The refusal on the part of the courts and officials to grant a final trial--for it should be remembered the brethren were being held on a preliminary hearing all these months--and the threatenings of numerous enemies caused the brethren to determine on making their escape if possible. Once they tried and failed. Again the opportunity presented itself, and the Lord indicated to them that if they were united they could gain their freedom, but the stubbornness of Lyman Wight defeated their purpose. The latter part of March, Elders Heber C. Kimball and Theodore Turley went to Jefferson City with necessary papers, to see the governor, but he was absent. However, they saw the secretary of state, who appeared astonished at the action of Judge King, and who wrote the judge a letter. They also saw the supreme court judges, but due to the blundering of their attorney, Doniphan, they were unable to obtain a writ of habeas corpus. They returned to Liberty on the 30th of March. April 4, they had an interview with Judge Austin A. King, who was angry to think they had been to see the governor. King said he could have done all that they desired, and would have signed their petition if he had been approached, for all the prisoners, but Joseph Smith, "and he was not fit to live." Fearing that the brethren might obtain a change of venue, Judge King hurried off with them, April 6, 1839, to Daviess County, where he hoped to continue his persecution. Perhaps he hoped they would be murdered, for a band of fifty men in Daviess County, on learning that the prisoners were coming, took an oath that they would neither eat nor drink until they had murdered the Prophet. The prisoners arrived at Gallatin, April 8, and the following day the examination of witnesses commenced before the grand jury, over which Judge King acted as the presiding judge. Judge Birch, the county judge, who previously assisted in the prosecution of the brethren, was associated with him. Both judges and jury were drunk while the case proceeded, and the men of the jury were members of the raiding party of Haun's Mill. They served on the jury during the day and as guards at night, and in their drunken debauchery boasted of their many crimes. On the 11th of April, they brought in a "true bill" against the prisoners for "murder, treason, burglary, arson, larceny, theft and stealing." A Change of Venue