MURDER AT SALT LAKE CITY.
A Gentile Foully Assassinated for Marrying a Mormon Woman—Judicial Proceedings—Polygamy on its Trial.
From The Union Vedette, April 4.
We are called upon this morning to chronicle one of the most cold-blooded and inhuman murders that has ever fallen under our notice—unparalleled even in the bloody record of Utah's foulest crimes. The circumstances which led to the murder are briefly as follows:
On the evening of the 27th ult. Mr. Brassfield was married by Judge McCurdy of the Supreme Court, to Mary, second wife of A. N. Hill, a Mormon missionary now in Europe. A short time after the marriage, Brassfield went with his wife to her late residence to get her clothes and household goods which had been packed up ready for removal. "While there he was arrested by the city police, charged with resisting an of-ficer, and lodged all night in the county jail. The next morning he was taken before the Probate Court to answer the charge, and bound over in the sum of $500 to await the action of the Grand Jury. The next day two in-dictments were brought against him, one on the charge above named, and the other for larceny, for being present and assist-ing in taking away his wife's goods and clothing. He gave bail in the sum of $1,000. On Monday last his counsel, Major C. H. Hempstead, quashed the indictment for resisting an offi-cer, and proceeded to trial on the charge of larceny. The trial was not concluded when the Court adjourned on Monday, and was to have been continued on the following day. The wife had two children, one nine and the other five years of age. About these children a contest was evident—Mrs. Brassfield claiming them, and the friends of Hill being determined to keep them from her. The mother obtained a writ of habeas corpus from Judge McCurdy, and the Hill party from the Probate Court, each claiming the right to the custody of the children. The writ of Judge McCurdy was first executed, and a hearing held by him last Saturday night. Major Hempstead argued the case for the petitioner, and claimed that as Hill had a wife living at the time of his alleged marriage with Mrs. Brassfield, it was illegal and void, and that, as there was no legal father, the mother was entitled to the custody of the minor children. Thus the legality of polygamous marriages was made a direct issue in the case. Judge Snow appeared against the petitioner and in the capacity of Deputy Attorney-General of the Territory, and desired further time to prepare the case of the defendant, and the hearing was continued until Monday evening at 7 o'clock. At that hour the house was crowded, the friends of both par-ties being present in large numbers. After a few preliminary remarks and the filing of some papers by Judge Snow, the hearing was again adjourned until Wednesday morning at 10 o'clock. The children in the mean time had been committed to the custody of United States Marshal Hosmer, until further orders of the Court, and on Monday the writ from the Probate Court was served on him, when he appeared before Judge Smith, and stated that he held the children by order of Judge McCurdy, and declined to pro-duce them in that court, when he was threatened with an attachment for contempt, and warned that unless he produced the children he would be imprisoned in the county jail! The Probate Court of Salt Lake imprisoned a United States Marshal for obeying an order of the Supreme Court. Our readers can make their own comments. Thus stood the sev-eral phases of the case at the adjournment of Judge McCurdy's court on Monday evening. The court adjourned at about 8½ o'clock, and on his way home, and while in company with United States Marshal Hosmer, Mr. Brassfield was shot and killed; adding another to the long list of victims of Mormon "law" and Mormon "justice." LATER.—We have just learned that on the meeting of the Court yesterday morning, Judge Smith said that as the defend-ant, Brassfield (in the larceny case) had deceased, the case would be discontinued. Major Hempstead moved that inas-much as the charge of larceny was merely technical, the whole proceedings be stricken from the record, in justice to the memory of the deceased. The Court took the motion under advisement. Mrs. Brassfield has applied to the military au-thorities for protection. The question of who shall have the custody of the children remains to be decided, and promises to be exceedingly interesting.
