Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1904-01-09
A SUICIDE THEORY
DEFENSE in LEWIS CASE MAY
CLAIM sELF-DEsTRucTIoN.
MRS. LEWIS DOES NOT LOSE HOPE

Though Imprisoned to Await Trial
4 of Her Case This Woman Maintains
She is Innocent and Waits Patiently
For An Opportunity to Prove 1t.
That the death of William Lewis,
former Ottumwan, was caused, IL not
from the effects of poison, then by his
own act, will be the claims of the de-
tense in the case of the state against
Belle Lewis, soon to be tried in the
Keokuk county district court. Mrs.
Lewis now confined in the county Jail
at Sigourney awaiting her trial, while
her children, some of them unable to
support themselves, are living as best
they can in this city, trusting to their
mothers innocence in which they all
believe, for her speedy return to them.
An Unusual Case.
u, The case of Mrs. Lewis is one of
the saddest, as well as one of the most
which have had their origin in Keoluk
ton which is known in several parts
of the county as "hell's half-acre," be-
cause of the frequency with which SEN
George Woodin, who not long since
passed away after life's legal work in
Keokuk county, has been known to
wont to look for sensational case
Sea-, ;rif ofp r 90
each year and that the time most pop
ular was when taxes are due the
spring and the fall.
S The Lewis case, however, is too seri-
Gus to admit of joking. To see Mrs.
\ Lewis, dumbly awaiting her fate in the
little Jail at Sigourney, fully realizing
her helplessness in many ways, and
then to visit the little home where her
children, the Oldest of whom is a girl
in her twenties, are barely subsisting,
waiting for the return of the parent
who has always been kind to them and
has stood between them and the hard,
cold worlds to realize in a measure
all that the awful charges means to
the woman.
It means that, even if .she is innocent
and declared to be guiltless by the
Jury which will sit upon her case, she
and her family of girls and boys must
ever face world which knows of the
charge. The American public is slow
often too slow-in forgetting an ac-
cusation of crime even when that same
accusation is annulled by an acquittal.
and pure lives are often ruined by the
directing of the finger of scandal
against them. This is not all that the
Indictment for murder means to Mrs.
Lewis. 1t means that she must re.
main in Jail pending the decision OF
her case while her little brood of chill
dren must worry through the present
winter without her aid. 1t means that
she must undergo, scores of times a
day, the fears which only the mother
knows in all their grim reality, that
her loved ones, the children whose
growth she has tenderly watched since
their first baby words fell upon her
ear, are without support, perhaps liv-
ing on charity-perhaps forced to do
without the food and warmth which
must be had to support life and health.
e And all this because of a charge
which Mrs. Lewis says is as groundless
as the most utter lie. She, the mother
Of seven children, is accused in an in
dictment found by sworn grand jurors
with administering a fatal dose of poi
son to her husband, the father of those
children.
Evidence is circumstantial.
sss After living with him for more thar
twenty years, sharing his joys and sor
rows. his losses and his gains, thi
woman is charged with the heinou
5 III i,,r N1I h1nN6
Of giving him as medicine when HI
lay on bed of pain, a dose of laud
anum sufficient to cause his death
The circumstantial evidence has bee
collected and has been placed befor
the grand jury of Keokuk county an
this body Of men has reported an il
dictment charging in six counts tina
Mrs. Lewis is the murdress of he
husband.
Theory as to Motive.
And for what? There are two thee
ries as to the motive; or, more prof.
erly, one theory in two parts. The ev
dence before the grand jury contain
hints that Mrs. Lewis and Ira Glass
ford, laborer employed on neigl
boring farm were unduly intimate
I ENlIAOooCo soy IhdI IACJ MClc =IO5Cel
er on several occasions, that the
drove together to Ottumwa to atten
D circus. This evidence is denied
part and in part supported by that {
Glassford, who is a witness for th
prosecution and who says that on
few occasions he accompanied Mr.
Lewis away from home at her hui
bands request. The fact is also e
fablished that Mr.. Lewis life was il
sured in fraternal organization an
the inference may be drawn that th
man; was put out of the way by th
woman in order that she might /
rid of her husband and secure his il
surance money also.
The task which is faced by the a
torneys for Mrs. Lewis, who are Ho
A. G. Steck of Ottumwa and DAM
Hamilton of Sigourney, is to prove ii
falsity Of this theory as to possib
motive for the murder of her life cor
panion. They think they will be SUI
cessful She thinks they will, al
this is the only hope that sustains Il
anxious woman in her days of Waiti1