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Show COAST MURDER CASE AROUSES GREAT INTEREST Convicted Youth Said to Have Been Thrown on Own Resource at 12 BAN QCENTH. Cal.. March 11 Great Interest was manifested In northern north-ern California In the case of William Henry Norris, alias Arthur Owen Davis, Da-vis, aged 18, who confused to 'fatally shooting; City Marshal J. V. Helves of Bedding on January t, 1921. According to the stories of Norris and his companion, George Schulte, as told In the superior court, they lr? the brush south of Redding; January S just after they and three others had robbed a house on the outskirts of the town. Norris and Schulte said they saw Reives approaching;, but did not know i who he was. They walked toward r Reives for a distance, when Norris halted and stood behind a bush or tree. Reives called to Schulte, stopped him and search him. Norris, the youth said, stood with a revolver behind. Jila. back" and when the marnhal ordered I him to step forward, Norris shot, the bullet disabling the officer's ritrht hand. Norris fired a second time, the bullet piercing- Reives' back and fracturing frac-turing several vertebrae. Keives died several days later. BOTH CAPTURED. ' Norris and Schulte then fled and were captured the following Tuesday. Schulte at Kennet and Norris at Conant station. When captured, Norris, Nor-ris, the officers declared, dropped a revolver underneath the pilot of the freight engine on which he was riding. Three bullets remaining In the weapon wea-pon were "creased" to make them more deadly, the officers declared, although Norris asserted the bullets were in that condition when he was given the revolver re-volver on the day of the shooting in exchange for his Fhare in the lout of the Sunday robbery. The men were placed In the Jail at Hed Bluff, but the state of public feel-in feel-in prompted their removal to the Oro-vtlle Oro-vtlle priHon. They later were transferred trans-ferred for safekeeping to the Sacramento Sacra-mento county Jail. " 13 SUBNORMAL. Norris. after a preliminary hearing, was arraigned before Superior Judg Charles O. Rusiek. who had been assigned as-signed to Bedding from Sacramento. He waived his rights to counsel, to a trial and to statutory time for sentence. The principal witnesses were Schulte nd Norris, Schulte being heard in order or-der to determine th depre of murder to which Norris had confessed. Schulte'a story resulted in the verdict of first degree murder and Norris then was sentenced to hang at San Quentln penitentiary on March 25.' He was led away protesting thai he did not shoot Heives "intentionally." He had de- dared that he thought Reive was a' "atick up" man. Officers declared that Norris had Mated he wan a deserter rrom the army. The young man declared in court, however, that he never before iad been In any trouble. Mrs. Fannie Hall, mother of the condemned youth, accompanied by a nowxpaper woman, arrived in Sacramento Sacra-mento about the middle of February from their home in Terre Haute. Ind.. and began efforts to obtain clemency forhe man on the ground that he was only 17 years of age and that be had ! not been granted a fair trial. The women also declared that Norris had been thrown on his own resources when only 12 years of age. They also 1 claimed - h - a of subnormal mentality. |