Las Vegas optic. (East Las Vegas, N.M.) 1908-1921, 1913-06-10
AN INTERNATIONAL AFFAIR
MATTER GOES THROUGH MANY
LEGAL CHANNELS BEFORE
ITS FINAL DECISION
BODY FOUND in LAKE COMO
ACCUSED MURDERER SAID TO
HAVE KILLED WIFE AND
TRIED TO HIDE REMAINS


Washington, June 1O.-Justice Lur-
ton began delivering the supreme
courts opinion in the Porter Charlton
extradition case as soon as the court
assembled today.
He said no error had been commit
ted in excluding evidence Of insanity
at the habeas corpus proceedings IN
the lower court and that no error was
committed in making the formal de-
mand for Charlton because it was not
necessary to the demand at the extra
dition hearing.
Porter Charlton must return to
Italy to answer to the charge of hav-
ing murdered his wife in June, 1910,
at Lake Como. The supreme court
so decided today.
The killing of Mrs. Porter Charlton
stirred Europe and America as have
few murders of recent years. With
the discovery of her crumpled body
stuffed into trunk and sunk in Lake
Como, Italy, where she had been with
her husband to spend her honeymoon,
both continents turned out to search
for the murderer.
The first problem to solve, was the
whereabouts of the twenty-one year
old husband who, as a bank clerk in
New York, had married the woman,
eight years older than himself and
the divorced wife of Neville H. Castle,
a San Francisco lawyer. His father,
Paul Charlton, law adviser of the
Bureau of Insular Affairs and former
President Tafts classmate, was
firm in the conviction that his son,
too, had been murdered. That ques-
tion was solved when Porter Charlton,
with his initials marked on his suit
case, arrived on a steamer from Italy,
few days later at Hoboken, N. ].
That night there appeared confession
bearing his name.
my wife and | lived happily to
gether, but she had an uncomfortable
temper, and so had t. read the con
fession. "0n the night Of the muir
der she had the worst outbreak OF
temper | ever saw. l told IN to
keep quiet or would make her keep
quiet. Then she had another out
break. I took UP a wooden mallet,
with which I had been repairing a
table, and hit her on the head and
body two or three times. AT mid
night I put the body in trunk, drag
ged it to a small pier near the house
and threw it overheard"
With the acceptance of the confes
sion as a solution Of the crime there
arose almost at once the diplomatic
problem of Charlton's extradition. II
was admitted on ali hands that Charl
ton could not be tried iii the United
States for crime committed in Italy
His friends, headed by his father
took the position that he could notsbe
extradited to Italy, because Italy had
always refused under the extraditior
treaty Of 1868 to return Italian sub
jects to the United States to answer
for crimes committed here.
Italy, however, made a request fol
the prisoner. Secretary Knox parriet
by asking if Italy thereby meant tt
waive its past Interpretation of th'
treaty. Months Of diplomatic ex
changes followed.
Judge John A. Blair. of the court 0
over and terminer in Hudson county
N j., sitting as a federal extraditiol
magistrate, held Charlton subject Il
extradition. The court declined Ii
receive evideEce Of Charlton's insan
ity on the ground that under the iav
of New Jersey defenses could not b
made at preliminary hearing Of th
nature then before the court Ser
retary Knox approved that holding
taking the position that inasmuch a
Charlton could not be brought to an
swer for the crime in this country