L. T. Wilson's Opening Statement

If the Court please, and you gentlemen of the jury: I will now make a statement to you of the facts that we will show to you in evidence in behalf of the defendant in this case, and I believe it my duty now to present to you all of the facts in this case, and I will give you as nearly as possible, or as nearly as I can, an accurate description of the location of the various objects in the city of Alva, about which you will hear testimony, and I will endeavor to give you a description so that you will understand it. That is, a description of the public square, the cigar store about which you have heard, and Squire Miller's office.

Alva Downtown Plat of Government Square...

The city of Alva is built around the government square. We will let this side here represent the rows of buildings, and this inside here represent the street. Now here are two blocks on the north separated by a street eighty feet wide. In each of these blocks there are sixteen lots twenty-five feet lots, making four hundred feet as the length of each of these blocks, and here is another block of the same dimensions: sixteen lots each block four hundred feet. Then here is a street on the west that is eighty feet wide, this being the west end of the square there is a block consisting of thirteen lots, twenty-five feet each and here is the street coming up here. It does not pass through the square, however. Then here again is a block of sixteen lots, twenty-five feet wide and an eighty foot street, and here is the east side of the square consisting of thirteen lots, of twenty-five feet each. Now the Office of this defendant, as I recollect, it is on the east block, south side, and next to the corner lot. One lot west of the corner lot.

The Court: If there are any witnesses in the court room you will not be permitted to remain in the court room during any of the proceedings in this case.

Mr. Wilson: 

The defendant's opera house and the offices that he occupied, I believe occupies the second and third lots from the corner. That veterinary surgeon occupies this corner here and there is some little space in there as I remember it, and the opera house and immediately west of the opera house are the offices of the Justice of the Peace.

Now here about the third lot from the corner (west side of square along College Ave. or Normal Street) somewhere, not more than four, is what is known as Jesse Jackson's Cigar Store about which you have already heard testimony, and about which the people gathered on that memorable day to receive returns of the election.

That the republican headquarters were up over a bank and that bank is the first house on the west end of the block, the east block on the north side of the square. That is, immediately east of the street that runs north (corner of 5th & Flynn).

Now Squire Miller's residence is down here some two or three blocks east and on this same street that the republican headquarters were on (Flynn Ave.). Now this street here is known as Flynn Avenue here, and this is what is known as Barnes Avenue, and this is Fourth Street and this Fifth Street and this is what is known as College Avenue. Now I think we have an accurate description of the public square.

I have here I think an accurate plat of the old opera house building in which this unfortunate girl died. I have the directions here as they exist. This being north, and this south, this east and this west. This being Squire Miller's office as Justice of the Peace, and this being the opera house, and this the street in front. here is the entrance to the old opera house and here is the dressing room, and here is where the unfortunate girl was found dead.

The map produced by the state in a general way is correct but I have it drawn here on the scale of one-eighth of an inch to the foot, accurately.

Here is the opera house, and here is the room in which the girl was found dead.

Now with that I will briefly outline the facts as they occurred on that day as you have already been apprised. There was on that day and the preceding day considerable excitement in the city of Alva over a closely contested election. Those favorable to the democratic cause would go naturally on this side (Jackson's Cigar Store, west side square) , where they were getting returns and those favorable to the republican cause would just as naturally go on this side (north side of square, over Woods County Union Bank), where the news would be more favorable to them. There was a constant march from one headquarters to the other all day and as Squire Miller took an active part in the campaign and was interested very much in the returns, and I think the evidence will show that at about 12:45 o'clock Squire Miller left his offices and went west I think using his horse and buggy. 

He had an old gray horse and buggy in which he used and which everybody else used that wanted to. I think he drove west at about 12:45 and turned the mare loose in front of Jesse Jackson's Cigar Store thinking to get the returns from a democratic standpoint and stayed there, well I don't know exactly how long, approximately an hour. Then he went to the republican headquarters and heard the news that were coming in there.

I believe the evidence will show that they were becoming somewhat favorable to Squire Miller's side of the case and I don't recall whether he went immediately from there home or whether he went to his office but shortly after this he went home and ate some dinner. 

Then he came back to the republican headquarters from his dinner and he may have gone over to the office. I don't remember, but along about 3:00 o'clock, or 2:45 to 3:15, somewhere along there, Squire Miller did go over to his office and he went back into the back part of the opera house, and there he discovered to his horror what has been described to you, -- The dead body of that girl, -- and of course what the witnesses say was true, -- he was overcome. He had never had anything happen in his life that hurt him as bad. And he went right out on the sidewalk in front of his office and saw George Oakes standing across here, standing over here at this livery stable (Nichols-Noel Livery Stable) which is near the corner. Mr. Miller beckoned and said, "Oh, George, come here."

George came, and Miller opened the door of the house, preceded Oakes in, and then this man Barnhouse came following across and I want to say to you that the evidence will show that Miller did not close that door in Barnhouse's face, but that Oakes himself closed that door in that man's face. They went back into this room. In the meantime Squire Miller had told Oakes that Mabel was dead. 

They went back there and she was lying there and there was a great amount of dust there undisturbed, as was testified to yesterday by Mr. Oakes. Judge Lawhon testified later on that at the time he saw the body that Mr. Oakes and Miller had probably been there. George Oakes took hold of her hand and felt of her pulse and I think the evidence will show pronounced her dead. 

Squire Miller also felt her pulse and I think the evidence will show that Oakes laid one of her hands at least across her breast. Then Squire Miller said, "What shall we do? Shall we phone for the officers?"

And he went immediately himself and gave the alarm, you remember, and endeavored to reach the officers at the sheriff's office over the phone, knowing of course that something would have to be done. Unable to reach the sheriff over the phone Mr. Oakes himself then went and brought the sheriff over there. The sheriff then called some other persons and with the aid of these other parties they held what we call a coroner's inquest. That is, they summoned a jury, the inquest however was held next morning. 

And the then sheriff of Woods County sent for physicians to examine the body, and other reputable, notable physicians who ought to have been present and examined the body were not admitted, and didn't take part in the examination, and on that occasion the stomach was taken out of the body and sent to the chemist, and the other organs that might have thrown some light on the case or might have contained poison were carefully concealed from that chemist, and Miller was there treated very unfairly. 

These doctors and the sheriff knew that they were going to accuse Miller and gave him no chance to be represented there by competent physicians at that autopsy. Miller was arrested and thrown in jail where he has been ever since, and now as to the means by which this girl came to her death. I don't know. you don't know. Nobody but the All-seeing Eye probably knows, but I want to say this, that there was a probability of a suicide there. 

There was a probability of unintentional poison. There was a probability that she might have choked to death or have been choked to death by some person other than Miller. But that we don't, cannot know. I say this, that that girl was in the habit of using strychnine tablets, or if that girl was in the habit of taking morphine tablets; that for a long time prior to this day that that girl was frequently in the habit of falling in a fainting spell, and it was with the utmost effort that she was resuscitated and brought back to life, and it is highly probable that she died in one of those spells.

We will prove to you not by expert witnesses buy by people who know what they are talking about that those blue spots and scars and contusions that were on that girls face were there days before the 9th day of November. How they came there I don't know. You don't know. Probably we will never know.

They possibly were made when she fell in one of those spells. We will also show you that just a short time before the discovery of the body of this girl that Mr. George Oakes, the father of this girl had left the republican headquarters and was standing on the east side of the square watching the movements of Squire Miller. Whether he knew that that girl was dead or how she came to be dead, I don't know, but we will prove that he was standing there watching the movements of Mr. Miller. 

We will also show you and it has been partly shown already that outside of these occasional sinking spells, caused probably from sympathetic affection of the heart, that Mabel Oakes was a large and powerful woman. Twenty-three years old and weighed from a hundred and fifty to a hundred and seventy-five pounds. Miller is a man that weighs about a hundred and forty-five or a hundred and forty pounds. 

He is a man fifty-three years old. A man not in the habit of taking much exercise, and that it was an absolutely impossible, a physical impossibility for him to have strangled and choked this girl to death. It couldn't have been done; and I want to say again, you heard the statement of that old man who was 72 years old last year and 73 years old this year, you heard the statement of that old man. We are going to introduce evidence to show you that that old man told a willful, deliberate and malicious falsehood. 

That Miller never communicated any such statements as have been detailed here and we will explain to you that Miller didn't associate with that old man from choice. That that old man was a constable of the Justice of the Peace Court and they were thrown together that way, and it was no choice of Miller's.

It was no selection of Miller's that he had to be thrown with the foul mouthed man. Now he tells you that Miller told him that Mabel Oakes, the next day after having sexual intercourse with Miller, cried all day. Now we can explain that to you. That she did cry. But Miller never told him that she cried all day about that. We will explain that to you. We will tell you how that did occur.

One Sunday afternoon it became necessary for Squire Miller in determining some matter before him as a Justice Court to view some property. Mabel Oakes asked that she be permitted to ride out with him. He told her "No." He didn't think it was best. That it wouldn't look right. 

Mabel Oakes says, "I want to get away from my home. My home is a hell and I want to get away from it." And after considerable insistence and talk Miller permitted her to go.

They returned about somewhere between seven and eight o'clock, but before it was dark. Mr. J. T. Greenlee, a merchant of Alva, from whom Mabel Oakes had bought merchandise had heard of this and the next morning Mabel Oakes went to his store to get a position or to see Mr. Greenlee about something and he rebuked her and told her that she had done that which was wrong. She went down to Miller's office and told him what had happened.