"I, Eddie Jones, being in the custody of an officer, having been duly warned by Marvin Scurlock, county attorney of Jefferson county, Tex., to whom this statement is made, that I do not have to make any statement at all, and that any statement made by me may be used in evidence against me on my trial for the offense concerning which this statement is made, say:
"Well, I might as well tell the truth about the matter. It's come to the point where I might as well tell the truth. I make this statement voluntarily; yes, sir. I already told some lies about it, but I have got to the place where I might as well tell the truth, the whole truth; yes, sir.
"Well, I got here on Saturday between 7 and 8 o'clock; and went to the reservation, to Belle Williams' place. I had a pair of overalls wrapped around a pistol which I carried with me. When I got to Belle's, I asked her to keep the pistol for me until I got ready to go. She taken the pistol, and gave it to Doll Baby. After leaving Belle's house, comes on down to corner of Bowie and Park street, and, when I gets there
meets Chas. Nelson and Slippers. (No, sir; I don't know his other name.) He was called Slippers; that's all I know. Well, when I gets there on the corner, I meets them. They says to me: `Hello, Sonny Boy.' I says, `Hello.' We talks there awhile. Chas. asked me how everything is in New Orleans, wanted to know if I had heard anything about him down there, that he shot a nigger, and had to leave there. I told him I hadn't heard anything about it. Didn't know anything about it. Then they asks me if I wanted to get in on something around here? Asked me if I thought I could get a hold of some — something. I told them I didn't know. I might get hold of something. Then Chas. Nelson told me they had a place somewhere around the Opera House. They was going to throw a guy. Says he: `Do you want to go with us?' I said, `Yes,' I would go with them. Then we talked about it. When he said they was going to throw a guy, I told them I would go with them, but didn't want to go and hurt anybody; that I could always get mine without hurting anybody; that I never hurt anybody; that I didn't want to bother any one. Chas. said there would be nothing to it, so we talked there awhile, and I started to go on off. Before we finished talking, Lonny Secret came up, and we had to break up our conversation.
"Before Lonny came up, and when I was getting ready to go off, they told me that the place they was going through was in the Opera House building. Charlie said to me: `Well, Kiddo, you going with us, ain't you? You will be there?' I said: `All right, yes; I will be there.' He said: `Well, you meet us close to the Opera House about 11 or 12 o'clock, between those hours.' And I told him, `All right.' I left him and went to Rolan and Foley's place, their barroom, and played some pool, about four games, but kept on losing, so I quit. About that time two officers came in and looked round the place, and asked the niggers where they was working. I came out from the barroom between Babe Hamilton's place and the barbecue stand; meets Charlie and Slippers again. They says to me, `Well, Kiddo, you're going, ain't you?' I says, `Why, sure I'm going.' They said, `Be sure and be there; don't fail us.' I said I would be there all right. Well, we completed our plans in that way, so I left them and went back to the corner. Yes; I told them before I left that I would be with them when they went.
"Well, went down to the corner of Orleans and Bowie; down Orleans to Crockett; goes back to the reservation; comes back from there; comes to Crockett, and down Crockett to a fruit stand, then went back to the reservation; then to Belle William's place; went in cross the gallery to the room where she told me I could sleep; lays down on the bed, and went to sleep; slept there till about 11 o'clock, between 11 and 12 at night; gets up and goes out across gallery, on the side where the room was, goes up and across by the freight shed and the depot, goes on down that street that runs by the Opera House, and meets them. (Charlie Nelson and Slippers; yes, sir.) Meets them there by the corner of the street where the Opera House is on. Yes, sir; meets Charlie Nelson and Slippers at the corner where that grocery store is. They says: `Well, old Kiddo, you got here.' I says: `I just woke up in time. Thought of what you told me. Got up right away and come on here.' We went across the street. They said we was going up in the Opera House. That was where we were going to get a hold of something. I said all right, so we started in. Charlie Nelson was in the lead; goes through kinder open place, the entrance to the building; and through the place where the swinging doors are, into the lobby, or some kind of place inside the swinging doors. We walks on a little piece till we comes to some steps on the right; goes up some steps to the fourth floor, I think it was, the floor where the man was killed, where he fell down and lay.
"As we are going up, the elevator comes down. I could hear it coming down. It made a noise, so we got over kinder in the corner of the stairs, and didn't make any fuss. We didn't know whether it was coming back. Well, the elevator didn't come back. Stayed there about 10 or 15 minutes, without making any fuss, to see if the elevator was coming back, but it didn't come; so Slippers goes into a little room to the left of the elevator, and to the right of the steps, and gets a piece of pipe. The door to the little room was open, I think. Anyway he gets there and gets the pipe and comes back out, and Charlie places himself in front of the elevator door after Slippers came back with the pipe. Slippers gave Charlie the pipe and Charlie gave Slippers his pistol. It was a 38 special. As I says, Charlie stands in front of the elevator door, and Slippers stood on the other side of the elevator door, just behind Charlie; and I stood off kinder from the elevator, stood in a sort of little hallway in front of the steps as you come up the steps. And after that we heard some one coming down the steps, and Charlie says: `That's the man. That's him. That's the guy we are going to throw.' Charlie says that. Slippers says, `Yes; that's him.' When the man came down the steps, I couldn't see what he had under his arm. He had some kind of a bundle under his arm, something white, but I couldn't tell what it was. When he put his foot on the floor next to the bottom step, Charlie struck him with the pipe, and, when he struck him, he fell; and, when he fell, Charlie struck him again with the pipe, and, after that, Slippers lit in on him, and commenced to batting him with a pistol, a 38 special, 6-inch barrel. How many times he hit him
I don't know, don't remember; never paid much attention, but know that he struck him several times with the pistol. After that they laid the pipe down and went through him, searching him, and got a pocketbook out of his pockets. They went all through him, found what they could.
"The pocketbook I don't know what color it was. It was kinder reddish, and folded up, had a place where you could put money. After Charlie knocked him down and Slippers beat him with the pistol, Charlie went up the steps a little piece, and turned on the light. Then they went through the man, rolled him over, and went through him. I didn't have anything to do with them at the time. I just came up and looked on. I didn't do anything right then. After they went through him, they takes the white something, I can't say what it was, but he had it under his arms. They takes it and wipes off their hands first; and, after they wipes off their hands, they wipes off the pipe with the white thing, and lays it down, I don't know where; never paid much attention where they lays it down, but after that Charlie Nelson started up the steps. About that time I was fixing to take the watch on the man. Charlie started up the steps, and I told him, when he says something about going up, I told him: `No. It ain't no time for us to go up there, because some one is liable to come up and catch us.' I told him I didn't feel so good about the matter anyway, and that we had better go down from there. So I takes the watch; and, while I takes the watch, I saw something laying on the floor on the side of the body near to the steps. It was laying in some blood. Some kind of glass shining in the blood; and after we all got together, and after talking, agrees we had better come down. After that, Charlie goes up the steps a piece and turns off the light which he had turned on before. After he turns off the light, we comes on down and goes on back down the steps. All three comes down the steps. As we started off down the steps, I heard a noise like some one struggling to get up, didn't know what the noise was, sounded like some one trying to get up, and making a fuss or a struggle. We comes on down, and goes over across the street by the grocery corner, and stood there a while, and talked over the matter. Then we goes on down to the next corner where the little street runs from the depot. On that corner there was some little sycamore trees on the bank. We stood there on the corner and talked awhile. I said to them: `Well, are you going to give me any of that money? Ain't you going to...
