The evening world., 1922-07-15
ALLEGED HAMMER
MURDERESS DEF|ES
THE THIRD DEGREE
Mrs. Phillips Smilingly Refuses
to Talk-Tragedy Re-enacted
by Her Chum.
DENIES IDENTITY.
Ready to Go Back to Los An
geleS, She Tells
Officials.
D ENIES IDENT THY.

TUCSON. Ariz., July 15.-Mrs. A.
L. Phillips, held here for extradition
to Los Angeles on a charge of beating
Mrs. Alberta Meadows to death with
hammer, defied the third degree to-
day.
"I'll talk when 1 get back to Los
Angeles" was her only reply to ques-
tions.
The woman, accused of deliberately
killing the girl whom she considered
love rival, sits calm and smiling in
her cell here. She even denies that
she is Mrs. Phillips.
I'm ready to go back to Los Ange-
les" she said placidly when informed
Sheriff Traeger of that city was en-
route here to take her in charge.
Confronted with letters found IN
her handbag. signed with the name
Clara Phillips, the alleged hammer
murderess remained undisturbed and
smilingly insisted she was not the
person wanted for the Staying.
Perhaps and 81 don't know" were
her tranquil rLphes to questions fired
at her by police in cross-examination
LOS ANGELES. July .15.-Mrs.
Peggy Caffee, eyewitness of the
hammer murder in which Mrs.
Alberta Meadows was slain, to-day re.
enacted the tragedy in the hills near
Los Angeles for the benefit of police.
Mrs. A. L. Phillips, held under ar
rest at Tucson, Ariz., is accused of
the murder by Mrs. Caffee and by her
own husband, who says she confessed
to him.
While police looked on, Mrs. Caftec
demonstrated how she alleges Mrs.
Phillips, goaded to cold rage by be-
lief her husband was intimate with
Mrs. Meadows, lured the alleged
"other woman" to a remote spot and
then-first accusing her of miscon-
duct-slowly killed her by striking her
with a hammer purchased especially
for the occasion.
Mrs. Caffee nearly collapsed as she
went through the motions of the
tragedy. She declared Mrs. Phillips
invited her to 60 for an automobile
ride and later asked Mrs. Meadows
to accompany them. Then she stopped
the car at remote spot, asked
Mrs. Meadows to step out, accused
her of stealing her husbands love
and attacked her with the hammer,
Mrs. Caffee alleged. 81.
When the doomed girl, held fast by
her executioner, shrieked for help,
Mrs. Phillips shook the bloody ham
mer at Mrs. Caffee, threatened her.
then continued her grim work, the
witness asserted.
Police directed the taking OF pho
tographs and the making OF charts
as Mrs. Caffee re-enacted the tragedy.
Later Mrs. Caffee was oToered held
incomunicado for the time being.
She will be chief prosecution witness.
Phillips, husband of the alleged
murderess, is under guard as a ma
terial witness.
Phillips refused to comment on the
report that Mrs. Meadows, five hours
before her death, had long tele-
phone conversation with a man she
called Daddy" and arranged to meet
him that day.
I'VE won't talk about that now."
he said, He insisted his relations
with the dead girl were honorable.
Mrs. Phillips, who is twenty-three
years old, is said to have had Il brief
experience with comedy motion pic
ture company as "a bathing girl"
She also has been employed aS
chorus girl.
Mrs. Caffee said she also was a for
mer chorus girl. She told the Grand
Jury her parents, whose names were
not stated, lived ''in the East, near
Philadelphia"