Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1891-08-28


farm. This line of life kept those who knew
him in doubt whether he deserved the reports
about him in connection with other mems
wives-reports that had been floating for
yeals. He had been the father of thirteen
children and only fifteen months ago became a
widower The woman whose monotonous voice
was giving testimony in the witness chair
| against him, was she who had hoped to fill
| the dead wifes place, and who was willing to
| do murder to win it.
| The woman was Mrs. Margaret Cecil Gill
| mer, the wife of Wyndham Gilmer, weak
| headed farmer of excellent social standing to
| whom she was married thirteen years ago and
| to whom she had borne five children. She
| was thirty-three years Of age She had been
| farm beauty, fresh blonde face, auburn
| hair and tall and slender figure, but her
| awful experience of the last two months had
made her haggard. When the doctor first
saw her she was dressed in white at church
festival and had been just married, and the
monotonolls voice told the jury that he had
often told her that he fell in love with her at
| first sight. But in the witness chair she was
dressed in black and the knuckles OF her
white. thin hands stood out. For two days
she sat there telling the jury that she and the
| doctor were two murderers. Her memory
was good, her statement clear, her manner
filled with the fervor of religious repentance
and her tears frequent.
There was another woman-the woman who
had stood between this one and her insane
| passion to be Bakers wife, but that woman
was not in court, she was i'll her grave, and it
was on the charge of his putting her there by
poison that all this was going on in the Alb
ingdon courthouse. The dead woman had
been in life loveable and popular woman,
and belonged to prominent family. One of
her brothers, Alexander Davis, represented
the Grayson district in Congress, and another,
| Prof. James A. Davis, was at one time a
professor at Emory and Henry College. To
of the intidelity of her husband, and her
last sentence addressed to him on her death
bed began "My darling"
A batch of letters found under a rosebush
had suddenly brought two guilty people to
the bar of judgment. Last February DR..
| Baker sold his farm, which adjoined the Gil
mer farm, to a Mr.. st. John, and moved his
family to Abingdon. His wife had died sud-
denly the previous December, One night
after MI st. John took possession a servant
who could not read brought him two OF three
| letters which she had found under rOsebush
| in the yard. He read them and found that
they were from Mrs. Gilmer to Dr.. Baker and
referred to the death of Mrs. Baker by poison
| the slow way in which her own husband, to
whom she was administering poison under
Dr.. Bakers advice was dying OF it. The
letters were sent to Mr. Gilmer's brother.
| After consultation, warrants were issued for
DR.. Baker and Mrs. Gilmer The doctor was
arrested that evening as he came out OF church
in Abingdon. He expressed great surprise at
the charge and said it was absurd. He was
taken to jail protesting his innocence. Not
SO with the woman. When she heard the
charge she fell on her knees before the Sheriff
and her brother and told the whole story.
She said that for five years she had been init
mate with Dr. Baker who was their family
| physician. Three years ago their blindness
had made them SO imprudent that both she
and Baker had been summoned before their
church and they had withdrawn from the
church rather than undergo an exposure.
| Her husband had forbidden Baker to come to
promised her to poison his wife and she
should poison her husband From that date
they had little post office of their oWn-an
clubhouse on the Gilmer farm, in which she
would deposit love letters and he would ride
there at night and get them and leave his re-
plies. 1t was those letters written by her
that at last brought the affair to light. They
seldom saw each other and the woman became
furnished her the poison, one bottle being
prussic acid, and often begged her to finish
her husband, once begging her on his knees to
do it; telling her that he had kept his prom
Use ana Killed HIS VILE anu HOW she must
keep hers. She administered several doses
to her husband, but while it made him sick it
did not kill him. That was the story she
told, on her knees to her brother, and could
not be swerved from as she sat in the witness
chair. And that was the story which the
Judge told the jury was to be taken as evil
dence, uncorroborated, if they believed she
was telling the truth.
The letters found nnder the rose bush how
ever-her letters, for none from DR.. Baker
To her Observation-Disclosures
ground work for different story. 1t is clear
from these letters that, successful seducer
that he was, Dr.. Baker had met more than
his match in this woman. If she had been a
pure woman before, then at his touch she
turned to tiend as dangerous to him as to any
body else. Her passion for him was that of
the tigress. Her letters begin. my Own Lit
tie Guardian Angel and MY, Own. Little
to know when she will see him. She is sus-
picious that he intends to desert her CHS wife
being dead he was preparing to move to Alb
ingdon) and reproaches him bitterly for the
calmness of fiend how she is administering
the poison to her husband, his symptoms, and
she complains that he does not die. The let
ters show that she was woman whose love
or hate was dangerous and it is probable
Baker had long thought so and had at last
sold his farm to fly to Abingdon to get rid
of her. The letters show that she is not with
out suspicion of this. 1t looks natural that he
should have promised such woman to poison
his wife and to help her poison her hus-
band and never intended to do either. AS to
his own wife, the physician who attended heI
testified that she died of puerperal causes and
while arsenic was found in her body it could
be accounted for from its presence in the en-
balming fluid with which she was embalmed
1t seems doubtful if he ever gave real prussc
acid to kill MI. Gilmer with, for if he had, a
drop given would have killed the man. Hell
complaints about the slow action of the poi
o,,l ho, c1Na 20 In1o ,,,4
dying. when he got quite sick, indicate that he
gave her what he told her was prussic acid but
4 which was only medicine to produce pros
trating sickness. He had Unexpectedly raised
4 a devil and knew not what to do.
But Baker said none OF this in his own be-
half during the trial. He sat stOlid, calm and
immovable with his aged brother and his
nephews around him. He did not, as was his
privilege go on the stand to testify in his own
behalf. The jury went out of the room and
he conversed with those around him as cool
as any spectator. The jury returned and
asked the Judge if they were to accept Mrs
Gilmer's evidence if not corroborated by other
evidence. When the Judge told them that
they were to accept it if they believed her
people in the court room turned pale for il
meant death for Baker but he never finched
In thirty-siX minutes the jury returned Dr.
Baker turned from whispered conversation
with one of his counsel and looked them over
The clerk called on him to stand up, he did
SO, and the faint 'guilty" of the foreman OF
the jury did not move him. When he was
called up week later for sentence he stood VI
erect and firm and answered deliberately to the
formal inquiry OF the court, that he had moth
ing to say. The Judge then sentenced him tc
be executed on Friday November 9th. and
Baker quietly resumed his seat without a
change of countenance. He listened intently
to every word of the sentence.
His counsel will apply to the Court of APP
peals for new trial. The woman, Bakers
paramour, who is under Indictment for at
tempting the life of her husband, is out Oh
SIC, 900 bail.
The curious have discovered some food fol
superstition in this strange trial The trial
occupied Is days, Mrs. Baker had given birth
to Is children Mrs Gilmer had been married
IS years; the chemist had discovered 1-13th OF
grain of arsenic in Mrs. Bakers body, the
case was given TO the jury on the 18th day of
| the month and there are l. eXcentiQns f Led hy