On November 12, 13, and 14, while John Charles sat playing his guitar in his cell, Hanek sat in the courtroom with the County Attorney and his assistant, selecting members of the jury.
“Your name,” the Judge would ask.
“Steve McMorgan.”
“Occupation?”
“I run a gas station on lower Manchester.”
“Have you formed any opinion whatsoever concerning the upcoming State vs. Sledge trial?”
“No, Sir.”
“Are you for or against advocating the death penalty in cases of this nature?” And depending on the answer to this question one of the two attorneys would object and the proposed jury member would be eliminated. This continued until 10:32 A.M., November 14, when Judge M. Garnold informed Wayne B. Hanek that he had reached his limit of objections. Out of the next eighteen persons the County Attorney picked twelve. John Charles was allowed another interview with the press. Twelve character witnesses were subpoenaed by Wayne Hanek and waited outside the courtroom to be called: Ivan Norice, Richard Irwin, Lawrence Owens, Susan Pugh, Jack Ruimer, Dorothy Hammer, Chester Lutz, Mrs. Chester Lutz, Edwin Elder, Jr., Donna Erickson, Loren Burr, and Ken Butters.
John Charles’s trial began with the presentation of three exhibits by the County Attorney; a shotgun with a damaged barrel, People’s Exhibit A; a small handful of Number 4 shot, People’s Exhibit B; and three enlarged pictures of Hermie Sledge, one before and two after the explosion, People’s Exhibit C. Wayne B. Hanek objected to the pictures, calling them “pure sensationalism with no judicial value,” but was overruled. The County Sheriff was called to the witness stand by Vendermarken and related John Charles’s confession following the thirty-six-hour interrogation. Hanek, cross-examining, asked when a charge had actually been made against John Charles. To this he answered two days following the confession. Hanek moved that the evidence be stricken from the record or be labeled “circumstantial” on the grounds that the evidence had been obtained in such a way as to be a violation of legal procedure. The motion was overruled and the County Attorney called the State Coroner to the witness stand. He told of the dynamite burns on Hermie’s body and further substantiated the confession. When cross-examined, the Coroner, in answer to the question of the mental condition of the defendant at the time of this confession, stated that he was told by John Charles Sledge himself that he was of “sound mind.” The next witness, Bill Gordon, day bartender at Dirty John’s, testified that John C. and Hermie had come into the bar on August nineteenth and John C. had asked Hermie to come outside and shoot bottles. Under cross-examination he told the court that John Charles had also offered to shoot the “dynamite gun” himself if someone else would throw bottles — and that John C. had even offered to let him, Bill Gordon, shoot it.
The following day Alice Van Hooser was called to the witness stand and testified that John Charles had telephoned her on August 16, 1939, and told her that Hermie Sledge had been injured while shooting an old shotgun, and was in critical condition. She further added that she had seen Hermie the following day in St. Louis and she had not appeared to be suffering from a shotgun exploding near her. This was taken from the record and the question withdrawn because Alice Van Hooser was discovered to be no true authority on physiology. She admitted a relationship between herself and the defendant and said that John Charles had told her that divorce papers had been drawn up and awaited his signature. John Charles’s attorney asked Alice Van Hooser if she had any reason to believe that John C. would murder his wife but the question was rejected because it was discovered that Alice Van Hooser was not a qualified psychologist. Wayne Hanek asked for a recess and it was granted until the next morning.
“The Last Punch . . . Final Trick from Hanek’s Bag of Tricks . . . Surprise Tactics used by Hanek,” were what the papers wrote about that morning in the courtroom. Hanek’s wizardry over legal rhetoric as exemplified by his brilliant objections to the County Attorney’s evidence was superseded by this final act. The State rested its case against John Charles Sledge and Judge Garnold called out for the defense to offer its case. Wayne B. Hanek stood beside his client and a hush came over the courtroom. The Court Officer stood by the room where the witnesses waited to be called. They had not been allowed in the room. Hanek placed his fists down on the table in front of him and said, “The defense rests.” Then he sat down. County Attorney Vendermarken, surprised and taken off guard, motioned that the court be recessed for thirty minutes while he prepared his closing speech to the jury. Wayne B. Hanek objected. Judge M. Garnold declared that the court be recessed for one-half hour. The County Attorney’s closing speech was given by his assistant over the objections of Hanek and the jury left the courtroom. Fifteen minutes later they returned and every member in turn stood, and giving his name first said, “Guilty, and I advise the court to execute the death penalty.” Wayne B. Hanek stood up then and said he would appeal the case before the State Supreme Court. Judge Garnold, before the five newsmen that had taken notes through the trial, stated that he would follow the recommendation of the jury unless prompted to do otherwise by the Governor of Missouri, which he evidently was not because on November 19, 1939, he declared to John Charles that he should be hanged by the neck until dead. Asked if he had anything to say and John C. said, “I did it and I guess I’ll have to take what’s coming to me.” Judge Garnold leaned forward in his chair and folded his paper hands. “Perhaps it’s only divine destiny that ...” He was not allowed to finish.
“No,” said John Charles, “it’s not. I’m guilty. I’ve even convicted myself. I was just born mean, I reckon.”
The appeal was granted and the Missouri Supreme Court read over the Official Transcript of the trial and upheld the finding of the lower court. John Charles played his guitar and was allowed another interview; then they came and moved him to the State Prison. He remained in “death row” twenty-five days and was allowed no interviews. No one came to visit him and the prison help was cordial to him — beer-can-like people to whom “shotgun killer,” “dynamite murderer,” and “Dirty John” meant nothing. Up to here is about all that I know. Isn’t that really all anyone needs to know? So the following is not fact, but a condition I place on the past, to let John Charles keep ahead of himself — so that he did not wake up that morning covered with a sweet gray sweat growing out of his body, shaking and screaming, vomiting from half-dreamed visions of Hermie and an ugliness too horrible to realize with all the lights turned off by a master switch and his cell door opening and three figures coming toward him across the concrete — only one’s supposed to be a priest but long ago he told them not to bring one because he despised the sniveling excuses of men — and retching green and blood-black vomit onto the bed — sick, they puffing him across his cell — fully aware of his own terror, thus pushing the terror still further and further, up the steps and tying his feet, his body crippling over with pain, unable to see now, and jerking his head up to the rope and the jeering from the throng of good people come to watch him die. Screaming and writhing. I invoke the past to let that not have happened, so that he rose from his bed and walked straight out of his cell, onto the platform waving to the hundreds of people that had come to honor him, knowing that he was not a real killer, and even kicked one of the henchmen down the stairs when he was not looking, saying: “Sucker.” That crowd laughed and another henchman pulled the lever and John C. was dead. And the prisoners rioted because of the hanging and one of the guards was shot off the wall and another lost his hand. Let Fast Eddie inherit his cigarettes and guitar. After all, what does it matter?
And I remembered the child. It took me two full months of looking at dusty, disease-ridden records of long collapsed detention orphanages to find her name — Jennie — and another two months to find her. Alice Van Hooser had wanted to adopt her but was unable to because of her unworthiness revealed by herself during the trial. Alice’s mother took out adoption papers for the girl but was also refused because of her association with her daughter. It had cost Alice five hundred dollars to get Jennie and they moved into Iowa with her mother and were living in Cedar Rapids when I found them.