from which he could not escape, and the fatal shot in the face was fired at short range. It was claimed by this boy that he dragged the body of his father to the granary, and covered it with an old quilt and a door ; that he afterward drew it behind a riding-plow into a field, where he buried it in ground lately plowed; that he plowed up and obliterated the trail thus made; that this was done alone and at night; that he afterward took up and removed the body to the place where it was found, and placed the gun to indicate self-destruction; that he carried the gun as he moved the body, and had no assistance.
These statements were in contradiction of those previously made by the accused, but in some respects corresponded with facts as proven by circumstances already known. Some of them could not be reconciled with facts clearly proven, and some seemed too horrible for belief. But on the evidence adduced, the jury found Elizabeth and John Edward Porter guilty as charged. They were each sentenced to the State prison for twenty-one years.
George Porter had a separate and subsequent trial in Boone county, and was acquitted.
One of the most interesting trials that has taken place in Story County was for a murder committed in Grundy County in 1874. A beautiful German girl about sixteen years old, named Wipka Martin, was sent to carry a plow-lay to the smith-shop. The distance was about two miles along a highway not much traveled, between prairie farms. Not returning home, search was made, and her lifeless body was found in a field of growing corn, a few rods from the highway. There could be but one cause for the brutal deed. There had been a severe struggle in the grass-grown highway, and it was evident that by giving her life the child saved her honor. In a few minutes from the meeting of two on the lone highway, the one who seemed to have before her an ordinary life of hope and love was a most piteous corpse, and the other was under the ban of Cain. Suspicion pointed to a man who had for a time been staying about Eldora, which was some eight miles distant. He was known as William P. Glyndon, but this was found to be an assumed name. He had been a soldier; was at one time a member of the personal retinue of Gen. Sherman; deserted, and became a professional bounty-jumper. He was under the ban of suspicion for a similar deed in Minnesota.
The finding of the girl's body caused widespread indignation and horror in the peaceful community. It was soon learned that an unknown man, apparently in a state of excitement, and showing signs of recent violent physical exertion, called at a house not far distant, in the afternoon of the same day, and asked for a drink of water. The same man had been seen on the highway where the murder was committed. Comparison of the time showed that his apparent course and movement would bring him to the fatal spot near the moment when it would be reached by Wipka Martin, on her errand. Tracks in the soft ground, when carrying the body of his victim, and indicating his course in the direction in which Glyndon was soon seen, supplied the circumstances on which he was tried for the crime, and convicted. A change of venue was first taken to Hardin County, where he was convicted. The case was taken to the supreme court on error, and reversed. Because of alleged excitement, and taking advantage of a law the intent of which is manifestly good, another change was granted, and the case sent to Story County for trial. It occupied the court for eight days, called for the attendance of more than one hundred witnesses from the scene of the crime, and resulted in a life sen-