| OCR Text |
Show ECHO OF MURDER CASE IS HEARD Salt Lake, May 13. Tribune: Upon the location of a mysterious and as yet undiscovered piece of prop-erty prop-erty in the suburbs of Salt Lake City depends to no inconsiderable extent the conviction or freedom of Mr. and Mrs. Victor E. Innes, principals in one of the most sensational murder trials of the past few years. Innes and his wife, whom he married here in Salt Lake on September 9, 1910, are now in jail in Atlanta, Ga., charged with "larceny after trust" on eight counts, the maximum penalty for which would be fifty-six years in prison. pris-on. T W. LeCraw of Atlanta, who is connected with tho office of the prosecuting prose-cuting attorney there, is now in Salt Lake and Is endeavoring to locate the property and to gain whatever additional addi-tional Information he can secure in connection with the career of Innes, a former attorney of Carson City, New Ho wants to make inquiry concerning the property and to find out whether Innes ever transacted any business Involving property in this section. Charged With Murder. Innes was arrested in Oregon and taken to San Antonio, Texas, in June, 1914, on a charge of having murdered in cold blood Mrs. Eloise Nelms Dennis, a prominent, young southern beauty for whom he had obtained a divorce di-vorce at Carson City In 1912, and her sister, Miss Beatrice Nelms, also of Atlanta. At-lanta. The two young womon were traced to a bungalow, which had been rented and occupied by Innes, and there all trace of them was lost to tho world. Through a peculiar twist of law which exists in the state of Texas, and in no other state of the union, it was Impossible to convict Innes, or even take the case to a jury-To jury-To establish a charge of murder under un-der the Texas law there must be proof of tho existence of tho dead body, or bodies, by the testimony of an eye-witnesB. eye-witnesB. x one could be found who ever saw the dead bodies of the two young women. Innes presented that ff to the court after the trial had been in progress one day The prosecution could not producer wit-ness wit-ness who had seen the dead bodies, and the indictment was dismissed, despite des-pite the faot that there was a powerful power-ful chain of circumstantial evidence forged to convict Innes. Among othor features was the fact that traces of sulphuric acid were found in the house to which the missing women were traced, and it was tho theory of the prosecution that Junes chopped tho bodies up and consumed them with sulphuric acid, thus destroying all traces of them. facing New Charge. It was then decided to take Innes and his wife, who is alleged to have been an accomplice, to Georgia and try them on a charge of larceny after trust. ThiB trial comes up May 29 in Atlanta, and Innes and his wife will face the charge of having fraudulently secured from Mrs. Eloise Nelms Dennis more than $8,000. And it is the prosecution's attempt to prove this fraud that the property in Salt Lake comes Into question. Innes first became acquainted with Mrs. Dennis when she went to Carson City in 1912 to obtain a divorce. He acted as counsel for her and the two became very friendly. It is alleged by the prosecution, and letters will be submitted at the trial to substantiate the claim, as well as testimony of relatives. |
