Birmingham age-herald., 1895-09-08
BLANCHE LAMONTS DUMMY
Clothes of the Murdered Girl Draped With
 Awful Realism About Figure.
THE DEFENDANT WAS ALONE UNMOvED
.ss. at It-The Prosecution Discoversa
 New Witness in Street 'tssst Car Conductor.


 day was he fourth day of the trial of T. II. Durant. the prosecution is still a good distance from it's testimony, if it has any. which will prove beyond doubt that the mild-mannered, well-bred little man is the one that committed the fendish dou- ble tragedy al Emanuel Baptist church. A fresh stage in the Durant murder case was reached. yesterday-a stage which was thrilling in it's horror, and kept the crowd in the court room almost gasping with interest The story of the finding of Blanche I.amonts clothes, that were hidden away among the rafters of Emanuel church belfry, was told on the witness stand by the man who found them, and as each bit of cloth was shown the crowd swayed with excitement. There was just one man in all that crowd who seemed to feel no interest in the garments This was the man, who of all others, might have been expected to shudder and cover his eyes when the clothes were exposed-the man accused of the murder ot the girl who wore those garments when she was last seen alive.
 The introduction of the girls clothes was rather startiing-almost theatrical It happened soon after the noon recess. A man bearing burden pushed through the crowd and into the court room. NO one could see exactly what he held in his arms, but it appeared to be womans form. What the bailiff brought into court was really harmless enough, sim ply a dressmaker's dummy over which had been draped Blanche Lamonts basque and skirt. In order to make 1t realistic, however, the dummy was as near as could be made the dead girls heghth and figure. a tall, slim, girlish figure, undeveloped, but still not lacking in grace. The basque and skirt were torn and wrinkled, but the tears were pinned up in part and the gown draped so as to show 1t much as 1t must have been when 1t was alive. The bailiff stood the dressmaker's dummy beside the witness stand, and there 1t remained all the aft ernoon and to the excited imagination of the attendants on the Durant trial and it is trial that sets the dullest nerve on edge-the poor figure seemed like an accusing presence Men and Wo- men shuddered as they looked at it. It made Blanche Lamont who, unaer the fuss and technicalities of the trial has seemed more like an abstraction, one of the conditions in game, the stakes of which are Theodore Durant's life, ap- pear as young girl really lived and whose bright young life had been cut short by fiend.
 Nothing in the trial has so much to revive the thrill of horror that swept over the country when it was first known that two young girls had been outraged and murdered in a church.
 A new witness has been discovered by the prosecution in the person of H. J.. Shalmount, street car conductor whose car reached Mission street day after day in time to receive Blanche La mont as a passenger. Having to he at the school house at a certain hour, the pretty school girl had made it d habit to take the same car every morning. From the Mission street line she trans ferred at Ninth street to the Larkin street branch on the Sutter street road Shalmount came to know her face. He noticed that she was very pretty school girl, and always seemed to be unaccom- panied. On the morning of April this rule was broken. Shalmount observed that Blanche was accompanied by a young man whom he did not know. The conductor was particularly attracted to thefcouple by their laughter and conver- sation. They seemed busy in some in teresting discussion of their books, to which now and again they would refer Shalmount took a good look at Blanche's companion, and when the pictures of Theodore Durant were subsequently pub lished the conductor knew that the girls escort on the morning of April was the young. man who stood accused of double murder.
 As the prosecution will endeavor to trace in accurate and logical detail the movements of Theodore Durant and Blanche Lamont upon the fatal day this new witness is looked upon as one of great importance. He will draw the them on this car and begin the recital of a terrible story which the prosecution confidently expects to see end in the sentence of death.