Jasper County Democrat, Volume 15, Number 62, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 November 1912 — Another Assault and Battery Case at Fair Oaks. [ARTICLE]

Another Assault and Battery Case at Fair Oaks.

Edward Frawley of Fair Oaks is confined in jail in default of SI,OOO bonds for an alleged murderous assault on John Stowers, aged 65 years also of Fair Oaks, whom he is alleged to have struck over the head with a beer bottle Saturday morning and nearly killed. In fact the victim of the assault lay unconscious for a long time and is even now reported in a critical condition, by the (.attending physician Dr. Rice of Roselawn. According to Frawley’s story he found Stowers cutting wood on ground which he had rented, and instead of ceasing when he told him to quit, Stowers struck at him with the ax and it was in self defense that he struck him with his fist in trying to take the ax away from him, denying that he struck him with a beer bottle.

Other Fair Oaks people, however, deny that there is anything in the man’s story about Stowers having attacked him, and say the assault was unprovoked and that Frawley has brutally assaulted others at Fair Oaks without just cause. Frawley claims that Stowers got up, and walked away after the trouble, and w r as not unconscious as alleged. Frawley came to Rensselaer on the 11:20 a. m. train, after the trouble and swore out two warrants for Stowers’ arrest for assault and with attempt to commit murder, and it was while in Squire Bruner’s office that he himself was arrested by Deputy Sheriff Gus Grant for assaulting Stowers. Frawley is aged 43 years and claims to have been raised at Warsaw, but has lived most of his life at Knox. He came to Fhir Oaks some three years ago,, and is the husband of Lewis Stowers’ widow, Lewis and John Stowers being brothers. 1 '