* crowded to suffocation today while the boy was telling his remarkable story. _ .... The junior Poole testified to finding blood spots in the house and to having seen his father haul a load of fertilizer out to the cornfield to the spot where the body of Kemper was exhumed seventeen months later with fertilizer piled on top of it. The witness testified that he lived at home until he was 15 years old. He said the first time he ever saw Kemper was in May. 1909. The witness says his father told him he was paying Kemper $22 a month. After telling of seeing blood soots in the dining room he said that on a sofa he /observed an object that looked like a portion of a brain. Out in the horse barn he found more blood.- Hanging over the fence in the back yard was a rug that had been washed. The witness said there was a small spot on the kitchen wall paper, where it had been washed. The blood spots, he said, were all about four feet from the floor. One chair, he observed, had been broken.

Emory said he did not talk to his father about Kemper. He noticed Kemper’s overcoat in the house, and later saw other wearing apparel that belonged to Kemper. The next morning they butchered four hogs. The witnesS told of locating the spot where the body was e*xhumed. He said he happened to find the. place by observing loose clay on top of the soil where a straw stack had stood. The boy told about digging up the body in the cornfield. Poole will go on the witness stand for further cross-examina-tion by the defense tomorrow morning. The only other witness today was Henry Julian of Kramer, Tnd. He became acquainted with John W. Poole, he said, in April, 1911, and worked six days for him at Swanington. He went with Emory Poole to the spot where later the body was-exhumed. Julian testified he saw the body of Kemper recovered.

Concerning the shooting of Kemper the Benton Review says: It is rumored that the mooted question in regard to finding shot in the skull of Kemper will reveal a point favorable to the defendant and in a measure corroborate the story that Kemper was shot. Sheriff Shackleton and Marshal Bowmin conducted a test with the shot gun which Poole alleges killed Kemper and some rather interesting facts-were developed. The gun which is without a Trigger guard is what might be termed a hair trigger gun, in that it pulls very easily. At a distance of three feet the load of No. 6 shot, which correspond in size to those found in the skull' of Kemper, made a hole about the Size of a twenty-five cent piece in a pine board. At a distance of six feet the hole was about the size of k fifty cent piece and at ten or twelve feet the hole was about the size or a dollar.

As a rumor the story comes to the Review that .the broken skull of Kemper has been submitted to a Lafayette physician for examination and he expressed the opinion that it was entirely possible for the skull to have been broken up in the manner it is as a result of gun shot... How much truth there is in the rumor will probably be developed during the trial and we print the story simply as it is being" circulated on the street. So far as we are aware the name of the physician is lacking to make the rumor credible.