Confessed and Denied Murder
An Ohio Man Claimed to Have Killed Preacher Moore
BROUGHT BACK TO MISSOURI – NOW HE LAUGHS AT THE AUTHORITIES
James Adkins Says He Only Made the Claim in Order to Get Out of the Jail in Lawrence County, Ohio
SOURCE: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 25 Dec 1899, Mon · Page 8
Above Photo of Lawrence County, Ohio Jail. Courtesy of the late Joe Crance – from The Lawrence Register Archives.
James Adkins worked a scheme to get out of jail where a charge of obtaining money under false pretenses was pending against him. But it was another case of getting out of the frying pan into the fire. He rid himself of the comparatively light charge and is now in custody of other officers with a charge of murder in the first degree hanging over him.
Adkins passed Sunday night in the St. Louis holdover, where he was placed Sunday evening by Sheriff James Evans of Stoddard County, Mo. Monday morning, the sheriff left for Dexter, where his prisoner will be held for the murder of Rev. Jesse Moore. Adkins was in jail at Lawrence County, where he is reckoned as a desperado.
The killing of Preacher Moore in Dexter, some time ago attracted wide attention throughout the State, and the details were fully given at the time in the Post-Dispatch. While the minister was asleep in his home, a bullet was sent into his brain, and his death occurred almost instantly. For many days, the murder of the preacher was enshrouded in mystery.
Finally, suspicion was directed toward Elisha Moore, the 19-year-old son of the minister. Circumstantial evidence so strong was gathered against the youth that he was taken into custody. At first, he strenuously denied his guilt, but under the skillful questioning of the State’s attorney and Sheriff Evans, he made a full confession. He said he had shot and killed his father because he had never been treated as other boys. His father, he said, was always stern.
He never encouraged him as other fathers encouraged their sons. Though he was nearly 20 years of age, his father had given him but 50 cents in his entire life. The money that he earned was taken from him. It was for these actions on his father’s part that the young man became a paracide.
His confession was accepted, and he was indicted for murder in the first degree. Though his mother deplored her son’s heinous and unnatural crime, and though she grieved for her dead husband, the love she had always felt for her firstborn would not down, and she prayed that there might be some mistake. Sheriff Evans was one day startled to receive a letter from Lawrence County, Ohio, written by one signing himself, James Adkins.
The letter was poorly constructed and poorly written. The writer was either or was disguising his choreography. The letter stated that Elisha Moore was innocent of the murder of his father. He could prove this. The only reason he wrote, he said, was that an innocent youth should not be punished for a crime he had never committed. Then, a correspondence was instituted between the Ohio and Missouri sheriffs. Adkins was found to be a desperate man who had been recently lodged In the Ohio Jail on a trivial charge.
He was arrested several weeks after the murder of Preacher Moore, and the officials were ignorant of his movements prior to his arrest. Adkins was talked to by the Ohio officials, and he betrayed an intimate knowledge of the killing. Young Morris’ mother was made acquainted with Adkins’ claims. The mother, ready to grasp at any straw that might prove her son’s innocence, was anxious to have Adkins brought to Dexter.
She furnished the money to pay all expenses. Extradition papers were made out and duly honored. Sheriff Evans reached St. Louis early Christmas Eve and placed his prisoner in the holdover for safekeeping. Adkins was seen Monday by a Post-Dispatch reporter. He was ready to start for the train and was heavily shackled. Adkins is a powerful-looking fellow. He is 6 feet 3 inches tall, is broad-shouldered, and angular. He has a red face, a small, stubby, light mustache, small blue eyes, and bony hands.
His clothing was made of homespun blue Jeans. He wore high boots, and his trousers were stuffed inside his bootlegs. A big, broad-brimmed white hat, tilted back on his head, added to the picturesqueness of his appearance. “Now, I will tell you about this business,” said to the Post-Dispatch.
“I didn’t kill this man, and I don’t know who did unless it was the young man who is locked up. Never was in Stoddard County in my life. “I ain’t no saint, and I reckon them fellows out in Lawrence County, Ohio, have got it in for me. They kept me locked up hard and tight all the time and they were trying to starve me.
“All the time I was there I got nothing to eat but bread and water. One day I managed to get hold of a St. Louis paper that had all about this Moore murder. I read it all, and then the idea struck me that if I were to write a kind of mysterious letter saying that the man arrested was not the guilty man. And if I let on that I knew somewhat of the case, suspicion might fall on me, and they might take me out then.
“You see how well the scheme worked. “Now, in that letter I wrote I didn’t say I had done the job and I ain’t going say I did it, for I don’t know nothing about it. They can’t get anything against me down there and they will have to turn me loose. Then I don’t see how they are going to get me back into that Jail in Ohio where I almost starved.”
Sheriff Evans says he believes Adkins is telling the truth, but there is so much circumstantial evidence against him that a case could be made.
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