SNATCHED FROM DEATH.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19720, 20 August 1927, Page 2 (Supplement)

SNATCHED FROM DEATH.

REMARKABLE MURDER CASE.

CHEATING THE GALLOWS.

LUCK OF A BOOTLEGGER.

LIFE SAVED FOUR TIMES. Snatched from the gallows ~at the eleventh hour on no fewer than four occasions, a Chicago boot-legger is now making a confident bid for freedom. No man has ever had a more amazing experience. On each occasion the executioner's hand has been stayed a few minutes before the wretched culprit was due to be hurled into eternity. ~ Tiyce a respite was gained through the receipt of telegrams from a mysterious source, and presumably sent by the person who pretended to be the actual murderer. Twice, too, the adroit moves of a lawyer have arrested the hand of justice, and the condemned man taken from the scaffold to an asylum. Now there is every likelihood that the noose will never fall around the bootlegger's neck, and that, instead, he will leave the asylum a free man.

liussell T. Scott, a one-time popular actor, Broadway speculator and oootlegger, was found guilty of the murder of Joseph Maurer, an assistant in a Chicago drug store. At one time he had dabbled in land speculations, and made a vast amount of money, which he squandered wildly. At length he fell in with some "toughs"'of the underworld of Chicago anckDetroit, who induced him to become a party to certain bootlegging schemes. It was in the coarse of a brawl thai Scott was alleged to have shot Maurer, and he was arrested and charged with the murder.

Scott's wife, from whom he had been living apart, at once went to his aid, and it was largely due to her efforts that he succeeded in-escaping the noose on two out of four occasions. When he was first arrested Scott had pleaded guilty, but when he discovered that a fight was to be waged on his behalf, he altered his plea, ana declared that he had only made the first plea in order to save his brother, Robert Scott, who had, in the meantime, * mysteriously disappeared, and who, up to the present, has never been ran to earth. On the other hand, not a shred of evidence fould be produced in support of the story of Russell Scott, while the evidence was of the clearest possible nature against him. So he was condemned to die upon the scaffold. Two Eleventh-hour Escapes. The day of execution had dawned, and the officers had actually entered the condemned cell to prepare the doomed man for his ordeal, when, suddenly, the clanging of the prison governor's bell, furiously and without pause, caused- a halt in the preparations. A telegram had been delivered purporting to have come from Robert Scott, the missing brother, and declaring that the sender was guilty of the murder, and was even then on his way from Detroit to hand himself up to the authorities. In face of such a message, it was obviously impossible to proceed with the execution, and the already trussed man -was freed, and an order for a week's reprieve signed then and there. At the end of the week, however, no "brother" had materialised, and the authorities, regarding the telegram as a very clever dodge to delay execution for some purpose, probably to stage an escape, Russell Scott was again faced with the noose. Then, again, at,the very last minute, another telegram arrived, this time from one who signed himself "A. J. Ball," and who declared that he was a telegraph operator. It further stated: — "I was an eye-witness to Scott's slaying. Not till now did I realise that you are hanging the wrong man. Am willing to give testimony if you will send prosecuting attorney, special agent, or transporta- * tion .to Chicago or Springfield. Robert Scott shot the drag clerk." This seemed pretty conclusive on the face of it, and coming as it did from an apparent stranger, who had nothing to gain by such a statement, the execution was again postponed, and thus, for the second time, Scott secured a week's respite from a shameful death at the hands of the hangman. Life Saved fol the Third Time. Investigations into this story proved that it was nothing more than a daring invention, although who instigated it and actually carried it out was not discovered. So, once more, Russell Scott -was prepared for the gallows, and the last terrible business of pinioning had been completed . when once again he was snatched from the very jaws of death. This time it was a legal twist which had gained him the respite, for his wife, in a frenzy of despair, had approached William S. Stewart, the lawyer who, but a few months before, had secured the triumphal acquittal of William D. Shepperd on 'the charge of murdering young McClintock, his millionaire ward, by administering poison germs. Stewart had devised the cunning scheme of applying for a writ of habeas corpus on the ground that Russell Scott, having been in close proximity to death on two occasions and then reprieved, had become insane, and that therefore they could not legally hang an insane man. Application had been made to Governor Small of the where Russell Scott was incarcerated, but the governor had refused the plea. There was but an hour or two to the execution. It was the early hours of the morning when Stewart, accompanied by the wife, knocked at the door of the house of Judge David, a circuit judge in the vicinity. He was in bed, but they insisted on seeing him. and Stewart laid th® case before him with such comprehensive logic that the judge made the necessary order,*and the wife and attorney motored post-haste to the gaol, arriving with but , a minute or two to spare. For the tnird time the life of Russell Scott had been saved by one of the slickest iegal "wangles" ever devised. Execution Again Evaded. Ten days were allowed for preparing the case to prove that Scott was insane, and then a jury was so swept away bv tho eloquence of Stewart that they declared that Scott was insane, and he was therefore taken away to an asylum to be detained until such time as lie regained his sanity. That was in-August, 1925. in July, 1926, nearly twelve, months this decision, the authorities declared that Scott was indeed recovered, and brought the prison doctors to prove that this was so. Stewart engaged alienists to prove the opposite, but this time the jury decided against Scott, and. screaming, struggling, and kicking, and raving l'™ o a veritable lunatic, he was carried to his cells with the shadow of the noose once more around liis neck. , Tho execution day had been fixed, a na there would have been no delay this time but for the fact of Stewart, on the wife S insistence, appealing against the decision. The judges of the Supreme Court not only reversed the decision regarding his but ordered a new trial to establish whether he was guilty or not, and, with Stewart to defend him, and with the plea of his sufferings ujf to date to influence the jurv, it seems more than likely that llusself Scott will be found not guilty and released.