Official Jealousy Assisted in Their Escape.
WHAT A RETURNED DEPUTY
SHERIFF HAS TO SAY
The Detectives, It Seems, Were
More Anxious to "Hog" the Re-
wards Than to Apprehend the
Criminals --The Robbers Pro-
tected by Sympathizers.
Deputy Sheriff Henry Alter was at Visalia when the Collis train robbery occurred, and assisted in the effort to capture the robbers. He arrived at home yesterday. He ascribes the failure to capture the robbers to the jealousy existing between the parties engaged in the endeavor. He says that Sheriff Kay has been renominated by the Democrats, while a man named Overall has been nominated by the Republicans. Both engaged in the pursuit of the robbers, and each did all in his power to prevent the success of the other. Then the railroad and Wells-Fargo detectives were arrayed against everybody else. After ample evidence had been produced against Evans and the Sontags, Sheriff Tom Cunnigham advised that the house be surrounded by twenty-five or thirty men and the robbers captured. Detective Will Smith and Deputy Sheriff Witty were not satisfied with this, however, desiring to hog all the reward, so they jumped into Sheriff Ray's buggy and drove to Evan's house where they found George Sontag. They told him the Sheriff wanted to see him, and Sontag, who did not imagine that any evidence had been gathered against him, allowed himself to be driven to the County Jail, where he was questioned and locked up. This scheme had worked so admirably that Smith and Witty thought they would work it on Evans and John Sontag, so they again entered the Sheriff's buggy and way they flew. In the meantime, some one had acquainted Evans and John Sontag of George Sontag's incarceration. As the officers approached the house for the second time, they saw Evans entering by a rear door. A knock on the front door brought Mrs. Evans, who, in response to a query, declared that neither her husband nor Sontag was in. "I know a damn sight better," said Smith, and he pushed past the woman and shoved open the door of a bedroom. Sontag was sitting on the bed, a shotgun in his hands, and at the same instant Evans appeared at a kitchen door, also armed with a shotgun. Both officers leaped through the open door and sprinted across the yard, Evans and Sontag following and firing at the fleeing men. Three shots struck Smith, each one of his hands being very slightly wounded, while a third shot struck him in the back, burying beneath the skin, and causing the officer to increase his speed. Witty did not escape so easily, a charge of shot striking him in the back, while a pistol ball, struck near the top of his right shoulder and ranged downward. He fell, and Evans came up and stood over his body, and loaded his gun, aimed at Witty's head and pulled the trigger. The cartridge did not explode, and Witty cried: "For God's sake don't shoot any more; you have already killed me." Evans shouldered his shotgun and walked away.
Alter also relates the circumstances preceding Deputy Sheriff's Beaver's death. It was quite well understood, he says, that Evans and Sontag were likely to return, and there were plenty of officers who were willing to guard the premises. Detective Thacker would not have it that way, however, but hired Beaver and another man to watch, agreeing to pay them $10 each. Thacker went to a safe distance, and it an encounter which followed Beaver was shot and killed.
Alter says that many of those in the foothills and mountains are friendly to the robbers, and ready and willing to post them in reference to movements of the officers.
ANOTHER REASON.
The Robbers, It Appears, Have Many
Sympathizers.
