The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-11-24
STORY OF CRIME|
Henry Clay Beattie ElectrOcuted
 Four Months After His Young
 Wife Was Murdered a
Continued from Page. 1.o

(Cont:nued from Page. 10
 July IS, 1911-Mrs. Henry Clay
 Beattie, Jr.. murdered.
 July 21, 1911-Henry Clay Beat
 tie, Jr.. arrested.
 August, 21, 1911-Trial begun at
 Chesterfield Court House.
 September 8, 1911-:Verdict of
 guilty. Beattie sentenced to death.
 November A, 1911-Death sen-
 tence executed
 Richmond, Va.,: Nov. 24Lfe paid for life today, when Henry Clay Beat tie, Jr., was shocked to death In the electric chair in Virginia State penl- tentiary here.
 Four months ago, on a dark. July night Henry Clay Beattie returned from a joy-ride on the lonely Midloth- ian Turnpike with the blood-sta1ned body of his wife held close to his side in hisHufo. But an hour before the couple had left the home of the girls uncle, Thomas Owen. There the body of the dead woman was taken, and there Beattie told story of beard ed highwayman whOs held up his ma chine in the road, after the auto had nearly run him down. Beattle said that when he started his auto to run -away from the bearded stranger, who was armed with a shotgun, the man fired at the machine, killing Mrs.
 While the family stof<the dead girl mourned her death at home. Beattie, with police officials, and private de- tectives secured the neighborhood for traces of the bearded highwayman. The blood soaked auto in which he had carried his wife's body was pressed into service and Beattie himself ran the gruesome vehicle up and down the Midlothian Turnpike through the night. e9
 Just as dawn broke, on July l9, Luther L. Sherer, Chesapeake & Ohio railroad detective, brought into the case by the girls family reached scene of the crime with a brace of blood hounds Then the first suspicion of Beattie himself took root. The blood hounds circled wide about the place through woods and fields, but bay1ng loudly they invariably returned to, the spot, where Beattie declared his auto stood when his wife was shot A short time later negro nanny" found a single-barreled shotgun, iden- tified by Beattie as the gun with which his wife was killed, at rail- road crossing about halfway between the scene of the crime and the Owen home.
 Beattie in his stories of the killing of his wife told widely differing tales. He was particularly contradictory in his description of the man whom he accused of the shooting. For three days detectives worked with all their energy without definite result but gathering a mass of circumstances that seemed to point to Beattie. The history of the young son of the veal thy merchant, as a Lothario of South Richmond, and his relations With the beautiful seventeen-year-old Beulah Binford, were discovered. The detec- tives unearthed the story of Henry Clay Beattie Trout, the child born to Reulah Binford and Henry Clay Beat tie in 1909.
 Meanwhile the body of the murdered girl-wife was buried from the church where a short year before she had been married to Henry Clay Beattle.
 On the Friday following, Coroner Loving began the inquestf into the death of Mrs Beattie. On the stand, -Beattie, under instructions from his lawyer, Harry M Smith, IT,, declined to answer any question relating to his intimacy with Beulah Binford. But during the morning Paul Beattie, Henry's- cousin, had confessed to the Richmond police that on the Saturday prior to the killing be had bought a single barrel shotgun for his cousin and had turned it over to him, with three cartridges. Paul later identified the gun found on the Midlothian Turn
 
 The inquest adjourned at noon with Beattie still on the stand and while he was eating lunch at his home, of ficers accompanied by Paul Beattie entered the house and arrested him. At the afternoon session of the in- and told of her relations with Beat tie. She told of the renewal of these relations shortly after Beattie's son, Henry Clay Beattie III was born, and her return to Richmond from, Norfolk where she met Beattie.
 { The Coroner's jury after a brief con- sideration held Beattie for the action of the grand jury.
 On August 14 the grand jury re- turned an indictment against Beattie for murder in the first degree, and on August 21, he was placed on trial. Then ensued one of the strangest, bit terest legal battles that Virginia has ever known.
 Out in the little Chesterfield county court house, fourteen miles from Richmond, five miles from a railroad, a courteous, kindly Southern gentle the trial. / District Attorney Gregory assisted by Louis O. Wendenburg, one of Richmond'S leading criminal law yers, conducted the prosecution, and Harry M. Smith and Hill Carter made the fight for Beattie's life.
 
 crime, and contradictory nature of the stories told by Henry Beattie, his unfaithfulness to his wife, and the story of his cousin Paul were the foundation upon which the State rest ed its case. The father sister and Friends of Beattie took the stand in a vain effort to establish for him rep utation that would convince the twelve Chesterfield county farmers who made up the jury, that he was incapable of the crime charged against him.
 Throughout the trial Paul Beattie, | the star witness for the prosecution, and little seventeen-year-old Beulah Binford, sweetheart of the prisoner, | were kept locked in Henrico county | jail. Paul was on the stand for two days but the seventeen-year-old girl was never taken to Chesterfield court | house to tell her story. She had been | summoned as witness by the prose | cution but the shrewd lawyers believ- | ed that her attachment for Henry | Beattie would make her an undesir- | able witness, and she was never placed | on the stand. Tn her stead, her mother, a big, | woman, told the story of | her daughters relations with Henry | Beattie; his love for the girl and his | renewal of their intimacy after his | marriage. After three weeks of talk | ing testimony, and argument, the | twelve Chesterfield county farmers re- tired one evening to the jury room, knelt down and prayed for Divine | guidance, discussed the evidence, knelt and prayed again, and then filed into