The Haunted Hermit
That is What the Penitentiary Guards Call Charles' Vastine,
now Awaiting Execution
Article taken from The Portsmouth Times, September 2, 1893
The Vastine murder case is familiar to every reader in Scioto county.
The trial occurred about the middle of May, and was unusually short for a murder case. Although the evidence was mostly circumstantial, the jury was not long in rendering its verdict of guilty.
Concerning the principal in the murder of Tom Finn, the Columbus Press had this to say in a recent issue, accompanying the article with a portrait which looked more like Corbett than Vastine:
Probably the most peculiar victim that ever inhabited the murderer's cage at the pen is to be found in the person of Charles Vastine, the Scioto county man, sentenced to hang one week from next Thursday night. Of a stolid, unresponsive nature, he has spent the three months of his life since being brought to the pen in a manner that has caused the guards to dub him the "Haunted Hermit of the Annex." Not once since his incarceration has a relative or friend called to pay him a visit, or give him a word of hope that the awful doom that awaits him might in some manner be averted. At his home at Henley, a small Hamlet in Scioto county, he has a wife and three-year-old child, both of whom it is fair to presume love him as dearly as any other wife and child loves their husband and father, yet they have not come to see him and bring a ray of sunshine to brighten the last days of his dark life. His case is all the more striking and remarkable by comparison with that of Frank Van Loon, who for months received the daily visits of a whole regiment of relatives. Never before has there been an instance in which a man sentenced to death appeared to lose every friend and all sympathy. Shut out from the world, his only companions being the annex guards, and, for a time, Van Loon, it is not strange his face has taken on a haunted expression, and that his eyes, which are cavernous at best, have perceptibly dropped back in their sockets, giving his pale face the appearance of one already dead. Never has he spoken a word about his crime to either of the annex guards or other officers of the prison, and, in fact, he rarely ever speaks to anyone on any subject.
When brought to the pen on the evening of May 24th last and taken behind the bars, he was seen to tremble and turn pale, as though he fully appreciated the seriousness of his position, yet his attorney, Hon. Theodore K. Funk, of Portsmouth, has assured him he would never hang. What his attorney has been doing all these months in his behalf is not known, but one thing is certain, Vastine now recognizes the fact that his time is short, and whatever is done must be done quickly. It is understood that the circuit court is expected to grant him a new trial, but on what grounds is not known