Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1925-03-27
CHAPMAN CARRIES
BORED AIR AS TRIAL
FOR MURDER OPENS

Hartford. Conn. March 26-(By A.
P.)-The murder trial OF Gerald
Chapman, mail looter and accused
slayer Of Patrolman James Sicily Of
New Britain, got under way here to-
day.
Four states witnesses were heard
after almost the entire day had been
spent in obtaining the single juror
to fill the box.
The better part of three days was
spent in the selection of jury,
which was completed when Samuel
S. Chamberlain, clothing merchant
and former fire commissioner of
Hartford was accepted as the 18th
man.
Chapman had a decision In the Sc
lection Of IL of the jurors. His chief
counsel, Frederick n. Grhol, chal-
lenged or accepted the talesmen as
Chapman directed. But all of
Groehrs 25 premptory challenges
had been used by the close of today
morning session, and Chapman had
no voice in Chamberlain's selection,
as he had to be accepted directly
after he had qualified.
talesmen were summoned before the
jury was selected. This included
three special panels. The last panel
of five, gathered off the city streets,
was the one which Melted Chamber
lain.
Immediately after Chamberlain had
been sworn in and the indictment
read, States Prosecutor Hugh M
Alcorn called Max d. Unkelbach, a
New Britain architect, as his first
witness. Unkelbach produced two
blue prints one outlining the inter-
Tor of the Dawson & Leventhal
store where the crime was committed
and the other depicting the immedi-
ate neighborhood. Unkelbach after
explaining the drawings was sue
ceeded on the stand by Samuel M
Davidson, one of the partners whose
store was robbed preceding the muir
der of Shelly.
Chapman showed little interest In
the witnesses. Occasionally he turn
ed lazy eyes to the blue prints before
the jury but he seemed rather bored
with the entire procedure.
Only when Norman B. Hurd, q
lock maker, took the stand, did the
prisoner wake up. Shown a NINA
ture of one of the front doors of the
department store, Hurd explained
and demonstrated the manner 1r
which it's lock could have been un-
latched. AS the witness easily un-
latched the lock without the use OF
a key Chapman seemed keenly in
terested.
The fourth and last witness Of the
Gay was Miss Edith Larsen, of New
do
robbery and murder had been en-
ployed as a saleswoman in the Dav-
idson & Leventhal store. Her coun-
ter. she testified, had been near the
front doors of the place. From thai
point of vantage, she said. she had
noticed a mamie was not subse-
quently identified in todays testi-
mony-lounging about the opened
door, facing the lock. He apparent
ly was tampering with the mechan
ism, she said, but Of this she could
not be certain. 1t was the following
morning that the robbery and muir
der occurred.
Sicily was slain October IL when
he and another policeman entered
the Davidson and Leventhal store in
the early morning on being told that
cracksmen were robbing the two
safes in the place. A man dashed
from the building as they entered
but his companions voice shouted
from the rear of the store stand
back, or I'll shoot" AS Skelly con-
tinued to advance the man fired
fatally wounding the policeman.
Walter Shean, son of a Springfield
Mass, hotel owner, was arrested
short time later and was said to have
confessed to having been one of the
two robbers. His companion. he said,
was Chapman, at that time q fugi-
tive from the federal penitentiary at
Atlanta, where he was serving a 70
year term for a $2,400,O00 mail rob-
berry on lower Broadway, New York.
Shean is to be witness for the state.