CHAPTER VI.

“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

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

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.