OCR Text |
Show ASSERT PliyKEBTONS FAILED MH Ogden Officers Say They Were Misled in Case of Clore and O'Hara. Special to Tho Tribune. OGDEN". May 24. That Ihe Pinkorlon detective agency made a miserable llasco in the arrest of Victor Clore and Bryan O'Hara at Michigan moro than a mouth ago for the robbery of the Overland Llm Ited train at Reeae station tho evening of January 2 and tho murder of two nc-gr.i nc-gr.i potters. Is tho assertion of local officers. of-ficers. Cloro and O'Hara were discharged by .ludo J. D. Murphy last Monday. Kvldcncc of a convlnclne naluro which the Plnhcrtoii detectives led local officers to believe was in their possession, failed to materialize at the preliminary hearing, and after the two men were brought back to Ogden the PInkcrton detectives effaced themselves from the case, say the Ogden sheriffs, leaving all of tlip responsibility re-sponsibility of gathering evidence and prosecuting the case to the local officers. offi-cers. Before the preliminary hearing, tho Plnkcrtons claimed to have possession of certain facts which would show beyond a micsllon that Cloro and O'Hara were tho two desperate bandits who held up tho fast. Overland Limited train for two hours while they proceeded leisurely through tho train, robbing passengers and Intimidating the members of tho train crew by shooting 'down tho two negroes: that they had located a room In a lodging house In Salt rikc .City In which Clore and O'Hara had been stopping; stop-ping; that they had found dnrlr, greasy overcoats thero similar to the ones worn by the bandits on the night of the robbery; rob-bery; that the sawed-off shotgun found in a clump of bushes near an Irrigation ditch close lo the scene of tho train robbery-had been traced to the retail dealer who had Identified from photographs Clore and O'Hara as the purchasers these were a few of tho links In tho chain of circumstantial evidence which the Plnkcrtons claimed to have forged about tho two Michigan men. With these aliened facts made known before the preliminary pre-liminary hearing, the public had formed a fairly good Idea that the men held were the men wanted for tho crime. At tho preliminary henring tho bulk of the testimony offered by tho stale was from trainmen who had already identified other oth-er suspects as th train robbers, and several residents of Weber county who had seen men similar to Cloro and O'Hara In the neighborhood of Reese before be-fore tho robbery. To offset this testimony testi-mony tho defense proved bv four or five witnesses that Clore and O'Hara were at Bingham for sevornl days before the Overland Limited had been robbed and were there on tho same evening and the morning after. In giving his decision Monday Judge Murphy fieclnred that alibi defenses were not regarded with much favor In courts, unless the defense was a strong one made by reputable wll nosses. and unshaken by testimony offered by the state. The court held that tho alibi defenso offered, of-fered, by the defense had not been weakened weak-ened by the testimony of tho slato and ordered tho discharge of the two defendants. |