The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, April 8, 1904, Page 1

Forecast made cisco for thirty midnigrs, April 8: Fatr Friday; VOLUME NO. 130. THE WEATHER. | San Francisco and vicinity— cooler in the after noon; fresh west wind. G. H. WILLSON, Local Forecaster. at San Fran- hours ending TS bty LK Central—“Arcund the World in Eighty Days.” Chutes—Vandeville. Colombia - “Mam’selle Napo- Fischer's—"“Kismet.” Grand—" Divcrcons.” | Mechanics’ Pavilion—Circus. Orpheum—Vaudeville. Tivoli—*Mr. Pickwick.” SAN FRANCISCO, FRIDAY, ‘APRIL 8, 1904. PRICE FIVE CENTS. JURY'S VERDICT DOOMS MRS. BOTKIN TO SPEND HER LIFE BEHIND THE BARS “You held out too much encouragement for me. I am resigned to my fate. You have been too good to me. It is my fate.”---Statement made by Mrs. Bot- was announced. granted another trial. kin to her lawyers, Knight and McGowan, tminediately after the verdict * I never expect to be - L J _ the fury w vder i the first degy wment thercfor ai smprisonment im the State Prison for lif URY FINDS WOMAN | GUILTY OF MURDER I ee, « -+ the defendant, Cordelia Botkin, guilty of fix and assess the pun- MORRIS HYMAN, Foreman. Without Tears or Words Prisone Hears Clerk trial Mrs. | con- ent for has thus g. ther at has been we the nteres! o Mndie € they ap- eves were upon the con eld a picture of noisy emotion were soner they t a scene anticipation of the prisoner’s col- se and of a nons jon by the ence, Ju 4 instructed the | #f and his deputies to take H demc contem d be regarde and tendencies during the SES NEAR. at the DELAWARE WITNES > no that | f past ur s b tl the that the to supper and ntil § o’cle made taker ~ ng the abser of the juty § o'clock the jury returned and - an their delibera -1 ceptit ned o and recruits At nformed % Judge Cook was t the jury desired some her instruct nd filed jon of twelve mer a quest t had beer r 2 verd Smith Judge of tk Judge Cook called nformed the court s of the testimony Mre. Smith de to Dr Cook granted the sections desired the - te: = g ian. The note in h Love to yourself and acknowledged exem- | I8 handwrifing, tak er letter, “My love, | . < be with you” “e b 1 1 and the jury pw o r to arrive at asver- | JURORS TAKE TIME. [ An hour dragged by and still no agreemer Every was becoming nxious, but Mrs. Bot gave no sigy | of nervens strain half past ten Judge Cook re the jurors t advise him whether they desired to b locked up for the night. The request came back that the jury be permitted to deliberate until 11 o'clock. This an- nouncement warranted hope of an agreement. At last the bell in the tower tolled eleven times almost mournfully, ®dut still no word | from the jury-room. Judge Cook had -+ r Read Fate. about made up his mind to Jury im the custody this morning, when tric call at the end « began to ring courtroom A verdict had been reached and the jury filed slowly into the jury box. Judge Cook made his announcement about order and the clerk called the | ron | was intense and after : ably long P ntlemen of you agreed upon a ver- your Honor,” $aid the same time lip of paper to the read the verdict,” and then in a de- t » the officer of the court We. the find the defend- ant, Cordelia Botkin, guilty of murder in the and fix and as ss degree | her ‘punishment therefor at imprison- | ment in the State prison for life.” QUIET AT THE CLOSE. During this dramatic scene Mrs. Botkin was Her head rested o her han and she gazed straight ahead so much as a notice- k thanked the 16 as the day of s ournment there w A babel of voices friends. Senat cheer and Mc- to from her eyes and of dejection i been r fell ippear T So vigorous h. nee ey plea for ence that the prisoner relieved to know that life before her. m was : C ed. was taken by the deputy ey which was waiting of Justice. A t of cu- rious people crowded around the car » get a glimpse of the murdere; stooped to kiss the pri ster’s sligh mob sister the Mrs tkin, cast- glance at the crowd, on her face, said to her sister, “Don’t you worry, don't you shed " and with another scornfu! at the motley assemblage told deputy Sheriff that she was ready 1o go back to jail - HISTORY OF THE CASE. Nearly Six Years Have Flapsed Since Mrs. Botkin's Arrest. The » trials of Mrs. Botkin, in both of which the verdicts were the same. have cost the city of San Francisco nearly $80,000, and have demanded in other the attention of the judicial departments for five and a half vears. Mrs. Dunning died in Délaware on_Aug 12, 1898, the day foliowing {he death of her sister, Mrs.. Deane, who had also partaken of the poisoned candy 1 Their one way or a deaths led to an investigation, ame was iled to them by Mrs. Botkin. | which was extended to this city and re- | sulted in the indictment and arrest of Mrs. Botkin early in November of the same y Her trial began before Judge Cook, Decembe g, 1898, and a verdict of murderinthefirst degree was rendered by the jury on December 30. Immediately afterward her attorneys an appeal to the State Supreme urt and were granted a new trial og took Cc the ground that the lower court had erred in its instructions to_the jury on the question of circumstantial evidence An appeal W taken to the United States Sup Court on questions of his State sdiction in the but the la court ruled adversely to the appel- e impaneling of a jury for the sec- ond trial began in February and the hearing of the case commenced on March 14. From its beginning to its finish the case was fraught with excit- ing incidents, the most sens which was the declaration Goetjen®that he had been app! with an offer of money for a verdict in the interest of the defendant. Since then the last jury has been kept constantly together, sleeping at night in apart- | ments at the Palabe Hotel, under the watchful heriff. Lectures Arouse Interest. The addresses of Miss Louise Hol- lister, lecturer and organizer of the National Woman's Christian Temper- ance Union, have aroused quite an in- terest in the work of the organization among the young people, an imme- diate result of which will be a meet- ing this evening at 8 o'clock at 132 McAllister street. This is for the pur- pose of organizing a Young Woman's Branch and completing plans for a mass-meeting, at which Miss Hollister will speak. All young people are especially invited | | | Drs7RIcy IZ'OJWVEY N CorpzLrz BorHin +* WOMAN WHO HAS BEEN DECLA OF MRS. JOHN P. DU « TION AND SCENES IN RED GUILT NG BY OURTRO 7 for a new trial. in this case. ALWAYS accept the verdict of a . jury. I do not believe that the Supreme Court will ever sustain such a verdict. No one should cver be conpicted of murder on such evidence as twas introduced by the prosecution Look at their evidence—it's an injustice. I have no doubt that Mrs. Botkin will be granted a mew trial—Statement by George A. Knight, Attorney for Mrs. Botkin. Y OF MURDER IN THE FIRST DEGREE FOR HAVING CAUSED THE DEATH DING HER A BOX OF POISONED CANDY, MAN WHO SECURED HER CONVIC- KNIGHT SAYS THE DERDICT IS UNJUJ"T Of course we shall _— appeal to the Supreme Court Byington Charges Jury to Bring in a Verdict of Guilty and Mete Out Extreme Penalty of Death. Almost the entire time at the Botkin | get away from the web of circum- trial yesterday was taken up by Dis- trict' Attorney Byington’s closing ar- gument for the prosecution and Judge Carroll Cook’s charge to the jury. At 4:30 p. m. the case went to the jury. Dis- trict Attorney Byington, in his argu- ment, which he began as soon as court opened, said In part: “I agree with Mr. Knight; we want u gentlemen to try this case ae-| cording to the law of the State| and the evidence of the witnesses. It is pot a question of Mr. Knight's per- sonality in this case. Even if George A. Knight comes before you and says | he wants to meet Dick Brown in the hereafter and tell him he defended his | | daughter that has nothing to do with case.” Mr. Byington/next took up the at- tack of counsel for the defense upon the late Chief of Police Lees and said: “I hope it will never devolve upon me defile their names in behalf of a de- fendant standing in guilt as this de- fendant is. work honorably, and one of the monu- ments to his name is the accumulat- ing of ¢ircumstances te tie guilt to this woman's name. “1 would be willing to have the twelve Superior Court Judges of this city try this c as has been said by Mr. Knight, on the evidence and the law. There is nothing stronger than a chain of circumstantial evidence. You can't Chief Lees performed his stances that surrounds Cordelia Bot- kin, and Mr. Knight cannot dispose of/ the facts in this case with a wave of the hand.” The District Attorney next took up that portion of the closing argument of the defense about the sleuths of the Police Department sending innocent people to San Quentin. “That is ab- surd, and you krow that it could not | be done without the help of the Dis- trict on the Attorney's office and his Honor bench,” he said. “If this de- | fendant is found guilty of murder in the first degree, mete but to her the full nenalty of the law. Before the dawn of civilization your God apd my God on Mount Sinai said, ‘Thou shalt 1ot kill,' and you know that other ex- trdct from Holy Writ, ‘He that kills his fellow man shall die.’ VERACITY OF WITNESSES. Mr. Byington next went on to review the testimony and invited the interrup- tion of defendant's counsel if he did not state facts. “We have brought to stanll At the Brave of the ead avd | | aesits Heve Whwe YEraciiy &nlsii tegrity have never been questioned and | God only knows why they have been reviled by Mr. Knight,” he said. ““There is something 1 witnessed yes- terday that is an outrage upon the honorable profession of. the law. Miss Bateman may hold her head as high as any person in this land. She has a father and a brother. No man has ever questioned her integrity and truthfule ness. Mr. Knight asked: ‘Where is Miss Bateman? Stand up before this jury.’ Think of that. Would you want your mother, wife or sister called out before a crowd like this? I say it is an outrage and the same as to Dr. Bishop. What right did Mr. Knight have to turn that finger of scorn to- ward Dr. Bishop? 1 say that every witness we .have produced is a credi- ble witness."” He then went on to tell the jury that every one who ate the candy that night was poisoned and that those who did not showed no symptoms of poisoning. “It has been said by Mr. McGowan that there was no autopsy and that arsenic was an {ndestructi- ble poison which would be preserved in bodies for years,” Byington said. “That is true if the body is not em- balmed. But the body had in this case been embalmed hefore suspicion was attached to the candy and all traces of arsenical poisoning had been lost.” Here Byington endeavored to go into the details of the Bowers case, but an objection by McGowan was sustained by the court. “There Is no doubt that Mrs. Dun- ning and Mrs. Deane went to their graves without knowing they had been poisoned,” continued the District At- torney. “Living in the little town of Dover, they did not know there was anybody on God's footstool low enough or base enough to send them under the token of love a box of poisoned candy. In any rural town if a family had received candy under the same cir- cumstances the same course would have been followed as was followed in the Pennington family and they would have died. ““Those two women died from arseni- cal poisonng and all through this case — been done and a great viciory DISTRICT ATTORNEY L i BYINGTON SATISFIED | WITH THE UERDICT | AM satisfied with the verdict. to impese the death penalty, still I think that justice has While 1 expected the jury <C'ON. LEWIS F. BYINGTON. Insinuation by Judge Cook they immediately re- turned to the Palace Hotel to collect their belongings, and soon afterward left for their home Most of the men were reluctant to discuss the case and few of them had anything to say con- cerning their deliberations. that during the six hours of delibera- tion twelve ballots were taken. The first ballot resulted in a disagreement, five men voting for acquittal and seven voting guilty. This ballot was taken for the purpose of determining the guilt or innocence of the accused and with no view as to the penalty. Balloting continued and many dis- cussions ensued. One of the jurors in particular stocd firm in his bellef that Mrs. Botkin, should be given her lib- jury remained out as long as it did. On’ the eleventh ballot a unanimous vote of guilty was returned. Then the penalty was fixed. All of the men stood firm for the minimum punishment, there being no one to speak in favor {of the death penalty. | Juror Jacob. Goetjen was. guestioned regarding the attempt to bribe him, | but refuséd to make any statement. | He was met at the hotel by two mem- | bers of his family and hurried away, | |ignoring the queries addressed to him. He refused to state the circumstances surrounding the alleged bribery or to After the jurors had been discharged It appears | erty, and it was due to him that the | -+ |Jurors Tell of Deliberations and of of Bribery. state what condition he was in at the time. The other jurors, while some of | them admit that thev had an inkling | of the scandal, are emphatic in stat- | ing that if Goetjen was approached he tainly the only ome. All of the ressed their satisfaction in be- y hope to never pass ordeal again. | through such an | “I am well satisfied with the verdict | of the jury,” said District Attorney Byington, “and while I worked hard for | and expected a verdict of hanging, still, under the existing circumstances, I am | of the opinfon that ample justice has been done. It was a long and tedious | ordeal and a great strain on the prose- cution, yet we proved our case clearly | and beyond a doubt, and I am confi- |dent that Mrs. Cordelia Botkin will spend the remainder of her life in prison for the heinous crime of which she stands convicted. “The defense may appeal the case to the Supreme Court, but I am positive the appeal will be fruitless. We have proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that she is the murderess of Mrs. John P. Dunning, and she will have to suffer for her crime. The evidence we intro- duced wasstrong at every point and the chain of circumstances so well connect- ed that the attorneys for the defense could not break it, try as they would. The verdict is a just one and a triumph for the people.” SR e o+ the defense has shifted from one theory to another,” | Byington next dwelt upon the symp- | toms of arsenical poisoning, sayng: “The motive in this case points to one person alone, and that is the defendant. Knight has said that lump arsenic can- not be bought. It was in the candy, and some one put it there.” PURCHASE OF CANDY. The speaker here took up the attack of the defense on the expert testimony. He referred to the Fair will contest and the Craven will, and how Knight lauded Kytka at that time, F The next point touched upon was Mrs. Botkin's statement to Mrs. Ruoff that three anonymous letters had been sent to® Dover, Del., before that fact was known to any one in this city. He said that Miss Livernash was told the same and read from Mrs. Botkin's testimony to bear out his contention. 3 Mrs. Ruoff that the letters were in a scrawly hand,” said Byington. “Mrs. Botkin sticks out of every sentence in the letters. She said in her cross-exam- ination that she saw two of the letters in the newspapers. Those letters were never published until after her arrest. She knew it because she wrote them. “Mrs. Botkin has told you that she went down one flight of stairs in the hotel on Sunday morning and tele- phoned to Dr. Terrill. not receive any ’phone message from Mrs. Botkin until Sunday, July 31, be- tween the hours of 2 and 3 p. m. Why would she want to lie? It is an evi- dence of her guilt. She lled about the anonymous letters and the fact that Dr. Terrill visited her Sunday.” During this portion of Mr. Byington’s argument Mrs. Botkin showed that she was uncomfortable. Byington next reviewed the testimony relative to the purchase of the candy, and said it was not necessary to prove positively that the purchaser was Mrs. Botkin. “In size and appearance the witnesses say the woman who made the purchase resembled the = accused woman, and there are not many persons whose appearance, size and movements of the body resemble Mrs. Botkin.” He pointed out the testimony of Mrs. Pri¢ce and Mrs. Smith relative to see- hand on the Sunday she is alleged to have purchased the chocolates. He said: “She stayed in her room that night and the next night. She was concocting this diabolical scheme to kill Mrs. J. P. Dun- ning. At the midnight hour she was manipulating the chocolates. She left the Hotel Victeria on August 4, the day the candy was mailed. She wanted to get away from the scene of her crime and put the package in the mail on her way to St. Helena.” MURDER IN HER HEART. The testimony f Dr. Stone and Druggists Gray and Grey was com- mented upon, also the statement made by the defendant to Mrs. Ruoff that something told her the relationship be- tween her, Mrs. Botkin, and “Jack” Dunning would be closer than ever. Byington contended that there was murder in her heart at that time. “I believe her testimony that when in Healdsburg at the midnight hour | the walls seemed to be closing in upon her and some one seemed clutching at her throat,” he said. “She has experi- enced that feeling many times since. Mr. Knight has said that womanhood shrinks from this woman at the bar. Thank God that the instincts of true motherhood and womanhood and de- cency shrink from this woman.” The District Attorney brought out “She told | The physician | says he was at an operation and did | ing Mrs. Botkin with a package in her | what he deemed a most important bit of testimony. He called attention to the fact that in the letter to Governor Budd, Mrs. Botkin asked for a position as nurse in the Phillppines, whereas Dewey had not yet entered Manila Bay and there was no thought of sending troops to the islands until some time afterward. o “She did not want to go to the Phil- ippines, but to Cuba, so as to be near ! Dunning,” said the District Attormey. | “Something has been said about J. P. Dunning. I am not here to palliate what he has done. Mrs. Botkin has said she dragged him from the gutter. She did it by taking him to the race- track and back to her room, where she | filled him with whisky so that her son {had to put him to bed. “John P. Dunning might have satis- fied Mr. Knight and Mr. McGowan if { he had been false to the memory of his wife and had said, ‘I will never gn | back to California. I know she pois- oned my wife, but I will stay away | from California; I will not assist the | officers by annoumcing the truth from the witness stand.’ He said. ‘T will | make some atonement. It will not be {a pleasant task to face Mr. Knight | again, to be subjected to his jeers and jibes." I honor him for doing what he | | MICROSCOPES RULED OUT. | At noon a recess was taken until 2 | o’clock and during the afternoon ses- | sion Byington again took up the.cud- gels in behalf of the late I. W. Lees. He said: “It belittles any attorney to stand by the grave of the dead and throw mud. It does not take a valiant man to kick a dead lion, and that is | what Lees was. Knight did not dare | to say anything about him at the for- mer trial.” Byington went over the testimony of a number of witnesses, and then in- troduced the supposed sensation of the prosecution. An array of awe-inspir- | ing microscopes had lined the table of the District Attorney all day, and he offered to show the jury by them that the inks on the wrapper of the box of candy and on the aronymous letters were the same. McGowan objected, and after some discussion Judge Cook | sustained the objection. and the micro- | scopes were taken away. Much time was devoted to the exemplars of hand- writing in evidence. The District Attorney closed with a strong appeal to the jury to return a verdict of guilty. Judge Cook then read | a lengthy charge. In his instructions he said the relationship between Mrs. Botkin and Dunning should not be taken into consideration. He also in- formed the jury that the motive need not be positively established. At 4:30 p. m. the jury retired, and as no verdict had been reached in an hour the members were sent to supper. —_—— e ——— | WRECKAGE ON SHORE b TELLS OF A DISASTER ASTORIA, Or., April 7.—Large quantities of lumber, evidently from® some coasting vessel, were washed ashore at Gearhart Park to-day. The lumber came in from the south, but nothing was washed ashore by which the vessel from which the Ilumber came could be identified. Persons ar- riving report that scores of dead sea gulls have been washed ashore cov- ered with crude petroleum and that large cakes of soft petroleum. were also washed ashore. It is believed that some oil-burning coaster carry- |ing a cargo of lumber has been lost