Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 36, Number 80, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 May 1904 — About The Bedford Murder Case. [ARTICLE]

About The Bedford Murder Case.

Down at Bedford the peop'e are said to be satisfied with tbe verdict of acquittal for James MoDot aid, in the Sarah Schaffer murder case. In fact the people there have ail the while believed that some much higher and more prominent vio’im was due to them than a poor degraded brute like Mt D nald, and.they would not have believed he committed the murder even if he had openly confessed to it. Many of them, in fact, took that very stand, and declared that he was euch a liar that they would not believe him if he did confess. Yet ad ihe circumstances of the murder an 1 her condition when found, all point to just some such lech* rous, bruteminefedcreature as McDonald is, as the pefpetrator of the crime. Judge Jamis B. Wilson, who presided at the trial with great ability and fairness, Iv s promptly called the bl uff- of-McDonwldV-bL-torney who declared he c old, wi n a grat d jury produce rhe evideuca that would indict and convict the real murderer He has called h special grand jirv. t> betyia its sessions this «erk, a d appointed the lawjer a deputy st«u’a attorney, and given him Full p wer and unlimited mouiv, to pnah the investigation. And he may, indeed, be able to make good bis *ord and to show tuat some other person than McDonald committed the crime. We loj e that be will, but shall be very greatly surprised if he does. Judge Wils >n, wh> deserves great credit for his course all through this mat-r, and not the least when he re nuked Durbin’s offioTous and uncalled forinter meddling, when he peremp orily ordered McD maid taken back to Bedford from tbe reformatory a - Jeffersonville is an older brother of

Hon. Jesse E. of our city. And like him, is not only a very able lawyer, bnt also, like him, is a man who sees and kzows the right, and follows it, regardlei-s of the power and pull of those who would turn him from that course, Another thing to be added here, is that if justice fails in this Schaffer o .se, as now seems very likely, it will not be Judge Wilson’s fault, for he did not shut out valuable evidence for the stats by hair splitting rulings, as did Judge Downer, in the Gillespie trial at Rising Sun,