The Newark star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1909, 1909-11-12
EVIDENCE SHOWS
NINE. STE|NHE|L IS
GUILTY, He SAYS
Lawyer Reviews the Tragic
Night in Concluding Arguments
at Trial of Alleged Murderess.

PARIS. Nov. I2.-Many well-dressed,
stylish-appearing women. managed to
gain entrance to the gloomy, sitting
courtroom today to hear the concluding
arguments in the trial of Madame Mar
gherita Stelnheil for the murder OF
her husband and stepmother.
The accused woman, deathly pale,
walked unaided into the court room,
but her step was mechanical and ner
arms hung Imply at her sides. When
she had AIKEN her place in the dock she
seemed hardly to have h strength 10
took about her, and sat with lowered
eyes like one in a dream as the red
robed judge advocate esumed MS
merciless arraignment.
Beginning with the words 1--WE will
live again the tragic night" Trouard
Riolle, who had opened his summing
up for the prosecution yesterday. In
cold. dispassionate words undertook TO
reconstruct the scenes in the Steinheil
home on the night of the tragedy and
en- the morning following. when the
crime was discovered. He m~arshaled
the testimony of the witnesses to estab-
lish his contention that the burglar
story was q fabrication and the pre-
tended binding of Madame Eeinheil a
farce: that the money claimed to have
beer stolen never existed, and that the
Jewels which the widow asserted had
been taken from the house were after
ward found in her possession.
nj. Riolle dwelt particularly upo the
tell-taie ink-stains which the two ply
sioians who examined the injuries of
Madame Steinheil claimed to have
found upon her knee. The prosecutor
claimed that during the binding of
Madame Japy an inkstand in her room
had been overturned, the fluid being
spattered upon the bedding and upon
the accused.
He insisted that the evidence proved
that the apparent illness Of the ac-
cused after the commission of the
crime had been simulated and that
subsequent developments had con-
firned the suspicion that she had acted
with hypocrisy throughout. 1t was
when the police had definitely rejected
her story of the Gaberdine-clad burg
lars and she saw Borderel slipping
from her net because the mystery was
~unsolved, the prosecutor said, that
Madame Steinheil in desperation began
TO accuse innocent persons. He added:
she wished to avoid the probability
of q non-suit in her favor, because such
aR outcome of the Ease would not
safisfy Borderel. And so, un~hesitating-
". she placed the accusing pearl in the
pocket of her servant, Remy Couillard.r
As the acknowledgement proceeded he
became increasingly severe in his de-
nuneiation of the white-faced prisoner
and frequently m of dissent
came from those in the real Of the
courtroom. As she heard herself de-
scribed as a cold, calculating fiend with
a soft exterior. Madame Stelnheil bit
her lips and raised her clenched hands
in mute protest. At the conclusion of
his description of the night scene, when
the widow made her false statements
to the journalists, the prosecutor
shouted:
"She can't tell the truth because she
IS guilty." whereupon the defendant
half arose from her seat and then sank
back, burying her face in her hands.