TWO TESTIFY IN THE ALLEN CASE

The Bluefield Daily Telegraph, Bluefield, W. Va.
Wednesday Morning, November 13, 1912

TWO TESTIFY IN THE ALLEN CASE

First Day of Trial Consumed In Outline Case, Sidna Sits With Wife and Daughters.

Wytheville, Va., Nov. 12. —That the first shot fired in the Hillsville courthouse tragedy came from that corner of the room in which Claude and Sidna Allen were standing, was the testimony of the witnesses examined today in the trial of Sidna Allen for the murder of Judge Thornton L. Massie.

Former Judge Bolen, of Carroll, the first witness, said that he saw both the defendant and his nephew, who has already been sentenced to death for his part in the tragedy, with revolvers in hand, firing in the direction of Judge Massie.

W. D. Thompkins, a Hillsville attorney, another witness, saw the same and also saw Allen and one of the Edwards boys advance toward the court officials, from the rear of the room, with pistols leveled, but was not sure which of the Edwards boys it was.

Only two witnesses were examined, the greater part of the day being devoted to the opening statements of counsel, which indicated that the prosecution and defense would be continued along the same lines as in the previous trials, growing out of the Hillsville tragedy.

The prisoner, Sidna Allen, was brought in this morning and took his seat in the rear of the counsel for the defense. He glanced at the jury in the box and took a casual survey of the court room. Later his wife and two daughters came into the court room and were given seats beside the accused husband and father. Mrs. Allen was neatly dressed and her countenance portrays and unusual degree of intelligence. In fact, she is apparently above the ordinary country woman both as to her manner of dress and in her general appearance.

The little girls are both beautiful, and both exhibited an extreme tenderness for their father in his hour of trouble.

As soon as court convened this morning, Hon. J. C. Wysor of Pulaski began the opening statement for the commonwealth. He followed practically the same lines laid down in the opening for the state in the trial of the other members of the Allen clan, charging complicity of the prisoner in the shooting up of the Hillsville court and the murder of the court officials. He laid particular stress on the fact that the commonwealth would show that Allen is guilty of the murder of Judge Massie, and intimated that it would be proven that he fired one or more shots into the body of Judge Massie.

Following Mr. Wysor, Hon. J. C. Buxton, of Winston-Salem, N. C., took the floor and opened the case to the jury from the standpoint of the defense. He said they would undertake to show that Sidna Allen did not do any shooting until the firing became general and then it was in self-defense, and in the defense of his kinsmen from the shots being fired by the court officials.

Mr. Buxton told the jury that he would prove that shots that entered Judge Massie’s body and the chair he occupied came from the side of the court room occupied by the firing court officials.

It was past twelve o’clock when Mr. Buxton concluded his address to the jury and the commonwealth called the first witness. It was Judge D. W. Bolen, of Hillsville, counsel for Floyd Allen in the case in which he was sentenced to one year in the penitentiary.

It seems that it will be a great legal fight, and every inch of ground will be hotly contested. R. H. Willis, of Roanoke, associated with Col. Buxton and Mr. Bruce is not taking an active part as he did in the other cases, but he will be ready to prompt his colleagues and to assist them with his splendid knowledge of the incidents? as produced in the former trials.

Col. Buxton is a man of commanding appearance. He represented Sidna Allen on a counterfeiting charge in the federal courts of North Carolina, which suit was still pending at the time of the Hillsville tragedy. He is tall and with iron gray hair and a short-cropped iron gray mustache and weighs over two hundred and fifty pounds.

Attorney Bruce, of Wise, is a much smaller man, but is keen and alert, watching for every vantage ground for his client.

Judge N. P. Oglesby, of Bristol, also represents the defense.

The commonwealth is represented by the same attorneys as appeared in the cases formerly tried. They are S. Floyd Landreth, commonwealth’s attorney of Carroll, Hon. J. C. Wysor, of Pulaski, John S. Draper of Pulaski, and W. S. Poage, of Wytheville.