A Scrap of Paper
How it Convicted a Man of Murder -- A Remarkable, True Story
Speaking of circumstantial evidence, ” said a gentleman from Contra Costa county, yesterday, to a reporter of The Independent, with whom he had been talking about the murder trial , “ calls to my min d the conviction of Robert Lyle in my county, last January , of the murder of Patrick Sullivan, and I consider it the strangest case, and one on which was the bes t detective work done that was ever my fortune to meet with. It is a famous ca se, and has occupied the courts since the year 1881, and gave the of ficers more trouble to secure a conviction than a dozen ordinary murder cases. They had hard ly anything to work on at first , but stuck to it with the persistence of bloodhounds on the track of a victim , fin ally securing a conviction a lmost wholly on the finding of a small piece of newspaper. ”
The reporter became interested, and suggested that the gentleman give an account of th e affair, which he did in the following language :
the crime .
“ Sulli van was a prosperous farmer and stock raiser, living on Wildcat creek , in the southern part of Contra Costa county , and Lyle was a near nei ghbor. The lat ter was always getting into trouble with his neighbors and goi ng to law , particu larly with Sullivan. In these suits h e was generally on the wrong side of th e question, and, of course , got worsted , which enraged him to suc h a degree that h e was injudicious enough to make threat s against Sullivan ’ s life, at one time te ll ing the latte r ’ s son that his father would fail to come hom e some night. On th e morning of th e day of the murder Sulli van left his home with his team and wen t to town, where he had a trifling lawsuit with Lyle , before a justice of the peace , in which he w as beaten. The prophecy of Lyle was fulfilled , for Sullivan neve r retur ned to his home alive. The next morning he was found dead , with hi s team i n a field not far from his home , hi s arm hanging over the whif f l etree and hi s body lying upon the ground. The fi rst concl usion was that the team had run away with him, thrown him out, dragged him a nd broken his neck. This theory w as strengthened by the fact there was a plainl y m arked trail for 250 yards, evi den tly made by his body. No marks o f blood were on his c lothes , and no evidence that crime had bee n committed. At the inquest , when the clothes of th e dead man were removed, it was found that he had been murdered by some on e who had
shot him in the back .
Several of the shots had entered hi s body, one of them penetr ating the heart and two of them embedding th emselves i n the back of the wagon seat. I attend ed the trial and took a great interest i n it. He was heard to pass the house of man named Davis about nine o ’ clock o n the nig ht of the murder. The road passed nea r the house of Lyle , so that if th e latter so desired he could lie in ambus h and kill him.
“ When the officers examined the spot where the murder was committed , the y found the footprints of a man le ading t o and from Lyle ’ s house over the ploughed ground to the place where Sullivan ha d fall en out of his wagon. They at once suspicione d that Lyle had something t o do with the crime, and went to his house , where he was found eating his dinner. They told him he was suspected of th e murder, and they were there to make an investigatio n. ‘ I have expected this , ’ said he, ‘ because I have had so muc h difficulty with Sullivan. ’ H e then told the of ficers to go ahead and make their search , a nd that they could not find any thing criminating about his place. On two pegs on the wall the officers found a double-barreled shot-gun , one of th e barrels of which was moist on the inside , and had evidently been recently dis cha rged. Some buck-shot were found , although Lyle denied having any , and o n the shelf by the buckshot was foun d a crumpled piece of The San Francisco Call, a part of which had been torn off. Lyle w as arrested and lodged in jail at Martinez , after which one of the officers took the prisoner ’ s boots and we nt to th e scene of the supposed ambush, where h e found in the brush alongside the road th e imprints of a man ’ s knees. The boots were found
to fit the tracks
in the s o ft ground perfectly , and at this stage of the investigation the Alameda officers offere d to hand o ver the case t o the Contra Costa officers, but were de tailed by the district attorney to work it up.
The officer continued the weaving of the c hain of circumstantial evidence , an d again returned to the scene of the murder. He we nt to the place where th e tracks of the man ’ s knees had bee n foun d and abou t thirty f ee t from that spot found a small pie ce of paper that had evidently been us ed as wadding for a gun. It was a bit of newspaper , crumpled and powder - burned, but not so much s o that th e print could not be plainly read. At the tri al the business manager of The C al l identified the piece of paper as a part o f an advertisement that had bee n printed in the paper on the same day and date a s the paper found in Lyle ’ s house. The little innocent looking piece of paper wa s what completed the chain of circumstan tial evidence , and consigned Lyle to San Quentin . It was further shown that on the night of the murder, between the hours of 8 and 9 o ’clock , a woman ’ s screams and entreaties had been heard issuing from Lyle ’ s house. It is supposed that it was Mrs. Lyle , who kne w tha t her husband wa s starting out to kill Sullivan , and tried to prevent hi s going . Notw ithstanding the plain evidence in the case it took three trials to convict the cold-blooded murderer, and the last jury found him guilty of murder in the first degree , a verdict that caused the greatest dissatisfaction. I don ’ t generally believe in hanging a man on circumstantial evidence , bu t that chain was so strong that no doubt could be entertained of his guilt. As a strange case it beats any thing in Californi a ’ s circumstantial history. ”