Allen Case Adjourned

The Bluefield Daily Telegraph,
Bluefield, W. Va.
Sunday Morning, May 5, 1912

ALLEN CASE ADJOURNED TO LET JUDGE VOTE

State Continues Efforts to Prove Plot To Kill Hillsville Of- ficials Was Hatched.

"IS ALL THE BOYS READY," SAID FLOYD

Witnesses Testify That Allens En- couraged Each Other in Courtroom on Day of Tragedy Before The Shooting Commenced.

COURT WILL RESUME SESSIONS ON TUESDAY

Wytheville, Va., May 4. --The state continued to introduce evidence in the Allen case today with the evident intention of proving that a deep laid plot did exist among the Allens who fully intended to shoot a big hole in the court house if Floyd Allen was sentenced by Judge Massie. Court adjourned this afternoon to permit the judge and several attorneys to go to Roanoke to cast their votes in the mayoralty primary.

Sidney Spraker created quite a sensation today when he was called to the stand and told of the actions of Floyd Allen in the Hillsville court house on the day of the tragedy. Spraker said Floyd Allen walked over to the stove where he was approached by a young man believed to be Claude Allen, who reached for his hand saying, "Let me feel your pulse, old man." And after a short conversation with the boy, Floyd bent over his head and held a whispered conversation with Claude, which the witness overheard, and repeated as follows: "Is all the boys ready?" Claude nodded and then walked towards a bench near the judge's stand, while Spraker repeated to others what he had heard. Cross-examination did not shake Spraker's evidence.

A number of witnesses who were present in the court room on the day of the tragedy were questioned and each described the firing of the shots and subsequent events as he saw them, no material facts differing from those which are already been presented.

W. D. Tompkins, an attorney, who was in the court room, and Preston Fowler, a farmer, both testified to seeing Victor Allen with a pistol in the court room, during the shooting, and Fowler testified to seeing Allen on the rail in front of the judge's stand as a rest for his pistol.

J. M. Bevill testified to a conversation he had with Floyd Allen in March before the shooting, in which Allen said: "I am sorry we got into ___. I wish I had let the boys go on. We can't get any fair trial. I am willing to pay a fine, but if they sentence me to the penitentiary I will make the biggest hole in the court house ever seen." Speaking of Judge Bolen, his attorney, the witness testified that Floyd Allen said: "If Judge Bolen doesn't do his duty, I will fire him up with the rest of them" to which the witness testified that he replied: "I hope for God's sake you won't do that." Floyd answered by saying, "I'll submit to anything, but I won't go to prison."

The court will resume its sessions Monday.