The Man Behind the Bars

by Winifred Louise Taylor

Shannon's reputation for cool nerve was undisputed, and it was said that he did not know what fear was. In order to keep a clear head and steady hand he refrained from dissipation; he prided himself upon never endangering the lives of those whose houses he entered, and despised the bunglers who did not know their business well enough to avoid personal encounter in their midnight raids. Unlike most men of his calling he always used a candle on entering a building, and his associates often told him that sometime that candle would get him into trouble.

One night the house of a prominent and popular citizen was entered. While the burglar was pursuing his nefarious work the citizen suddenly seized him by the shoulders, pulling him backward. The burglar managed to fire backward over his own head, the citizen's hold was relaxed, and the burglar fled. The shot proved fatal; the only trace left by the assailant was a candle dropped on the floor.

A reward was offered for the capture and conviction of the murderer. Circumstantial evidence connected with the candle led to the arrest of George Brett, a young man of the same town, not of the criminal class. The verdict in the case turned upon the identification of the piece of candle found in the house with one procured by the accused the previous day; and in the opinion of the court this identification was proven. Brett admitted having obtained a piece of candle from that grocer on that afternoon, but claimed that he had used it in a jack-o'-lantern made for a child in the family.[12] Proof was insufficient to convict the man of the actual crime, but this bit of evidence, with some other less direct, was deemed sufficiently incriminating to warrant sending Brett to prison for a term of years—seventeen, I think; and though the convicted man always asserted his innocence his guilt was taken for granted while six years slipped by.

Ellis Shannon, in the meantime, had been arrested for burglary in another State and had served a sentence in another penitentiary. He seemed to have lost his nerve, and luck had turned against him. On his release still another burglary resulted in a ten years' sentence, this time to the same prison where Brett was paying the penalty of the crime in which the candle had played so important a part.

The two convicts happened to have cells in the same part of the prison, and for the first time Ellis Shannon came face to face with George Brett. A few days later Shannon requested an interview with the warden. In the warden's office he announced that he was the man guilty of the crime for which Brett was suffering, and that Brett had no part in it. He drew a sketch of the house burglarized—not altogether correct—gave a succinct account of the whole affair, and declared his readiness to go into court, plead guilty to murder, and accept the sentence, even to the death penalty. Action on this confession was promptly taken. Shannon was sent into court and on his confession alone was sentenced to imprisonment for life.

Brett was overjoyed by this vindication and the expectation of immediate release. But, no; the prosecuting parties were unconvinced by Shannon's confession, which, in their opinion, did not dispose of the evidence against Brett.

It was a curious state of affairs, and one perhaps never paralleled, that, while a man's unsupported statement was considered sufficient to justify the imposing of a sentence to life imprisonment, this statement counted for nothing as affecting the fate of the other man involved. And there was never a trace of collusion between the two men, either at the time of the crime or afterward.

Shannon's story of the crime I shall give in his own terse language, quoted from his confession published in the newspapers:

"Up to the time of killing Mr. —— I had never even wounded anybody. I had very little regard for the rights of property, but to shoot a man dead at night in his own house was a climax of villainy I had not counted on. A professional thief is not so blood-thirsty a wretch as he is thought to be.... I am setting up no defense for the crime of murder or burglary—it is all horrible enough. It was a miserable combination of circumstances that caused the shooting that night. I was not feeling well and so went into the house with my overcoat on—something I had never done before. It was buttoned to the throat. I had looked at Mr. —— a moment before and he was asleep. I had then turned and taken down his clothes. I had a candle in one hand and the clothes in the other. I would have left in a second of time when suddenly, before I could turn, Mr. —— spoke. As quick as the word he had his arms thrown around me; the candle went out and we were in the dark.