FOUND HER BOY IN
THE PRISONER'S DOCK.
MOTHER HAD BEEN TOLD HE'D
BE HOME AFTER A WHILE.
"Do You Know This Man?" She Was
Asked -- "Why, It's Ernest, My
Boy," Slowly Said the
Aged Witness.
For more than a year Ernest H. Wolf, accused of murder, has been in the county jail, but his mother did not know where he was. On the witness stand in Judge E. E. Porterfield's division of the circuit court yesterday, she said:
"They told me my boy had been in an accident and would come home after a while."
Even then Mrs. Wolf, who is 74 years of age and retains her faculties with difficulty, did not understand what charge her son was facing. She was put on the stand to support the defense of insanity.
"Do you know this man?" she was asked, as the attorneys pointed to Wolf.
Slowly the old woman got out of the witness chair and went over to the defendant. There she threw her arms around him and sobbed:
"Why, it's Ernest, my boy."
For several minutes mother and son were fast in each other's embrace, while tears came to both.
Even after she left the courtroom the aged woman did not realize that her son was on trial for murder.
Dr. B. A. Poorman and Dr. Fred J. Hatch were called as experts on insanity by the defense. They said there were evidences of a disordered mind on the part of the mother.
"Why is the attention of the public not called to insane persons before damage is done?" Dr. Poorman was asked.
"It should be done, but seldom is," said the physician. "Relatives are slow about getting into court and having one of their family declared insane. So it is almost impossible to secure commitment for insanity until the person in question does something which brings him to the public notice and his case its into the hands of public officials.
The case of Wolf, who is charged with murder in the first degree for shooting James R. Smothers in Stelling's saloon on Westport avenue in November of 1907, went to the jury last evening. Smothers died five days after the shooting, which grew out of a barroom fight. Wolf is 36 years of age. Judge Porterfield announced that he would hold a night session to finish, if necessary, because he holds juvenile court today. So there was a rush to finish in order to get everything before the jury before 6:30 o'clock.
After deliberating until late last night t he jury found him guilty of second degree murder. He was sentenced to ten years in prison.
