126 Sheet – American State Trials 1918 Volume X Leo Frank Document

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94 X. AMERICAN STATE TRIALS.

Worrell's manner of travel was no match for the cunning of an old and skillful detective, who could not be kept from the prisoner's track for long.

The circuit attorney was embarrassed by the first step after the homicide. He initially thought the body was hidden in "a strange place," but upon mature reflection, he concluded that it was the best hiding spot. The reason he gave was that no sane man would ever think of looking for it in such a place! For this happy suggestion, he is perhaps indebted, in some small measure, to the witnesses who swore that they never dreamed of searching for the body in the place where it was found. Jurors, you know that the body, in point of fact, was not hidden from the eyes of any man traveling eastward on that road. The evidence of Mr. Hutchinson puts this matter beyond controversy. The body was left in full view, and the snow that fell afterwards made its covering. But if the middle of a public road was such an excellent spot to hide a dead body, pray tell me why the saddle was carried a half a mile into a thicket and secreted?

Mr. Gale: In a tree-top.

Mr. Wright: There is no such evidence as that, and it is wrong of you to attempt to break the force of an argument by manufacturing testimony. The State has proved no such fact, and the illegal effort to supply it by suggestion of counsel concedes the force of the argument. He feels pressed by it, and the pressure is great enough to prompt him to an impropriety. But why was Worrell's saddle carried away and concealed in a thicket? A saddle unknown, without a mark, without anything to distinguish it from another saddle, and the saddle of Gordon, the bridle of Gordon, each peculiarly and strikingly marked, each capable of easy and certain identification, carefully kept and conspicuously exposed. Can that be explained by another impropriety? Why hide an unknown saddle in a thicket, and then mount the horse of a dead man, and ride him, seen by all men, on a public thoroughfare, down the identical road up which Gordon had just previously traveled? And such a horse! Remarkable in every way, courting observation by the style of his appearance.