Asheville Daily Citizen

SON ARRESTED FOR THE MURDER OF HIS FATHER.
A Young White Boy Says That He Heard the Struggle, and Found Clots of Blood in a Cave Where the Body Was Discovered.

Knoxville, March 16.-D. W. Boyer alias Wash Boyer charged with the murder of his father, David Boyer, in Cocke county was brought to Knoxville last night by Sheriff W. M. Allen, Deputy United States Marshal Robert Dennis and Justice R. L. Hickey to escape mob vengeance.

Mrs. Boyer as a witness at the inquest said her husband left Sunday before the fourth Monday in November, 1891, saying he was going to look after some stock in a meadow a few hundred yards from the residence. That was the last time she ever saw him alive. When he did not return that night she was uneasy and could not sleep. Once near midnight she thought she heard his footsteps coming toward the house.

The next morning Wash Boyer came to the house and told her that his father had decided to leave the country to escape an indictment for his attentions to Josie Moore.

She prepared a lot of clothing and food and put them in a valise which she gave to Wash, who said he would take them to his father. She identified the valise taken from the cave with the body as the one she had given to her son to take to her husband. Wash left home and was gone two days. On his return he said he had accompanied his father as far as Morristown on his westward journey.

A few days after her husband's disappearance Wash came to her with a deed in his favor for all the property of the family. The document bore the name of David Boyer, and Wash asked her to sign it, saying that he had given his father $1,000 in cash to help him on his way to the west and out of gratitude he had deeded him the property.

She declined to sign the deed until Wash had promised to care for her as long as she lived.

Levi Holt, a young white boy who was employed on Boyer's farm at the time of the disappearance, told the sheriff a startling story yesterday.

He said the Sunday night that Boyer failed to come home he heard a shot in the direction of the cave in which the body was found. He heard Boyer pleading for mercy. His supplications were followed by two more shots and then the groans of the dying man were heard.

Monday morning he went to the place where he thought the shooting occurred and found evidences of a struggle.

From the spot where the fight took place to the mouth of the cave was a trail as though a body had been dragged. He went to the cave's entrance and on its jagged sides he found clots of blood and thought he could see a human form in the depths of the cavern. Holt spoke to Wash Boyer about the shooting and the blood at the cave and wanted to know what it meant. Boyer told Holt if he ever said anything about it to any one he would kill him. The threat had the effect of causing Holt to keep his own counsel until Boyer was in jail and could do him no harm.