Alfred Meacham guilty of murder

MEACHAM IS GUILTY

IN SECOND DEGREE

Former Muucie Man Convicted

of Murder at Chattanooga,

Tennessee.

MOTION FOR A NEW TRIAL

Accused, Who is a Well-Known Glass

Worker, Killed a Friend While

Under Influence of Liquor.

[By Star Special Seervice.]

Chattanooga, Tenn., Oct. 13. — Although he heard the words "guilty of murder in the second degree with fif­teen years in the penitentiary," pronounced by the foreman of the jury this morning soon after the criminal court was called to order, Alfred Meacham, on trial for murder of Fred Cummings, never raised his eyes upward and failed to make any unusual demonstration unless it was a little more nervous twitching of the muscles or his face. He sad [sic] sat as if he were glued to his seat with his elbows on the arms of his chair and his eyes fixed on the floor, his right leg crossed over the left in the very attitude that had assumed in his seat since the very beginning of the celebrated case on last Monday morning.

When the unbroken silence died away, Judge Bancroft Murray, who sat by his associate counsel. Col. Head, arose and gave notice that he would file a motion for a new trial and this motion will probably be heard either the coming Saturday or the Saturday following. Attorney General Whitaker, who probably made the strongest ef­fort of his life to convict the defend­ant was present as were also a num­ber of the relatives of the deceased, including his mother, brother, Norman Cummings and sisters, who were seated on the left of the witness stand while on the other side were seated the two brothers of the defendant, W. H. Meacham, who is general manager of the glass works at Alton Park, where the tragedy occurred and who was shot in the hip at the time, and Frank Meacham, who is foreman of the plant.

MEACHAM LIVED IN MUNCIE.

Convicted Man Worked His Trade

Here and Elsewhere in Gas Belt.

During a residence of several years in Muncie with his brother William, Alfred Meacham was well known both in Muncie, Hartford City, where he also worked, and throughout the Gas belt. He was employed in the Hemingray glass plant and was an active worker in local union labor circles. Samuel Holman, a witness of Meacham's crime and whom he also at­tempted at the same time to kill, is a former Muncie man, being the son-in-law of Joseph Heirich, Mulberry and Second streets.

During the trial, which began last Monday morning, an attempt has been made by Meacham’s attorneys to show that he was temporarily insane. This plea and evidence submitted to support it was badly shattered, however, by the state’s attorneys.

Meacham left Muncie about seven years ago to enter the internal reve­nue service. After working at this for some time be became interested with his brother William in the Alton Park Glass company’s plant located in a suburb of Chattanooga.

It was in the offices of the plant that his crime was committed May 9, 1905. Cummings and Holman had been close friends of his until an altercation arose some time previous to the mur­der. Meacham met the two in the of­fices and, flushed with sudden anger and liquor, drew a revolver and shot Cummings down, then turned the weapon on Holman, who grappled with him. A shot intended for Hol­man wounded the brother of the mur­derer in the leg.