The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1933-06-01
GRILL HUSBAND
IN BATH DEATH
OF YOUNG WIFE
Y. W. C. A. Executives
Mystery Staying at Home
Is UnSOIved.
BY DAN BOWERMAN
Tnited Press STAFF Corresnondent

PALO ALTO, Cal, June David
Lamson, young minor official Of
Stanford university, was a county
prisoner today while investigators
worked on the mystery of his wifes
violent death.
What happened in their small,
flower bordered cottage a stones
throw from the Herbert Hoover
mansion on the Stanford campus
remained as shrouded in darkness
as when the nude body of Mrs
Allene Lamson, attractive and in
tellectual young mother, was found,
limp and cold, in their bathroom
Tuesday.
L know she was murdered, but
before God 1 didn't do it," the pale,
distracted husband cried.
Things like this can't happen"
Family friends were confident
Mrs. Lamson had tainted and fallen
in the bathtub, and that her skull
had been crushed when her head
struck a faucet with terrific impact.
Pipe Is Analysed
Sheriff's officers collected blood
stained garments from three rooms
of the stucco cottage and said moth
ing. A ten-inch piece of pipe they
found in a backyard bonfire was
sent to a chemist for analysis.
Officially Lamson, sales manager
of the Stanford Press, was a VOL
untary guest in the county jail at
San Jose. He had been there more
than twenty-four hours without the
formality of being booked.
The confusions and contradictions
of unsolved mystery abounded in
the case.
Undersheriff Earl Hamilton, after
an autopsy, declared no fall could
have been of sufficient force to have
crushed the skull as Mrs. Lamson'S
was. There was no blood or hair
on the tub faucets, he said.
Explanations Are Logical
Lanson and his friends had log
ical explanations for every circum-
stance officers believed suspicious.
A possibility that some proWler
had entered the home and blud-
geoned Mrs. Lamson to death eX-
listed, but was held a slight one.
French doors open from a patio
into the street. La!nson said it was
kept closed, but was open when he
found his wife's body. the arms and
head over a side of the bathtub and
a growing pool of blood on the tiled
floor.
Neighbors said a prowler could
have entered while Lamson, IN the
back yard, talked to friends. Moth
ing in the house was disturbed or
missing, however. Reports of a
shabby stranger" lettering near the
house we're heard.
The overalls in which Lamson had
been working in his yard were
stained with blood. So were his
pajamas, his slippers, his gloves, and
two shirts.
Tells of Entering House
Mrs. Uford o. Brown, wife of a
Stanford journalism professor, saio
she entered the home after the
tragedy to find LamSon croucheo
beside the bathtub, the unclad body
Of his wife graSped in his arms.
He was holding her head, SOB
bling historically" Mrs. Brown said
That would account for blood on
the clothing Lamson wore.
Mrs. Brown said the dead woman
frequently wore her husbands
bathrob and slippers, which coulC
account for the blood on them.
LamSon found the body when he
went to admit realty agent to his
home. He said he mad picked ul
mis- pajamaS in the front room, ano
was putting them away when hi
found his wife. That circumstance
could explain the last of the bloody
garments.
Lamson had no idea how the
piece of pipe got into the bonfire
in his back YARD, he told officers.