Iowa
Old Press
Sioux Valley News
Correctionville, Woodbury co. Iowa
November 30, 1893
TRICKED THE PLAINTIFF
Sick Scheme of Attorneys in a Murder Case to Obtain Reversal
DES MOINES, Nov. 28.--It is believed by the best authorities here
that the case recently begun against ex-Mayor Campbell,
ex-Marshal Stutsman, City Scavenger Graham and the city of Des
Moines for $30,000 damages by Mrs. E. H. Wishart, wife of the man
who was murdered in June, two years ago, by Frank Pierce, is
nothing but a scheme of the attorneys for the criminal to succeed
in getting the supreme court to reverse the judgment of the lower
court, that he serve eight years for the killing of Wishart.
People generally believe that the widow of the murdered man has
been drawn into a trap by the shrewd attorneys of Pierce to aid
in clearing the murderer of her husband. She alleges in her
petition that the defendants named entered into an unlawful
conspiracy to shut up one of the public streets of the city and
set Wishart, armed with a gun, to keep Pierce from passing down
the street, knowing that it would result in the death of one of
them, Pierce having threatened to shoot the officer. The result
of the litigation begun in this way, by the dead man's widow
accusing the employers of conspiring as public officials to bring
about the death of one of the two men interested in order to
retain a monopoly of the business of scavenger for Graham, will
be a decision by the supreme court favorable to Pierce. The
people are indignant at the manner in which Mrs.Wishart was
trapped.
[transcribed by M.C.B., April 2006]