Deposition of Howard Franklin Temple
taken at the Sheriff’s office in
St. Augustine, January 28, 1892.
And that’s when I thought I had to get at Connors, not hurt him, but get at him. Not that I might not like to hurt him, but I didn’t want to get into trouble, maybe lose my job. They are strict over at the Ponce and there is always someone wanting your job. That man was taking something from me and I wanted to do the same. I was kind of burning inside.
I knew that sometimes the railroad uses the maintenance shed, the one was out away from the rail yard and the old depot to store dynamite. I knew that from Sims who works on the grounds crew and used to work for the railroad down south. He said they never kept it there long and not much. They use it on the coral beds down near Miami and he’d seen it and it scared him knowing it was there.
He was right about the dynamite and about the shed door not having a lock. Even though it was night and dark, there was enough light from the moon and I knew my way around so it wasn’t hard to get there and back, I just walked in, picked up a stick, and walked out. It was easy.