Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 January 1901 — What Benton County People Think. [ARTICLE]

What Benton County People Think.

The people of Fowler and vicini* ty are evidently not nearly so unanimous in the opinion that Mrs. Lyda and Starr Cox are innocent, as the people of Monticello appear to be. Here for instance are a few paragraphs from the Fowler Republican’s comments on the verdict. While Cox aud Mrs, Lyda are now at libertv because of a failure of proof, the concensus of opinion here is that both are guilty beyond a doubt. That while both were sst free by operation of the law of the land, that hard working, honest Bill Lyda lies in his grave today by reason of a fatal dose of strychnine laid for him bv these two people, and that they were urged on in this action by a foul passon and lustful love for each other. Then it is hard for people to understand why Mrs. Lyda was in such a hurry to get out of town and confer with Cox. Was she taking the binder repairs back? If this was the object why did she refuse to wait for them at Bill Bnyder’s store? Mr. Snyder placed them in the buggy after she was ready to start, and was going off without them. Why did Cox go on the run from the binder? Why the 15 or 20 minutes talk between Cox and Mrs. Lyda after she got there. Then again that unexplainable affair of the burning of the oapsules? Cairns Patterson, no doubt, thought that the Dootor ordered them destroyed) but the fact remains that he made no move to destroy them himself; that Cox was the active agent in their destruction, insisted they should be burnt and applied the match himself. This in the eyes of the people here, forever damns him.