As the Daily News would later describe
it, "the sweating process began." The suspects were stripped of their
clothes, and the questioning continued. Eventually, Walker broke, and implicated Earl as
the one who had fired both shots. Chief O'Leary was credited with obtaining the
confession. Sidney witnesses brought to Lima said they identified the men. The case seemed
open and shut.Hundreds of men, seething with hostility, gathered at the downtown
traction line depot in Sidney for the return of the culprits. O'Leary slipped them off at
an earlier stop, walked them around south of the jail and in through a side entrance,
giving them cells on separate floors. He installed a 24 hour guard for each. Within a
week, the talk of lynching subsided.
By April 26th, a special grand jury was drawn, and it quickly returned an indictment
against both men. Each edition of the local papers carried not only the facts, but every
possible rumor and speculation about both the crime and the defendants. Both Earl and
Walker were hobos, who traveled from town to town by catching freight trains. Both used
aliases frequently, and each had prior criminal records.
Frank Earl's prior criminal record was exhaustively detailed in the tabloids. The Daily
News blared: "Earl Proves to be Ed Dalton, a Noted Crook." Within a
few days, prison records were received from Illinois. While incarcerated there several
years ago, Earl tried to avoid a work crew by letting two of his fingers get caught in a
machine. His entire arm was pulled in, and shredded up to the elbow. The local papers now
carried every lurid detail.
Judge Mathers determined that the cases were going to trial quickly. Several local
defense attorneys, including J. D. Barnes, were asked by Judge Mathers, but declined to
represent either defendant. Eventually, Judge Mathers appointed Percy R. Taylor and Hugh
R. Doorley to represent Earl. Charles Hall agreed to handle Walker's case. At the
arraignment on May 6th, a trial date for Frank Earl was set for June 14th. Walker was
slated to face a jury a week later.
Meanwhile, the legal maneuvering began behind the scenes. Walker agrees to testify for
the state against Earl. After agreeing to the deal, prosecuting attorney Charles Marshall
and his co-counsel J. D. Barnes began to have doubts about Walker's story. Several doctors
were dispatched to reexamine Legg's remains. A second bullet was found in the body- and it
came from a 32 caliber gun, the kind found on Walker when he was arrested. Walker had lied
in his confession. Suddenly, the case was not quite as open and shut as it had seemed at
first .
On May 25th, Earl's attorneys filed motions to change the venue, or location, of the
trial, and to postpone the trial. The motions were heard the next Saturday morning, and
immediately overruled. Inexplicably, only one affidavit and no newspaper articles were
submitted in support of the motion to move the trial to another county, despite the
continuous and inflammatory publicity. For example, the Daily News opined in its
April 22nd edition: "The guilty parties have been captured and all that is left to
do now is to speedily punish them. A quick trial is demanded and must be had
immediately."