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Show MRS, CARMAN ON WITNESS-STAND Alleged Murderess of Mrs. Louise Bailey Testifies in Own Behalf. DENIES ALL CHARGES Mother and Family Follow as Witnesses and Corroborate Defendants Story of Shooting. Mineola. Oct 23 Mrs. Florence t onkhn Carman, on trial as the slayer of Mrs. Louise. Bailey, smillnglv stepped step-ped into the witness stand today for the ordeal of cross-examination bv the district attorney. She appeared cheerful and refreshed refresh-ed and said she was ready to replv to all questions District Attorney Smith might ask her, no matter what they were. Courtroom Crowded. She faced a crowded courtroom Among tho 200 or more spectators who occupied even,- available bit of space were long-time friends and neighbors whose faces were wreathed with hopeful smiles. Ranged directly di-rectly opposite her chair, within the enclosuro and less than a dozen steps away were the mother, the daughter and the husband of the woman whose life the state asserts she took. The followed with intense eagerness every word of her testimony. Jn6t before the defendant took the chair ?he crossed over to her mother, Mrs. Conklin. sitting at the counsel table, leaned over and kissed her. District Attorney Begins Examination. Examina-tion. "Mrs. Carman." began the district Utorney. 'you said you were suspicious suspi-cious of your husband. "When did you get suspicious?" "About a year ago." What caused her suspicion she could not say. A woman did not cause it ' just rumors " "Were the rumors about a woman?" wom-an?" "No Just some one asking him about his girls. Somebody told me he was a devil with the girls." She could not recall who had told her this At Mr. Smith's bidding she named many men. friends of Dr. Carman, Car-man, but could not name, one of them as having said, "How are all your girls'" Doctor Was "Some Devil." "Somebody was asking him that -piestlon all the time. she said "They were Jesting. I thought at first, but after awhile I thought maybe there might be some truth in what they said They would say to me. 'The doctor is some devil.' " "Did you have an Inclination to hear what the doctor had to say to his women patients?' "In a way, yea. Some of his pa-lientB." pa-lientB." "Did you ask him where he was when he was out all night?" "Yes: and he told me.'' "Did you believe him?" "Yes, some times." "Did your suspicions increase with time?" "They increased right up to the time of the murder They have all been dispelled now." "How long have you been in that frame of mind?' "Ever since the terrible tragedy What I heard or rather what I didn't hear over the telephone instrument reasurred me." Evades Direct Answers. Mrs. Carman sought to evade a direct answer to the district attorney's attor-ney's question as to whether she thought that her husband was truth ful. Finally she said "No." She explained she had no real reason to doubt him, however. She was suspicious, sus-picious, at first, of the woman who called frequently at hie. office, final! she was suspicious of nearly all of his women callers. "I got tired of hearing things," she said. "And the fact that a woman would come to his office afterwards was enough to make you suspicious'' Were you suspicious of your husband or tho woman?" asked Mr. Smith. "Both," 6aid Mrs Carman firmly. "Some women," Mrs Carman said, "were more attractive to her husband than she was. she had thought. She did not know if there were more than one, but she wanted to find out. "I had no particular woman in mind." she said Mr. Smith asked If she thought Mrs Yarance, the middle aged nurse whose face she slapped, was more attractive attrac-tive than she. Mrs. Carman smiled and answered "No." Pales Under Pitiless Questions. Under the rapid volley of the district dis-trict attorney's pitiless questions, Mrs. Carman's color rose and fell. She bit her Hps, she clenched her gloved hands She appeared to about to faint, but her bottle of smelling salts i revived her. She was made to describe the entire en-tire scene with Mrs Yarance She said she saw Dr Carman give the nurse $15 and saw her kiss him afterwards af-terwards It was the passing of tho monev and not the kiss that disturbed her. she said. "You did not object to another worn an kissing your husband ln gratitude0" grati-tude0" "Oh, no," replied Mrs. Carman "How long after the passage of the money was the kiss administered'" "A few minutes. They were sitting sit-ting down alongside each other at the time." Mrs. Carman said she did not rap on the window when the kiss was given but waited until Mrs Yarance started to leave the office. "You went pretty fast around the lawn to get to the door before Mrs. Yarance, didn't you?" "Yes." Mrs. Carman indicated that she slapped Mrs. Yarance with the back of her hand. "Now, as to the night of the shooting," shoot-ing," said Mr. Smith "Did you hear a shot?" Didn't Heart Shot. "No. I heard some commotion " "What'' shouted the district attorney attor-ney I "Well, I don't know whether l' heard a shot or not I heard a noise " "And your curiosity wai aroused0" ''Surely It was an unusual sound." She thought it had come from the rear of the house and it took her about a minute to get down stairs, she said As she reached the head Ol the stairs she saw two women going clown the hall, but she madr no effort to find out who they were. After she went down stairs, she walked into the waiting room and loaned against a mantel piece for a moment She did not see any ono down stairs and went directly up stairs again after having stood by the mantel for two minutes, perhaps. Mrs. Carman's cross-examination eaded and her re-dlrect examination was then begun Tears Out Telephone, Before she was excused lirs. Car-mar, Car-mar, described in detail how she tore out the telephonic Instrument and (Continued on Page Seven.) : MRS. CARMAN ON WITNESS STAND ! (Continued from Page Four) its wires between her room and -he doctor's office and hid the wires, batteries, bat-teries, sound - gatherer, and the receiver re-ceiver in the garret untier the floor "Mrs. Carman.' said the district tttoraey, "if your suspicions were dispelled by what you heard over the-instrument, the-instrument, why did you buy the thing on June 123 when your lease on it had two more months to run7' To this Mrs. Carman would give no direct answer. Mrs Carman said she learned the inertity of the victim late Tuesday She said she felt 6orry for the fam-II) fam-II) of Mrs. Bailey, hut that she had not expressed her sympathy to them because she didn t feel at liberty to do so. Daughter Called to Stand. K iMrs Carman's daughter, Ellzabe'h was the next witness In a childish tieble she gave her version of what had happened in the f urman house hold the night of the murder After dinner, she said, she had gone out and played on the lawn. "Mother went up stairs," she continued. con-tinued. "My aunt and my grandmother grand-mother were on the porch Later 1 went into the parlor and started to 1 ractice on the piano. My mother told me to stop. Then I went into the dining room, walked through the hall ard sat in a chair in the dining room. Presently I heard glass break and a shot I met mv aunt on the stairs I went in my mother s room, "My mother was then? "When I ran back into the hall I fow my mother put on her slippers and kimono and I followed her down stairs Then 1 went up again When she came up in a minute. I went into her room with her." On cross-examination. District At torney Smith asked onlv one quer-tlon quer-tlon "Elizabeth, you are very fond of your mother, are'nt you''" "Yes," she replied. ' That's all." said the prosecutor. Defendant Breaks Down. Just as Mrs Sarah A. Conklin Mrs Carman's mother, 72 years old was called on the stand, the defendant buret into tears. She burled her far--1 In her handkerchief, shaking with k s.jr: Mrs. Conklin's testimony corroborated corroborat-ed that given by Mrs. Carman and Elizabeth. Similar corroborative testimonv WW given by Mrs. Carman's sister. Mrs Ida Powell (Late Yesterday's Proceedings) Mineola, N. V. Oct 22. Mrs. Florence Flor-ence Conklin Carman took the wlt-i' wlt-i' !s stand in be? own defense in the supreme court here late today to en tfr a sweeping denial of the charge tnst she murdered Mrs. I.oulse Dol l . I- ley. Item by item she went over the! story of Celia Coleman, the negress in her employ at the time of the trag edy In the Carman home In Freeport iast June, and declared false every accusation made against her by the termer maid Maid's Story a Fabrication. V fabrication from beginning to end was. in the essence., her characterization charac-terization of the maid's narrative of the events of the night Mrs Railey was shot and killed in the office of I Dr. Edwin Carman, husband of the I defendant, and of subsequent happenings happen-ings in the Carman home. The story told by the girl was of-f' of-f' red by the prosecution as tending I directly to connect Mrs Carman lith the shooting and tho efforts of Mrs I CarmM s counsel today in questioning question-ing his client were designed chiefly to discredit the servant s testimony. Mrs. Carman Self-pccscwed. Mrs Carman responded with alacrity alac-rity and seemingly with entire t'rnnU rcss to the questions of her attornev Her demeanor was that of a woman in complete command of herself On one occasion she smiled Again her face wore expression of madness, as I When she mentioned her visit to the I morguo to view the body of the wo- :a; ri the state claims she killed. She looked Into the faros of the jurors, with steady eyes when she desired to impress them with some I particular point and she seemed re-I re-I so.itful when certain points in the Mors of the negress were under ciis i oi rion. Mra Carman was on the witness stand nearly an hour under direct examination ex-amination Defense Springs Surprise. The defense sprang a surprise 1 a hrn George. M. Levy, her attorney, called her name and asked her to take the stand The court has been I edjourning every day at 4 80 o'clock Tiie crowd In the courtroom had been I listening with little apparent inter-, inter-, est in stories told by witnesses jC.lled in an effort to break down the testimony offered by Frank Farrel!. tlit Bowery character, who is another of the people's important witnesses Many ot those who had beon in attendance at-tendance throughout the day had left when the defendant was called nearly fifteen minutes after the regular closing time. The wife of the Freeport phvsician admitted that she had iastalled n 1 telephonic instrument in her hus- ! band's office, but she flatly denied : that she was "insanely jealous ' She said she had heard people ask her i husband "bow all his girls were." Sometimes he had stayed out all night. Because of her daughter, she said, she did not want to obtain a j divorce. But if her husband was as $ bad as he had been painted to her, th- wanted to know it. It she found out what she bad j beard wa6 true, Bhe said, she had de-t de-t rmined that she would continue to live In the same house with him as if nothing had happened, but that ( she would never speak to him again ( Then, on the morning after the mur . drr she declared, she tore out the , dcricp that the district attorney had ' termed a "mechanical eavesdropper," because she thought her husband al-read al-read had enough to bother him She explained her every' action. Mrs. Carman even corroborated rome of the state'6 witnesses by ad- iritting that on the evening of the 1 murder she bad called to her daugh ter. Elizabeth, to stop playing the ; pinno But she did this, she swore. I because she had a headache and net. I as the prosecution has intimated, because be-cause she wanted to listen over the mechanical eaesdropper to what her huiband was savins to a woman in c his office She admitted, too, that on one occasion, she looked in the same window as that through which the assassin of Mrs. Bailey fired. t Bit this, she said, was because she ( knew a trained nurse, he appeared ( to be fond of, was in his office. j Li denving Cella's story, she made , no qualifications. She denied every accusation without reservation. Celia's ( testimony, according to Mrs. Carman. ( was a pure fabrication from beginning to end V.'heu Mrs Carman stepped down from the stand she was apparently as fresh as when she went on She walked around the rear of the jury' Lex, grabbed little Elizabeth up in J her arms and kissed her again and age in "Oh," she said, turning to her mother. moth-er. Mrs Piatt Conklin. "I do so hope they will believe me. I told every- j thing I knew I told the truth and ' that surely should be enough " TRAGEDY AND ROMANCE OF THE CARMAN CASE LEND TRIAL AN ; ABSORBING INTEREST; WOMEN, MYSTERY AND LOVE ALL IN STORY Mr?. Florence Carman (left), Prosecuting Attorney Smith, Mrs. Louise Bailey, and courtroom where Mrs. Carman is being tried. The elements of tragedy and romance in the Carman murder case, now being tried at Mineola, L. I., lend the trial an absorbing interest. There is mystery, love, jealousy, suspicion, and perhaps hatred. Little more could be added to increase the interest that centers about this famous trial. |