Twenty Years After

Horowhenua Chronicle, 16 April 1910, Page 4

Twenty Years After

" MCHDER RD MAX" ALIVE. A former cattle dealer named Roger Williams lias just been liberitwl from a Texas prison as a remilt of '.'l:o astounding discovery that Bt.'inir'l Carter, t'he man lie was convicted of murden.ng, is alive and well. Williams was condemned to forty years' imprisonmeii't, and had served half his sentence. The history of judicial blunders contains fow more startling and dramatic incidents than this. Williams ami Carter quarrelled as far back as the spring of 1890. Meeting on l a cattle trail they drew knives. Williams staibbo<l Carter •ami flung him into the Pecos River. Weeks lntor a decomposed body floated up, and was identified as '■Hint of Carter. The identification was erroneous, for Carter was rosoued in an unconscious condition from the river mvl sent to hispital at El Paso. A FORTY YEARS' SENTENCE.

After Ins recovery lie drifted into Central America, returning with a large fortune ten years ago to mottle in Seattle. Soma days ago Carter was rending an account of enormities practised in "the gaols of Texas, when he noticed the name of Williams among those of other prisoners who had made statements on the subject. His _ curiosity was aroused, and on inquiry lie discovered to his infinite amazement that Williams, who he supposed had fled i the country and escaped' arrest, was actually serving a forty years' sentence for murdering him. Carter, moving with muc.h energv, has now secured a pardon l for Hililiams, whom ho is providing with ■a good home for the r-cv>fc of his life. _ _ Williams, who was thirty-three when arrested, is now a bent and prematurely aged man. He burst into tears when informed that lie was frco by the very man he was said to have murdered,