The San Francisco call., 1898-08-14
Etta Payne Believes
 Him Sane. 
INSANITY SAID TO BE A RUSE
DECLARED CRAZY TO AVOID A :. TRIAL YEARS AGO.
The Wounded Girl Tells of Some : Damaging Statements the :.,:: Murderer Once Made
 to Her.
Oakland Office San Francisco Call,

sos Broadway, Aug. B.
 . Frank Cheesman will not find 1t an easy matter to establish his defense of insan- ity when his trial is called.
 Miss Etta Payne, with whom Cheesman
 was infatuated, is still suffering at the '' Receiving Hospital from bullet wound
 inflicted by her would-be lover. She is as
 yet unable to move, but the matron says that in all probability the girl will be re-
 moved to her nome some time next week The time for Cheesman's s trial will be set next Monday and Etta Payne will be the most important witness. The girl scoHs
 at the idea that Cheesman is insane, and
 says that she will avenge her fathers
 cruel murder.
 :: T feel sure that my fathers murderer
 will get his just punishment" said the .ainfortunate girl to-day. "Cheesman may . play all the crazy-man he pleases, but :. l. consider him just as sane as anybody.
 When l first met him it was at our Elm .. hurst home last May.
 , "Oh, no, I never loved him; but I con- fess that l did make him believe in the
 beginning that l might marry him some : day We had not gone together much
 before I heard that Cheesman was cruel . to his mother; and that he had once been
 ia an insane asylum. Of course, this was all d great surprise to me, and l began > to think that I had better not go with :: hirn any more. I never intended to marry him anyway, but the next time l saw him 1T spoke to him about 1t.
 Frank Cheesman told me that it was
 true he had been in an asylum. He said I'd. he had called for a drink in a. saloon one :: day and when the bartender demanded . pay he shot him: and to save himself fcOm being sent to San Quentin his folks had him sent to an insane asylum.
 % This was enough for me, and 1 re-
 garded him thereafter as an unworthy man and refused to go with him. He had several times told me if he. ever caught me out with any other gentleman on the . street. he would shoot me, but l never '' had any fear of him. He vas the first
 man 1 ever went with, for there were but
 lew men at Elmhurst.
 .''I guess he really loved me. One night
 he came around to our house in Elmhurst .: and refused to leave. So he stood out
 by the fence until o'clock in the morn Ing, smoking cigarettes He must have :; been drinking. Anyway that was the time my father had him arrested for dis turbing the peace. My father forbade me going with him thereafter, but 1 went
 with him a few times mores.
 ."Gheesman always talked rationally to
 me. never believed him insane, even
 after he admitted that he had been in ' an~asylum' and do not consider him in- sane now. Only last Saturday he told .: n1e he'd shoot me if he caught me walk
 ing with any one else, but l wasn't afraid
 and when l wrote him the letter of July
 70 I let him down as easy as possible lis only motive for killing my father = was revenge"
 .+ M: :.1Is- JoSle Brooke, the girls step " mother. was amused over the idea that -.CheesTnan had accidentally shot her in z his effort to fire another bullet into the :prostrate body of her husband on the T haven't the slightest doubt that .Cheesman wanted to kill me- she said ' was the one he was maddest about f foT ! @ had frequently ordered him away - "Cheesman had shot again at my bus- :: Ipanq after the latter had fallen on the Kitchen floor. and he then turned around and shot directly at me He told us once :; that he had been in an asylum to avoid ~ the penitentiary."
 Since the murder 1t has been assorted byr*some that Frank Cheesman and Eta Payne had been married by contract
 some two months ago. This idea it was claimed was moreover supported by the
 letter from Clara Payne which was found among Cheesman's possessions and in: which Clara designated herself as .: !" your sister-in-laW"
 :: This alleged marriage is enphatically : denied by Etta and her mother They ". have lately received a letter from Clara % dated at Sans Valley, Jackson County :" Oregon, August 8th, in which this gir shows that "she had heard nothing o1 the shooting as yet, but she wrote :: What kind Of a man is Frank Chees- :. man? He said in a letter that he would .': send me a ticket if l would agree tc :: come down to Oakland and be his friend :: I don't know what he means" F Mrs. Brooke says that when Cheesmar
 learned of Etta having a sister he wrote ito her and signed as your brother-in. .: law
 : Clara is a mere girl, and in good hu. :.nlor answered the letter, signing her :: self as his sister-in-law," said Mrs :. Brooke "Etta and Cheesman were not tc |: be married, and it was all, Cheesman's :: idea. Indeed, do not think him insane . in fact, he told me that he had once .' made people believe him crazy but ht .. had fooled them. I do think, though ., that he is the most dangerous man ir .. this community, and the sooner he is 1:out of existence the better for the world :. Remember what l tell you; Frank Chees- "man. will never escape his just deserts : for my husbands cruel murder"