The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-09-09
BEATTIE GUILTY
SENTENCED TO
DIE NOV. "a
Prisoner Expresses No Fear
or Emotion Today Over
His Impending Fate
Judges Statement to Jury
Without Error = Appeal
for New Trial Will Be De-
MED.
Especial from united Press.

l
Especial from United Press.)
Chesterfield Courthouse, Va, Sept
9.-With cynical, Indifferent smile
on his lips, Henry Clay Beattie, Jr.,
today, sat in the valley of the shade "
to await the day when he must pay
the wages of sin-the penalty for the
murder of his young wife.
Not in recent criminal history has
la murderer sat down to await death
SO calmly. Not a quiver of emotion
or fear, today, distorted the sharp
featured face of the young man of
26 whose bright future has been
darkened by crime and shadowed in
the pail Of death.
But an aged father, broken and
sorrowful, his whole life shattered by
his sons plight, is the figure of sad
ness in the case. Today, with his
other son and his II year old daugh-
ter, he lay in his sorrow-stricken
home in a state Of almost total coll
lapse.
For three weeks he has sat behind
his son while he made his fight for
life, counselling him. encouraging
and comforting him. Last night, he
bade him farewell after IL stolid
Chesterfield farmers had pronounced
the doom of death-all comfort and
But the callous boy, facing death
as calmly as he faced his fight for
life, smiled with bitter smile as
he kissed the tottering father good
bye.
A respite until November "a was
for their client. Judge Watson grant
ed a stay of execution until that date,
to allow the prisoner time to file an
appeal. But all Virginia ds satisfied
that the application will be denied.
Today, the attorneys for the defense
search practically in vain for an error
in the judges statement, on which to
base a plea for a new trial.
If the sentence disturbed his sleep.
last night, Beattie showed no trace of
it. The cynical smile curled just a
little deeper and the eyelids. dropped
just trifle lower. But no trace of
the awful thoughts, that must have
people his ; dreams in the little iron
cell in Chesterfield County jail as the
great red harvest moon flooded
through his window, was apparent.
None of the horror Of the death spec
tire that. must have stalked in the
bare -sha dowed, semi darkness was
depicted in the face of the -calm-eyed
youth.
There was evidently no thought cf
the trusting young mother, brutally
shot down on a pleasure ride; no
thought of the blood in which he
wallowed as he brought home the
shattered body in his auto; no
thought of the little motherless child
soon to be made fatherless by the
grip of the death chair.
Newspaper were his most import
ant thought.
QUICK VERDICT
In three minutes less than an hour,
after taking only one ballot, the jury
Henry Cley Beattie, Jr.,
guilty of murder in the first degree
for killing his wife, Louise Owen
Beattie.
After the verdict had been read
Judge Watson sentenced Beattie to be
removed to the State penftentiary on
Oregon Hill in Richmond and that
his life be taken In the manner pre-
scribed by law on Friday, the Oath
day of November, between sunrise
and sunset The Virginia law pre-
scribes the electric chair.
When Louis O. Wendenbury, chief
Commonwealth prosecutor, finished
his summing up at $40 o'clock moth
ing remained but for the jury to re-
tire to the little jury room over the
court room and take with them the
fate of the accused who had sat in
an urchanging position during the
TWO hours and a half that the law
yers had been building up bit by bit
he evidence that was to weigh
against him in the minds of the twelve
Chesterfield farmers in the box.