So Municipal Court clerk Mary Toland read her stenographic account, bringing the accusing words of the husband and policeman to the jury of five men and seven women -- middle-aged farmers, housewives, a businessman and others.

Harvey Cullen went to the stand, describing how he took his dog out to "raise rabbits," stopped when the dog refused to approach a thicket. He checked and found the barrel about two feet off the cinder roadway and close to the edge of a steep drop into a hollow.

Kicking at the wooden barrel, Cullen was startled when the burlap opened to disclose the body. He hurried to a neighboring home and summoned police. As he returned to the site, he noticed a parked auto start up and head onto St. Clair Ave. He could not read the license, but it appeared out-of-state -- Pennsylvania or West Virginia.

Mary Catherine Jordan described the ring found by police, saying she recognized it from a mark where it was cut to fit her finger when she wore it two years before.

Telling testimony came from Willie Ward who lived in a Second St. apartment opposite Cascio's. He said he saw Mrs. Wall enter her former employer's doorway around 4 p.m. the day before the body was found. He recalled the time as close to when the quitting whistle sounded at a nearby factory.

Ward didn't see her leave, he told Springer.

The Prosecutor focused on the basic elements previously outlined in the pre-liminary hearing, centering on the time of death between 5 and 8:30 the night before, and the woman's presence at Cascio's apartment.

Judge Sharp, new to the bench, was caught up in the challenge of legal technicalities. His wife telephoned the Sheriff one evening to report her husband has-not yet come home, and asked if deputies could locate him. A deputy found him in his chambers, engrossed in law books. "What time is it?"he asked. Told it was 2:20 a.m., the surprised jurist remarked, "Gosh, I haven't had dinner yet!" and departed.

After the state concluded its case with some 30 witnesses, Bauknecht moved for a directed verdict of acquittal. He declared the state had failed to provide any positive evidence linking his client.

THERE WAS NO proof, he noted, of how Mrs. Wall was killed or even if the crime occurred in this county. But Judge Sharp refused to dismiss, and the defense presented its case with 13 witnesses and testimony refuting the State's claims.

G. R. Pattison, a city jeweler, said the wedding ring had not been cut down to fit, since the line was not near the 14K mark as it would have customarily been.

Atty. Lang took the stand to read a statement he obtained from Willie Ward who testified he saw Mrs. Wall enter Cascio's apartment shortly before 4 p.m. Lang noted several witnesses testified seeing Mrs. Wall and her daughter shopping uptown at 3:50 p.m.

Four Valley Motor Transit bus drivers testified about passing along Jennings Ave. and not seeing any barrel until they noted police at the site after 7:30 a.m.

Mrs. Bessie Horton of 220 E. Second St., a neighbor of Cascio's, said she saw him leave his apartment around 7:50 a.m., walk to Washington St. and head up the hill, stopping to light his pipe. But other witnesses placed Cascio at the City Market at 7:15 a.m.

Frank Wells, produce manager at the market, said Cascio was there with his parked truck when Wells arrived at that time. Fred Huston, a grocer, said He saw Cascio there when he came to buy supplies.

Despite strong objections from the Prosecution, Bauknecht introduced hearsay evidence that Mrs. Wall had been seen "quarreling in the streets" with her husband at 3 a.m. the day the body was found. Mrs. Jessie Heath of the Ceramic Hotel testified a man told her of seeing the pair arguing. She reported it to Chief McDer-mott who doubted the credibility because the man was believed intoxicated.

Cascio himself went on the stand to deny he had anything to do with the woman's death. He traced his movements the night before Cullen discovered the barrel, and identified the flashlight and the ring as his own. He kept the flashlight under his pillow, he explained, because the apartment lacked electricity, and he needed it during the night.

The ring, he explained, was part payment of a grocery bill receive when he was in business at Toronto. He had given it to his second wife, Blanche, and she had taken to Steubenville to have it fitted. Since her death several years before, he had carried it in his change purse.

As to his relations with the murdered woman, he testified she had come to work for him when he operated a store. "I couldn't afford to pay her very much. She said she had been kicked out, so I agreed to pay her $10 a week and board."

"She had been living in a room on West Sixth St., and I had been staying with my brother, so I rented the three-room apartment. She stayed there for three months until I had to close up the store, and then she went out to do housework."

The short, stocky witness testified, "She didn't stay there continually, but would be away for two or three weeks, then come back, then go away again." He said he learned of her final employment from two women he overheard passing his truck. "From the remarks, I became suspicious. They didn't say it was a very good place."

HE SAID HE went to Smiths Ferry and gave her $15 he owed on a note at the First National Bank. Her name was on the note.

Asked about phone calls he made to her a few days before the death, he said he was about to give up the apartment, and wanted to know what she would do with furniture she bought.

Cascio was grilled fiercely by Prosecutor Springer who claimed he had told the victim's sister he would marry Julia if she would come back to him. He denied that along with a suggestion he had not spent the night in his apartment.

Springer, seeking to convince the jury the murder had occurred earlier in the apartment, charged, "You put her on the bed and held something over her mouth and nose so that she could not breathe or scream, and then put the body in a barrel, hauling it to the ravine out in the residential district where her own brother lived, and there rolled it from your truck."

Casio, visibly shaken, replied, "No, no, Mr. Springer!"

In Bauknecht's closing arguments to the jury he declared the State had not one "shred of evidence" linking Cascio to the killing. There was no indication that the body had been left on Jennings Ave. before 7:22 am., he said, noting the lack of rigor mortis.

He noted from Cullen's testimony that it appeared the body in the barrel had been thrown in haste from an auto that morning, and had failed to roll down into the ravine. The driver had stopped and waited nearby to push it over, and left when Cullen came along.

He also scored the "slipshod investigation" in which the body was embalmed before the autopsy, and the stomach contents not examined.

Bauknecht said the victim was not with the defendant that night, pointing out she was completely clothed. "No woman who went to a man's apartment and stayed until 4 would have been dressed fully. And no man ever dressed that woman as a corpse."

Judge Sharp explained to the jury it had five verdicts to consider -- guilt in the first degree with mandatory execution, first degree with recommendation of mercy, second degree, manslaughter or acquittal.

During its five hours of deliberation, the panel held three votes. The first was nine to two for not guilty with one not voting, the second was ten to two for not guilty, and the third a unanimous acquittal.

A beaming Cascio was surrounded and embraced by happy, tearful relatives. The Judge told him, "This releases you. You may go home now." Cascio, held in jail for three months, said humbly, "Thank you, judge," and shook hands gratefully with each of the jurors.

Springer, who had taken over the case only weeks before, had no public comments on the outcome of his very first trial as Prosecutor.

Few followers of any murder trial -- fully understand the stress placed upon the attorneys, both for the state and the defense. Lawyers for the accused especially realize a human life rests in their skills, their expertise, their complete commitment to the cause.

And much study and review of the law are demanded. The family of Francis Lang recalled for me the long hours and tremendous pressure he endured during this case.

In fact, Mrs. Lang afterward made him sit down and sign a statement that he would never again serve in a capital punishment case. He didn't.

And the death of the three-week bride remained unsolved, as it is today.

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