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· 276 · Epilogue Two deaths, sonny Bond’s and John Hill’s, were blamed on the circumstances surrounding the case, even before the verdict was in. The premature death of stenographer John T. montgomery in march 1887 was the third, and the first to occur post-trial. The usual particulars were noted in his obituary: age thirtynine , married, no children, a methodist, a republican, a former teacher who’d taught himself the Pitman stenographic method. And then there was the cause of death: “mr. montgomery died of hemorrhage of the lungs caused by a severe cold that he caught when he was working on the emma Bond trial in 1884 at Hillsboro.”1 True, the man had traveled back and forth between Decatur and Hillsboro during some pretty nasty weather, which might have accounted for his initial illness. But to blame a cold caught in December 1883 for a lung hemorrhage that occurred more than three years later was a medical stretch. Although emanuel Clementi had cheated death during the 1882 lynching attempt, he only saved himself for a slower and more miserable ending. in the late spring of 1888, he fell gravely ill from a mastoid abscess—a severe infection in the bone directly behind the ear. Today, early treatment with antibiotics has substantially reduced the mortality rate for this condition. But before antibiotics , someone suffering from mastoiditis faced almost certain doom. scarlet fever was often the initial culprit, with the streptococcal bacteria spreading from throat to inner ear. There, the infection could simmer for days or weeks before developing into a full-blown abscess. in the worst-case scenario, the condition could progress to meningitis or even a brain abscess. According to Clementi’s death certificate—dated June 8, 1888—the “remote mastoid abscess” led to “intermediate blood poisoning.”2 in other words, his infection became so severe that it spread throughout his entire body, resulting epilogue · 277 in what had to be a most unpleasant death. Clementi probably had acute pain at the site of the original abscess. His health would have deteriorated rapidly once the infection became systemic. in 1888, there was little to be done for such a patient other than sit by and watch him go. At the time of his death, Clementi was thirty-one and single. Dr. William H. Vermillion died of a heart attack in December 1914 at his boardinghouse residence in Little rock. Details on his death certificate coincided with what little was known of the man: born in Fairfax County, Virginia, on June 9, 1843, a physician, and a widower.3 The person who signed as the informant on his death certificate was probably his landlord; that person lived at the same address but was not related to the deceased and could not even provide the names of the doctor’s parents. it would appear that the onetime suspect went to his grave without the comfort of a single loved one at his side. A nagging case of pneumonia—always a hard thing to shake in the middle of an illinois winter—dealt John C. montgomery the final blow. His end came on January 19, 1918. His obituary in the Taylorville Breeze began with a long and sympathetic reminder of his connection to the famous case and concluded with: “And be it said to his everlasting credit, that throughout the remainder of his life he avoided public places and shunned the notoriety that was unjustly forced upon him by the greatest sensation in the annals of Christian County.”4 it concluded on an even higher note: “At the risk of offending friends and relatives of the parties concerned, we state that John C. montgomery proved an absolute alibi and was vindicated by the jury as well as by all his neighbors and friends.” Lee Pettus outlived John by twenty years. His wife, Allie Hill Pettus, died of a cerebral hemorrhage at the family’s home on october 21, 1938. exactly five days later, Lee followed her to the grave, struck down by the very same thing. He was seventy-eight. There was not one reference to the Bond case in his obituary.5 Despite all that his family had been through, A. D. Bond’s troubles did not end once he reached Kansas. in the aftermath of the trial, he was forced to sell off a good portion of his Christian County land. With the new century approaching, he and Delia—along with Belle and Hank—set off for southeastern...

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