Prosecution Rests, Defense Begins to Call Witnesses in Trial of Larkin Garrett, Aug. 2, 1923

Defense Begins to Call its Witnesses

By the Associated Press

Cumberland Courthouse, Aug. 2—The prosecution in the trial of Larkin Garrett, charged with murder of Rev. Edward Sylvester Pierce, rested shortly before noon, and the defense began immediately to call its witnesses.

J.M. Sheppard, the principal witness at the morning session, said that he saw Larkin fire a shot in the fight in front of the Baptist parsonage and “Next I saw Robert Garrett put the pistol practically in the breast of Mr. Pierce and fire. I saw Robert fire again and again into the body of Pierce.”

He told of a meeting four years ago at which he said David Stewart proposed that Robert Garrett be killed.

Allen Chandler, who was shot from ambush on May 3, testified that Pierce visited him in a Richmond hospital and told him that the man who shot him “pulled the wrong trigger, that he had number four shot in one barrel and bird shot in the other and that the number four shot were intended for Robert Garrett and the birdshot for me if I interfered.”

Chandler was the second defense witness.

From the front page of The Daily Advance, Elizabeth City, N.C., Aug. 2, 1923