Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-09-26
SENSATION IN COURT
Aged Mother of Victim Accuses
Hale of Murder
AT BL0UNTVILLE TRIAL
State Has Made Strong Case Against
Prisoner.
WITNESSES TESTIFY TO GUILT
First Evidence for Accused Will Be
Introduced Today-Attacks on
Dead Girls Chastity.

Dead Girls Chastity.
Special Dispatch to The Star.
BRISTOL. Tenn September os.-The first
direct evidence for the defense in the Hale
trial at Blountvile will be introduced to-
day ard the case Will probably not be given
to the jury before Saturday.
Sensation crowded sensation in yesterday
trial Of Ack Hale for the murder of Lille
Davis, his sweetheart. in East Hill ceme
terry, March 81 last. eliminating when Mrs
J. II. Davis, the aged mother of the slain
girl, with trembling voice rose to her feet
and pointed the finger of scorn at the pale
and wan prisoner, eXclaiming: You Scoun-
drel. you know you murdered my child
The state has almost laid its case against
Hale-a strong and absolutely unbroken
chain of evidence pointing to his guilt of
the murder of Lille Davis. BY dozens Of
reputable witnesses he was traced in a
buggy with the girl on the day of her
death from one part of the city to another.
all the time whipping, mistreating and fore
ing whisky down her throat. while she tried
to escape, to the very entrance to East Hill
cemetery fifteen minutes before the killing,
where a half dozen little children testified
that he abused the girl and she tried to
Scl away lIDlll illiH W 6o ilolHe, piSdOAhS pSs
tween sobs.
Literally pulling her into the graveyard
they disappeared He claims that he told
her he would not marry her. and she
promptly took his pistol and fired the ball
that produced her death.
One witness testified that Lille Davis
said before getting into the buggy, while
Ack Hale forced her to do with pistol
that II she went with him she would never
return alive.
Haie'a prothar Mnrdaror
Mrs. Davis testified that last December
Hales brother murdered her son, and that
| she moved to Bristol because Of fear that
Ack would kill her daughter. In anticipa-
ton of the defense of the prisoner. the
state yesterday conclusively proved that
the girl was to have been married three
days after her death to a rival sutton. the
mother testifyins that he asked parental
permission.
Two letters, which were found in her
dress when she lay dying in the cemetery,
each to friends. and telling of her ap-
preaching marriage. were also brought into
| the case. The girl lived near the cemetery,
and 1t was shown that instead Of reporting
the shooting to her own home he chose a
house almost three times as distant.
The first evidence for the prisoner Will
be introduced this morning. 1t Is evident
that an attempt will be made to prove the
girl impure to refute the criminal assault
charge, but the state has evidence to i'm
peach the testimony of almost every wit
ness on this point, they being chiefly dis
reputable women and to supplant 1t with
the testimony of wel-known citizens as to
the girls chastity, supported by the expert
evidence of physicians who conducted the
post-mortem examination as to her yir-
ginity.
The physicians told of the physical evil
dences of criminal mistreatment immediate
ly before the girls death.
NJ NJ. Cloyd, a lumberman, who was first
.t,,ln q m az a
she was unconscious and never became
rational. This came blow to the de-
Tense, who had expected Cloyd to give tes-
timony as to the girls ante-mortem state
ment consistent with the suicide theory.
Judge Tyler made ruling holding that
absolutely nothing said by Hale after the
killing was admissible This he explained
was against holdings of the higher courts
not part of the res eeStae.
Hale Acted the Brute.
Yesterday afternoon the prosecution in
troduced many witnesses. Most of the evil
dence bore upon Hale's treatment of Miss
Davis during the buggy ride in the after
noon of the day of the killing, reputable
witnesses, including Conductor Baylor Of
the Southern railway, testifying that Hale
was seen at different times Shaping the girl
in the face. forcing her to drink whisky
from bottle and firing his pistol to intimi-
date her.
pocket in a threa tening manner, and later,
in the City Park reserve, John Bruner, an
other witness, saw him fire his pistol with
the muzzle pointing toward Miss Davis feet
while Hale held her hands securely. Bruner
said this conduct was kept up for some
minutes
Two little girls stated on the stand that
they saw Hale mistreating Miss Davis just
before he entered the cemetery with her
and that she was in tears.
Suicide Theory Punctured.
Policeman Otto Heidreth of Bristol gave
strong evidence against the theory that
Miss Davis committed suicide, stating that
when she was picked up unconscious in East
Hill cemetery with a bullet wound in her
breast the pistol and an empty whisky
bottle were found in another corner of the
lot, several feet away from her.
The mother of Lille Davis, now practi-
cally a wreck under the weight of sorrow
testified to the good character of her daugh-
ter and to her fidelity to home. denying
stories to the effect that the girl had spent
several nights in Hales company in john
son City.
The mistress of disreputable house in
Knoxville. Tenn. interjected for the de-
Tense, testified that Lille Davis once spent
a week in her house, but three Knoxville
policemen are here to give evidence regard
ing the veracity of this witness.
Evidence of Assault
DIR. w. r. Rogers, who was on the stand
to give expert testimony. was unwilling to
give it as his opinion that Miss Davis had
lived virtuous life.
DR.. w. c. Booher. who had second time
been called to assist in the autopsy, said
that the evidence of criminal assault seemed
to him very strong.
The lawyers who are engaged in the case
are making the most of every point. John
S. Ashworth. chief of counsel, Is defending
Hale. He educated at the University
of Virginia and has been associated as
counsel in a number of important criminal
cases and has been quite successful.
Harry Swan, jr., of the prosecution, is
one of the youngest lawyers at the Bristol
bar. He was the first attorney sought by
the Davis family after the girl was found
dying, with evidences that she had been
murdered. In the last congressional cam
paign in the first Tennessee district he made
forty speeches. winning the title of the
Boy Orator of the Holston.'