Rensselaer Republican, Volume 19, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 December 1886 — A Merry Christmas for Will Sears. [ARTICLE]

A Merry Christmas for Will Sears.

PARDONED AT LAST. A. few weeks ago Mr, F. J. Sears wrote to the Governor of Colorado requesting him to investigate all the circumstances connected with the sentencing of his son, Will Sears, to the penitentiary in that state, about two years ago, and also of the act which led to his sentence. The governor did as requested end the result is that last Friday the warden of the prison received notice from the governor that he had pardoned the young man. The circumstances of this case have been so fully set forth heretofore in this paper, that we do not deem it necessary fio repeat them now at length. Y~oung Sears, a former resident of this place, and a quiet and deserving man, kept a drug store in Canon City, Col. A notorious ruffian and bully of that vicinity, named Tullock, had forced himself into the store, and after grossly insulting Mr. bears and his wife, Mr. Sears undertook to put lnm out, and in a struggle which followed, a revolver was discharged and Tullock was killed. The kill-, ing would have been justifiable had it been intentional, but Sears always stcutly, and, we doubt not, truly maintained that he had no intention of shooting the man, and that the pistol was discharged accidentally. Sears was tried before a jury, which disagreed, standing 11 for acquittal and one for conviction, and Sears then threw himself upon the mercy of the court and received the lightest sentence the law would allow. Fie ought never to have been punished araTt,~aKd n6Vi3r”WOuld 'have beeir 1 had it not been for the scheming of a lot of conscienceless scoundrels, who bled Mr. Sears out of all that he had, and his father out of $1,200 and boasted that they would have SIO,OOO before they were done with him. During his entire imprisonment Sears has acted as assistant physician for the prison, and has been treated with the greatest leniency.