Revisiting the matter of the murder of Newt Turpin (see http://turpintraces.blogspot.com/2012/02/no-remorse.html), I have searched for evidence that Judge Moses Kinkaid acquitted Louis Goochey in a second trial. Thanks to a genealogy friend, Susan Petersen, who this weekend posted a link to some digitized Nebraska Newspapers (see nebnewspapers.unl.edu) and I found a reference to the real story in the Omaha Daily Bee, November 26, 1895, Page 5.
The presiding judge was Judge Barlow, not Judge Kinkaid. In the article, the murderer's name was spelled as Goochy, not Goochey. And the article was in the Omaha Bee but not found in the local papers, perhaps due to the fact some of those volumes did not survive the years. If one just keeps looking, sometimes things finally show up!
Anyway, we can verify that the second case resulted in an acquittal. The original conviction was for manslaughter. It was shown that one of the jurors was disqualified and Goochey deserved a new trial. The theory of the defense was that the killing was excusable on grounds of self-defense. The jury was out for 70 hours but could not agree.
All families have a bit of folklore develop through the years, with embellishments added where appropriate to make it a good tale. And it's a challenge to track down the facts to verify them. This is not quite the same story as was told. Definitely a bit more dull. It's the exciting stories that drive genealogists sometimes.
But, another question resolved!
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