Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1914-09-29
MRS. SEATON, ON |
STAND, RELATES
HER LIFE STORY
Says Dead Husband Had Many
Affairs, but She Always
Forgave Him.

SPeclht 10 the Evening star.
HACKENsACK. Sept 29--Alice L
seaton, widow of Frederick R.
seaton, continued the story of her
married life when tho trial in which
she is charged with numbering her
husband in Bogota on August 13 was
resumed.
Lawyer Mackay in opening the de-
| Tense, said he expected to prove thai
Mrs. Seatons mind was a blank for
some time before and at the time
of the shooting; that she was in an
| unconscious condition when DIR. Ed
wards and others got into the house
Immediately after the shooting, and
that either some other person shot
Seaton or he committed suicide.
Bernard +. Cecire, q lawyer and
nelghbor of the Seatons, testified
that he was awakened at midnight
on July by the screams of a woman
and he reached the Seaton home in
| time to prevent Seaton from choking
his wife.
There had been an argument
about a ring of Mrs. Seaton's and
Mrs. Seaton remarked that probably
her husband had given 1t to Miss
Hopkins" testified Lawyer Cecire.
Miss Hopkins is the actress whom
Mrs. Seaton is said to have named in
her divorce proceedings but the suit
was never prosecuted, the death of
| Seaton occurring on the afternoon on
which Mrs. Seaton was to have
signed the affidavit In Lawyer Harris
Office.
Lawyer Cecire testified that Seaton
! threatened to commit suicide when
Mrs. Seaton talked of a separation,
Mrs. Seaton when called to the
4 GfnnH UaetArfaU did
| sign of nervousness. She told her
story to the jury quietly and effec-
/ lively. She said that six months after
| their marriage In Cincinnati. in 1898
she found her husband in a private
| room of their hotel with woman on
his lap. In 1898, Mrs. Seaton says,
| young woman named Mitchell made
a serious accusation against her hus-
band.
Il urged my husband to get a di-
vorce and marry the young woman III
order to protect her child, but he re-
| fused to do So said Mrs. Seaton.
with tears in her eyes.
while in Covington, Ky, / found
damaging letters written by a woman
who signed herself Irene. and my hus
band admitted his guilt, but j again
| forgaVe him."
In 1905, Mrs. Seaton says, she
learned that her husband had been
intimate with a Mrs. Beatrice Van
Cleve, and started a suit for aliena-
tion, but after a few depositions HAD
been secured another reconciliation
| followed and the suit was dropped.
This was in Cincinnati.
1 Most of the evidence which Prose.
cutor Wright will present against
Mrs. Seaton will be circumstantial.
! Charles Wulff and John Kelly heard
shots at the Seaton- home and saw
| Seaton on the rear porch reel and
fall. Wulff says he saw Mrs. Seatou
1 just inside the door, and that as he
looked up he saw smoke coming
through the doorway between her and.
! where the man stood
Kelly also said he saw Mrs Seaton
at the doorway. but saw no shot
| fired. Seaton was dead when the first
men reached the house, and the re-
! volyer lay within a foot of his head.
The defense will claim that he shot
| himself and that the witnesses are
mistaken in saying they saw Mrs.
| Seaton there. She was found uncon-
seious in a room twenty feet from
| the body of her husband She was
suffering from the effects of a drug
and had to be treated at a hospital
| Mrs. Seaton declares she knows
nothing of how her husband came to
his death: that she was suffering from
] an attack Of nerves that day; thar
her husband forced her to drink
whiskey and take some tablets, and
that she knew nothing from that time
until she was revived under medical
| treatment.