OCR Text |
Show PASTOR ADMITS POISONING WIFE ASTOR MAKES COMPLETE CON. FESSION OF CRIMES AFTER MUCH QUESTIONING Places Deadly Potion In Coffee and Water to Ease Pain of Wife and Friend; Signs Confession Con-fession Mount Vernon, 111. Rev. Lawrenct M. Hight, pastor at Ina, 111., has confessed to poisoning his wife and Wilford Sweetin. In his statement lo the authorities Hight declared the murder of his wife vas prompted to "relieve her of her sufferings." According" to his statement he placed plac-ed the poison in her coffee on the morning of September 10. Hight was questioned until 4 o'clock Monday morning before the statement state-ment on the death of his wife was obtained. A few minutes later, according ac-cording to the authorities, he confessed confess-ed also to causing the death of Sweetin. He asserted he was temporarily out of his mind at the time.' Rev. Hight said he had put poison, in Sweetin's water to put him out of pain. This was on the morning of Sunday, July 27, at the Sweetin home where Sweetin lay ill. Hight declared in his confession that there had never been anything between himself and Mrs. Sweetin and absolved her of any complicity in the double crime. The text of the two confessions follow: "I, Lawrence M. Hight, of my own free will, voluntarily, without threat or promises and having been fully informed in-formed of my rights, that what I say may be used against me, make the following statement: "That while temporarily beside myself, my-self, with grief at my wife, Anna Hight's condition, who was suffering intensely and was surely to die, and wishing to save her pain, I put arsenic ar-senic in some coffee and gave it to her in the early morning of Wednesday, Wednes-day, September 10, 1924; while Mrs. Lucy Laur, my daughters, Mary and Mildred Hight, were in the kitchen in my home at Ina, 111., Jefferson county, coun-ty, 111., and my son, Robert Hight, was in bed at home. "That my sole thought was to ease the pain in her dying moments. (Signed) "L. M. Hight." The second confession follows: "I, Lawrence H. Hight, of my own free will, voluntarily, without threat or promises and having been fully informed in-formed of my right, that what I say may be used, against me, make the following' statement: that on Sunday morning, July 27, 1924, at the home of Wilford Sweetin at Jefferson county, coun-ty, 111., I placed some arsenic in a glass of water and gave it to Wilford Sweetin, who drank it. I did this to ease his plain. Elsie Sweetin knew nothing of this and there was neve? anything between her and myself in anyway. (Signed) "Lawrence M. Hight." Sheriff Holcomb and State's Attorney At-torney Thompson are now awaiting the result of an investigation in White county of the circumstances under which a high school girl died in Centerville three years ago. |