Norwich bulletin., 1914-02-26
Sons Testify in
 Mothers Behalf
MRS. suFFuM's FIVE BOYS ON
 WITNESS STAND
FATHER MADE THREATS
Had Said He Would Do Away With Himself and Whole FamiIy-Mrs. Ruffum's Confession Read.

Little Valley, N. T.. Feb. 25.-Special Prosecutor George W. Cole rested the peoples case against Mrs Cynthia Ruffum, an trial for the murder of her husband, this afternoon. Patrick s. Collins at once outlined the plan of the defense and placed in evidence the tes- timony of the Womans five sons. Un- der bitter cross-examination by Mir Cole the boys never wavered in the story they told to keep their mother from the death chair.
 Husband a Heavy Drinker.
 During Mir. Collins address to the jury. exeoriating the means used by the private detectives to get evidence for Mir. Cole. then district attorney, and reciting the abuse of the woman by her husband, Mrs. Buffum covered her face with her handkerchief and cried.
 The boys said their father had been a heavy thinker the last year of his life, and that they. too, with their mother and sister, Laura, who died on February ?, this year, of poisoning, were sick last summer at the time their father became ill- Buffum Had Threatened Family.
 The boys said they had heard their father say frequently when. drinking: I'm going to do away ith myself and the whole family
 In his address to the jury, MT. Col lins said he would prove this threat of wholesale, destruction; that Buffum had been abusive always to his wife, whom he had married when she was 15 years old; that BuffuIa was given to heavy drinking, and that at the time Buffurn was i'll Mrs. Bnffum suffered from the same symptoms. Justice Blown held the statement made by Mrs. Buffum C MT. Cole in Buffalo on December 10 to be compe- tent evidence. and it wss read to the jury.
 Mrs. Ruffum's Confession Read. District Attorney Laidlaw read the confession to the jury. In it Mrs. Buff fum stated that her husband had ac- cused her of undue intimacy with Ern- est Frahm. After supper on July & the beginning of my husbands last ill., ness,' the confession read. the boys and went to do the chores In picking up the table accidentally spilled fly poison in a bowl of crackers and milk When l came back from the barn my n1gband, drunk and olils-relsome. hal taken the milk. Is 1ne2 I relnem bered sp1iling the l5tlson. Willis be- came very ill
 She Loved Frahm. Describing her visit the next night ] to the home of her brother, Jim Golf l Mrs. Buffum said: ''Ffahm rode pari
 
 1 go away with him. He said if I did not want to go away we could nve on the farm. said I would not do it He said if Willis ever struck mo again | he would kill him for me. 1 T loved Frahm. felt I had to dr
 I've loved Frahrn. felt had to dc kept urging me to go with him, and 1 said I would go but for Willis H. I said he would get Willis down a darl road and shoot him. I said there wer, 1 other ways to get rid of him. It wa: then I decided to give my husband poison.
 No Poison in House.
 My brother Jim had left at our hous, a bottle of horse lininent doped witl | poison. It was in the pantry, and gave it to my husband in his medi cine, mixing it in a whiskey glass" 1 On the witness stand today Mrs l Buffurn's sons sustained the claim O the defense that the horse liniment re ferred to in the alleged confession wa a myth. Each swore that there neve had been any of the poisonous liquit in the house.
 The statement. made by Mrs Buf l fIrn after a 24 hour heclxling by detec l tives at Niagara Falls, was excluded b. Justice Brown.