JOE STELKER, Sworn In For The State, 96th To Testify

Reading Time: 5 minutes [772 words]

JOE STELKER, sworn for the Defendant.

I have got charge of the varnishing department at the pencil factory,

about sixty people work under me. I saw the spot that Mr. Barrett

claimed he had found in front of the young ladies' dressing room. It

looked like someone had some coloring in a bottle and splashed it on the

floor. Chief Beavers asked me to find out whether it was varnish or not.

I saw the white stuff on it. It looked like a composition they use on the

eyelet machine or face powder. They carry that stuff around in buckets

in the metal room. It gets spilled on the floor and looks something like

face powder. The spots look like some varnish. The floor in the metal

room is swept once a week. It is never washed. The spots look as if it

had been made three days before. I would not have noticed it had not

my attention been called to it. The floor is a greasy one. The white stuff

looked like it come from the eyelet machine. The alleged blood spots

could have been made with a transparent red varnish. If it is that kind

of varnish it will soak in and look something like blood. If it is pigment

it will show up right red. They use this kind of varnish in bottles in the

metal room. I tried a stain on the floor there and it looked just like that

spot that Barrett found. Everybody was nervous and shaky on Monday.

The varnish I experimented with soaked in the floor and looked the same

as the blood spot. I have seen paint all over the floor, it splashes out of

the bucket and they just sweep it up. I was at the undertaker's Sunday afternoon at two o 'clock when Frank was there. Mr. Quinn, Mr. Ziganke, Mr. Darley and Mr. Schiff were there. I looked at the body with Mr. Ziganke. No one else was present. I have known Jim Conley about two years. His general character for truth and veracity is very bad, therefore, I would not believe him on oath.

CROSS EXAMINATION.

Frank came from Brooklyn. I am no kin to Mr. Frank or any of his

people. I do not belong to his society. I have never heard anything said

against Conley, except since Frank was indicted. I also heard he was in

the chaingang. I saw him in the chaingang on Forsyth Street. I saw

him with shackles on. I don't know what he was sent up for. I sent him

out for 25 cents worth of beer and he filled it half full of water and he denied

doing it. I could tell it was filled up by the taste of it. I know he

did it because he had a suspicious look about him. That was last summer.

Ziganke helped me drink beer. That's about all the drinking I

have ever seen there. At the undertaker's Mr. Frank had on a dark suit

of clothes. He had no raincoat with him. We went to the undertaker's

for the purpose of seeing the body. Mr. Frank did not ask me to meet

him there. I went in to view the body and then came out. Mr. Frank

came there ten minutes after we got there. While we were in there Mr.

Frank had come and was speaking to Mr. Darley. I don't know how long

I was sitting there. I was too nervous to know. I felt nauseated and

nervous before I went in to see the body. When I went in to view the

body Mr. Frank was standing outside talking with Mr. Schiff and Mr.

Darley. Mr. Frank went in to view the body later on, ten or twenty or

thirty minutes later. I was sitting down waiting for the rest of the men

while he went there. Ziganke was sitting with me. I don't know whether

Mr. Frank went in the room to see the body or not. Mr. Frank was nervous

when he got there, and when he came out just the same. Just the

same expression he has got on his face now. The room was full of people

when Mr. Frank went in there. I went down to the undertaker's to

see who was murdered. I did not know that she had already been identified as Mary Phagan. I only heard when I got to the undertaker's. I didn't see the impress of the cord on the neck. I just took one look and then came right out again. I saw the discoloration of the eye and that bruise and I sort of felt sick and I walked right out.

RE-DIRECT EXAMINATION.

I am a German and I am accustomed to drinking my beer. I have

never trusted Jim Conley after he put water in my beer.