The Washington times., 1933-08-04

dSh OCS04C NO0UOAAVs
That's the question now on
which, to my mind, the woman's
whole guilt or innocence hangs.
What Did She Do?
When the district attorney, bull
like, aghast before Jessie'S fla
grant defiance, got through with
his long series of questions which
took us step by step through the
morning of Bill Costellos death,
we knew this-knew it abso-
lutely-
If Jessie Costello poisoned her
husband, she did it one of three
moments during that early morn
ing. And, either she took her
youngest child, her Buddy, on her
arm and carried him upstairs to
see her do it, or she left him
downstairs alone, toddling about
by himself, or she left all three
of her children at their peaceful
breakfast, climbed those stairs
still within sound of their childish
happy voices, and killed their
father within a few feet of them.
That's what District Attorney
Gregg has set up for us to believe.
It's the only thing that could have
happened.
I don't believe it.
Belief Is Refuted
They can talk all they want to
about poison cans, about Jessie's
knowledge Of poison, painting her
as a new poison murderess un-
equalled in history; but when they
ask me to believe that any mother
who has carried that little boy,
with his bright blue eyes and his
fair hair, under her heart, has
gone down into the agony that
only women know-to bring him
into the world, has been a good
mother to him, and that then,
with that child within few feet
of her, has slain the man who
fathered him-I don't believe it.
It took only eight or ten min
utes altogether for Bill Costello,
the silent, stubborn, kindly, re-
IgiouS Irishman, to die. It took
only brief moment to hand him
that capsule that, the State con-
tends, Jessie's hand carried, to
deal death, and those few min
utes must have come some time,
according to every word said on
the stand today, between 1880 and
$3.50 in the morning.
Where Was Buddy?
Where was Buddy?
What did Jessie Costello do
with Buddy while she poisoned
his father?
Being a woman and a mother
myself, that's what I must know
and nobody asks her. But
Buddy was there. Could a wom-
an do that?
Jessie Costello doesn't remem-
ber a lot Of things. Your nerves
grow raw with her cool. almost
flippant
81 wouldn't say" 'T don't re-
AACIAUCA1 OHS WOuIQnC . say
] did and I wouldn't say 1
didn't"
AS I sat watching her, my
hands growing cold with nervous
ness as she refused question after
question, tossed aside challenge
after challenge, I began to Won
der myself.
Why didn't she remember when
ehe offered Bill Costello medicine
TO help ease his pain?
Why couldn't she give def
Hitely just who arrived first and
second and third at the house on
that morning of death, suicide
murder?
Why couldn't she say for sure
how often she and Bill discussed
their money problems in bringing
up their little family on $38 a
week?
Just Can't Recall.
Try it for yourself. said. I
found an undercurrent running
through my own mind-and try
ing to remember things in my
own life.
I couldn't say either, who first
and second and third came to my
home the morning my father
died.
I can't remember one single
date-not one-on which my huS-
band and I have talked about
Bills finances, and there have
been plenty, as there are in
every family.
It would be easier for Jessie
Costello if she could remember
some of the minor details. But
she doesn't remember any of
them.
Only once today has she lost
herself in emotion. Then only a
hot dusky flush betrayed her.
Expression Of Death
That was when District Attor-
ney Gregg set her q task that
the greatest poets and dramatists