Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 January 1890 — THE WRONG MAN HANGED. [ARTICLE]

THE WRONG MAN HANGED.

A startling revelation has been made at Illinois Station,l.T. On the evening of Dec. 27, “Minnie” Rogers, a colored gambler and whisky peddler, waa run over by a railway train and fatally injured. Before he died he made a statement regarding the murder in 1886, in the Cherokee Nation of Dr. J. M. Pyle and Mrs. William Kerr. The couple were found murdered in their beds at their respective houses one morning, their heads having been orushec in by some implement. John Stevens, toward whom suspicion pointed, was arrest ed, tried before Judge Parks, at Fort Smith, Ark., convicted and hanged. On bis death bed Rogers confessed that he had committed the deed unaided. Ha swore that he had been hired 1 to do it by an enemy of his vtoUmo \ •<