State v. Pierson

Defendant and three others, Lewis E. Balson. Andrew B. Meadows and Robert H. Cotham, were jointly indicted for murder in the first degree for the killing of May Frazer, alleged to have been done in the perpetration of arson, to-wit, the burning of the Buckingham Hotel Annex in St. Louis on December 5, 1927. Severances were granted and each defendant's case was disposed of separately from the others. Cotham pleaded guilty to murder in the second degree and was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment in the penitentiary. Meadows was tried and convicted of murder in the first degree, sentenced to…