Thriller Thursday - Wrapping Up the Villers Trial, Part 8

The Jamestown Weekly Alert,
20JAN1898, pg1

Last week we read about the defense's arguments. They weren't exactly the strongest arguments and I think you'll see that the prosecution's arguments in this post aren't much better. I would even say that the prosecution made some fairly wild claims/connections, but something must have stuck to win a guilty verdict.

"The State.

Attorney Guthrie made the final address to the jury and said, in part: Mr. Villers, prior to this transaction, bore a good reputation; he was respected and known throughout this county and trusted in many different ways. You, perhaps, have heard of Margaret, who was called the mother of criminals. There were some 800 direct and indirect descendants of that family. More than 700 of them were at some time in their life in the penitentiary for larceny.

The Jamestown Weekly Alert,
20JAN1898, pg1

He who steals has a motive. Criminals are classified. He who commits larceny would not burn a house and he who steals watches perhaps would not steal revolvers. They are like the descendants of Margaret. One was guilty of larceny; all were thieves. There is a system connected with it.

There is something peculiar about the life and character of Martin Villers. How very strange he should have a fire in Wisconsin and lose his home in Kewaunee county. How very strange that a fire follows along in the trail of his whole life. how strange that Peter Sterling should be killed and burned his body was that kind of a murderer. How very strange that the machinery barn of M. J. Villers should burn up; how very strange that Mrs. Tromer's barn should burn and she underneath it in an attempt to burn her body.

The Jamestown Weekly Alert,
20JAN1898, pg1

This plan of killing and burning bodies is of a certain kind of a criminal. August Tromer, killed, placed in the ground and a straw stack burned over his grave. There's one of the strongest facts against this defendant. If I had heard of Tromer being killed and a fire kindled over his corpse the first thing I would have said, where is the man who kills people that way?

Attorney Guthrie call the attention of the jury to the settlement had with Tromer that fall. The proposition was settled upon by the defense that Tromer owed Villers $396. This was the starting point. Liens in evidence showed that in '92 Tromer had 1,860 bushels of wheat which at seven cents a bushel would make the threshing bill $130, and Villers says Tromer paid him some money. In '93 he had 1032 bushels of wheat and the threshing bill came to $75 Tromer had paid money both years and didn't owe a dollar for anything else. In '94 he owed $50 for threshing wheat, leaving out the oats, barley and flax making a total of $255. In those years Mr. Tromer threshed about $1,500 worth of wheat - at 40 cents a bushel, about the prevailing price - and this without reference to any other crops.

This crime that Mrs. Tromer talked about and that she finally divulged began way back in '92. This cattle mortgage was a bluff for the purpose of assisting Mr. Tromer to cheat and defraud his creditors. They would believe Mr. Tromer an honest man because he did that, but when he left home he was a criminal.

Why was he chosen? Because Mr. Villers, a smart and wily politician, chosen by the political parties of this county because of his smoothness and ability to get around men and to weave them into believing things he wanted. Because of the fact that this Wily, smooth and smart defendant here taking hold of this poor Dutchman, ignorant and out upon the prairie alone with nothing to think of, he did these things because Villers talked him into it. This mortgage was a bluff. $1,500 worth of wheat and Villers got every bit and Tromer still owed him $72.

The Jamestown Weekly Alert,
20JAN1898, pg1

He says he had $148 when he left home that evening. The man who would kill a woman would kill a man for $148. There was a motive sufficient for him to kill and burn."

OK. My husband will be the first to tell you that when financial stuff is brought up I get all glassy-eyed and start to drool all over myself. This last bit of his rather unusual argument to my now addled mind is essentially saying that Tromer kept paying and paying and paying Villers yet Villers kept insisting there was more money owed. I'd like to know more about this "cattle mortgage" that was mentioned above too. It really hasn't been covered and it isn't very clear to me what went on. It's easy to take something that Tromer may have been doing illegally and pinning it on the guy you're accusing of his murder. Anything is possible, but this argument is missing something.

Also, the prosecution wants to paint MJ Villers as this highly intelligent, slick man. Well, I suppose it's better than being called an idiot, but if he was that smart he wouldn't have killed a man that he was getting money from for years for $148. Sure it was worth a LOT more back in the late 19th century, but considering the swindle they're claiming he got from him, why would he kill him for so little after all that? Again, it's possible, but not intelligent. Burying a man that you allegedly killed in a shallow grave on your property isn't very bright either and if he was such a pyromaniac why didn't he just burn the body? It seems like the property was a bit secluded. It was farmed. There are easier and more thorough ways of disposing a body than burying it and setting a haystack on fire. That's just dumb.

I suppose your argument doesn't have to be completely lucid. As long as the jury believes it. And I'm not saying he was innocent. There's a lot of circumstantial evidence, but for everything I've transcribed and read in all of these clippings (old and newly discovered) there is also something not right with the Tromer couple. Perhaps when this series is over I will have a new subject to research!