The Indiana State Sentinel

Toughs on Trial for Murder.

JASPER, Jan. 16.—The most important murder trial that ever occurred in this county is now in progress. Two young men well known in Huntingburg and Jasper are on trial for the murder of John O. Hart, of Princeton, Ind. On last Christmas eve, in the ladies' waiting-room of the L., E. and St. L. depot at Huntingburg, Hart, with a party of companions, was on his way to Rockport, Ind. They were waiting for the Louisville and Evansville accommodation train, which was two hours late. About 9 o'clock John Kayse and Henry Becht, both under the influence of liquor and very noisy and quarrelsome, were loafing about the depot and appeared to be determined to get into a quarrel or fight with some one. They were heard to say that they would do somebody up that night, and as Hart stepped out of the ladies' waiting room Kayse and Becht attacked him without provocation, striking him in the face with their fists, and as he reeled into the door and to his seat the blood was spurting from a cut in his neck, where he had been stabbed just under the left ear, severing the jugular vein. He bled to death in a few minutes. A murderous-looking knife was found lying on the floor near the body of Hart. Kayse and Becht boarded the west bound train, saying they were going to Mount Carmel. An ex-Sheriff of Gibson county was at the depot, knew of the murder, saw Kayse and Becht in the train and watched them until they arrived at Princeton, where he arrested them and lodged them in the Princeton jail. The evidence at the trial yesterday is overwhelmingly against the prisoners.