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Show DEFENSE WILL. CLAIM THAT IE ATM WAS A MESH OF. MISS MILL'S 'OWN ' ACT. I I ' : Offense Charged Against Dr. E. S. Payne Is Reduced Re-duced to Murder in Second Degree. The preliminary hearing of Dr. E. S, Payne, charged with the murder of ' Anna I. Hill, who died in his office December De-cember 20, 1902. under suspicious circumstances, circum-stances, was begun before- City Judge C. B. DIehl in the State branch of the Police court this morning. The defense, which is being conducted ' by Attorney Will F. Wanless, has shown the policy which will be pursued! in the case. The defense will not endeavor en-deavor to prove that no operation wadi performed upon Miss Hill, but that she performed the operation upon herself, after which, becoming frightened, she-visited she-visited Dr. Payne for relief, and died ia( his office. , i Complaint Reduced. The first step in the case was takers by County Attorney George Westervelt,, who moved that the complaint charging! Dr. Payne with murder in the first de- gree be dismissed, and as a substitute) . one be filed charging him with murderj in the second degree. The motion was not opposed by the defense, and was ( granted by Judge DIehl. Witnesses Introduced. '" ' G. H. Place, a Telegram reporter, dw sworn, and described the condition off the body as he saw it on the couch In! Dr. Payne's office on the day Miss Hill! i died. i Prof. George N. McKay testified! that' Miss Hill had lived at his home for six years. She ate an ordinary breakfaatj on the day of her death and left the house about 8:30 o'clock. He next saw her dead in Dr. Payne's office. John B. I Jackson, a cleric at Auer-i bach's dry goods store, said Miss Hill purchased four yards of surgical cloth; from him about 11:15 o'clock on the day of her death. He noticed nothing pecu-! liar in her appearance. County Physician's Testimony. Dr. H. N. Mayo,. County Physician, -was the star witness of the morning session. ses-sion. It was In examining this witness that the line of the defense was made' ; apparent. Dr. Mayo said he made a superficial su-perficial examination of the body In the jjfflce of. Dr.. Payne, after-which, .fce ex-. .. , amined it more carefully at Evans's undertaking un-dertaking parlors. In his examination there he found a toilet cloth .on the body, which was not pinned or fastened to the clothing. This cloth was spotted with a few drops of blood. At the post-I post-I mortem he found unmistakable evl--dences of an attempted criminal opera- tion. When asked If he had any opinion as to the cause of death, he replied that he had, and that his opinion was that death was caused by cardiac paralysis and paralysis of the pneumogastrio nerve, Induced by the administration of a drug, presumably chloroform. The evidences of an attempted criminal ope- . ration were very apparent, and the indications in-dications were that instrumentation had been performed within two hours prior to the death of Mlse HilL Line of the Defense. ' On cross-examination, Attorney "Wan-less "Wan-less asked if the health or life of the patient would have been endangered had not the operation been performed. Dr. Mayo answered that It would not. "Are there cases where such opera-, tlons are necessary?" "There are." ' In reply to questions. Dr. Mayo saidi a person could perform the operation, herself, as the necessary Instruments and drugs could be obtained without! question at any drug store. Dr. Mayo was then asked If there was; anything he noted in the condition of; Miss Hill which would lead him as a physician to believe that the Instrumen-j tatlon was not made by the woman her-1 self. ! Dr. Mayo explained carefnlry to the court that the conditions he discovered were such that to cause them the patient pa-tient must have suffered great pain, and! could scarcely have borne it without an anaesthetic The defense then directed its questioning question-ing to show that the operation had been performed by a hand unfamiliar with. that kind of operation, intimating that Miss Hill performed the operation before be-fore she went to Dr. Payne's office. I E. W. Hall told of removing the body of Miss Hill, to the undertaking parloraj |