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EDWARD D. WORRELL. 3

THE TRIAL.*

In the Circuit Court of Franklin County, Union, Missouri,
January, 1857.

Hon. Jonn H. Srowz,? Judge.

Edward D. Worrell had at the May Term, 1856, of the Cir-
enit Court of Warren County been indicted jointly with
Wiliam H. Bruff for the murder of Basil H. Gordon? On

2 Bibliography. “The Law of Circumstantial Evidenes and of
Insanity. A Report in fall of the trial of Edward D. Worrell,
indicted for the murder of Basil H. Gorden, held at the court house
in Union, Franklin County, Missouri, January 19, 1857. Reported
by John Delafield, Esq. St. Louis, Mo. M. Niedner, Publisher.
St. Lonis, Mo., 1937.”

2Srone, Jonx H. A native of Tennessea, but was educated near
Georgetown, Ky., to which placo his parents had removed; was
not a eollege graduate, but read Latin with facility and had a
Imowledge of Greek. Was a student at the Law School at Lex-
ington; came to Missouri in 1836 and settled at Fulton, Callaway
Co., where he practiced law until appointed Jndge of the 9th
Jadicial Cirenit in 1843, residing at Potosi. “He remained on the
bench anti? some time in the early part of the war when he fell
a vietim to that turbulent spirit which reigned throughout the
State. . . . He was arrested upon a charge of disloyalty and
thrown into the Gratiot St prison, at St. Louis. The real motive
was to prevent him holding court in one or two counties in which
large amounts of property were advertised to be sold under execu-
tion, . . . His friends obtained his release; he went back to Calla-
way County and finally settled at St. Charles. . . . The effect
of the war and the personal ill treatment to which he was subjected
hurried him rapidly to the grave. He must have died shortly after
the close of the war. A more upright, conscientious and ‘honest
man never lived.” Bay (W. V. N.), “Beneb and Bar of Mo,”
Pp

*The Grand Jurors for the State of Missouri empanelled, sworn,
and charged to enquire in, and for the body of the County of
Warren, on their oaths present that Edward D. Worrell and William
H. Bruff, on the twenty-fifth day of January, in the year of our
Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty-six, at the County of
Warren, aforesaid, with foree and arms in and upon one Basil H.
Gordon, then and there feloniously, wilfally, deliberately, pre-
meditatedly and of their malice aforethought, did make an assault,
and that the said Edward D. Worrell, a certain pistol there and
then charged with gunpowder and a leaden bullet, which said pistol
he, the said Edward D. Worrell, in his right hand then and there

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