“State Concludes Case at Means’ Preliminary Hearing,” from the Monroe
Journal, Sept. 25, 1917
At First Day of
Sensational Murder Case, Experts Testified That Woman Couldn’t Have Killed
Herself as Described
Concord, Sept. 24—The state concluded its case at the
preliminary hearing here today of Gaston B. Means on a warrant charging him
with the murder of Mrs. Maude A. King, without giving any hint of a possible
motive. It confined itself to an effort to show “probably cause” which would be
sufficient to bind Means over to the grand jury.
An adjournment until tomorrow was taken immediately after
the state finished presenting witnesses, the defense requesting time to confer
before announcing what steps it would take.
Among the witnesses who testified for the prosecution were
two experts who declared that in their opinion it would have been a physical
impossibility for Mrs. King to have shot herself in the manner in which she
received her fatal wound near here early in the evening of August 29, last.
Means, who was the business agent of the wealthy widow, was with her at target
practice at Blackwelder Springs when the shooting occurred and he told the
coroner’s jury that she shot herself accidentally.
The hearing was held before Magistrate C.A. Pitts, counsel
for Means declining to have him examined before Magistrate A.B. Palmer.
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