New Britain herald., 1926-11-24
"She did"

"She did"
 Mrs. Gibson testified for the state that she heard the shots after she had dismounted and tied her mule.
 Then at the end of one of the hardest fought legal battles of the day, David testified that Mrs. Gibson in 1922 and said at the Middlesex prosecutors office in New Brunswick that she could not identify Mrs. Hall and Willie and Henry Stevens as the persons she had seen at the crab- apple tree.
 "On or about October IT, 1922. did Mrs. Gibson tell you at the prosecutors office in New Brunswick that she could not identify any of the three defendants here before you?" Case asked.
 She did," replied David very positively.
 Was Mrs. Hall present at that time?"
 "She was. She was in one room and Henry and Willie Stevens were in another"
 Willie Was Asleep, He Says
 Willie Stevens, is positive that he was asleep in his room when the choir singer was slain with the Rev. MT. Erward Wheeler Hall.
 Other members of the Hall house. hold objected to the odor of his pipe, Willie testified in taking the stand in his own defense. and he only went to hs room and closed the door after the evening meal, but locked it because the catch was in- secure.
 He declared that he went to bed between S:30 and 9:30 p. m., and slept until his sister, who is on trial with him and his brother Henry, awoke him at about 2:S0 to hunt for MT. Hall. The state charges MT. Hall and Mrs. Mills were slain at approximately 10:20 D. m. on de- serted farm two miles from the Hall home.
 Had Old Pistol
 Willie said that at the time of the staying he owned a S2-calibre pistol, but that he had not fired it in more than twenty years. This pistol was taken from the Hall home after the crime, but was not introduced as evidence by the state. It was with a S2-calibre pistol that Mrs. Mills was shot three times jr the head and with which the Rev. M. Hall was shot once in the top of the head. Mrs. Mills throat also was cut.
 Denies Identification
 Under cross examination, Willie said that Mrs. Jane Gibson, states star witness, had never identified him in the Middlesex county prose- cutors office soon after the crime, as one of the men she had observed at the scene of the staying. X de- tective, who testified for the de- fense, also had said before Willie took the witness stand, that Mrs. Gibson had said that Henry and Willie Stevens were not the men she had seen at the staying.
 Cross examination of Willie Stevens was still under way when court adjourned for the day. The defendant was under direct examination only 25 minutes
 Willie was the second of the three defendants to declare his innocence on the witness stand. Henry r, vas at his home in Lavallette, New Jersey, 50 miles away at the time of the double murder. Thirteen witnesses supported his story.
 Fingcrprint Experts
 Before Willie Stevens took the stand in his own behalf, .hree fingerprint experts for the de- 'ense had testified that tingerprint, oy which the state hoped to link him with the crime, was not his finger | print at all. One of these defense [ witnesses said he was of the opinion 1 hat the fingcrprint represented by . he prosecution as that of Willie | Stevens, and which the state con- | ends was on calling card found lear the bodies of the slain couple. [ lad been "superimposed" on the ! ard after fngerprints that were or ginally on it had been developed and i A county detective who was an original investigator of he crime. testified that he initialed with ink the calling card found at he feet of the Rev. MT. Hall. There las been no testimony in the trial howing that the card introduced by he state bore any such initials.
 Mrs. Gibson, who has complica- ion of kidney diseases and testified rom a bed set up in the court room, s in critical condition at the Jer- ey City hospital, her physicians here say. They predict that she will reach a crisis in her illness by omorrow night.
 Her ailment has been diagnosed $ pyelitis and nephrolithiasis which physicians say is marked by inter nittent gains and relapses some ines into inconsistencies. They i've her only short time to live nd say she will probably never cave the hospital.
 BURGESS DEMURER HEARING
 Judge B. w. filling will hear the rguments on the demurrer to the omDlaint in the case of KfmbalI