An American Tragedy III

AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY III

o’clock, it had seemed as though Roberta must be entertaining some one in her room, but just whom she could not say. And again at this point, on cross-examination, Belknap trying to extract any admissions or impressions which would tend to make it look as though Roberta was a little less reserved and puritanical than all the witnesses had thus far painted her, but failing. Mrs. Gilpin, as well as her husband, was plainly fond of her and only under pressure from Mason and later Belknap testified to Clyde’s late visits.

And then the elder daughter, Stella, testifying that during the latter part of October or the first of November, shortly after Roberta had taken the room, she had passed her and a man, whom she was now able to identify as Clyde, standing less than a hundred feet from the house, and noticing that they were evidently quarreling she had paused to listen. She was not able to distinguish every word of the conversation, but upon leading questions from Mason was able to recall that Roberta had protested that she could not let him come into her room – “it would not look right.” And he had finally turned upon his heel, leaving Roberta standing with outstretched arms as if imploring him to return.

And throughout all this Clyde staring in amazement, for he had in those days – in fact throughout his entire contact with Roberta – imagined himself unobserved. And decidedly this confirmed much of what Mason had charged in his opening address – that he had willfully and with full knowledge of the nature of the offense, persuaded Roberta to do what plainly she had not wanted to do – a form of testimony that was likely to prejudice the judge as well as the jury and all these conventional people of this rural county. And Belknap, realizing this,

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trying to confuse this Stella in her identification of Clyde. But only succeeding in eliciting information that some time in November or the early part of December, shortly after the above incident, she had seen Clyde arrive, a box of some kind under his arm, and knock at Roberta’s door and enter, and was then positive that he was the same young man she had seen that moonlight night quarreling with Roberta.

And next, Whiggam, and after him Liggett, testifying as to the dates of arrival of Clyde at the factory, as well as Roberta, and as to the rule regarding department heads and female help, and, in so far as they could see, the impeccable surface conduct of both Clyde and Roberta, neither seeming to look at the other or at any one else for that matter. (That was Liggett testifying.)

And after them again, others. Mrs. Peyton to testify as to the character of his room and his social activities in so far as she was able to observe them. Mrs. Alden to testify that at Christmas the year before Roberta had confessed to her that her superior at the factory – Clyde Griffiths, the nephew of the owner – was paying attention to her, but that it had to be kept secret for the time being. Frank Harriet, Harley Baggott, Tracy Trumbull and Eddie Sells to testify that during December last Clyde had been invited here and there and had attended various social gatherings in Lycurgus. John Lambert, a druggist of Schenectady, testifying that some time in January he had been applied to by a youth, who he now identified as the defendant, for some medicine which would bring about a miscarriage. Orrin Short to testify that in late January Clyde had asked him if he knew of a doctor who could aid a young married woman – according to Clyde’s story, the wife of an employee of Griffiths

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& Company – who was too poor to afford a child, and whose husband, according to Clyde, had asked him for this information. And next Dr. Glenn, testifying to Roberta’s visit, having previously recalled her from pictures published in the papers, but adding that professionally he had been unwilling to do anything for her.

And then C. B. Wilcox, a farmer neighbor of the Aldens, testifying to having been in the washroom back of the kitchen on or about June twenty-ninth or thirtieth, on which occasion Roberta having been called over the long distance telephone from Lycurgus by a man who gave his name as Baker, he had heard her say to him: “But, Clyde, I can’t wait that long. You know I can’t. And I won’t.” And her voice had sounded excited and distressed. Mr. Wilcox was positive as to the name Clyde.

And Ethel Wilcox, a daughter of this same C. B. – short and fat and with a lisp – who swore that on three preceding occasions, having received long distance requests for Roberta, she had proceeded to get her. And each time the call was from Lycurgus from a man named Baker. Also, on one occasion, she had heard her refer to the caller as Clyde. And once she had heard her say that “under no circumstances would she wait that long,” although what she meant by that she did not know.

And next Roger Beane, a rural free delivery letter-carri- er, who testified that between June seventh or eighth to July fourth or fifth, he had received no less than fifteen letters from Roberta herself or the mail box at the crossroads of the Alden farm, and that he was positive that most of the letters were addressed to Clyde Griffiths, care of General Delivery, Lycurgus.

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And next Amos Showalter, general delivery clerk at Lycurgus, who swore that to the best of his recollection, from or between June seventh or eighth and July fourth or fifth, Clyde, whom he knew by name, had inquired for and received not less than fifteen or sixteen letters.

And after him, R. T. Biggen, an oil station manager of Lycurgus, who swore that on the morning of July sixth, at about eight o’clock, having gone to Fielding Avenue, which was on the extreme west of the city, leading on the northern end to a “stop” on the Lycurgus and Fonda electric line, he had seen Clyde, dressed in a gray suit and wearing a straw hat and carrying a brown suit-case, to one side of which was strapped a yellow camera tripod and something else – an umbrella it might have been. And knowing in which direction Clyde lived, he had wondered at his walking, when at Central Avenue, not so far from his home, he could have boarded the Fonda–Ly- curgus car. And Belknap in his cross-examination inquiring of this witness how, being one hundred and seventy-five feet distant, he could swear that it was a tripod that he saw, and Biggens insisting that it was – it was bright yellow and wood and had brass clops and three legs.

And then after him, John W. Troescher, station master at Fonda, who testified that on the morning of July sixth last (he recalled it clearly because of certain other things which he listed), he had sold Roberta Alden a ticket to Utica. He recalled Miss Alden because of having noted her several times during the preceding winter. She looked quite tired, almost sick, and carried a brown bag, something like the brown bag there and then exhibited to him. Also he recalled the defen-

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dant, who also carried a bag. He did not see him notice or talk to the girl.

And next Quincy B. Dale, conductor of the particular train that ran from Fonda to Utica. He had noticed, and now recalled, Clyde in one car toward the rear. He also noticed, and from photographs later published, had recalled Roberta.

She gave him a friendly smile and he had said that such a bag as she was carrying seemed rather heavy for her and that he would have one of the brakemen carry it out for her at Utica, for which she thanked him. He had seen her descend at Utica and disappear into the depot. He had not noticed Clyde there.

And then the identification of Roberta’s trunk as having been left in the baggage room at the station at Utica for a number of days. And after that the guest page of the Renfrew House, of Utica, for July sixth last, identified by Jerry K. Kernocian, general manager of said hotel, which showed an entry – “Clifford Golden and wife.” And the same then and there compared by handwriting experts with two other registration pages from the Grass Lake and Big Bittern inns and sworn to as being identically the same handwriting. And these compared with the card in Roberta’s suit-case, and all received in evidence and carefully examined by each juror in turn and by Belknap and Jephson, who, however, had seen all but the card before. And once more a protest on the part of Belknap as to the unwarranted and illegal and shameful withholding of evidence on the part of the district attorney. And a long and bitter wrangle as to that, serving, in fact, to bring to a close the tenth day of the trial.

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And then, on the eleventh day, Frank W. Schaefer, clerk of the Renfrew House in Utica, recalling the actual arrival of Clyde and Roberta and their actions; also Clyde’s registration for both as Mr. and Mrs. Clifford Golden, of Syracuse. And then Wallace Vanderhoff, one of the clerks of the Star Haberdashery in Utica, with a story of Clyde’s actions and general appearance at the time of his buying a straw hat. And then the conductor of the train running between Utica and Grass Lake. And the proprietor of the Grass Lake House. And Blanche Pettingill, a waitress, who swore that at dinner she overheard Clyde arguing with Roberta as to the impossibility of getting a marriage license there – that it would be better to wait until they reached some other place the next day – a bit of particularly damaging testimony, since it pre-dated by a day the proposed confession which Clyde was supposed to have made to Roberta, but which Jephson and Belknap afterward agreed between themselves might easily have had some preliminary phases. And after her the conductor of the train that carried them to Gun Lodge. And after him the guide and the driver of the bus, with his story of Clyde’s queer talk about many people being over there and leaving Roberta’s bag while he took his own, and saying they would be back.

And then, the proprietor of the Inn at Big Bittern; the boatkeeper; the three men in the woods – their testimony very

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damaging to Clyde’s case, since they pictured his terror on encountering them. And then the story of the finding of the boat and Roberta’s body, and the eventual arrival of Heit and his finding of the letter in Roberta’s coat. A score of witnesses testifying as to all this. And next the boat captain, the farm girl, the Cranston chauffeur, the arrival of Clyde at the Cranstons’, and at last (every step accounted for and sworn to) his arrival at Bear Lake, the pursuit and his capture – to say nothing of the various phases of his arrest – what he said – this being most damaging indeed, since it painted Clyde as false, evasive, and terrified.

But unquestionably, the severest and most damaging testimony related to the camera and the tripod – the circumstances surrounding the finding of them – and on the weight of this Mason was counting for a conviction. His one aim first was to convict Clyde of lying as to his possession of either a tripod or a camera. And in order to do that he first introduced Earl Newcomb, who swore that on a certain day, when he, Mason and Heit and all the others connected with the case were taking Clyde over the area in which the crime had been committed, he and a certain native, one Bill Swartz, who was afterwards put on the stand, while poking about under some fallen logs and bushes, had come across the tripod, hidden under a log. Also (under the leadership of Mason, although over the objections of both Belknap and Jephson, which were invariably overruled), he proceeded to add that Clyde, on being asked whether he had a camera or this tripod, had denied any knowledge of it, on hearing which Belknap and Jephson actually shouted their disapproval.

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Immediately following, though eventually ordered stricken from the records by Justice Oberwaltzer, there was introduced a paper signed by Heit, Burleigh, Slack, Kraut, Swenk, Sissel, Bill Swartz, Rufus Forster, county surveyor, and Newcomb, which set forth that Clyde, on being shown the tripod and asked whether he had one, “vehemently and repeatedly denied that he had.” But in order to drive the import of this home, Mason immediately adding: “Very well, your Honor, but I have other witnesses who will swear to everything that is in that paper and more,” and at once calling “Joseph Frazer! Joseph Frazer!” and then placing on the stand a dealer in sporting goods, cameras, etc., who proceeded to swear that some time between May fifteenth and June first, the defendant, Clyde Griffiths, whom he knew by sight and name, had applied to him for a camera of a certain size, with tripod attached, and that the defendant had finally selected a Sank, 3 1/2 by 5 1/2, for which he had made arrangements to pay in installments. And after due examination and consulting certain stock numbers with which the camera and the tripod and his own book were marked, Mr. Frazer identifying first the camera now shown him, and immediately after that the yellow tripod as the one he had sold Clyde.

And Clyde sitting up aghast. Then they had found the camera, as well as the tripod, after all. And after he had protested so that he had no camera with him. What would that jury and the judge and this audience think of his lying about that? Would they be likely to believe his story of a change of heart after this proof that he had lied about a meaningless camera? Better to have confessed in the first place.

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But even as he was so thinking Mason calling Simeon Dodge, a young woodsman and driver, who testified that on Saturday, the sixteenth of July, accompanied by John Pole, who had lifted Roberta’s body out of the water, he had at the request of the district attorney, repeatedly dived into the exact spot where her body was found, and finally succeeded in bringing up a camera. And then the camera itself identified by Dodge.

Immediately after this all the testimony in regard to the hitherto as yet unmentioned films found in the camera at the time of its recovery, since developed, and now received in evidence, four views which showed a person looking more like Roberta than any one else, together with two, which clearly enough represented Clyde. Belknap was not able to refute or exclude them.

Then Floyd Thurston, one of the guests at the Cranston lodge at Sharon on June eighteenth – the occasion of Clyde’s first visit there – placed on the stand to testify that on that occasion Clyde had made a number of pictures with a camera about the size and description of the one shown him, but failing to identify it as the particular one, his testimony being stricken out.

After him again, Edna Patterson, a chambermaid in the Grass Lake Inn, who, as she swore, on entering the room which Clyde and Roberta occupied on the night of July seventh, had seen Clyde with a camera in his hand, which was of the size and color, as far as she could recall, of the one then and there before her. She had also at the same time seen a tripod. And Clyde, in his curious and meditative and half-hypnotized state, recalling well enough the entrance of this girl into that

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room and marveling and suffering because of the unbreakable chain of facts that could thus be built up by witnesses from such varying and unconnected and unexpected places, and so long after, too.

After her, but on different days, and with Belknap and Jephson contending every inch of the way as to the admissibility of all this, the testimony of the five doctors whom Mason had called in at the time Roberta’s body was first brought to Bridgeburg, and who in turn swore that the wounds, both on the face and head, were sufficient, considering Roberta’s physical condition, to stun her. And because of the condition of the dead girl’s lungs, which had been tested by attempting to float them in water, averring that at the time her body had first entered the water, she must have been still alive, although not necessarily conscious. But as to the nature of the instrument used to make these wounds, they would not venture to guess, other than to say it must have been blunt. And no grilling on the part of either Belknap or Jephson could bring them to admit that the blows could have been of such a light character as not to stun or render unconscious. The chief injury appeared to be on the top of the skull, deep enough to have caused a blood clot, photographs of all of which were put in evidence.

At this psychological point, when both audience and jury were most painfully and effectively stirred, a number of photographs of Roberta’s face, made at the time that Heit, the doctors and the Lutz Brothers had her in charge, were introduced. Then the dimensions of the bruises on the right side of her face were shown to correspond exactly in size with two sides of the camera. Immediately after that, Burton Burleigh, placed on the stand to swear how he had discovered the two strands of

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