Once on board the train bound for Utah, Welcome became quite communicative. He had told Carr before leaving that he himself had killed young Turner, and that he had done so because he had a grudge against him, and because he wanted his property. Now he denied all connection with the murder, and said that the crime had been committed by Emerson, saying that Emerson and Turner had quarreled, and that Emerson killed Turner in the fight.
The trial took place at Salt Lake City, on the 18th day of February, 1881, and resulted in proving a clear case against Welcome, who did not introduce a particle of rebutting testimony. The jury was out only a few minutes, when it brought in a verdict of guilty in the first degree. The sentence would necessarily have been death, had not Welcome’s lawyers succeeded in getting his case before the supreme court, where it was remanded back for a new trial.
Emerson, Welcome’s accomplice, was disposed of more summarily. He was captured near Green River, in August, 1880, and tried at the succeeding May term of the Salt Lake district court, and sentenced to the penitentiary for life, and he is now serving out his sentence.
CHAPTER XLI.
BROUGHT TO JUSTICE AT LAST—WELCOME, OR HOPT, AS HE CALLED HIMSELF, GETS FOUR TRIALS—IS NOT ABLE TO BREAK THE WEB OF JUSTICE—CHOSE TO BE SHOT INSTEAD OF HANGED—HELD HIS NERVE TO THE LAST.
The second trial of Welcome, or Hopt, as he declared his name to be, did not bring out any new evidence to materially affect the case, one way or the other, and the verdict was the same as in the former trial.
Again his attorneys carried the case through the territorial supreme court, and then on to the supreme court of the United States, securing another trial with the same result.
Still hoping to wear out the prosecution, and especially the unceasing efforts of Mr. Turner, the father of the murdered man, the attorneys for the fourth time invoked the aid of the supreme court and secured a fourth and last trial. Despite the cunning of his attorneys, and the sympathy of the powerful Mormon church, which he had in some manner secured, there could be but the one verdict, and that of wilful and premeditated murder. Hopt heard the verdict with stoical indifference, and as the laws of the territory permitted a man to choose between shooting and hanging as the death penalty, Hopt chose to be shot, and Judge Zane set the time for his execution on Thursday, August 11, 1887, more than seven years after the commission of the awful crime.