The Spokane press. [volume] (Spokane, Wash.) 1902-1939, 1909-11-15
G O N TIN u E d
r O
P A Q F. o N E
ALMA BELL IS UPHELD

VI TOoICiy NhO 6hA WhohA
Alma charged with having won the
affections of her lover.
Miss Foster walked into the
court room with Mrs. Armes, sr.,
mother of the dead youth, her
daughter and two sons, and sew.
eral other relatives, all dressed in
deep mourning.
The Foster girl Is beautiful
brunei, with large black eyes and
rosy checks. AS she took her seat
opposite from the prisoner, their
eyes met.
Alma soon turned her eyes to the
floor and dropped into a downcast
attitude. Miss Foster sat erect
with chin high and accepted the
situation without any sign of en-
barrasSment.
Ten jurors were in the box, all
subject to pereRptory challenge.
The $4,000 of insurance on Joe
Armes' life is said to be helping
in the fight to convict his girl
slayer. An attorney is being paid
out of this money to aid the prose-
cutor.'
There will be much that is not
pleasant to hear in the trial. Fol
lowing Is brief outline of the dis
trict attorneys plan:
PROSECUTORS PLAN
"We are going to show" he said.
that these two people had been
lovers for a long time. 1t will come
out in the testimony that the girl
went to the house where the broth
ers were living, and that she spent
nights there.
eve will show that they had a
disagreement. She wanted to marry
him and kept Fostering him. He got
tired of her and wished to get rid
of her attentions. There was no
thought of marriage on his part.
"We will show that the murder
was premeditated. She had been
practicing with revolver some
days before the killing and went to
his house that night with the in
tention of numbering him. We will
lay stress on the letter in which
she tells of her intention of killing
him."
The defense relies on that prof.
vision of the statute which excuses
killing on the uncertain ground
of temporary insanity. produced by
great mental. anguish, arising in
the brain of girl when she real
ICES that she is to become a mother
and her lover forsakes her in her
hour of need.
Talking with the child-like Alma
Bell, one cannot conceive how such
murderous, malevolent hatred
could have filled her soul. especial;
ly when she says simply:
81 loved Joe; | trusted him as
much as a girl ever trusted fefs
low"
And when she replied to query
as to what she wanted to do when
free:
II know ought to leave this
place, but / want to go home and
stay with my mother. She's old
now-and hasn't long to live"
Will the jury be able to picture
In their minds such hatred when
they hear on the stand the testi-
mony as to how she stood weeping
outside that lonely cabin on the
night of the killing, imploring to be
let in to her lover?
will the evidence of Mrs. Fitz-
gerald, to whose house Alma went
just after she had killed her sweet
heart, indicate to the jurors minds
deliberate malice, the essential ele-
ment of murder?" ask the defense.
According to the transcript of
the testimony at the preliminary.
Mrs. Fitzgerald. when she saw the
girl, all unstrung, with disheyeled
hair, enter her cottage after the
shots asked what had happened.
Alma replied:
Il have killed Joe; l am going to
kill myself now" and later: Il did
everything for Joe; and now he
has turned me down" =, ST.