The Case of John May Senior

John May left the house at two o'clock on Sunday and did not return until five. He said he was going to make an excavation at a certain spring in a wood about a mile away so that the cattle could obtain water. It was observed that his clothing was wet in spots as if, so the prosecution afterward pointed out, he had been removing blood stains from it. In his delirium raved of murder but did not say whom he conceived to have been murdered nor whom he imagined to have done the deed. Public opinion ran strongly against him; would probably have been hanged by a mob.