Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 39, Number 63, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 April 1907 — RELEASE JAMES GILLESPIE. [ARTICLE]

RELEASE JAMES GILLESPIE.

Supreme Court Soy# Trial of Alleged Slayer Was Invalid. By a decision of the Indiana Supreme Court James Gillespie of Rising Sun, serving a life sentence in the State prison for the murder of his sister, is set free. The decision is based on the ground that an error was committed in not granting a new trial. - It holds that further prosecution be abandoned. Miss Elizabeth Gillespie, a woman of middle age, was killed Dec. 3, 1903, by a load of shot from a shotgun fired through the window of a room of her home. Her brother, James Gillespie, to gether with Belle Howard and Mr. and Mrs. Myron Barbour, were indicted and placed on trial charged with the crime. The jury disagreed, and later Gillespie, who elected to be tried separately, was placed on trial and convicted in 1905. He was sentenced to prison for life. The other three defendants were later acquit-, ted. In the first trial, after the jury had been sworn, it was found that one of the jurors was a second cousin of the deceased husband qf Belle Howard, one of the defendants.