Rensselaer Journal, Volume 11, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 January 1902 — Widow’s Trial for Murder. [ARTICLE]

Widow’s Trial for Murder.

Mrs. Mamie Barnes was placed on trial in the circuit court of Morgan county. 111., Monday on a charge of complicity in the poisoning of her husband, Dr. Joseph L. Barnes, who died at the central insane asylum in Jacksonville last May. William Ferguson, a negro, who is serving a sentence in the penitentiary on the strength of his own confession of being a party with Mrs. Barnes in the murder, will appear as the principal prosecuting witness. Ferguson carried the fatal dainties to the insane patient and he claims to have been the agent pf Mrs. Barpes, who, he says, Inspired the deed.