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

Here is the translated text as follows:

EDWARD D. WORRELL, 109

We were surprised to find that Gordon had not arrived. Several days elapsed, and we began to apprehend that something had happened to him. Walker learned from a Mr. McDonald, a railroad contractor, that Gordon had been seen on the 24th on the Boonslick road by a Mr. Ferguson, in company with two men, all on horseback. Walker started the next morning on the locomotive for St. Charles, having directed McDonald to go up on the Pacific road and return by way of the Boonslick road, and ascertain if possible where Gordon was last seen. Walker left St. Charles and proceeded up the Boonslick road, making inquiry at every house until he reached the residence of a Mrs. Stevenson, where he learned that a negro boy of Mrs. Stevenson had found a dragoon saddle in a thicket about half a mile south of the road. This led to a thorough search of the thicket, which is a dense pin oak thicket extending along the road, about one hundred yards and widening as it goes south.

It is unnecessary, gentlemen, to recapitulate the circumstances attending the discovery of the body. The witnesses have detailed them with great minuteness, and you have before you a diagram of the ground showing the meanderings of the traveled portion of the road and the place where the body was concealed and found.

I will now undertake to connect Worrell with the murder.

It is in evidence that he and Bruff deserted from the army at Fort Leavenworth on the 7th of January. The prisoner was a first orderly-sergeant and Bruff a private. Mr. Ferguson states that about noon on the 24th of January, Worrell, Bruff, and Gordon came riding up to his house on horseback, with Gordon riding a chestnut sorrel. Worrell was leading a horse which he sold to the witness. They remained nearly half an hour. The horse was afterwards claimed by another person, who alleged that it was stolen from him. The witness recognizes the prisoner as the man who sold him the horse and recognized him in the jail at St. Louis. You will recollect what passed between them in jail with respect to the horse. The witness resided on the Boonslick road, 11 miles west of Warrenton.

Mr. Pace saw the prisoner on the 24th of January at Mr. Jones'