Bisbee daily review., 1912-03-28
TENTH ANNIVERSARY
 OF TRIAL. OF PATRICK

NEW YORK, March 26-Ten years ago today Albert T. Patrick, after a highly sensational trial lasting more
 than two months, was found guilty by
 & jury in the court of general sessf0nss
 Manhattan, Of having murdered Will
 liam Marsr Rice, of Houston, Tex, an
 aged and eccentric millionaire who,
 at the time of his death lived in a fins
 old residence on Madison Avenue,
 Manhattan On April '. 1902 Patrick
 was sentenced to die in the electric
 chair on May . following, but the sen
 tence was never executed. lmmedt
 ately after he had been sentenced,
 Patrick began the memorable and un
 paralleled fight for his life and lib
 erty and for the vindication of his
 honor, which has not yet reached its
 end. t
 T-e fact that Patrick. now undeI
 life sentence at Sing Sing. IS plan
 ming another effort 10 obtain his re lease under the habeas corpus law in
 the near future, makes a review O.
 this famous case on the anniversary
 of Patrick's conviction doubly inter estine
 William Marsh Rice died at his New York residence on September 23, 1900
 under somewhat peculiar circumstance f es. The exact cause of his death was never established, as the statements of the experts conficted. The prose Cution claimed that the old man had
 died from the effects of inhaling chlor-
 oform, while the defence contended
 that he had died a natural death, from indigestion caused by overindulgence
 in bananas The only person with Mir. Rice at the time of his death was
 his valet, Charles F. Jones.
 On the day after Rice's d-ath, Pat rick, who had been a practcing law yer in Houston Tex, but had remOy ed 10 New York city in 1892, present
 ed at one of the New York banks sey- eral checks ggregating S12J,0O0, bear ins the alleged signature Of Mir. Rice and made payable to Patrick. 4 mis- take in the spelling of Patricks first Bame attracted the attention of the ] bank officials and when they learned that NIT. Rice had died the da before ! they refused to honor the checks ana notified the police authorities.
 Patrick and Jones had arranged to have the body of NIT. Rice cremated 1 and the body was actually on its way i to the crematory, when tle police in- terfered and began an investigation. [ Jones. NIT. Rice's valet was arrested | on suspicion, and being put through 1 the third degree, confessed that, at l the instigatiOn of Patrick he had kill ! cd MT Rice by chloroiorming him. Aft CT his alleged confession Jones tried ! to commit suicide in the Tombs. Patrick, after a preliminary hearing | on April 16. 1901. was held for trial 1 on charge of murder and his trial ! began on January 20 1902. IL was l shown in the course of the trial that Patrick had been the attorney for the | heirs of MT. Rices wife who had died ! in a sanatorium in Wisconsin and had ! first become acquainted with NIT. Rice in that capacity. It was alleged thai ] it was Patrick who had induced Mir [ Rice to consent to a settlement with | the heirs. It was contended by the 1 prosecution that the will leaving the l bulk of the Rice estate to Patrick in | trust had been forged by Patricl, and i that the latter had persuaded Jones to kill his master, so as to leave Pat ! rick's hands free. Patrick was con l victed and four days later married, in ! his cell in the Tombs, Mrs. Addie M Francis. with whom he had been 1 boarding.
 I Patrick carried his demands for q new trial from court to court and hay | ing been reused a new trial and sen | tened to,death for the third time, ap- ] pealed uO the [, s. supreme court in I August or 1g06 in December of that ] year Gcverno- Higgins eOmmuted the | prisoners sentence Co life imprison \ msnt. but Patrick continued his hght
 demanding either death or liberty
 After a. number ot futile attempts to I obtain a writ of habeas corpus Patrick ! succeeded 10 obtain such writ from | Justice Gaynor Of the New. York su ! preme court, which was, however fin I ally denied by the Appellate Divisiot 7 in Brooklyn on December 2, 1908.