The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1902-03-25
WITHOUT EMOTION ISABELLE
WRIGHT TELLS HER STORY.
ACE PROVED BY PARENTS
Family Bible Produced Showing Rec
ord Of Birth-Prisoner Does
Not Testify.
From Saturdays Daily Gazette.

From Saturdays Daily Gazette.
The men with slanting f%oreheads
and thick lips occupied every seat in
the district court room yesterday and
remained all day with craned necks
and strained ears listening to the
disgusting tale of filth told by an ig-
norant child as she related the story
of her own shame and an old mans
%depravity. Without a blush the COM
planning witness answered the ques-
lions put to her by the attorneys,
and once or twice even permitted a
glimmer of a smile to pass across
her ~countenance as she related the
alleged incidents of the two nights
on which she claimed the offense
charged against the defendant was
committed. Without a tremor Or the
least sign of feeling the aged prisoner
sat facing the witness, his face as
fixed as that of a craven image. o.
casionally he would toy with a piece
of paper that lay in front of him, but
not once did his eye wander from the
witness on the stand to any one else
in the room, not even, as the ordinary
prisoner usually does, to cast a glance
at the jury to note the impression
made by the story of the one testify
ing. .
Trouble Getting Jury.
When court convened for the day
the state announced it's readiness to
proceed with the trial of Charles w.
Clark, charged with statutory rape on
the person of Isabelle Wright, who al
though a married woman, is alleged
to not yet have attained the age of
consent.
The regular panel was exhausted
without a jury having been obtained
to sit on the case. A special venire
was issued and court took a recess
until 1870. The names drawn were
those of Fred J.. Mashaw, Harley J..
Hall. F. H. Foster, L. Kircheis, A. M.
Land, Charles Spear, P. F. Van Hou-
ton. S. F. Morse, J.. L. Harrington
and E. w. Szitnick. The sheriff made
returns that he had found Harring-
ton, Morse, Spear, Kircheis, Szitnick,
Mashaw and Foster.
With these to draw from it was still
impossible to secure a jury and a
second venire was issued. Those sum-
moned this time were, Otis Hunley,
Henry Haid, August Seipp, George F.
Bennington, H. M. Allen, H. K. Fish,
Thomas Hogan and w. H. Smith. OF
these the sheriff returned as served
Allen, Haid, Bennighoff, Seipp, Hogan
and Fish.
From the talesmen and the regular
panel the following were selected to
try the case: R. B. Huckleberry,
Henry Haid, H. M. Allen, F. J.. Davis,
John McCurdy, J. w. Epperson, Thos.
Chatwood, Walker Browning, E. w.
Szitnick, J. F. Sanford. John Schroe-
der and Andrew Dahlstrom.
Tells Her Story.
Without manifesting any more
emotion than though called upon to
recite some bit of neighborhood Cos
sip the complaining witness took the
stand and gave her testimony. At
times her dense ignorance was appar-
ent when she declared she did not
understand the questions put to her,
although usually framed in the sim
plest language, but when querried in
a manner that she understood her
W were prompt and straight,
forward.
She said she had come to the city
February 26, last, on a ticket sent her
by the defendant, who had also sent
her a postoffice money order for, SO;
that On her arrival at the depot he had
met her and taken her to the house
occupied by himself and a married
daughter, Mrs. Litzinger, over on the
north side of the city. She was III
able to tell in what county or state
she was, but said she knew she was
IN Billings and had come here from
Missoula. The first night of her stay
at the Litzinger house, she said, she
slept upstairs and the two succeeding
nights in a room downstairs in which
there were two beds, about three or
four feet apart: she had occupied
one bed and the defendant the other,
she retiring first each night, the de.
PENDANT coming to bed about a half
hour afterward. After he had been
in his own bed for a short time on
each night he had gone to hers and &C.
compliShed his designs. She admit.
ted that she made no cutlery and that
beyond a verbal protest had not sought
to prevent him from violating her per
son.
She said she was IL wears old an6