Then and now

Once again, the present writer was struck by the same two things in the course of reviewing a century-old murder case: They murdered for different reasons, or in a different mental state, in the old days, it seems. And the newspapers certainly wrote it up differently.

A few years ago I remarked on the flowery, classical language of the anonymous reporter who chronicled the slaying of young Ella Wray by her erstwhile lover, George Korb. He told us much more about his own feelings than of the facts of the case. The "waters of Lethe," not those of a humble Vernon County branch, had closed over the poor girl's head. The cedars in the Wray farmyard weren't merely gloomy, they "wept Niobe-like." (I wondered if any contemporary journalist were available who'd have known Lethe's waters from Niobe's tears.)

"Murder Most Foul!" screamed the Nevada Evening Post headline on Jan. 8, 1894. (The Post afterwards merged with the Daily Mail.) Subhead after subhead followed, after the custom of the time: "Chas. McEwen Cruelly Shot by Geo. Castlebury." "A Leaden Messsenger of Death Went Through His Lungs." (Might we call such a "message" a "bullet-doux"?)

"Oh, Will the Doctor Never Come? I'm Not Afraid to Die," "Were the Words of the Dying Boy to His Weeping Mother." And so on for several more lachrymose lines.

I think Steve Moyer or Justin Baldwin should try writing up the next local murder case in such compelling terms. Wouldn't it break the monotony of "Just the facts, ma'am"?

The facts, if we must bother with them, were these: Late Saturday night, Dr. E. L. Priest wasn't merely awoken but "aroused from his slumbers," and hustled some 11 miles southeast of Nevada, to near the Vernon Star School, where "the bloody tragedy was enacted."

"There Charles McEwen had been coolly and deliberately shot and fell a victim to a murderous bullet fired by George Castlebuiy." (Note the lack of any "alleged.") Castlebury, having loosed the poetic "leaden messenger of death, wheeled his horse and rode away."

McEwen managed to make a statement to a local justice of the peace just before he died. Castlebuiy, it seems, had paid court to McEwen's sister Pearl, or Pearly, while employed by their father as a farm laborer. He now worked in the Joplin area mines

The disapproving family's efforts to discourage the affair had included spreading rumors about Castlebury. The latter took particular exception to the tale, which he blamed on McEwen, that he was "in the habit of frequenting bad houses" and "running after bad women."

He came back, and late Saturday found McEwen at the schoolhouse, where an afternoon church service had been held. Castlebury's brother-in-law Mr. Beeson last saw them about dusk riding east together. "Later shots were heard but residents did not realize the meaning till young McEwen appeared and weak from loss of blood was taken off his horse, and was soon a corpse." But he had time to tell how the quarrel had become one of manly honor.

"George, I never said it," he repeatedly protested.

"You are a liar!" retorted Castlebury. He drew a revolver and fired three times, but managed to hit McEwen only once. McEwen clung to life till 10:00 that evening.

Sheriff Elkanah Scroghem was notified and reached the scene with Deputy E. A. Ewing. Castlebury had made no secret of his intention to return home. The sheriff beat him there ("an expeditious and successful piece of work," said the newspaper), easily captured him at a brotherin-law's house near Diamond, and brought him back on the train Monday.

Castlebury's defense was that, in the dusk, he thought McEwen was drawing a revolver.

And he must have made a favorable impression. Venue was changed to Dade County, where the case was tried in April, 1895. Found guilty of second-degree murder, Castlebury was sentenced to 12 years. The verdict was said to have left Vernon Countians unhappy.The Dade County Advocate reported the conclusion of the case matter-of-factly, in sharp contrast with the accounts of the crime in the two Nevada papers, which seemed to see the affair as a contest to determine who could churn out the purplest prose. Typically of those days, all the accounts were without bylines. So we'll never know what frustrated novelist or melodramatist knew a bullet as a "leaden messenger of death," and to whom the Beeson house was "the Death Scene," and homicide wasn't mere "murder" but "Murder Most Foul."

Castlebury came off better than the standard Victorian "villain," all too often depicted as subhuman, depraved, and of course clearly guilty (so no need to for such mealymouthed terms as "alleged"). He did, however, have "rough features," didn't seem "disturbed"enough by his deed, and had the effrontery to smile and laugh once or twice when interviewed.

Newsmen fell back, for predictable contrast, on the goodness of the victim, "about 18, a bright, brave young man, very popular in the neighborhood. He was a diligent student at school, and was highly regarded by his schoolmates and by all who knew him."

"The largest gathering I ever saw at a funeral in the country," noted Judge W. A. Gose, "was that which gathered Monday morning at Marvin Chapel in Badger Township to bury the remains of Charlie McEwen. The procession was at least a quarter of a mile long, and a large crowd had assembled at the church before the arrival of the body."

"The people who knew the young man best," the judge went on, "were deeply incensed and at one time it was feared that the citizens might take the execution ofjustice into their own hands." "An innocent boy" had been "murdered in the most coldblooded way."

Pearl McEwen was the most deeply affected of all by her brother's death. "The fact that she deemed herself the cause of his death added a most distressing feature to her sorrow." The neighbors made short work of this idea, on the grounds that "Between Castlebury and the young lady there had been a total estrangement for some months."

Still, her "sorrow" leaves one wondering: Was it the family badmouthing of Castlebuiy that had brought on the "estrangement"? And was there any truth behind it?