CHAPTER XXII.
TRIAL FOR THE MURDER OF LAURA WHALEY.
At the March term of the Circuit Court, 1897, Pleas Wynn and Catlett Tipton were indicted for the murder of William and Laura Whaley, and Bob Catlett and Bob Wade were indicted as accessories before the fact. At the following term of the court, November, 1897, Pleas Wynn and Catlett Tipton were arraigned for trial. Judge T. A. R. Nelson presided. Hon. E. F. Mynatt, district attorney, Hon. J. R. Penland and Hon. W. A. Parton, of Sevier county, and ex-congressman John C. Houk, of Knox county, appeared for the State, while the defense was represented by Col. W. J. McSween, Hon. George L. Zirkle, Captain W. M. Mullendore and others. A panel of twelve hundred men was required, and five days were consumed securing a jury. Four days were spent hearing the testimony and two listening to the arguments of counsel. Every point was hotly contested and nothing was left undone to secure the ends of justice. The jury was picturesque, but the best that could be obtained in a county where excitement ran high and men, who had not formed or expressed an opinion, were scarce. The facts proven were substantially the same as already detailed in this chapter. Lizzie Chandler, of course, was a most valuable witness for the State. She was the only living being, except a six weeks old child, who saw the murder committed. The defense tried to impeach her character by introducing in evidence the charges made by her husband in his bill for a divorce, but failed. Her testimony was clearly and deliberately given, with every appearance of truthfulness. When asked to point out the man who did the shooting, she looked around the court room. Amidst a breathless silence, glancing from one face to another, her gaze finally rested upon that of Pleas Wynn, who sat near by and in the rear of his senior counsel. She gazed intently at Wynn for a moment, then looked up at the judge. Have you found him? asked Judge Nelson. Yes, she answered. Where is he? inquired the district attorney. There, she said, pointing her finger at Wynn’s shrinking form; He is the man who had the gun on the night of the murder. The State failed to adduce any evidence showing any complicity on Tipton’s part. But Tipton, while on the witness stand, implicated himself in the minds of many when he admitted that he was with Wynn on the night of the murder, from dark until near midnight. It is not our intention to review the arguments of counsel, but we may be pardoned for mentioning one incident connected with District Attorney Mynatt’s eloquent appeal to the jury, which shows the confiding trust which the people of the mountains have in divine mercy and justice. During this trial District Attorney Mynatt and his brother, the assistant district attorney, occupied a room at the Snapp House adjoining the one in which Mr. and Mrs. McMahan, the father and mother of Laura Whaley, Mollie Lillard, her infant child and her sister, Lizzie Chandler, were quartered. The cooing of the child and the subdued tones of the father and mother, rehearsing the virtues of their dear departed dead, inspired the efforts of the district attorney while preparing his appeal that night to the jury for a rigid enforcement of the law. After a while this simple, unpretentious old man knelt in family prayer. As he progressed with his supplications to Almighty God, he grew more earnest and vigorous; his voice trembled with strong emotions as he told the Divine Ruler the whole story of his daughter’s life, her trials and troubles, her persecutions and finally her cruel death. He asked for the punishment of the guilty parties and that the blessings of God might rest upon the efforts of those who were striving toward this end. Every word of the old man, mingled with the sobs of the mother and the sister and the crowing and gurgling of the happy infant, was distinctly heard. It filled his heart with sympathy for these poor people and for all those who had suffered at the hands of the White-caps, and inspired the greatest effort of his life. His address to the jury next day bore the impress of inspiration. The court room was crowded to its fullest capacity. Many ladies occupied chairs on the judge’s stand. Within the bar sat the wives and children of the prisoners, Pleas Wynn and Catlett Tipton. By the district attorney sat the father, mother, sister and child of Laura Whaley. There were times during the district attorney’s argument when he seemed unconscious of his surroundings. The old man’s prayer had imprinted upon his mind the picture of his daughter’s life in all its details from prattling childhood up to the time of her death, and he reproduced this picture in the minds of the jury with an intensity and fervor that beggars all description, and when he had finished his peroration there was moisture in the eyes of everyone present. The jury were in tears, and sobs were heard in every part of the court room. The district attorney closed his argument at dusk on the evening before Thanksgiving day. By candlelight the judge read his charge to the jury. During the reading, a good woman with a weary and sorrowful countenance, who had pushed her chair toward the judge, looked intently at him, hungering for some word of hope for her criminal husband, for she was the wife of Pleas Wynn. The jury retired, and on the following day returned a verdict finding Pleas Wynn guilty of the murder of Laura Whaley, and acquitted Catlett Tipton. Both men were yet to be tried for the murder of William Whaley, and by the order of the court Pleas Wynn was removed to the county jail at Knoxville for safe keeping until the next term, and Catlett Tipton was held on a bond of ten thousand dollars for his appearance. |