In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Emporia 68 going riding with my redheaded friend and is heartily ashamed of it.” scott immediately rejoined with, “And if you had been the redheaded white man, she would be still more ashamed of it.” The bailiff had a hard time getting order back after that interchange. (Lawyers today are forbidden to address each other directly in court but must do so through the judge, a system designed to prevent them from wrangling and coming to blows.) Two important additions to the druggists’ testimony were Joseph murphy and Frank mcCulloch. murphy had a stationery business inside William irwin’s drugstore and heard minnie tell irwin about purchasing what she thought was strychnine in Cincinnati. mcCulloch, a clerk in Dr. moore’s drugstore, was present when moore told minnie that the powder was quinine. As minnie would later deny all of this, the corroboration was important. Neighbor Fannie Vickery revealed that minnie had once asked her, “one poison kills another, doesn’t it?” although the timing for this was not specified . After Walkup died on Saturday, Fannie told Minnie about Libbie’s bed having been set on fire the previous Wednesday. Minnie seemed surprised by this and cried out, “my God, what next!” But minnie had admitted knowing about the fire the next day, so her reaction here is a strange one. Luther severy related that, as Walkup lay dying, minnie revealed to him the attempted suicide story she had told reverend snodgrass, enlarging on it a bit. she said that on August 7, designated to be President Grant’s memorial day (he had just died), she and her husband were picnicking at soden’s Grove at the southern edge of town. James had been drinking and got to brooding on the letter he had received from mattie. it was after their return home from this outing that he went upstairs and attempted to kill himself. The remainder of the prosecution’s lay testimony was the same as it had been at the inquest, with the addition of witnesses who said that James Walkup had either not said anything about having been ill in Topeka or that he had looked fine on that Saturday when he returned. However, as Walkup told his physician, Dr. Jacobs, that he had been feeling poorly either in Topeka or on the way home (Dr. Jacobs could not remember which), we can probably assume that he was sick to some degree at that time, but not seriously so. The largest part of the prosecution’s case consisted of an impressive array of medical experts, many of whom had either assisted at the autopsy or had analyzed Walkup’s organs. The primary witness, of course, was Dr. A Sensation in Emporia 69 Luther D. Jacobs, who had attended Walkup throughout that last week, had witnessed minnie’s behavior during that time and also her spilling of the arsenic, had heard her explanations for purchasing the poisons, and had assisted at the autopsy. As the case progressed, Dr. Jacobs was frequently recalled regarding one of these issues. During William scott’s cross-examination of Dr. Jacobs, one of the defense’s theories was revealed: The victim had at some point long before his death (possibly in Topeka) ingested, either through his own actions or those of someone other than minnie, a fatal dose of arsenic that had somehow become encysted in his stomach. immediately prior to his death, something happened to act upon the protective casing that had grown up, pearl-like, around the poison, causing it to dissolve and kill him. it was a preposterous theory. Could they prove it? Dr. Jacobs responded that, while it might theoretically be possible for this to happen with a small dose, it could never happen with a fatal dose. Well, then, how about the action of arsenic on organs “demoralized by prior disease” (i.e., syphilis): Could that cause the elimination of the poison to be delayed at all? Dr. Jacobs conceded that might be possible, since the organs couldn’t do their jobs properly. And how about if he had that pocket of mucus surrounding his arsenic, then ate those oysters, drank that pop, and vomited: Could that dislodge it? Possibly. Poor Dr. Jacobs was submitted throughout the trial to the defense’s accusations of malpractice in not administering the arsenic antidote to James Walkup. of course, by the time he realized that Walkup had been poisoned, the victim was too far gone for the antidote to be of...

Share