The Wheeling Daily Intelligencer

THE FIRST TRIAL FOR MURDER IN TUCKER COUNTY

Develops a Very Sensational Case—The Mystery in the Affair Deepens as the Trial Closes—Men Go Under Names Not Their Own.

Special Correspondence of the Intelligencer.

ST. GEORGE, W. VA., Dec. 23.—The first trial for murder ever held in Tucker county is now in progress here, and is exciting much attention and comment from our people. Last June, at Davis City, in this county, T. B. Joseph, a Justice of the Peace, shot and killed Henry Robinson, who turned out to be Peter Harrington. He was going under a fictitious name. There has been a mystery connected with the affair from the first, and many are the reports and extravagant theories as to the cause. Everybody seems confident that there is something yet untold, but what it is, no one can tell. The prosecution, by P. Lipscomb, assisted by local talent, has tried in vain to unravel the mystery. But, when the last witness for the prosecution had left the stand, the simple and plain facts of the killing were all that had been found. The defense, conducted by A. B. Parsons, W. B. Maxwell and L. Hanrford, of St. George, and T. A. Bradford and Gordon Daytop, of Philippi, then took up the investigation about where the prosecution had dropped it, and tried to get at the bottom of the mystery, which, it appears, is as impenetrable to them as to the prosecution. Both sides seem conscious that the whole truth has not been told. Witnesses are here from several States.

The evidence of the trial was concluded about eleven o'clock last night. The argument of the case will probably not be concluded before Friday night, as there is a large amount of evidence to be reviewed.

The Mystery of the Affair.

The argument closed without having brought to light the mystery which has all the time hovered over the affair. At one time it seemed that a thread had been touched which would lead to some development; but, it proved to be of no avail, and was only an imaginary conception of one of the lawyers of the prosecution. He aimed to show that the defendant, Joseph, had formerly been married; and had left that wife and had married again, and that he was keeping this a secret from his present wife and had killed Harrington to keep him from developing this secret. When this line was entered upon, it created a sensation in court, as it promised to lead to the solution of the problem. But there was not a particle of evidence to show that such was the case. The marriage certificate of Mr. Joseph and his wife was produced and settled this point, and the matter was dropped there.

This was the last attempt on the part of the defense to prove that Joseph premeditated the killing of Harrington, and when this ground was abandoned, the prosecution evidently felt that they were losing ground. For, to judge of the affair solely by the actions immediately preceding it, it is plain that Joseph did the act in self-defense.

Sensation was again caused when officers and public documents from Pennsylvania were introduced to prove that the prosecution's principal witness, Jack Robinson, was not Jack Robinson at all, but was going under a fictitious name. His real name was Albert Bowers, and he had recently been in the penitentiary at Allegheny City, Pa., for wrecking a railroad train; and furthermore that he was a man of bad character, not to be believed on oath.

THE PRISONER'S TESTIMONY.

The prisoner, T. B. Joseph, came on the witness stand yesterday evening, and narrated the whole transaction. He is an educated man, of fine personal appearance, and is about thirty-three years old. He was formerly a mining speculator in Colorado. He also has patented a device for mining coal by steam power. His story was told in a plain, deliberate, yet in a dramatic, manner. As he spoke no one in the court room moved, but all listened intently. The conclusion of his story was highly dramatic. After he had told all but the last he said:

"I told him the third time to stop or I would shoot him, and I drew my pistol. He advanced more rapidly than ever, and when he seized me by the coat with his left hand and aimed a blow at my face with his right, I shot. He sank upon the floor crying 'O, Maggie! O Mary!' These were his last words."

In order to understand the full force of the "O, Maggie, O, Mary!" it is necessary to understand what it meant. The dead man had formerly married a beautiful girl in Pennsylvania, but had abused her and left her. Her name was Mary Swisher before he married her. When he came to Davis City he lived with another woman named Maggie, and was living with her up to his untimely death. When he fell mortally wounded, his early recollections seem to come back to him, but his last word was the name of his first and best love, "O, Mary!"

When this was related in court, in Joseph's poetic and dramatic style, a pin could have been heard fall, so painful was the silence.

The case is now to be argued, which will probably occupy two days. The general impression now is that Joseph will be acquitted.