Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1890-03-29
CROSS TELLS HIS STORY.
He Testifies That He Did Not Kill His
Wife, But That She Shot Herself.

In the Criminal Court Chief Justice Bling.
ham, the trial of VIM. Douglass Cross, indicted
for the murder of his wife, Hattie Cross, in
October last, was continued after our repor,
closed yesterday-Assistant District Attorneys
Lipscomb and Armes for the government and
Messrs. C. Maurice Smith and Joseph Shilling.
ton for the prisoner.
A number of witnesses including defendants
father, testified that they never had known
Cross to carry pistol
THE DEFENDANTS STORY.
This morning the trial was resumed and the
defendant testified that his wife was jealous oil
him and claimed that he was keeping company
with a woman who was married. She said il
she ever knew him to go with any one she
| would take her own life.
He identified the pistol, having seen it in his
wife's room. He never owned one in his life.
Witness reached home that evening at 7:3O
o'clock; declined supper and went to his room
and his wife asked where he was going and
when he told her to the theater
told her that only men wen,
| there. Witness started and she followed him
out telling her mother she was going with him.
She accused him of going to see a
woman and he denied it and
promised to be in at II 80 o'clock and bring
street to 18th and to Virginia avenue, and step
ped out in the street to see il car was COM
ing, and then crossed over, his wife following
him still. He went down on G street and when
he came back the car was close up and as he
ran to catch the car he heard the pistol shot
and ran back and found she had shot herself.
He halloed ''Help! Help! for God sake, my wife
has shot herself" Some young men
ran up and he told them to take her while he
ran and told her mother. Then went down to
Ezxl II. l. -.
return with him. His father told him to see
his brother and when crossing Sth street he
heard some one calling him and it was Officer
Henry who arrested him and told him that he
(witness) had shot his wife and witness denied
it, saying she shot herself.
WITNESS CRIMINAL RECORD.
On cross-examination witness said he was in
dicted in November, 1881, for the murder OF
James Curry, by beating and kicking him,
and was charged with having on August IL,
1886, tortured and beat John Cross.
child under eighteen years Of age. He had
been convicted of nothing else. He did not run
after Fannie Hicks after he was married; be-
lieved that his wife knew he has ceased atten-
tions to Fannie Hicks.
1t wassome months after marriage that Hattie
said that if she caught him going with another
woman she would destroy herself. Witness
never took any laudanum from her,
but saw her with some laudanum
and she took some and vomited.
This closed the defendants case. The gov
eminent recalled Mrs. Turner in rebuttal. Mr..
Lipscomb asked as to a conversation with her
daughter the day following the shooting.
The defence objected and was sustained by
the chief justice.
The testimony was closed and the defendant
presented a number OF payers and the argu-
ments were proceeded w.t., the counsel agree
ing to confine their time to two hours on a side
and that the case go to the jury tonight =