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Harris Quoted , As Denying SlayingsHARRISBURG, Ark. (AP) -Deputy Sheriff Pete Van Horn testified Tuesday that Frank Harris told him that he did not kill Mr and Mrs Leonard De-ver.Van Horn, testifying in Harris’ first degree murder trial here, said Harris told him that Dever shot his wife.Harris is being tried in the deaths last Dec. 20 of Mrs. Dever and four of her six children Harris has been convicted and sentenced to life in prison in the death of Dever the same nightVan Horn said Harris made the statement in the county jail April 24. after his conviction in Dever’s deathSheriff Ray Holmes of Poinsett County, Deputy Bill Hook of Craighead County and Sgt. Jim Hunnicutt of the State Police testified that Harris told them he had not been to the Dever home.They said he said he got cut near his eye while working on , a car, and that he got a gallon j of moonshine whisky in Harris- ] burg the night of Dec. 20. ,Van Horn quoted Harris as saying that;Harris went to the Dever 1 home and traded his shotgun : and seven shells to Dever for ■ a gallon of moonshine whisky. The Devers and Harris began i to gamble. Dever got drunk accused Mrs Dever and Harris of lt;cheating.Mrs. Dever denied this, De- lt;ver shot her, and then he hit i Harris under the eye with the gun. Harris left, ran 1Mi miles, turned and saw the Dever house in flames.He returned, finding two surviving Dever children—Ronald 9, and Mary, 6 — outside the house. He put them in his car and went back to see if there was anything else he could do. Flames pi evented him from entering the house.He returned to the car and the children were gone. He went home. He did not tell the police because he was an ex-convict, “and there was nothing else 1 could do,” Van Horn quoted Harris.Ronald and Mary told officers that a man demanded money from their parents and shot them when the parents refused to give him money. The children said the man set fire to the house.Dr. Daniel Matthews of the University of Arkansas Graduate Institute of Technology in Little Rock testified that he found traces of gunpower on
Newspaper Details
El Dorado Times
El Dorado, Arkansas, US
Wed, May 06, 1964
Page 5
Full Page
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USA 22 Mar 2025
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