During the appeal process, oral arguments were presented to the Mississippi Supreme Court in an attempt to overturn the Mathis verdict. The following document, written by the sentencing judge, summarizes the facts as known by the court.

Hon. Perrin H. Lowrey, Judge, Circuit Court of Lafayette county.

William Mathis, the appellant was indicted, tried, and convicted of the murder of John A. Montgomery was sentenced to be hung, and appealed from said judgment and sentence to the supreme court. The indictment upon which he was tried was a joint one against appellant, Orlandus Lester, Whittington Owens, and William Jackson. A severance was granted and the appellant, William Mathis, separately tried.

The facts out of which this case arose, as shown by the record, were substantially these; John A. Montgomery and his brother, Hugh Montgomery, were deputy United States marshals in and for the northern district of Mississippi. A warrant was placed in their hands for the arrest of the appellant, William Mathis, who was charged with the crime of illicit distilling, commonly called "moonshining." The officers went to the country residence of the appellant, reaching there late in the afternoon on the 15^th day of November, 1901. They found the appellant engaged in some domestic business, and he claimed that it would be quite inconvenient for him to abandon it before its completion, which would require a short time only. He persuaded the officers to remain over night with him at his home, agreeing that he would go with them the next morning to Oxford and execute a bond for his appearance to answer the charge against him for which they sough his arrest. The officers yielded to his persuasion, and after they had gone to bed and were asleep the appellant, William Mathis, William Jackson, and Orlandus Lester entered their room and killed them with guns when they were lying in bed. After killing them the bodies were removed to a point near the center of the building, and the appellant, Mathis, set fire to the house and burned it down, believe that thereby he could obliterate evidences of the crime. Some time during the night the appellant went to the house of his friend, George Jackson, who lived in the same country neighborhood, woke up Jackson and said to him; "George, I am in terrible trouble; can you do anything for me?" and thereupon Jackson answered; "I always do all I can for a friend." and thereupon Mathis, the appellant, recited to Jackson the horrible details of the double murder. Jackson was put on the stand as a witness by the state, and the district attorney sought to prove by him the confession which Mathis had made under the circumstances above stated. Objection was made to the introduction of this confession, but the court below overruled the objection, and Jackson testified, stating fully all the matters of fact which appellant had detailed to him. Two letters, claimed to have been written by Mathis, after he was arrested for the murders and while he was in jail, are mentioned in the record, but one of them only seems to have been read in evidence, the one addressed to Shell Vines, which details plans for defeating justice and inviting him to become a witness in appellant’s behalf, suggesting what the witness should swear. The other is a letter addressed to appellant’s wife, about which witnesses were interrogated, but it was never offered in evidence. The instructions given by the court below are sufficiently stated in the opinion of the court.*

* Lester was convicted and sentenced to be hanged; he appealed to the supreme court but the conviction was affirmed, the court delivering no written opinion. William Jackson was convicted and sent to the penitentiary for life, Owens was convicted for the murder of John A. Montgomery and sentenced to the penitentiary for life, and was convicted of the murder of Hugh Montgomery and sentenced to be hanged, he appealed from both judgments and both of them were reversed by the supreme court. See Owens v. State, post, p. 499. Mathis and Lester were hung at Oxford in the autumn of 1902. Owens, upon of his case, procured a change of venue from Lafayette to Marshall County; was tried in the circuit court of the latter county in August, 1902 on one of the indictments and convicted, the jury fixing his punishment at imprisonment in the penitentiary for life, and his appeal from this conviction is pending in the supreme court at the time these pages go to press. He was also convicted of the murder of a negro, who was a witness against "moonshiners" in the circuit court of Lafayette county at the September term, 1902, and sentenced to be hanged, and his appeal therefrom is now pending in the supreme court.