Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1917-03-08
DENVER SOCIETY WOMAN GOES TO
 TRIAL MONDAY
Mrs Smith, Who Killed Sec ond Husband, Is Sup
 ported by First Husband.

Denver, Colo, March 7.-When Judge John M. SheafCr of Colorado Springs ascends the bench in the West Side court in this city next Monday morning and directs the clerk to call the docket the legal battle between the able attorneys pitted against each other for the conviction or acquittal of Mrs. Stella Smith of the murder of her husband will have begun. The contest is expected to be battle royal. Some of the best legal talent of the West has been secured by those interested in the defense, while the district attorney and his ablest assistants will conduct the prosecution.
 No murder case in Denver in recent years has excited more public interest than that of Mrs. Smith, a beautiful woman still young in years, woman of excellent family, cultured and re- fined, and who has moved in the best social circles.
 It was on the morning of January 14 last that Mrs. Smith shot and killed John Lawrence Smith. Smith was her second husband, and had been a chauffeur for her stepfather the late Alfred Britton of Chicago. The shots that ended the mans life were fired after the vie had been sugjected to several hours of terror and torment, according to the woman's own state ments.
 The slain man was Mrs. Smiths second husband. In order to marry him she had divorced William Moore. The shooting took place at the home of Moore, where Mrs. Smith was seek ing refuge from her second husband
 The story told at the coroner's in- quest was dramatic in the extreme The life of the accused woman was laid bare from the days of her child hood. A daughter of Mrs. George R. Newton, widow of wealthy oil operator of Tulsa, Okla., and Fort Worth, Texas, Stella was brought to Denver in her girlhood and received her education in one of the most ex- elusive private schools of this city. At the age of 20 she was married to William Moore, promising young Denver attorney and son of Bishop Moore of St. Louis. For several years the Moores to all appearances lived the life of happily mated couple. The young wife was popular in Den yer society and was particularly prominent in outdoor athletics
 Then began the second and tragic chapter of the young woman's life story. One day she was quietly di- vorced from William Moore and soon after as quietly married to John Law renee Smith, the ex-chauffeur. Ac- cording to her story she married Smith "to make man of him." Ac- cOrding to her friends and family she married because Smith had hypnotized her with his honeyed phrases.
 Before many weeks had elapsed she found that she had married drunken degenerate, according to her story and the life she was compelled to lead thereafter was filled with horrors more dreadful to her sensitive nature she declared, than even the prospect of forfeiting her life on the gallows.
 The climax came, she said, when her drunken husband menaced the 12. year-old daughter of her earlier mar. riage. Then she was driven beyond human endurance and impulsively grasped the revolver she had bough, months before in anticipation of { time when she might need it to pro- tect her life.
 Smith fell prostrate at the first shot As the body lay writhing on the flool the wife sent another shot through it this time with her husbands pistol It was this second shot, fired aftel considerable lapse, that caused tn, coroner's jury. charged with determin ing if there had been deliberation il her act, to fasten upon her the ac cusation of murder in the first degree
 Because of the first degree murder indictment Mrs. Smith has been kep confined in the Denver jail for nearl! two months, although legion O prominent business men, representing millions of dollars, have been ready tt furnish bond if the court would decid, to admit her to bail.
 William Moore, the first husband has manifested a readiness to stan( by the accused woman when she zoe! to trial, telling what he had learned of the slain mans alleged brutalit! and debauchery. The principal wit ness for the defense, however, will b' the 12-year-old daughter, who was l; witness to the events that led up tt the tragedy.
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