034 Slide – American State Trials 1918 Volume X Leo Frank Document

2 X, AMERICAN STATE TRIALS.

going to the place, found blood all over the mow, which con-
tinued to a ravine about fifteen feet from the road. Here
they found Gordon’s body, covered with brush and snow, a
hole through the head as if made by a large pistol ball; his
pockets turned inside out and his watch and all his money
gone.

Worrell had been seen in St. Charles leading a horse which
resembled Gordon’s, and from there he went to St. Louis, re-
maining there three days and going to the theater each night.
From there he traveled on horseback to Vincennes, Ind.

A published deseription of the deserter from Fort Leaven-
worth corresponded with that of the man who was
seen with the horse in St. Charles, and the chief of police
of St. Louis, Captain J. D. Couzins, started for Vincennes
in pursuit of him and there learned that he had sold Gordon’s
horse and other articles belonging to the murdered man to
the proprietor of a hotel in that place,

From this point, all trace of the murderer was lost for sev-
eral days, but Captain Couzins finally traced him to Balti-
more and from there to Dover, Del., where his parents re-
sided. Captain Couzins saw him on the streets during the
daytime, but feared that he would be taken from him by force
by his friends, So he waited until after midnight and then
arrested him in bed at a hotel, gagged him so that he could
not give an alarm and took him twelve miles on a hand car,
where he caught a train for the West. On a chair near Wor-
rell’a bed the saddlebags were found and in his pocket Gor-
don’s watch. Bruff was taken into enstody about the same
time at his home in Macon, Ga.

Both Worrell and Braff were indicted for the murder of
Gordon in Warren County, Mo., in May, 1856, but the case
‘was removed to the town of Union in Franklin County, and
in January, 1857, a few days less than a year after the tragedy,
the trial of Worrell was begun. After a hearing which lasted
two weeks, the jury declared him guilty and he was hanged
in June, 1857, his counsel having made a fruitlesa appeal
to the Supreme Court.