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· 156 · 20 The defence depends upon proving an alibi and expect to break down the testimony of Miss Bond; but the opinion is freely expressed that that will be a dangerous experiment and, should it fail, be fatal to their case. —Decatur Daily republican, December 18, 1883 Wednesday, December 19, 1883. if the defense was even half as efficient as the state, there was still a good chance the trial could wrap up by year’s end. The state’s third witness was called back as the first witness for the defense. Laurence Heinlein entered the courtroom again, looking haggard. The state had put him through the wringer the previous Friday. His inquisition at the hands of the defense was much shorter and not nearly as clear-cut. Heinlein admitted that, yes, he had “assisted in raising a subscription of $124 to help defray the expenses of the prosecution.”1 This brings up an interesting question: was making private donations to the prosecution once an accepted practice? Today, the financial burden of trying a case falls entirely to taxpayers; but perhaps in the late nineteenth century the local taxing bodies didn’t have enough resources to cover the cost of a trial of such magnitude.2 The defense didn’t seem to be suggesting anything illegal on Heinlein’s part; other citizens were known to have contributed to the prosecution’s cause. rather, it sounded like the defense was inferring he might have had some sort of hidden motive for supporting the state’s case. Before being excused, Heinlein turned to Judge Phillips and asked if he might “correct a statement that he made on the direct exam.”3 The defense vehemently opposed the request, and Phillips concurred. so whatever Heinlein wanted to get off his chest would forever remain a mystery. Beyond that, the montgomery and Pettus clans had to be upset with Heinlein for having sided with the state. Though he was portrayed as an uncooperative witness, it took considerable nerve to do what he had done. of course, he wasn’t a blood relative of the Pettuses or the montgomerys, but his wife of three the trial · 157 decades was margret Pettus’s sister. His aiding of the enemy almost certainly affected his marriage and his relationship with his in-laws. A long stream of witnesses followed. unlike Heinlein, they were clearly partial to the defense. only a handful were unrelated to John and Lee. A number of married montgomery and Pettus women, along with their husbands, took the stand. so, too, did several of their children. of those witnesses with ties to both families, John’s wife mattie had to be in the least enviable position. To add to her burden, she had to bring her two-month-old infant to the trial, cradled in her arms.4 That she would not be allowed to testify for her husband was a minor setback, however, since so many other relatives were standing by. it was going to be an extended family collaboration, and a multigenerational one, at that. A host of family members waited in the second-floor corridor, out of earshot, of course. The prudence of this measure quickly became apparent with the next witness—Hiram Linn montgomery, age twenty-four. Hiram was the son of John’s uncle Levi and aunt Jane. Levi had been dead for years, but Jane had a whole brigade of sons to help her work the family farm, which sat just northeast of the Pettus land and the montgomery school. Hiram’s testimony was the beginning of an unending flood of contradictions. By the time all of the defense witnesses had finished, what remained was a muddied field of evidence, so deep that almost nobody could wade through it, least of all the jurors. Not that the confusion was intentional; undoubtedly, the passage of time was partially to blame. eighteen months was a long time for the human mind to retain minutiae. Thornton’s questions centered on the day after the crime. Had he gone to the schoolhouse on Friday morning? And had he seen John there? Did John go into the loft that morning? Hiram answered all three questions in the affirmative. He and John had also gone up into the loft together, where he witnessed John cutting an opening in the wall at the west end. When asked which hand John used, Hiram said it was his left. W. C. montgomery—another of John’s cousins—followed. He...
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