Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-09-19
THE McCUE MURDER CASE.
Accused Man Transacts Law Business
in Jail

A dispatch from Charlottesville. Va. last
night says: Ex-Mayor ]. Samuel McCue,
resting under the awful charge of murder
ing his wife, Mrs. Fannie NJ. McCue, is now
having fewer visitors, If those who go to
his cell to transact business are excepted.
Some of this last class resort to the jail
daily at the visiting hours, and seem anx-
ious to close up their accounts They find
him in the cell, with windows and doors
curtained with fabrics from his old home,
with his legal papers about him and photo
graphs of his wife and mother on his table.
The detectives have not yet ceased work.
ing upon the case. Two of the BaldwinS
are still here, and are, 1t is confidently
stated, in the possession of a great deal of
evidence which has not yet been divulged,
but some of 1t may not be admissible in a
court of justice. This would seem to be
especially true of evidence collected on the
subject of his alleged marital infdelities.
Some comment has been excited by the
discovery that in June, 1903, about the time
when 1t was said Mrs. McCue was seriously
considering asking a divorce, Mayor Nc
Cue decided to his wife the handsome home
on Park street in which he lived. Although
there were four children to whom the prop
erty would have descended in case of Mrs.
McCue's decease, the grantor inserted the
following proviso In the conveyance: If /
survive my said wife, then, at her death.
the whole of the property hereby conveyed,
whatever may be it's form at that time,
shall revert to and hereafter belong to me
just as though this deed had never been
made"
Although there has been talk of change
of venue, 1t Is not regarded as likely that
the prisoners attorneys will ask for it,
The grand jury meets On Monday when
McCue will very likely be arraigned.
The grand jury may be in session several
days, and 1t is hardly probable that the
trial will begin before Thursday. The COM
monwealths attorney is fighting for an
immediate trial, and the defense, it is un-
derstood. will make an effort to secure
continuance.
Feeling against the accused still runs
high, and talk OF violence Is heard should
the grand jury fail to indict or the petit
jury to convict.
Ernest B. Crawford Of Harrisonburg,
brother of the murdered woman, said:
when all the evidence is produced at the
trial, much of which has never found its
way into the newspapers, the prisoners
guilt will be so firmly established that no
rational man can question it,
Mr. Crawford. who is a lawyer and is at
work on the case. Is satisfied that his sister
was slain in the bath room after fleeing
there in the hope of locking herself in from
her husband. He Is OF the opinion that
after being beaten in the bed room more.
brutality than on former occasions. Mrs. Nc
Cue realized the purpose of the man to kill
her, and ran down the hallway with the
Idea of making her way through the door
there and thence back by a rear hallway to
the room occupied by the colored butler for
AID.
On finding the door locked she turned into
the bath room and attempted to spring the
catch. an effort that proved fruitless be-
cause of a defect in the lock. which caused
1t to fail five times in six. Mr.. Crawford
thinks that there she was overtaken and
that while on her knees begging for mercy
she was shot to death. Mr.. Crawford's
theory is that after the shot was fired Nc
Cue placed his wife In the bath tub and
turned on the hot water with the view of
drowning her in case spark of life re-
manned.