Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1904-12-21
THE WEST VIRGINIA HORROR.

Looking from his cell in the county
Jail at Logan, w. Va, Fred Stratton,
the alleged slayer of the pretty lS'year-
old Rosa White, yesterday saw the fun
eral cortege move slowly up the moun-
tain side to the little private country
graveyard, where the remains Of the
murdered girl were laid to rest. STRAIT.
ton peered from the iron windows, aud
hardly for moment took his eyes off the
solemn scene, aud guards near say that
tears at times trickled down his cheeks.
Stratton, the handsome young man
who less than year ago was a sweet.
heart of Rosa White, and who, it is said
vas engaged to marry the girl, is of one
tsf the most influential families of the
county, while the girl was of equally
prominent parentage.
The murder, the most horrible in its
details ever known in the southern Sec
ton of the State, is the chief subject OF
comment, and when Slratton was frst
placed under arrest it was feared that
violence would be meted out to him at
the hands of an euraged community.
Feeling now, however. is not so strong
against the accused, as leading citizens,
it is said, will be important witnesses
for him in an effort to prove an alibi.
Hundreds of persons have visited the
spot near the public highway where the
body of the girl was found on Saturday
morning last, and the theories regarding
her awful taking Oft have been varied.
The most plausible, however is that
the girl probably started for walk with
someone and trouble arose which led
to her awful ending.
Her throat was cut from ear to ear,
her skull was crushed and her body bad
ly bruised. The murderer could not
have been more 6endsh in the commits
sion of his crime, as almost any one of
half dozen wounds inflicted would have
proven fatal
On the suow.coyered ground, near the
dead body, lay the blood-staiued razor
which the villain had used on his victim.
On this razor we're the initials Of STRAIT
ton. the man now in jail charged with
the murder.
A new hinge, or clinching iron, similar
to one of pair bought by Stratton at
store near Miss Whites home, was
also found, this being the weapon used
10 crushing the girls skull. The foot
prints on the ground were those made
bv a No. s shre, the size worn by
Stratton.
These awful teltales, and the fact
that Stratton had, until six months ago,
been frequent caller at the girls
home, led to the belief that he was the
guilty party, and the further fact that
he absented himself from his own home
for two days, and when first discovered
was coming across a mountain, places
suspicion more strongly upon him.
STATIONS plea will be that he was 10
miles from the scene, and responsible
natives of Logan county will testify that
on Friday he was not near the place
where the murder occurred. IfStratton
is not guilty, there is belief that he is
an accessory and that the girl, at the
time she went to the spot where her
dead body was found, believed that
she would see him there.
Miss White, the murdered girl, had
returned to her home from Dingess two
days before she was murdered, having
come to spend the holidays with her
parents. She had for three months been
stenographer for fuel company on the
Norfolk and Western Railway, and was
young woman generally liked and adj
mired.
Physicians who on Monday held an
autopsy over the remains discovered the
fact that the unfortunate girl would
have soon become neither, and this I:
no doubt the cause that directly led to
her murder.
Stratton made a statement yesterday,
in which he declared that be is entirely
guitless of the charge against him, and
that his arrest was the result OF a plot
copcocted by a rival, whom he declared
to be the real murderer of Rosa White.
When asked to name this person he re-
piled that il was not yet time for him to
sneak. but that be would do so at the
proper time.