The Sentinel=record., 1911-07-07
STOKES TRIAL
 INTERESTING
PACKAGE OF LETTERS WRITTEN TO MISS GRAHAM
 INTRODUCED.
Stokes Relates Story of Shooting While Miss Graham and Her chum Laugh and Joke In the
 Court Room.

NSW 1OFk, July O.-A package Ol eighteen letters, written in bygone years to Miss Lillian Graham, was handed up to the judges bench this afternoon in the court room where Miss Graham and her chum, Ethel Conrad, were arraigned on q charge of attempting to murder w. E. D. Stokes. the millionaire hotel man. They had been found, said the oc- tective, in whose keeping they had been, in the young women's rooms, and constituted the prize to recover which Stokes declared he had risked his life.
 Stokes, pale and worn. told his own story of the shooting. He had been summoned to the apartment, he said, by Miss Conrad, who told him that Miss Graham had left for Europe. He was angry, he said, when he saw he had been deceived, and declined to sign an alleged statement setting forth that he had defamed Miss Gra- ham and her relatives. He had also declined to pay s25,0O0 under threat of death, he added, and thereupon Miss Graham began to shoot. As he gave his evidence, the young woman laughed and chatted gaily.
 Stokes said he told the girls that blackmail was prison offense and that Miss Graham said, "rll say Pm crazy" while Miss Conrad declared according to Stokes, we'll say ne came to our apartments and attacked us and We killed him in self defense. We have three witnesses listening to all this, who never would let him out alive"
 When Stokes disarmed Miss Gra- ham after sustaining two wounds, Miss Conrad, he said. was in the par- Tor and as some one began firing then, he assumed it was she. He was shot again in the calf of the leg. There were four more shots, but they ali went wild, he said.
 Stokes started for tse hall then. There he said the first the two girls and later three Japanese grabbed him and throttled him, while short stout man aided them. The police finally rescued him and, he said, he handed a patrolman the revolver he had taken from Miss Graham.
 On cross examination opposing counsel attempted to have Stokes tell of his attention to Miss Graham dur ing the four years he had known her, but he proved an unwilling witness and the lawyer met with constant ob- jections.
 Stokes met Miss Graham at dim ner in Lexington, Ky, he said. He had taken her out automobling, had written her while she was at Mem phis, Chicago and other points, and had also entertained her at his Lex ington farm. She had come from Memphis to Lexington at his tele- graphic request. She left the next  day, Stokes said. The first cash present he had given her was $25O Tor $30O--he did not remember which -on the occasion of one of her visits to Lexington. he declared. Stokes concluded his testimony shortly be- fore adjournment. The case will be continued tomorrow.
 The bundle of letters that drew. Stokes to the girls apartment was made public by the court They all begin with the salutation, My Dear Miss Graham or My Dear Miss Lillian,' and most of them conclud- ed with Yours Sincerely or Yours Truly"
 There was a brisk encounter be- tween opposing counsel as to what Stokes should be made to testify to regarding the visit he said Miss Gra- ham made to his Lexington farm. Stokes admitted that it was tele- | gram from him to Miss Graham that caused her to go to Lexington, but he declined to identify a particular telegram that Miss Graham's coun- Isel produced. When he was asked