May, 1893, Cash, $2,500
July, 1893, Cash, 1,000
December, 1893, Cash, 750
January, 1894, Fort Worth
Incumbrance, 1,725
February, 1894, Cash, 1,750
October, 1894, Cash, 1,000
October, 1894, Cash, 412
————— $9,137
—————
$963
Shown by cashed drafts and checks endorsed by M. Williams, and other
forms of evidence.
In the case of Benj. F. Pitezel, the motive is said to have been the
money to be derived from his insurance, and more than this from his
Texas real-estate holdings. In regard to the former, I can only
reiterate that he was worth more to me each year he lived than the
amount he was insured for, and each year he was becoming more valuable
to me; therefore, why should I take his life? His real estate was not
of one dollar’s value to him, and could only be of value to me after he
had signed certain papers, the want of which I felt within thirty days
after his death. This is also true of his patents and other belongings.
The claim that I designed to kill the six other members of the Pitezel
family to avoid being held accountable for the small sum of $5,200,
seems too unlikely a motive to call for a denial, and, excluding this,
it will be hard to find another, when the care and attention I have
given them for years is considered.
In conclusion, I wish to say that I am but a very ordinary man, even
below the average in physical strength and mental ability, and to have
planned and executed the stupendous amount of wrong-doing that has been
attributed to me would have been wholly beyond my power, and even had I
been able to have performed it, a still greater task would have been
the successful elaboration of a story at the time of my arrest that, if
untrue, would have provided for the many exigencies that at that time I
could not have known would have occurred later in the case; and I feel
justified in asking from the general public a suspension of judgment
as to my guilt or innocence, not while the various charges can be
proven against me, but while I can disprove them, a task which I feel
able to satisfactorily and expeditiously accomplish. And here I cannot
say finis—it is not the end—for besides doing this there is also the
work of bringing to justice those for whose wrong-doings I am to-day
suffering, and this not to prolong or save my own life, for since the
day I heard of the Toronto horror I have not cared to live; but that to
those who have looked up to and honored me in the past it shall not in
the future be said that I suffered the ignominious death of a murderer.