Waterbury evening Democrat., 1908-01-09
GILLETTE IS UP
Man CoDuicted of KilIin6 Grace Brown is Before the Bar
 on an Appeal
HEARING ARGUMENTS

Albany, N. Y., Jan. 9.--Chester
 Gillette's appeal from conviction of
 murder in the first degree and sen
 tence to die in the electric chair for
 killing his sweetheart, Grace or
 Billy Brown of South Otselic,
 Chenango county, was argued this
 afternoon before the court of ap-
 peals Former State Senator A. M.
 Mills, of Little Falls, who has been
 Gillette's counsel since his arrest, as- sisted by c. D. Thomas, represented
 the defendant. while argument for
 the people was made by George w..
 Ward of Dolgeville, who as then dis trict attorney of Herkimer county,
 where the alleged crime took place, prosecuted Gillette at his original trial, presided over by Judge Irving R. DeyendOrf
 Gillette is charged with having en- ticed Miss Brown, who was about to become the mother of child of which he has never denied the paternity, to Big Moose lake in the Adirondacks in July, 1906, taking her out in boat to lonely part of the lake and as dusk was falling striking her on the head and face with his tennis racquet or some other weapon and throwing her unconscious body into the water where it is alleged drowning com pleted the work of murder. The de- fense was that after desperate can wasting of their plight the girl ill despair suddenly arose, exclaimlng, ''I will end it all,' and before her companion could prevent leaped into the water overturning the boat as she jumped. Gillette said that he was unable to rescue her. The fea- ture of the trial which attracted wide spread attention was the read ing of a series of extraordinary pathetic letters, written by Grace Brown to Gillette. She was twenty years old and worked in a factory conducted by a relative of Gillette who also worked for time in the same place and became acquainted with her. They became intimate and in the late spring of 1906 her condi- tion made exposure increasingly cer- tain. By these letters the prosecutor sought to show that the girl believed was about to take her away from home and marry her and in them, was claimed to appear the motive for the alleged murder.
 Senator Mills arguing before the court for the defendant appellant, that it was an error to rerI ceive in evidence the letters Of Grace Brown in view of her condition at the time they were written, that when excerpts from these letters were read to the jury it was for the purpose of creating dramatic ef- feet upon them; that the jury was stirred lE emotion and came to a verdict 6f guilty through an ire pressible tide of feeling 10 which no barrier or warning was interposed except such remarks as the defend- ants counsel could make.
 MT Ward sought to controvert the points raised by Mir Mills, uphol1ing the legality of each.
 "The evidence" said he in part. leaves no escape from the conyic- ton that the defendant committed the crime of murder with premedita- ton. Every fact proven pointed with more or less distinctness to the guilt of the crime charged in the indict- 
 If innocent" Mir Ward urged in ''it was his misfortune to environ himself in a net work of circumstances which to the minds of intelligent men required to reach results by rational processes, 1 could admit no other conclusion than that of guilty.
 Applying the rigorous rule insisted . upon by the defendants counsel that the facts must he of such 9 character htat they cannot be accounted for upon any other hypothesis than that of the criminality of the accused. and must demonstrate tO a moral certain ty that a crime has been committed and that he was it's author, We think the verdict in this case is impreg- nable"