Murder in the first degree?
by Bill Miller for
the Mail Tribune
Monday, December 9th
2019
William Justus, one of Jacksonville’s
earliest pioneers, was dead, shot through the head on a Sunday morning in 1883
by his oldest son, John.
John said the family dogs had treed a
squirrel and were making such a racket that his father put down his newspaper
and told John to shoot the squirrel and shut the dogs up. John grabbed his
rifle and powder flask from the table in the corner, walked out onto the front
porch, loaded a ball, and shot and killed the squirrel.
Chicken hawks then began swooping down
on the lifeless animal, so John continued to fire until they scattered.
“I left the front porch to put the gun
away,” John told the coroner’s jury. “I had just started in the door — the gun
being still cocked. I had the gun lying across my left arm and I started across
the floor to put it away.
“I went to let the hammer down and I
suppose touched the trigger. The gun went off. I think I was about six feet
from the door. I suppose it is about the same distance to where my father was
sitting.”
The coroner’s jury spent the entire
afternoon examining the horrifying scene. In talking with
John was 10 years old when William
Justus and his wife, Lucinda, crossed the Plains from Iowa to Southern Oregon
with seven of their eventual 12 children.
“Fourteen persons with ox team and
schooner wagon,” John said. “We landed at Jacksonville in the fall, late in
1854. I did a man’s work and also walked barefooted all the way, driving 12
head of milch cows which gave us milk, all the way through.”
On June 18, 1883, 14 weeks after his
father’s death, John, now 38, was arrested, charged with murder, and began his
eight-day trial. The jury returned a verdict of guilty of murder in the first
degree.
Allowed to address the court, John
declared his innocence in a long and sometimes rambling statement, trying to
show that the death had been an accident.
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| Jacksonville Oregon Courthouse |
Passing his first death sentence, Judge
Hanna seemed overcome with emotion as he ordered John to hang. John, however,
was calm and quiet.
On appeal, the Oregon Supreme Court
reversed the verdict and ordered a new trial. They ruled that the grand jury
had allowed illegal testimony from a non-professional “expert” who wasn’t
competent to analyze the appearance and characteristics of a gunshot wound, and
that the evidence was insufficient to warrant the verdict rendered.
In a second trial, 10 jurors at first
voted for first degree murder, while two voted manslaughter. With further
discussion, they settled on second degree murder, and John Justus was sentenced
to life in prison.
Less than 10 years later, John received
a parole and returned to Jackson County.
In 1920, he was 75, living at the
Jackson County Poor Farm in Talent, and had submitted a letter to the Mail
Tribune about his early life. When and where he died is unknown, but he likely
was buried in a pauper’s grave.
An anchor, carved at the top of the
stone that marks his father’s grave in the Jacksonville Cemetery, is a symbol
of William’s faith in God and not evidence of a naval career. His wife, who had
died 10 years after her husband, along with a 1-year-old daughter who died
earlier lie nearby in unmarked graves.
Writer Bill Miller is the author of
“History Snoopin’,” a collection of his previous history columns and stories.
Reach him at newsmiller@live.com.
