The Yakima herald. [volume] (North Yakima, W.T. [Wash.]) 1889-1914, 1911-05-03
WOMAN BEHIND
THE COUNTER
Sad Story From the South With a
Lesson for Husbands, Wives
and Beautiful Affinities
WOMAN WHO KILLED
QUICKLY ACQUITTED
The Husband Put Up Money to
Defend His Wife, Then Left the
State in Order to Avoid Pub
licity .

A woman went into a shop the
called another woman from behind
the counter and shot her dead.
The woman who shot and killed
the other woman was found wander
ing in the street hours afterward alb
solutely dazed and practically out of
her mind Her son, a 19-year-old
boy, took her home and put her to
bed, and when the officers of the
law came to arrest the woman who
killed another they found her boy
sitting by his mothers bedside with
her hand IN his, singing an old
fashioned hymn to her and trying to
quiet and comfort her.
The woman who killed the other
for murder in the first degree.
1t was proved at the trial that she
was a woman of unusually fine char
acter in many ways; she was a de-
voted wife, a good mother a char
table and kindly neighbor and a
YER devout and sincere Christian.
Her husband was III love with the
woman behind the counter; he had
been in love with her for four years,
and the woman at home knew all
the time.
She cried and begged her husband
to give up his new sweetheart. When
he told her that he would not do
it she prayed about it. Night and
day he prayed.
Her husband saw her growing
4 H.
she ate little. and he knew that for
weeks at time she slept less than
two or three hours a night, but he
would not give up the woman be-
hind the counter, and SO one day
the woman at home went downtown
and murdered the woman behind the
counter.
What did the husband then do?
Go into mourning for the woman be-
hind the counter--the woman for
whose sake he had given up the
so of his wife into the hands Of
torture more horrible than any phys.
ical torment could possibly be?
Not he.
Did he uphraid his wife, reproach
her for numbering the woman nc
really loved?
He did not.
He made over all his property to
his wife, hired attorneys to defend
her and then left the state.
The woman was tried, the jury was
out less than an hour and brought
in a verdict of innocence upon the
plea of emotional insanity.
The first thing the woman who
had cen on trial for her life did
when she heard the verdict of the
jury was to throw herself into the
arms Of her son, who never left her
all during the trial, and the Sec
ond was to gather her friends
around her and tell them what a
good man her husband was and how
grateful she was to him for hiring
the attorneys to defend her.
He was good man, that hus-
band, wasn't he?
Just the sort of good man who
lends you $50 to get you out of a
scrape and then gets out an extra
TO tell the Whole world what a good
fellow he was and what poor,
weak fool you are.
A splendid fellow, this man who
tortured his wife day and night for
four years, and then when she went
mad with the torpure condescended
TO hire a lawyer to keep his name
free from the disgrace of the shall
ow Of the gallows.
Why didn't he and the woman be-
hind the counter run away from
town four years ago, If they were so
desperately in love with each other
as all that? No. He wanted his
home and the comfort Of it, and the
respect of his children, and the
friendship of his neighbors, and he
wanted his woman behind the coun-
ter, too, and so he tortured his wife
till she went ravine crazy---and then
he was good enough to save her
from the sallows.