There was then but one term of the district court held each year in Denver, and it came in January. The trial of Corman came on in January, 1867. The crime was then fresh in the minds of the people, and the proceedings were watched with very great interest. The jurors who sat in the case were H. M. Goodrich, W. S. Peabody, Eli Daugherty, R. S. Permar, Edward Bates, L. M. Sprague, C. M. Birdsall, Watson Holyer, W. S. Hurd, W. H. Levain, Robert Tait and Dwight S. Thompson. The people were represented by Hon. V. D. Markham, then prosecuting attorney, while Messrs. M. Benedict, G. W. Chamberlain and —— Bostwick appeared for the defense. The case was ably presented on both sides, the defense relying principally upon impeaching the testimony of Mrs. Kerwin, who was the most important witness for the prosecution. They succeeded in making such, an impression upon the mind of one of the jurors as to cause him to hold out for acquittal against the other eleven, who favored a verdict of murder in the first degree, the penalty for which would have been hanging. The obstinacy of this one man resulted in the bringing in a report of disagreement by the jury. The case was thus continued until the next term of court. By the time this term convened Mrs. Kerwin had died, and Mr. Haskell had left the city, and their testimony could not be obtained. Hence the case was dismissed, and the murderer of Cheap John became a free man in 1868.
When Corman was turned out of jail he found Denver a very disagreeable place of residence, as everybody believed him guilty of murder. He went to Georgetown, where he soon became known as one of the worst sots of the town, earning a scanty living by scrubbing out barrooms. Even his woman deserted him.
Gen. Cook saw him in Georgetown in 1874, and asked why he did not tell all about the murder of Cheap John.
“If I should do so,” he replied, “they couldn’t prove it on me.”
Poor fellow! he met with a worse fate than death on the scaffold. There was in those days an unused tunnel in the side of a mountain near Georgetown, extending in about a hundred feet. The people of the town were startled one quiet afternoon by a report of an explosion coming from the direction of this tunnel, which seemed to them to be loud enough for the bursting loose of a volcano. Almost the whole city was shocked.
The temporary bewilderment having subsided, an investigating committee was organized to explore the tunnel. They went in with lights, and soon discovered to their dismay that there was fresh flesh sticking to some of the rocks of the wall. Other pieces of flesh, and some clothing and fragments of bones were found scattered about. There was enough of the clothes left to identify them as those of old Corman. He had gone into the tunnel—for what purpose no one will probably ever know—and had found a five-pound can of nitro-glycerine lying on the ground, and had evidently picked it up to examine it, and, finding that it was nothing that he wanted, had thrown it down, creating the explosion which had shocked the town, and which tore his carcass into shreds.
People said it was Fate that did it. Who knows?
And this is the end of the story which began eight or nine years before, with Gen. Cook’s hearing a strange noise while crossing the Cherry creek bridge. Strange, isn’t it, how all these scoundrels meet their just deserts? There are other laws than those which the courts deal with, and superior to them. One of these prescribes punishment for the murderer. It always comes sooner or later.