STORIES OF THE PRESENT DAY.

Star (Christchurch), 30 September 1893, Page 2

STORIES OF THE PRESENT DAY.

THE CASE OP EUNICE RIVERS. •'; (New Tcrk Sun.) . In relating the particulars of this story I shall do exactly what I do not wish to docast a doubt upon conviction under circumstantial evidence — but yet the history of a crime, especially when a woman is concerned, is always interesting to the , general reader. At ■ rare intervals an innocent person has suffered dis. grace, imprisonment, and even death tor the crime of another. This is one of the rare instances. It should have no influence on the. verdict of a juror, nor should it cast the slightest reflection on the law and its ways of measuring out justice. When a criminal has had a fair and. impartial trial by jury, when his "lawyers have exhausted all the privileges granted to -one no trial, When twelve reputable and fair-minded men have brought in a verdict of " guilty as charged," that ought to settle the matter for all of us. Por more than twenty years James fiivers had . lived in the village of Colon, in lowa, ln approaching the village from the south his was the first dwelling you came to. It stood back from the street ahout one hundred feet, and was surrounded by fruit trees. The house was a frame, being an upright, with an "L" to it. Three years before I saw the village or heard of the family Mrs Rivers died. There was a daughter twenty years old, who was away teaching school, and she had to come home to'keep houae for her father. The name of this young woman was Eunice, and even before her mother was buried, and on the day of the funeral, she spoke bitterly of her father, and said he 'would marry again within a year. Everybody who knew the family knew that Eunice and her father had not heen in accord for years.' It had been common talk for years that .he was harsh and cruel to his wife, and he would not have consented to the daughter going away' but for the fact that it lightened his expenses. Eivers bought wheat, wool, and produce for shipment to Chicago and was supposed to be well off. My first knowledge of the village and the family occurred three years after Mrs JJivers' death. I then had business with Mr Eivers direct. A railroad had been surveyed through a piece of land owned by him, and my errand was to secure theright of way. He was away in the country when I called, and I made an appointment for a later hour. I found Eunice courteous enough, but it struck me that her natural disposition was sulky and obstinate. She was very plain faced, and during the fifteen minutes I was in the house she did not change her expression, I mean her face did not light up as she talked, nor at any time was tbere a Bemblance of a smile. The furniture was scant and old-fashioned, and had I not heard all ahout Mr Kivere before calling J. should have put him down as par- ; simcnious. This call was made at 4 o'clook one September afternoon. I was to repeat it at half; past se . en in the evening. I returned at that hour, which is evening at that season, and found the front door partly open. There was neither bell nor knocker, and while I was looking about I heard voices from the family sitting room. There was something irritating, even to me, in Mr Eivers' voice as he said : "YoU will obey me, or I will turn you out of doors and disown you !" " Juat as you threatened mother a hundred times," she replied. "1 am ready to go, however. Ihave come to hate you! I wish you were dead!" There was a bitterness in the daughter's voice I cannot describe, but I had no thought of murder. There would have been more conversation, but I knocked loudly on the door, and Eunice came and admitted me. I saw.no more of her that evening, though I was in the house fdr an hour. I found Eivers a hard man to deal with— so grasping and avaricious that we could coma to no terms — and I finally went away, saying I would call again. I left the village that night and did not return for four weeks. During that interval, as afterwards sworn to by various persons, Eunice packed her things to leave the house, and her father detained her by foroe, She escaped from the house by night, and he overtook and I brought her hack. She said to three difj feient persons that she wished she had the ! pluck to kill him. On the limb flf a cherry tree ; in tbe yard was a corn cutter which, had been | made out of .an old scythe blade. Gne day a neighbour woman saw Eunice sharpening this im- ! plement on a grindstone at the back door. A I peddle* who stopped at the house was asked if be ! cirried any sort of flre^arins" for eale, and a boy j twelve years old was sent to the village drug store ;for strychnin.-,' and explained' that it was for • Eunice. Before my return a sort of peace had j been patched up between father and daughter, and they Were liting on better terms. I met Eivers on the street in the forenoon, and he made ansppointment to como to the hotel at 7 o'clock in the evening. That afternoon, as was afterward known, he was out driving with a widow to whom he was to be married. Ho did not get home until half-past seven. He then ate his supper, had a few chores to do, and suddenly disappeared. At half-past eight I called at his house, as I wanted to leave town next mornitg. rknoekedlong and loud on the front door beforo ! the girl admitted me. She had evidently been i crying, aud was very nervous and put out. j "While I stood at the door I distinctly saw the figure of a man passing among the trees, but as I was talking with Eunice at the same moment! ' gave the matter no heed. She said her father : was out, and when I replied that I would like to wait for him sbe hesitated over it so long that I '..aid " good night " and went away. \ Two days later they had a big sensation in ths

village. Mr Rivers was found <l°ad in his rnot_> upstair. 1 , and Eunice was missing. The man had been attacked with the old corn cutter, and his head tetribly cut and gasb_>d. Ti\ere were about a dozen cuts in all, and the doctors ' testified that he bad lived for two or three hour e o Iter receiving thera, though probably uucons. iou9 _ \it that time. So far as could be determined there A ad been no robbery. Mr Rivers did business with the village Bank, and never kept much \ money in the house. There wasn't tho slightest idoubt in anyone's mind that Eunice had killed E 'im and fled. A search was begun, and after a yeek or so sho was found in a village a hundred' miles away, and brought back. She had expended her last shilling to get as far away as possible. When told of the crime, she expressed no gl'eat surprise, and when charged with it she content _k! herself with a simple denial. She stated .but when her father came home that night he saiyl tho wedding would take place in two weeks! Thi9 resulted in a quarrel, and though she did no t ; . threaten to leave, she resolved to go that very night. The last she saw of him he was going to the barn to see to the cow. I desired to keep clear of the case, . and succeeded in doing so as far as the preliminary examination was concerned. When she was placed on trial for her life I was called as one of the thirty or forty -witnesses against her. Perhaps I did wrong, but I am free to say that I made it as light for her as I possibly could. I fully and firmly believed her guilty ofthe crime, but I pitied her. There was not one /single witness for the defence. All the testimony and every circumstance was against her, and her lawyers had no hope from , the start. . It was, as you must see, a case of circumstantial evidence pure and simple. She had made certain statements and threats ; there had been repeated quarrels ; she had been seen sharpening the corn cutter; she had fled from the Scene of the crime. I argued that she had committed the murder jost before I called, which accounted ior the perturbed, state in which I found her, but I made no mention of this, in my testimony. Not once during the trial did it occur to me that I had seen a man running away from the house that night. At no i time did the defence attempt to throw the crime j I on anybody else, nor was ther© any testimony as I to the condition ofthe doors and windows, except the front door, which had been' found shut, hut not locked, by the neighbours who' first entered the. premises. : The trial was a, matter of form, ibut yet the Jury, for some reason they could not explain themselves, recommended the convicted to Bierey, and she was sent - to prison for life.. Bhe shed no tears and expressed no regrets. Had shegohe to the gallows she would have carried ! the same demeanour. A I read her mind she had j long looked upon ' life as a failure. As a child she had met with nothing but Puritanical sentiment. and paternal stinginess. A a girl her plain face and lack of cultivation kept her out of society. She saw nothing in the future to give .herhope, and did not care what disposition was made of her life. Eunice Bivera had been in prison five years, and her case had been forgottfen outside ofthe little village bf Colon when I. was appointed assistant warden at J diet. About six months previously a convict named John Henderson had been received from Chicago for assault with intent to kill. He waa a big burly fellow, stout as an ox, and ready to take desperate chances, and had heen punished in some manner ahout once a week. At that date no convict got advantage of " good time," and it was looked upon as a loss of dignity for a prison officer to v. c moral suasion. I was warned to look out for Henderson as a dangerous man, and the Warden instructed me to shoot him down without hesitation if he attacked me. I "was prejudiced against the man before I Had seen him, but as soon as I put my eyes on him I was agreeably surprised. He had a kind, frank face, and lat once conoluded that he could be reasoned with much easier than he could be commanded. ' To the disgust of my fellow officers and the surprise of many convicts I took this course with him, and after a few weeks ho was known as the most docile prisoner behind the bars. I made him a " trusty," and thus it came about that I had more or less conversation with him. On one occasion, when I was inspecting a shop in the yards which waa no longer used and was about to be torn down, Henderson asked me if I didn't formerly live in lowa. I replied in the affirmative, and he sard he thought he had seen ■ me at a village named Colon. I began to question, and soon ascertained that he was living there with his parents at the time ofthe trial, and had known Eunice Rivers for years. He was n Court every day of the trial, but was Hot a witness. I was much surprised to hear him declare that the girl was as innocent as a bftbe, and further surprised at his personal animosity toward her father. " John, if Eunice Bivera didn't kill her father, Who did f " I a9ked of him as we walked through the yards. "Her lawyers ought to have fouhd that out," he quietly replied. "The old skinflint had wronged lots of people, and like enough some bf them killed him to get even. Eunice had no more to do with it than you, sir." That evening, as I sat alone smoking my pipe, I got to. thinking the case over. Now, for the first time in all the yeara, I suddenly remembered seeing the man among the trees that evening." Henderson had broached the matter to me. He believed the girl innocent. He spoke of people having been wronged. There was enough in what he said to keep me thinking for an hour or two, and before going to bed I wrote a letter to the constable at Colon, w"ho discovered the body of Mr Eivers as he went through the house. The man Was no longer an officer, as it had turned out, but he remembered everything con^ nected with the case, and gave me the information! wanted. Mr Eivers had the back bedroom upstairs. When the body was found, one of the windows was open, and a ladder lay on thb ground beneath. Tbis had not been brought out at the trial. When, they arrested Eunice they searched for the. old corn cutter, but could not find it. A year after she was sent to prison it was found in a potato field a quarter of a mile. away. Henderson, tho convict; was right, in eajihg Eivers had wronged many people. He had foreclosed onadozen different -citizens of the Tillage, and among them was Henderson's " father. When I had finished reading the letter I sent for my "trusty," and said: " John, we were talking about that tragedy at Colon, you remember ? You were right in saying Eunice Eivers did not kill her father. Tbe murderer was the son of a man he had wronged. He entered the house by means of a ladder and a chamber window, probably intending nothing but robbery, but meeting Eivers unexpectedly, and being armed with an old corn cutter he had found in the back yard he committed murder." The man flushed up and then grew F»l e a g I talked to him. He stood for a moment after I had concluded, eyes cart down and fingers working nervously, and then quietly replied : " Yes, sir; that was probably the way of it; but you see, it is too late now." I knew that John Henderson was the murderer. I knew it for two long years, but we made no further reference to the case, It wasn't in "reason to ask him to confess and to go to the gallows, no matter how sorry he felt for the girl. Oae day while I was away from the prison a bad-' tempered keeper took occasion to vent h_9 petty spite oh. Henderson, who resented it, and thera wis a row, and he was mortally wounded. I returned several hours before he died. When I had expressed my regrets at the Unfortunate circumstance, he asked me to fetch a notary publio and witnesses, and quietly added : '• I want to confess that I killed Eivers, and that will let poor Eunice go free." He made a full and complete confession. He planned a robbery to get even, but had to kill Eivers to get away from him. He found the corn cutter sticking into a log as he prowled around tho houae, and he threw it away where. it was afterwards found. In leaving the premises he saw me on the verandah. He at once left the town, fearing ho would be suspected, but returned when he read in the papers that Eunice had been j arrested. He said there were at least a dozen J blood spots on the suit of clothes ho woro in i Court, and that he must havo left a bloody mark j on every rung of the ladder as he went down. | All eyes were directed the one way, however, and all people were determined on proving the crime ; against the girl. Six weeks after Henderson's j confession Eunice Eivers was set free. She was j only twenty-eight years old, but she had wrinkles

j and gray hair 3 and a stooping form.' She did . not rejoice. She did not say she was glad. She did not even express her thanks. She simply walked out and on and on until lost to sight, and from that day to this no one who knew her as I Eunice Eivers has seen or heard of her. j