Page:The Overland Monthly Volume 5 Issue 3.djvu/53



shortly afterward, he fell asleep; but was awakened in a fright, roused a fellowprisoner, said he had seen a vision, and proceeded to make an oral confession, which will shortly be given.

Sept. 3d, 1819, the Grand Jury found a bill of indictment against Stephen and Jesse Boorn, for the murder of Russell Colvin on May roth, 1812—charging the former as principal, and the latter as accessory.

The facts proved upon the trial, and duly certified to by Judge Dudley Chace to the General Assembly, Nov. 11th, 1819, are as follows:

I. Before the time of the alleged murder Stephen had said that Coivin was a burden to the family—that he would prevent this multiplication of children for his old father to support—that he wished Russell and Sal were both dead, and that he would kick them into h—— if he burnt his legs off.

II. Four years after the alleged murder Stephen said that Colvin went off strangely; that the last he saw of him (Colvin) he was going toward the woods; that Lewis Colvin, returning with some rum, asked for his father, and that Stephen replied "he had gone to h——;" to which Jesse added that they "had put him where potatoes would not freeze."

III. Lewis Colvin, now seventeen, testified that seven years before, on a day when his father, his two uncles, (the prisoners) and himself were at work in a field, a quarrel arose, and Colvin struck Stephen; that Stephen then returned the blow with a club, felling Colvin; that the latter rose and again struck Stephen, who thereupon again felled Colvin to the ground, and that he (Lewis) being frightened, then ran away. He was afterward told by Stephen that he (Stephen) would kill him if he ever told what had happened.

IV. About four years after Colvin's disappearance an old, moldy hat was discovered where the quarrel had taken

place; and this hat was identified as Colvin's.

V. Silas Merrill, a prisoner, in jail on a charge of perjury, testified "that when Jesse returned to prison, after his examination, he told Merrill that he had been encouraged to confess; that the following night, Jesse awoke frightened; said he had had a horrible dream, and made the following disclosure, viz.: that the second time Stephen felled Colvin he broke his skull; that Stephen's father came up and asked if Colvin were dead; that he repeated the question three times; that all three of them carried Colvin— not then dead—to an old cellar, where the old man cut Colvin's throat with a penknife; that they buried him in a cellar; and that, when Stephen proposed to put on Colvin's shoes, Jesse told him it would lead to a discovery." Merrill further swore that when Stephen came first into jail, Merrill told him Jesse had confessed, and that Stephen replied, "T did not take the main life of Colvin."

VI. Stephen Boorn's written confession, being shown to have been made under fear of death and hope of pardon, was excluded.

VII. William Farnsworth was then produced, to prove an oral confession of Stephen; and, though objected to on the same ground, was permitted to proceed. The written confession was excluded because it was shown to have been induced by fear and hope. The oral statement, made ¢wo weeks afterward to a William Farnsworth, was, to the mockery of all justice, nevertheless received. Mr. Farnsworth testified that, about a fortnight after the date of the written confession, Stephen confessed that he killed Russell Colvin, hid him in the bushes, buried the body, dug it up, buried it again under a barn that was subsequently burned, threw the unburnt bones into the river, scraped up some few remains and hid them in a stump; and that the finger-nails alleged to have