Martin Bost will not serve a prison sentence for the slaying of Jesse Vanderburg at the Bost home several years ago. Under a compromise reached, Bost will have the criminal charges dropped upon payment of all costs in the case and $3,500 to the widow of the man he killed.
In discussing the case in open court Judge P. A. McElroy indicated that he considered the disposal of the case a very just one. Under the terms of the court order, Bost is to pay all costs in both the civil and criminal cases including the special venire from Mecklenburg called to sit on the case, and must give the widow of the slain man $3,500.
It is no secret that court attaches felt that Bost would never serve a prison sentence for the slaying of Vanderburg. The feeling was accentuated when the Supreme Court of the State allowed a new trial after the second trial of Bost. To many persons present at the trial it seemed that the defense had little ground for exception, yet the new trial was ordered.
Judge McElroy said in court that he did not see how Bost was convicted on the evidence he had read in the stenographer’s report, and in view of this evidence and the two new trials granted the defendant, the disposition seems a just one.
There is one thing certain about the case—if Bost had been cleared in the criminal charge, no jury would have ever given the Vanderburg damages in the civil suit. That much is certain, and somehow we feel that court attaches knew that and probably felt that Mrs. Vanderburg needed the money too badly for any chances to be taken.
From the editorial page of the Concord Daily Tribune, Wednesday, Aug. 25, 1926
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn92073201/1926-08-25/ed-1/seq-4/
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