The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1916-07-12
TO JURY FRIDAY
The Orpet Trial Is Drawing to
a Close.
States Attorney Seemingly Has
the Crowd Convinced.
MANY WORDS OF APPROVAL
Followed the Adjournment of
Court Tuesday Night.
Argument for the Defense Is
Taken Up Today.
MANY WORDS OF APPROVAL

Taken Up Today.
waukegan. ILL.,, July 12.-when
States Attorney Ralph j. Dady com
pletes his argument for the prosecu-
ton of Will Orpet today, Attorney
Ralph E. Potter, for the defense. will
turn his guns on David r. Josiyn, as
sistani attorney for the prosecution.
Potter planned to tell the jury that
Joslyn has been unethical in the
prosecution of Orpet. He will brand
Joslyn's attempt to get a confession
from Orpet through Celeste Youkers,
the girl who has stood by the Uni
versity of Wisconsin youth since he
was arrested five months ago today,
charged with the murder of Marion
Lambert. as contrary to all rules of
fair dealing.
James H. WiIkerson, chief council
for Orpet, will follow Potter, making
the closing argument for the defensr-
Joslyn, for the prosecution, Will 1oi-
low Wilkerson.
Whether the state will ask the death
penalty or a prison sentence for Orpet
was still unknown today. Dady mas
minated he would be satisfied IL the
college youth is given a fourteen year
sentence in prison.
The case is expected to go to the
jury Friday, eight weeks after the
jurors were sworn in.
When court adjourned last night the
justice hall was filled with black and
frowning faces. The scowls that the
hearers bore away were eloquent tesu-
monials to the effect of Dady's pound
ing attack.
The hours he had employed in ham
mering away had not been spent in
he ir11o least
Orpet was the girls murderer.
Crowd Was Convinced.
For the first time since the case be-
gan, there was unanimity in this opin-
ion. You heard it expressed every
where with varying degrees of convic-9
ton.
''she couldn't have killed herself
She wouldn't have done that She had
turned over new leaf She was going
to be a good girl-as good as gold.''
Dady had harped on that phrase
until he had pounded it into the
wearicd brains of his hearers. 1t was
a phrase drawn from one of Orpet's
letters to Marion. She had written
him that she was going to be las good
as gold after this And he had re-
piled, Forget it, Dady had picked
the phrase out of the letter and held it
dangling before the jurors. ~ 20,
She wanted to be as good as gold.,'
She wanted to be as good as gold and
he killed her. She did not want to die;
she wanted to live and be of some use
in the world; she wanted to be of help
to others: she wanted to be as good as
gold-and he murdered her with that
wish warming her young heart
Today it was Potter's duty to change
all this. 1t was his task to change the
cold and calculating fiend of Dady's
harsh and tragic story into a poor.
scared boy doing the best he could to
patch up the wrong that he haG done
before even when he was at his wits
end. He had to tell the story all over
again from the beginning, creating a
new series of impressions with each
chapter.
In the first place. he had to belittle
the love affair between the boy and
girl. He had to say the relations be-
tween them were far from extraordi-
nary. He even had to intimate that
the boy probably pursued the girl no
more than the girl had pursued the
boy. He had to go carefully through
this-for the girl is dead and the Iiv-
summer shining.
Plan of Defense.
And then he had to go on with the
story, indicating this point and that as
proof that the girl killed herself; that
the boy did not kill her, could not
have killed her, did not wish her
dead.
Where yesterday Dady arrayed
every fact of the evidence in support
of the murder theory, today Potter
had to show that Marions death
could only be suicide.
The state began it's summing I'D
with the first letter that Orpet wrote
the girl The defense expected to be-
gin beneath the Three Trees in
Helms woods with the girls dead BODY
lying there. There the defense will
md its first proof that death was due
to suicide and not to murder
0rpet's trip from Madison to Lake
Forest will be described as the ac-
ton of a panicky boy striving to do
his best to help out a girl he had
slightly wronged. They would not ad-
NIT that he had ever seriously wronsed
| her. She would be painted as a hys-
terical girl, subject to fits of the deep
est dependency and gloom, ont of
which suicidal tendencies would nat
urally be born Where the state held
the spotlight on Orpet's life to show
nat he was potential girl killer. the
| defense expected to trace Marion,s his
tory during her last year of existence
to show that thoughts of self destruc-
4