131 Page – American State Trials 1918 Volume X Leo Frank Document

Here is the translated text as follows:

EDWARD D. WORRELL

When left to himself, you do not find Edward D. Worrell acting under an alias. He is always conspicuously Worrell, without any other name. However, little significance can be attached to this fact if it were otherwise. The moment you assign a motive, a rational motive, to the change of name, you demonstrate the insanity of his actions through a series of acts that are irreconcilable with that motive.

Did he change his name to avoid detection? If so, then why wear seven rings on his fingers? Why wear Gordon's watch? Why keep his saddlebags? Why not throw them into a river? Why wear his gloves? Why cling to the speaking boot? Why take and keep the receipt? Why preserve the frame of the daguerreotype? Why spend four days at Vincennes? Why cherish and cling to the evidence of his crime? Why draw upon himself universal attention by traveling in a manner that was notorious beyond all parallel? Why wear the military pants and cap? Why show his pistol? Why say, "That is Gordon's watch and those are his saddlebags"? Why willingly and heartily recognize Gould, the landlord of St. Louis, Hutchinson, Taylor, and the man to whom he sold the horse in Montgomery?

I defy ingenuity to explain his conduct by any test of sanity known among men. Did he wish for detection? Did he desire to be brought to justice? Was he inspired by that false heroism which courts a public execution, an ignominious death upon the scaffold? Such individuals proclaim their guilt with ostentation. Even the prosecution does not impute to him such guilty glory. Mr. Gale tells you that the prisoner's purpose, and his calculation, was to employ me and escape justice through my imputed necromancy! If that were true, it would furnish decisive proof of his insanity. I have said there was time while he lay in bed at Dover for Couzins to see his tattooed arm; but in all the time of his travel from the scene of the homicide to his arrest, there was no time when any observer could see in Worrell any solicitude, any anxiety, any perturbation of soul, or any indication of remorse.

The circuit attorney wonders how he could listen unmoved to the words of the negro at St. Charles, which brought the dead body of Gordon to his eyes. He is amazed that with such evidence before him, Worrell remained calm and composed.