The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-04-14
WEDNESDAY, APRIL ID, 1869.
MRS. TWITCHELES STA TEMENT


public opinion, has been invited by the state
ment of Mrs. Camilla f. Twitchell. She is APP
parently not content with the verdict Of "nOt
guilty" pronounced by the jury, the acknowledge
meBt of the District Attorney that there was not
sufficient evidence to justify her conviction, and
the fact that she need fear no further legal
prosecution for the murder of her mother. In the
eye OF the law she is innocent, but she
states, 81 am u woman believed to be guilty
. one" and she seeks to effect such change in
public sentiment viii spare her the distress of
hearing herself denounced as o murderess in
thought as well as in action" and as the mur-
deress of her mother and destroyer of her hus-
band. To accomplish this object she gives, first,
her own statement of what she did and saw on
the afternoon and evening of the fatal tragedy.
II this statement embraces the TRUTH the whole
truth, and nothing but the truth,
Mrs. Twtchell's hands are unstained
by n drop of her mothers blood. She denies all
knowledge, of any kind, of the murder up to the
time when she ''hew down stairs" and saw her
mother lying on the settec in the ktchen-a
dead woman" She declares that she supposed
her husbands business to be in 1ourishing con-
dition; that her mother was pheasant and agree
able" when her husband and herself returned
from their Sunday afternoons ride; that she re-
ared at an early hour in delightful unconsci-
business of the storm that was brpOding over the
household, the only thing to mar her felicity
being that George appeared low-spirited" and
very thoughtful" If this story Is strictly true
Mrs Twitchen had motive for committing
the murder, or for being accessory to that
fearful crime, and she should be fully and
freely acquitted by the public as by the Court.
Bat partly to strengthen this statement, us if
she felt that it needed strength, and partly to
a. nra Af tI,A
accusation made BY George s. Tvitchell, Jr.,
Mrs Twitchell furnishes IA series of letters, sup
posed To be in the handwriting of her husband,
in which he inyents for her series of pretended
confessions which he desires her to make for the
purpose of inducing the Governor TO
grant him pardon; and the public are ap-
parently asked TO retry the case rather on
the statements thus made by the convicted
murderer than on Mrs. Twitchelrs own
allegations. noticeable feature of these let
ters is that so Tar We can learn from n hasty
perusal of their contents, they nowhere affirm or
deny either the guilt or innocence of the
writer or his wife. They are devoted
solely to efforts to persuade Camilla to
attest such a fictitious story of the transactions
at Mrs. Hills on the fatal night as would at
once implicate herself and eXOnerate him. We
have seen nothing in these letters that positively
attests her innocence, and we have seen nothing
in their contents that directly and unmistakably
dissipates the clouds of suspicion by which
she has unhappily been surrounded, They prove
that George s. Twitchen was ready and anxious
to cast unfair odium upon innocent persons for
the purpose of saving his own life, and that he
was more artful and inventive than has been
commonly supposed; but for all that appears on
their face, they might naturally have been
hy W w addressing
partner in crime, as by man invoking the aid
Of q wife whom he knew to be innocent
One. of the manufactured confessions, which
Is contained in the Sixth Letter" and classified
a. Confession number two, looks as If it con-
tsined the germs of the real truth in regard to
the manner in which the murder was committed,
and il would not be at all surprising if George s.
Z Twitchell did himself what he asks his wife to
aiiege she did. The story thus trumped up is,
in brief, an follows
''we talked awhile, when we got TO quarrelling.
:. We, often quarrelled when my husband
was not about-whie we were both angry. She
(Mrs HilD said that II was not for her that would
be beggar and would have 70 90 to- 70 tne aimshoIse;
DO ! saw the poker lying beside the CRATE, and |
ran and got it and struck ner with II several times
q before | knew what i was doing She fell on the
sofa then got frightened and did not know what to
do. Then thought l would throw her out OF the
window. and people would think she fell out, and |
would wash the blood on the door. went TO she
window In the smoking-room, because thought the
willow tree would hide me. pulled up the blinds
ana window and went and tried to lift her. At drst
| could not move her; then got desperate, and 1t
seemed that had i've times my natural strength,
and lifted her as easy as slough she had been
baby. did not feel her al all could have carried
three times much"
We should not be at all aStonished if George
8. Twitchell gave leaf from his own bloody ex-
perience when he asked his wife to adopt this
theory, and it is probably the nearest approach
TO Veritable dis closure of the manner in which
peared
As he rushed to tribunal where unerring
judgments are pronounced, public opinion can
affect, hereafter, only his wife, and it remains
for the community to decide upon the true value
OF the statement and the letters she has pre-
sented. II they are universally deemed conclu-
sive, her purpose win be fully answered; but If
not, she must bear, best she can the odium
of the suspicious which she alleges to be totally
unjust.
The most fearful feature of this strange case
Is the singular history of all parties connected
with il. Folly, duplieity, falsehood, vice, and
crime have been so artfully interviewer tina
there is little room for astonlshment at the hor
rI,le tragedy which unveiled so many discredita
BILE things to the public gaze. The moral OF th'
story applies not only TO the suicide who rushed
unbidden into the presence OF his God, and 4
the wife who is seeking to make her peace witt
the world, but it feariully admouishes all ho'
difficult il is to set bounds to the eventual result
of yenal wrong-doing, and how dreadful may b
the final consequences or the hrst snort ste
from the path of rechtude.