Circumstantial Evidence May be Very Strong
and All Wrong

The criminal who argues that he is safe because no one saw him commit the crime forgets that circumstantial evidence is a Nemesis which has pursued its thousands to the prison and the gallows. Had the Preller case in St. Louis been one in which men could testify that they saw the killing done, the sensation would have died out in a week. It depended upon circumstantial evidence alone, and as link after link has been picked up to make a complete chain the whole country has been interested. The records of crime in every state show that where circumstantial evidence is solely depended on, a terribly strong case can be made against an entirely innocent man. That this has been done time after time we all know, though in the great majority of cases the real criminal gets his just deserts.

Some forty years ago there lived in Wisconsin a farmer named Throop, who was a widower, with a daughter 15 years old. The man had a good reputation, and his daughter was a great favorite in the neighborhood. For some time previous to the occurrence which caused his arrest Throop had not been on good terms with a farmer named McWilliams, living about a mile away, on account of damage committed by cattle belonging to the latter. There had been a law suit, and the two men had once come to blows, and Throop had said in the presence of witnesses that he would like to put a bullet into McWilliams. One day about noon the cattle broke into the field again, and the daughter notified her father. Throop was terribly enraged, and, as he started to drive them out, he took his rifle along. The back end of the field bordered on a wood, and the daughter saw her father disappear among the trees after the running cattle. Soon thereafter she heard a shot, and was alarmed for fear that her father had carried out his threat.

In about half an hour Throop came home, pale and… Read More