The Monticellonian

FT. LEAVENWORTH
PRISON MUTINY

The Five Leaders Charged with Killing
Guard Waldrupe Found
Guilty of Murder.

THEY WILL EACH BE SENTENCED
TO IMPRISONMENT FOR LIFE

The Principal Point Offered in Their
Defense Was That
They
Were
Cruelly Treated, and Preferred to
Face Death In an Attempt to Es-
cape Than Endure Torture.

Leavenworth, Kas., Oct. 17.—All five leaders of the Fort Leavenworth prison mutiny of November, 1901, charged with killing Guard Waldrupe, were found guilty of murder by a jury in the United States circuit court here, Friday morning, without capital punishment, and will be given life sentences.

The prisoners are Gilbert Mullins, Turner Barnes, Frank Thompson, Fred Robinson and Robert Clark, all desperate men. Mullins and Robinson had practically finished their terms at the time of the outbreak, and the others were short term men. All are from Indian territory.

The defense set up the plea that the prisoners in the federal prison are cruelly treated, and that the men who took part in the mutiny preferred to make an attempt to escape rather than remain and endure torture. Attorneys for the United States introduced several witnesses to disprove the charges of improper treatment at the hands of the penitentiary officials.

Gilbert Mullins, several months ago, escaped from the jail at Junction City, to which institution he had been transferred. In the mutiny, 28 prisoners escaped after a fierce fight with the guards, during which one guard, Waldrupe, was killed, and several of the convicts were shot. All but one of the convicts were finally captured, although three of them were shot in engagements with posses.

In his instructions to the jury, Judge Riner said that the fact that the men were felons undergoing punishment for crime should count nothing for nor against them in determining the weight of their evidence.