Brock refused to come down, and, despite the assurances and entreaties of the officers, continued to repeat his intention to take the fatal leap. The stern and determined expression upon the desperate man’s face, his cool and collected demeanor, convinced all who saw and heard him that an awful tragedy would soon be enacted.
At this juncture the prisoner placed a table near the balcony railing, mounted it, declared he was alone and friendless in the world, and preferred death to life imprisonment. He asked that his uncle, Mr. Harrell—then at Jackson, although the prisoner did not know it—be telegraphed the information of his death, and that his body be sent to his mother.
Sergeant Montgomery, meantime, had conceived the idea of climbing the latticed walls of the court, and while the other officers diverted his attention, would reach the fourth story, directly under him, and overturn the table, and before the prisoner could regain his footing he would pinion him and prevent his suicide. Divesting himself of coat and hat, the Sergeant climbed as far as the third story, when he was prevailed upon not to risk his life in such a hazardous feat, as the prisoner would undoubtedly knife him before he could carry out his project. He then came down.
The officers vied with each other in appealing to the prisoner’s manhood, and entreating him to forego the fatal project. Finally Detective Jackson and Marshal Mathews noiselessly went up the stair-way until they stood on the landing just behind and about six feet from the prisoner, urging him all the while to put away his knife and come down stairs. Detective Jackson, approaching within three or four feet of the prisoner, said:
“Joe, you are not going to jump, are you?”
“Yes, I am,” replied the prisoner, and stepping from the table to the railing, he sprang head foremost into the awful space. Vaulting over and over in his rapid flight to the stone-covered corridor, sixty feet below, he fell, crushed and bleeding, with a sound that reverberated through the long tiers of cells, from which the gaping eyes of his fellow prisoners looked, in speechless horror, upon a tragedy so appalling as to make strong men shudder and turn pale. The unfortunate victim of his own desperation lingered for about one hour, unconscious, his body writhing in horrible contortions until death ensued. He was buried in the prison cemetery at Jackson at five o’clock on the evening of his death.
The author, having repeatedly visited Brock while confined at Jackson, takes pleasure in acquitting the officers of the State penitentiary of any maltreatment of the prisoner.
The prisoner made no attempt to secure witnesses; in fact, repeatedly stated he had none. The statement written and thrown from the window, is, therefore, not entitled to credit. A few minutes before his suicide he freely confessed to having received fair treatment at the hands of the prison officials.
The following lines were found on his person after death, indicating that the bold outlaw, in his hours of retrospection, had garnered the bitter fruitage of despair and remorse so aptly depicted:
“How wise we are when the chance is gone,