The Washington times., 1933-08-29
FAMOUS WRITER
LABELS CASE
LIFE IN RAW
She and Husband Knew the
Lamsons Casually; Trial
Drags; Nothing Proved
BY ERNESTINE BALL


BY ERNESTINE BALL
SAN JOSE, Cal, Aug. 2e
UN.S).-If you can find the
answer to what is love, perhaps
YOU can find the answer to who
killed Allene Lamson, If she did
not die of accident.
Millions of admiring readers
will attest that Kathleen Norris
famous writer of love stories
knows the answer to what is love
Mrs. Norris said:
David LamsOn loved his
wife, Allene. My husband and
I both feel that LamsOn Is
innocent. We knew the Lam
sons only casually, but our
friends who knew them inti'
mately, tell us, they were an
unusually devoted couple"
NO MURDER-LUST
Mrs. Norris was asked:
"YOu don't believe a man
ever kills from lOve-a love that
has become strangely distOrted?"
She is studying David Lamson
here in this courtroom in San
Jose, where yesterday the accused
husband shed his first public
tears as witnesses told the
bloodstained story Of the finding
Of Allene's body in the bathroom
of the Lamson Stanford Univer-
sity campus home on the morn
ing of May 80.
81 cannot look at David
LamSOn and believe he killed
his wife in murder lust. can
not believe that the David and
AlIene LamSOn we saw OCCASION
ally, that some of our Stanford
friends knew intimately, were
living in some weird private hell
where murder finally became a
tragic substitute for normal love
life.
"Wh0 killed AlIene, how she
died by accident know. But this
I believe-David Lamson did
not kill her."
ALWAYS CHARMING
Some one in the group standing
around Mrs. Norris during the
court recess volunteered the in
formation that the prosecution
has witnesses that the Lamsons
were not happy, that they quar-
relied constantly in the home, that
Allene was jealous of another
woman.
To which Kathleen Norris, who
has solved the literary triangle by
fire, flood, death and disaster,
and who certainly knows the ge-
ometry of the human heart, re-
sponded:
"If a husband is having a
complete affair with another
woman, he is always amiable
and charming in the home
not irritable. InfideIity makes
q husband docile in the home"
Mrs. Norris wasted no time on
, the question "but what if the wife
Is cold-mistakes, prudery for
purity?"
Makes a Mistake
Immediately Kathleen Norris
flashed back with:
"Any wife who does that is
making a dangerous mistake.
Love should not be considered
an ignOble cOnceSSiOn-butm mind
you am not saying AlIene Lam.
son was like that. I'm here in
this courtroom because / want
to study this case. It's life in
the raw-although it concerns
cultivated, well bred, well edu-
Gated men and women"
Certainly the prosecution pro-
duced nothing yesterday while
Charles G. Norris, distinguished
author and his wife, Kathleen
Norris. followed the drama of the
courtroom, to upset the writer's
theory that Lamson is innocent.
The accident theory survived
the day without any serious set
back.
Mrs. Buford Brown, wife of a
Stanford professor, one of the
first to enter the Lamson home
on the morning Of the tragedy,
described David's grief in low
tones.
Burning Meat"
Mrs. Silvia D. Bailey, wife of
o professor of law at Stanford
University, was positive that she
detected an odor Of burning
meat, then burning cloth" in a
bonfire in the Lamson yard.
Today the officers of the law
who were in the Lamson home
will have their hour in court.