Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1912-09-17
PAYS PENALTY FOR HIS BRUTAL CRIME Bertram G. Spencer, Actor, Dies in the Electric Chair
 For Murder of His
 Wife. A GRUESOME AFFAIR Chopped Her Body 10 Pieces and
 Shipped it in a Trunk-Ac- cidentaI Discovery.
A GRUESOME AFFAIR

Boston, Mass, Sept. 1G-Bertram c. Spencer. convicted of the murder of Miss Martha Blackstone, school teacher of Springfield, Mass, was electrocuted here this morning. He was pronounced dead at 12.1S o'clock.
 The criminal records of Massachus- etts snow no more gruesome murder than that committed OH September l, 1908, in Someryille, near Boston, by Jordan, an actor, then aged twenty nine. His wife Honorah, an actress, aged twenty three was his victim.
 Jordan, according to his written confession, said that his wife was jealous and that on the night of Sep tember l, they quarrelled She struck at him, he struck back. His blow felled her and when Jordan tried to lift her Gp he found she was dead. He then dragged the body into the kitchen, laid it alongside the sink and went to ted and to sleep.
 The next morning he cooked and ate his breakfast in the kitchen while the body of his wife lay on the floor beside him. Then he went out, bought a butcher knife and a hack saw and set about dismembering the body.
 He cut off the womans head and legs. The head was thrown into the furnace. He shaved all the flesh from the legs and threw the bones into the furnace. He then packed the torso and the strips of flesh in a trunk and had it shipped to d boarding house in Boston. '' v
 Jordan's plan was tq make hoat to New York and dFope the trunk into the water en route. But the line had stopped running for the season. It delayed Jordans departure from Boston for more than "A hours and the delay brought about his arrest and conviction.
 George E. Collins, the expressmar who took the trunk from the depot to the boarding house, became suspic- ious because of its weight. Many bur- glaries had been committed just about that time in and around Boston and Collins told the police that the trunk might be filled with silverware.
 Sergeant Crowley hurried to the boarding house. Jordan had just re- turned with some wire. some heavy wrapping paper and leaded weights Crowley asked Jordan about his trunk and Jordan at first denied having one. The officer finally forced Jor- dan to take him to his room.
 Open that trunk, commanded Crowley.
 Jordan's face turned ashen. He threw himself on the floor, grovel1ing. Obeying the 'insistent command of crowley, the wife murderer fitted the key into the trunk, turned his face away, twisted the lock and the lid flew open.
 Crowley stood aghast at the sight that met his eyes. Instead of stolen silverWare he saw the sickening mass of a woman's rapidly decomposing torso There was no covering over it.
 On May 4, 1909 Jordan was con- victed of wife murder. In September of that year one of the jurors who had convicted him died of insanity Jordan's attorneys, whose fees were paid by Jesse Livermore, millionaire brother-in-law of Jordan, asked tc have the case reopened on the conten- tion that the juror was insane during the time he sat in the jury box. The superior court judges overruled the motion. The case was carried to the higher courts which upheld the ruling of the lower ones.