FULL TEXT: Readers of the Bulletin are no doubt still familiar with the facts in the case of Commonwealth against Grant and Elihu Pugh, who were convicted at Flemingsburg about a year ago, and pent to the penitentiary for twenty years for rape.
A
special says it was developed Friday they were convicted on manufactured and
perjured testimony; that the alleged victim was a notorious woman who now
consorts with low colored courtesans to whom she confessed her schemes, and
they have been verified by careful investigation.
There
was an epidemic of criminal assaults in Fleming at the time, no less than eight
being committed in thirty days, and the public mind was violently inflamed. One
night a mob broke into the jail at that place. They secured but one of the
prisoners a negro charged with rape.
He
was taken to a bridge near the town limits and strung up. The Pugh brothers,
however, were brought here for safe keeping and lodged in the Maysville jail
until the next term of court, when their trial resulted as above stated. While
here they were seen by a representative of the Bulletin and protested their
innocence, asserting that the woman had accused them falsely. But little
attention, however, was paid to their protestations at the time. The recent
developments have put a new phase on the case though, and the Governor will be
appealed to at once to pardon them. The petition is signed by all the
magistrates of Fleming County, ten of the jury who convicted, one being dead
and the other removed, and the county and district attorney who prosecuted.
Commenting
on the case the Cincinnati Post says: ‘The men have served but a few months of
their twenty years’ sentence, and now by the confession of their accuser they
are found to be innocent. The application is obvious. If the mob had succeeded
in murdering two innocent men in the blind fury of the moment their consciences
must have been most unpleasant companions henceforth.”
[“A
Lesson For Lynchers. - The Pugh Brothers Sent Up From Flemingsburg Convicted on
Perjured Testimony.” The Evening Bulletin (Maysville, Ky.), Nov. 4, 1889, p. 3]
No comments:
Post a Comment