Florence, S.C., March 29—Attorneys for Edmund Bingham will appeal to a higher court in an effort to save their client from execution at Columbus on April 8. After Judge Memminger had sentenced Bigham late yesterday for the murder of five members of the Bigham family and motion for a new trial was overruled, notice of appeal was given by Attorney A.L. King of defense counsel, who asserted that one of the jurors who had voted to convict Bigham had expressed himself previous to the trial as in favor of seeing the prisoner burned.
The trial of Bigham was begun on March 24. State witnesses testified that the prisoner had threatened to kill members of his family and that he indicated where the body of his brother, Smiley Bigham, might be found. The defense endeavored to show that Smiley Bigham, during a period of insanity, had committed the murders and then killed himself. Smiley Bigham’s body was found some distance from the Bigham home with a pistol clutched in the right hand. The other bodies were found in and about the Bigham home. They included Edmund Bigham’s mother, sister and his sister’s two adopted children. Family financial affairs figured largely in the motive advanced by the state.
Bigham turned pale when the verdict was read and his face lost the smile that it had worn during the trial, but, when asked what he had to say before being sentenced, he leaned forward from the dock and, in a clear and unshaken voice, replied:
“Nothing except that I am innocent. I know nothing of how that crime was committed. That is the truth, so help me God!”
“I wish my mother could come down and tell how that thing happened. I wish that little boy had lived when I asked Dr. W.H. Poston to save his life. He would have told the same things my wife and I told.
“Judge, I hope you will give me time so some of these people who testified here against me may have a chance to come forward and tell the truth and not come too late, like Judas making his offering of the 30 pieces of silver.
“I do hope to have something more, and I hope you will take no exception to it. As far as you are concerned, I have had a fair trial, but if people had had time to think things over, consider and take it up with their God, they would have testified differently.”
When asked to explain the finding of his pistol in his dead brother’s hand, Bigham said:
“I left that pistol in my bureau drawer and it has been testified that the door was found broken open. That is the only way Smiley could have got it. If I am guilty, I hope I may be petrified in front of this courthouse. I am innocent as a new-born babe.”
After Bigham had concluded his statement, Judge Memminger, before passing sentence, reviewed the case and referring to Bigham’s statement of innocence, said:
“I have never known a prisoner convicted of a similar crime to make acknowledgment of his guilt. In all that you have said in your favor, there is no excuse in the law.”
Mrs. May Bigham, wife of the defendant, and her children had been led from the courtroom by friends before the jury, of which H.P. Hazelden was foreman, returned its verdict. When she was told the result a few minutes later, she collapsed and had to be given medical treatment.
From The Charlotte News, Tuesday, March 29, 1921
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