The Washington herald., 1907-05-14
NELL GIRL ON TRIAL
Artists Model Is Accused of
Staying Husband.
FACES HER ORDEAL CALMLY
Admits that She Drove Nail File
Into His Eye, After Being Unable
Longer TO Endure Taunts-Ex-
plains How She Fled to New York
When She Realized Her Act.

Bridgeport, Conn, May 13.-The trial Of
Mrs. Catherine Neill. the beautiful artists
model who is charged with the murder
Of her husband, James NeiIl, at the
Greenwich Hotel on December II, will be-
gin here tomorrow.
The prisoner, who is known as "Goldie"
Neill faces her ordeal with the utmost
composure. The months she has spent in
a cell have in no degree diminished the
beauty Of her face. She suggested more
than ever the contrite Madonna as she
came into court.
Nell was once pugilist He met the
woman who is accused of killing him
after she had been graduated from the
class Of artists models and had become a
concert hall singer He was a giant in
stature, while 'GOldie" Neill was slight
and girlish in appearance. For several
weeks the murder OF Neill appeared to
battle police solution, but at last his wife
made all clear by admitting that it was
she who drove a sharp nail file into his
brain in their room at the hotel and left
him there dead.
The defense that is to be set up to save
"Goldie' Neil is in many respects similar
70 that followed in the Thaw trial It will
be nothing more than the story of
woman who began her career at fifteen. as
did Evelyn Nesbit Thaw. II will tell of
the running Of the human gamut that was
10 end in the tragedy at the little hotel
six weeks after the marriage Of the beau
tiful model and the pugilist
Tortured with Taunts.
The defense will be in effect a reproduc-
ton, as by a camera, of the closing scene
in the lives Of the two-Neill. the giant.
and the girlish model being the only
actors in it. In her confession the pris-
oner said that her husband had been
drinking heavily. He had tortured her
with the admission. that he had led her
into a bigamous marriage. and that he
was tired Of her company. and meant to
leave her there to shift for herself as best
she could.
The scene that will be depicted will show
the husband in a drunken frenzy and
ready to slay the model who had followed
him to the altar on being told by him
that her plea for a divorce from her first
husband had been granted.
Next it Will show him in the act of
striking her down with his fists and
strangling her TO death. Photographs
viii be put in evidence to show the ter
rible work wrought by those brutal fists
and these mute witnesses must stand m
challenged since the only other actor in
the tragedy is dead.
Fled from Hotel.
When the terror-stricken woman saw
the tense muscles Of her giant assaflant
and knew that the knife-mke handle had
done its work well. she fed from the no. |
tel and hurried away TO the railroad sta
ton, bent only on reaching the home of
hey mother, at lS5 East Ninety-fifth
street New York. She had taken time
only to cleanse the blood from the little
weapon she had USED. and dropped ii
into the folds of her umbrella. In her
terror at the presence Of death she for
got the umbrella, and only remembered
It after she had reached the station and
was about TO board a train
a hotel clerk had carried one of her
bags for her. and her evident solicitude
about the umbrella. added to her unnat- |
ural excitement, led him to suspect that
something was wrong As soon as her
train pulled out he hurried hack 10 the
hotel and there in the room occupied bv /
the Neills was found the body Of the !
dead man. At. the base of his brain was |
a stab wound that looked as If il had
been made with a knife.
Police Find Nail File.
The police were called in and soon they
found the tell-tale file in the folds Of the /
umbrella that had been left behind by /
the slayer. The woman reached her
mothers apartments about 2 In the morn /
ing, and fell in a state Of utter physical |
and mental collapse. So alarming was
her condition that a physician had to be 4
summoned, and she was under his care |
for hours.
A day later she was hunted down by 1
the police and charged with the murder /
OF her husband She was so i'll that she /
had 20 be removed a prisoner to Bellevue |
for treatment. On her release |
from the hospital she was taken 70 the !
Iombs police court and there surren-
dered to Sheriff Ritch. of Bridgeport.
The prisoners maiden name was Cath
crime Bella, and up 10 the time Of her
meeting with Neil she had lived with 1
her mother after her separation from her
first husband As Goldie Nell she was
known is nearly all the studios Of New