A mob of several hundred men and boys was formed the night after their capture, to break into the jail and hang the two negroes, but lacking leadership it was soon dispersed by the police.
Public excitement and the danger of lynching induced the calling of a special grand jury, the indictment of Green and Withers and a speedy trial. They were tried separately. On the 22d of June the trial of Green opened. Two days were spent empaneling a jury, and on June 25 he was convicted of murder in the first degree, and sentenced to be hanged on July 27. Withers was allowed to plead guilty to murder in the second degree, and was sentenced to the state penitentiary at Cañon City for life, where he is now serving his time, having made two or three ineffectual attempts to secure a pardon.
The efforts of Green’s attorneys to secure a new trial were unsuccessful, and he was executed on the day set by Judge Elliott, July 27. The scaffold, which was a very simple affair of the “twitch up” variety, was erected in the bend of Cherry creek, directly east of the Smith chapel, West Denver, and about midway between Broadway and Colfax Avenue bridges. The execution was public and free to everybody, and the crowd was estimated at 15,000. Green stepped upon the low scaffold in an easy, careless manner, fully conscious of the fact that he was entertaining the crowd of his life, and deriving no small amount of satisfaction therefrom. He was permitted by Sheriff Cramer to deliver a long rambling speech, in the course of which he advised everybody to beware of drink and gambling halls, which he said had led to his ruin. At the conclusion of his speech the black cap was adjusted, and at 2:20 Sheriff Cramer cut the rope. Green’s body rose slowly into the air and his limbs twitched convulsively for several minutes. At the end of twenty-five minutes he was pronounced dead, and his body was taken down and delivered to the undertakers. The autopsy disclosed the fact that his neck was not broken.
Thus ended the career of as depraved a wretch as ever existed. According to the story of his life, written by him for a local paper, his thieving propensities were early developed, as was his disregard for human life. At the age of fourteen he had shot his father while the latter was chastising him for a theft, inflicting a severe wound. After that he had served sentences in innumerable jails and workhouses for various crimes, principally stealing. He had also served a five-year term in the Missouri penitentiary for a burglary committed at Lexington, a little town near which he was born. The trial and execution of Green scared hundreds of petty crooks away from Denver, and for a long time afterward the city was almost entirely free from holdups and burglaries.
THE ITALIAN MURDERS.
CHAPTER VII.
THE ITALIAN MURDERS—THE GREAT DENVER SENSATION OF 1875—FOUR DECAYING BODIES FOUND AT 2334 LAWRENCE STREET—A HORRIBLE SIGHT—SUSPICION POINTS TO A BAND OF FELLOW-COUNTRYMEN—GEN. COOK TAKES THE CASE IN HAND.
One of the most horrible crimes that ever cast a silhouette athwart the darkened pages of criminal history was revealed to the startled citizens of Denver on the 21st day of October, 1875, consisting in the discovery of what afterwards became known throughout the state as the Italian murders. The revelation of the crime, the obscurity of the victims, the length of time elapsing between the perpetration and the discovery, the mystery enveloping the deed with an apparently impregnable mantle, and the swift following detection and apprehension of the perpetrators, all combine to form the basis for one of the most interesting narratives ever found in criminal or detective literature.