Show CASE OF LIGE CRAVENS A Strange Story that is Told in a Colorado Paper > Reference li l made qu the strange plea set up by George Putnam of Folsom prison California In the defense de-fense of his life when tried for mann iler Pninam set up the t plea Dial lie was already a prisoner serving a linycar sentence and that while lie vas a ward of the SUite ho was legally le-gally dead and was therefore Incapable Inca-pable of defending himself The court did not sustain him howevei The plea wan novel but not unheard of in criminal nnnalB and as strange OS this case is It is a piece pf the I commonest prose when compared with 1 a case In this State some years ago than which nothing more remarkable could have been Imagined by l the fiercest writers of llctlon and the Incident referred to here is I true In every detail na can be verllled by the iccords of Lake and Arapahoe counties coun-ties In this case the star actor was legally dead for twenty years and was discharged at one time from au Indictment of murder on this plea This Is the first time the remarkable case i of TJge Cravens ever appeared In print In fact Llge did nol complete J the strange tragedy of his life until only last month when a simple notice oC his death appeared In one of the Denver papers In Leudvllle In JS70 and SO the great boom of the carbonate camp was at Its full The town was overrun over-run with people and everything tenantable ten-antable even to hovels unfit for dogs was used for lodging purposes C i line and vice held perpetual carnival and the life of dissipation of the reckless and ofltlmes unforlunatc anton hunter In a severe climate lo which but few of them were accuslomed swelled time death roll to extraordinary extraordi-nary llgures The Lcadvillo Undertaking Under-taking company had more to do than It could properly attend to U W Ilallett recently deceased and well known and respected In this city dur ing his residence here was manager of lie company al lie time und W W Breclln M D was time county Coroner Cor-oner By far Ihe most cases they had I lo attend came to death through al cohollsm and pneumonia due lo exposure ex-posure One morning early in ISO just be j fore daybreak an old man was found I In SUM Born alley apparently dead i The dead wagon was called and the j body placed in the already over I crowded morgue The Coroner after a hasty glance at the body certified to the qounty that time deceased Elijah Cravens had come to his deajh as the result of alcoholism and the certificate was transcribed to the county records The body was Imstlly placed In a common com-mon county collin and sent to the potters field with a deaf old driver who had been In time countys employ for years Before the wagon reached time grave yard Cravens came out of his alcoholic stupor and of course kicked out of the flimsy old collln and lost no lime in making his escape es-cape In Ills terror he did not slop lo I question the old driver or pay his faro The driver when he reached the burying ground was of course surprised beyond relating But the old fellow did not purpose to lose his fee and when he got his senses together proceeded to bury time empty collln and after Illling up the grave he pluced a small board at the head of the grave with the inscription Eli jab Cravens aged forty Cravens returned lo Lcndvllle and kept himself close to his old haunts lie sobered up for a while but avoided everybody he could Finally Diamond Dick Reynolds a wealthy prospector one of the famous characters charac-ters of Leudvlle sUtmbled onto Ciav enat and after he satisfied himself that It was Cravens in the flesh and not In the spirit sent him down to the Grand river lo locate a ranch Cravens Crav-ens at that time slaked out the ground on which Olenwood Springs and Its famous hoi springs are now locale This acreugo proved lo be of great value and Ugo was soon rated as worth MGOOOO But Llge ul this Umc wan not menially sound Ills Lead vlllc experience proved a Illlle too much for him lie uus nol demented but he was queer and given to periods of mental lethargy fiom which It was difllcult lo mouse him When he became be-came excited or angry he was hard lo control at other times he wits pas Iplve and abstracted lie agaIn took to drink prosperity was too much for him and In a saloon row over a game of cards he shot and killed a man And Llge Cravens began the second chapter of Ills strange and eventful lifeAfter After Cravens had killed his man nnd been arrested therefor he sent for Joe Taylor one of the bestknown criminal lawyers of the State Taylor undertook to defend him although he knew It was a desperate cnso and us seemingly Indefensible as any case that ever camo before the court But Taylor won out und upon time same plea that proved Ineffective in I the George Putnam case Taylor set up tIme defense that the accused Llge Cravens was dead and that a dead jnan could not commit murder To prove that thIs same Cravens had been officially adjudged dead and that hu had been burled It was only necessary neces-sary to refer to the recprda of Lake county and throughvlhose records It WUH proven IP beVacase of VnTstakun Identity This being the casethe in Hciment waa defective But Cray ens did jiot escape entirely for while lo the law he was dead to lie Judge = L he was alive and the law and tlie court J compromised and Cravens vfts ficnt to the county jail for the term of only one year Orr the Iwenlysecond day of August thIn year Cravens died agnjn and the eorllficaic of bin death read Elijah Cravens aged seventy died of pneumonia Lake County JTospllal 1 Leadvllie Colorado And there Is evidence not to the con Irary thai he has been dead ever since i Colorado Springs Fuels j |