Salt Lake Tribune | 1911-05-12 | Page 2 | President Frees Man Sentenced for Life

PRESIDENT FREES MAN SENTENCED FOR LIFE Oanlef T. Jones Pardoned After Serving Long Years In a Federal Prison. WASHINGTON. May 11. President Taft. in granting executive clemency today to-day to Daniel T, Jones, serving a life sentence for murder in Leavenworth penitentiary, brought to light a sordid story of a pioneer's life along the Indian In-dian territory frontier in the '70s. Jones, after serving a two-year sentence in a Texan Jail, returned to the then Indian territory to find his home wrecked by his cousin. William. There were reconciliations, recon-ciliations, however, and the family moved to the wilderness along the Red river. One night cariy in 1879 William Jones was shot and killed in the cabin the family occupied. . JV..w9man PassIsr the night there, testified that William's wound was not powdered, as it would have been if ho had commllteed suicide, and upon that evidence Daniel Jones was sentenced to be hanged. His sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 1884, and President Presi-dent Roosevelt In 1008 refused to pardon him. When the case came to President Taft the undertaker who burled William Jone3 appeared and made affidavit that William Wil-liam s wound was badly powder-burned. The attorney general recommended clemency. Tho president decided there was grave doubt of Daniel Jones's guilt and has freed him. Jones had served twentv-seven years behind prison walls, tho equivalent of a forty-year sentence.