negro [James]..." Oakley added that the "strange negro" was wearing new shoes. Three weeks later, Oakley's nephew, Lee Oakley, who lived with Oakley the year prior, was arrested for stabbing someone, during an altercation, with a knife. Lee was a shoe shiner at a saloon near Sixth and Monroe streets. James was also said to have been "positively identified by those who had chased him," "by every member of the Ballard family who had an opportunity of catching a glimpse of the murderer," and by the bloody "penknife" that Officer Jack Golden, accompanied by Ballard's sons, found after James' arrest. The penknife was reportedly located three feet from where James was sleeping on the grass. The penknife, also reportedly stained with blood, had a blade that was fewer than two inches long. The police verified that James had no weapon on him when he left the prison on the afternoon of July 4. It was reported that James had been kicked out of "Johnson's" saloon for "mooching" money for liquor, with the same report stating: "...how he [James] got back on Ninth street is unknown." James was immediately labeled "the murderer." However, newspapers questioned the logic of the reported event, and admitted finding his motives to be "difficult to understand." Robbery had been ruled out because "nothing in the house was molested and Ballard's modest home is not one to attract a burglar." But with the alleged intrusion occurring in the bedroom of Ballard's daughters, and with James being black while the girls were white, it was surmised that James must have been attempting to rape the girl(s), and newspapers began defining him in sexualized terms, i.e. "a brute of the lowest form." Prior to James' arrest, the police thought the assailant, who had robbed the victim of a coat the night before, was probably "the same negro who cut Ballard." Though the victim's description of the assailant did not match the description of James, James became the only suspect after Ballard's son Homer claimed to have found materials of the assailant's at their home. No mention of the other stabbing would ever be reported in newspapers again. On July 15, James was taken before the special grand jury – the first special grand jury that Sangamon County had ever had. The grand jury was composed of 23 men. They discussed James' case all morning, with county and state officials