The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1911-07-28
'BEATHE did Il,
JURYS VERDICT
Formally Charged With Wife
Murder and Locked Up.
AFFINITY AND COUSIN HELD.
Detained for the Present as Wit
nesses--May Face COM
pilci,y Accusations
Lat.e.

Richmond.-Henry Clay Beattie,
Jr., was committed to the Henrico
County Jail, charged by Coroner Low
ing's jury of inquest with the murder
of his wife. He will answer to the
charge at the next term of the Ches-
terfield County Court, which will
meet on August IA.
His cousin, Paul Beattie, was COM
mitted to the same lookup in default
of $4,000 bail as witness, and the
woman in the case, Beulah Binford.
was likewise held as witness, her
bond being fixed at $1,000, which
she was unable to furnish. 1t is
possible that Paul Beattie and Miss
Binford will later face the accusation
of being accessories to the crime
The verdict of the jury says in
part:
I'VE find that the said Louise
Owen Beattie came to her death on
the night of July 10, 1911, between
1915 and II o'clock on the Midloth-
ian turnpike, at a point about three
miles west of Richmond and one
fourth of mile west of the colored
church, as result of gunshot
wound, the same being fred by her
husband, Henry Clay Beattie, Jr.''
Not for a generation has murder
so stirred Richmond, and the whole
of Virginia for that matter. Public
sentiment is overwhelmingly against
the prisoner, and it has already con-
victed him. 1t has been growing
since the night of the crime.
When the story was first published
of how young Beattie, driving his
automobile at record breaking speed
and steering with one hand, while he
supported the dead body of his wife
with the other, dashed into the home
of his wife's uncle, Mr.. Henry E.
Owen. crying "She is dead, she is
dead" the people became suspicious,
and the account given by Beattie
about strange man who appeared
on the road in front of his car, shot
the wife as she sat in it; about how
he (Beattie) wrestled with the man
and took his gun away and then
hurried on to the home of Mr.. Owens
with his wife dying in his arms,
failed TO carry conviction.
The gun with which the shooting
was done was found the morning af-
ter the murder by Mandy Alexander,
negro woman, and it was known
that as soon as its ownership or
custody was fixed the mystery would
be in a fair way toward solution.
Then came the sensational confess
sion of Paul Beattie that he had
bought the gun for his cousin, the
arrest of Henry Clay Beattie on the
charge of murder and the exciting
happenings at the home of Coroner
Loving.
Undoubtedly the State has a strong
case against him, far stronger than
that against McCue, who murdered
his wife at Charlottesville some years
ago, yet he has not had his day in
court. denies that he is guilty and
thus, in the eyes of the law, is pre-
sumed to be innocent.
But whether innocent or guilty,
Beattie is an abnormal man. There
is something lacking about him. His
composure is not the result of grit
Ior nerve, it seems more like lack
of sensibility, the result of indiffer-
ence. He has been noted in the
+. neighborhood ever since he was a
boy for recklessness and lack of
sense of moral responsibility. Yet
he was popular, in way, and most
people liked him.