State v. Townsend

I. Defendant was convicted of killing Frank Crees, his stepfather. The conceded facts are that Frank Crees lived in a boathouse on the Mississippi River, in the city of Dubuque, with his wife and several children. The defendant, who was the son of Mrs. Clara Crees by a former marriage, went to Dubuque, after his discharge from the army, and resided with the Crees family until the night of August 17, 1919, when the boathouse was destroyed by fire. Frank Crees was one of the employees of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway *364Company, and was last seen alive by anyone outside of the Crees…