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

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.