“I Swear Harry K. Thaw Was Insane.”
DEFENSE BEGINS TERRIFIC FIGHT TO PROVE YOUNG MILLIONAIRE WAS CRAZED
BY WHITE’S ACTS--DR. WILEY, THAW’S FAMILY PHYSICIAN, DECLARES HARRY
DID NOT REALIZE WHAT HE WAS DOING--THEATER EMPLOYE PROVED IMPORTANT
POINT THAT WHITE HAD THREATENED YOUNG THAW--ANOTHER PHYSICIAN
ASSERTED THE SLAYER, WHILE YOUNG, HAD ST. VITUS DANCE, A DREAD
MALADY THAT MIGHT HAVE AFFECTED HIS BRAIN--EVELYN PALE AND
WORRIED--PRISONER RAGING IN HIS CELL--THE CRISIS AHEAD.
Experts on the subject of insanity--famous physicians whose testimony
cost from $100 to $500 a day each, and whose services required an
expenditure of more than a half million dollars--were the central
figures in the early part of this celebrated trial. The defense began by
forging the links in the chain of circumstances which, it was asserted,
had disordered the brain of Harry Thaw and caused him to kill White.
The first witness for the defense was Dr. C. C. Wiley of Pittsburg, the
Thaws’ family physician, who was connected with the Dixmont Insane
Asylum. During Dr. Wiley’s examination, the young prisoner sat with
paper and pencil, taking notes and consulting
[Illustration: DELPHIN M. DELMAS
Thaw’s chief lawyer.]
constantly with his counsel. He was pale and nervous, and shuddered at
the slightest unusual noise in the court room. Jerome went at the
witness pitilessly, asked him trick questions, and endeavored a hundred
times to trap him into an admission that Thaw might not have been insane
at the time he killed White.
Jerome failed. When the day had closed the evidence as to insanity
remained unshaken, but the witness was exhausted and so confused that he
often took refuge in the answer “I don’t know,” or “I cannot recall.”
Mr. Gleason, attorney for Thaw, asked the expert a hypothetical question
the answer to which immeasurably strengthened the plea that Thaw was
insane. It was:
“Assuming that any man was proved to you, as an expert, to have attended
a roof garden the day of June 25, 1906, the occasion of the opening of a
theatrical entertainment which was largely attended, and that on walking
out from the theater, with his wife near him, and apparently in a quiet
and orderly manner; that that man should turn aside and fire three shots
from a revolver into a man who was sitting at the table and to whom he
did not speak; that this man then held the pistol above his head and
walked quietly toward an elevator; that he gave up the pistol without
resistance and did not make any attempt to escape, and that he said, ‘He
ruined my wife,’ and that immediately thereafter he said to his wife, ‘I
have probably saved your life,’ I ask you, sir, upon your judgment as
an expert, whether you are able to give an opinion touching on the
sanity of the man who made that answer?”
“I can,” said Dr. Wiley.
“Will you express that opinion?”
“I believe that that man -- --”
District Attorney Jerome objected.
“You must not state a belief,” said Mr. Jerome, “that is not evidence.
You must give an opinion.”
“My opinion,” said Dr. Wiley, “is that the man who committed the act
described was suffering from insanity.”
Other striking assertions from Dr. Wiley’s testimony were:
“The act of Harry K. Thaw was that of an insane man.
“The remark Thaw made to his wife after the tragedy, ‘I have probably
saved your life,’ is an indication of an insane delusion.
“I have examined 800 people as to their sanity, and should know the
prisoner’s condition.
“When I examined Harry in the Tombs prison after the murder his actions
were irrational.”
Dr. Wiley was on the stand for the defense all the first day, and at the
opening of the second day a sensation came when Mr. Delmas took the helm
of the defense, and called Benjamin Bowman as the second witness. Jerome
had refused to allow Bowman to
[Illustration: COUNTESS OF YARMOUTH
Harry Thaw’s sister.]
testify for the state. Bowman in 1903 was a doorkeeper at the Madison
Square Garden Theater.
“I knew Stanford White and Harry Thaw,” Bowman swore. “A few nights
after Christmas, 1903, Stanford White came up to me after the show and
wanted to know if Miss Nesbit had gone home. I told him she had. He
replied: ‘You are a liar.’ I told him to go back on the stage and see
for himself.
“When he returned, and as he passed me he pulled a pistol from his
pocket and muttered: “I’ll find and kill that-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- before
daylight.’”
“Did you tell Harry Thaw of this threat against his life?” asked Delmas.
“Yes, I met him on Fifth avenue and told him I wanted to speak with him
regarding Miss Nesbit. I then told him of the incident at the theater
and of White’s threat.”
“What was Mr. White’s condition when he made the threat?”
“He was black in the face with anger.”
This ended the direct examination of Bowman, and Justice Fitzgerald
said:
“If there are any persons in the courtroom whose sense of propriety
would be offended by the testimony of this witness the court will give
them an opportunity now to withdraw.”
“We must ask the court to bear with us in bringing out this testimony,”
explained Delmas, “but it is essential.”
“It is perfectly right and proper,” Justice Fitzgerald quickly assured
the lawyer. “There are ladies here, however, and I think they should be
given the opportunity to withdraw if they so desire.”
The Countess of Yarmouth and Mrs. George L. Carnegie quickly left the
courtroom.
Mrs. Evelyn Nesbit Thaw and May McKenzie arrived at the courthouse some
time after the session had begun.
In cross-examination by Mr. Jerome the witness clung to his story. He
added that “The Girl From Dixie” was playing at the Roof Garden Theater
at the time, and that White and Thaw even then were rivals for Miss
Nesbit’s affections.
The next witness was Martin Green, a newspaper man, who saw Thaw just
after the shooting. He was asked as to Thaw’s manner after he committed
the murder.
“He held the pistol high above his head,” said Mr. Green, “He was very
pale, his eyes seemed about to pop out of his head, and his hair was
hanging well down on his forehead.”
Dr. John Franklin Bingaman of Pittsburg, one of the Thaw alienists,
testified he had known Harry Thaw for thirty years. He attended him when
he was two or three years old. Thaw had children’s diseases and St.
Vitus’ dance.
Dr. Bingaman said that Thaw’s condition might be called a neurotic
temperament.
Mr. Jerome asked only two questions in cross-examination. In response to
them Dr. Bingaman said Thaw had the St. Vitus’ dance when he was six or
seven years old.
At the end of this day’s hearing Harry Thaw was in a frenzy. In his cell
he denounced his lawyers for their determination to make insanity the
defense. Adding to his troubles was the fact that his beautiful young
wife was to go on the stand next day and bare her tragic life to the
public gaze.
Mrs. Thaw dreaded the ordeal. She was barred from the court-room during
the latter part of the early testimony, but extra editions of the
newspapers were brought to her hourly, and she read the testimony she
was not allowed to hear. She was ghastly pale, and at times appeared
about to collapse.
Next day brought the crisis in the most sensational trial of the
twentieth century, with the fair, slender Evelyn--the leader in the
battle to save her husband’s life.