Life-term Prisoner Gains Freedom
When C. J. Livering, life-term prisoner, sent up on the charge that he poisoned his wife in Louisville, Ky., eight years ago, walked out of the Eddyville State’s prison under parole, it was to enter his own manufacturing establishment, made possible by his own industry and incentive genius, as he invented a patent while in prison that may net him a fortune.
His parole followed the declaration of the judge who sentenced him of his belief in Livering’s innocence. Honorable H. S. Barker, president of the State University, was the court-of-appeals judge at the time. In addition to the judge’s opinion, Commonwealth Attorney Huffaker, of Louisville, says he believes that if a man who filed an affidavit had been called, he would have testified to hearing Mrs. Livering threaten to take her own life.
An effort was made at the trial to show that a woman was in love with and jealous of Livering and was responsible for the story that Livering had fixed up a suicide note in imitation of his wife’s handwriting, had given his wife strychnine tablets as medicine and then went to his farm, hurrying back in time to place the suicide note and poison before calling any one to the scene.
Livering testified that he was on his farm, twenty-five miles away, when his wife phoned him to come home, and that he found her dead. A druggist testified that Mrs. Livering bought strychnine tablets. The suicide note was found on the dresser. The coroner’s jury returned a verdict of suicide.
It was two years later when the woman’s story resulted in Livering’s conviction.