The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1934-12-14
Signed Statement While
Under Great DureSS, Says
Mrs. Saunders.
DENIES LOVE FOR YOUTH
Asserts City Police Off
Ger Answered Questions
in Document.


Mrs. Neoma Saunders, who
said she never loved any one
but the husband the state
accuses her of Staying, denied
today the truth of a confess
sion to the crime written over
her signature.
She told the jury trying her for
first and second degree murder that
she had signed the statement in
great mental duress, and had, in
fact, not herself answered any Of
the questions.
She said Detective Sergeant Roy
Pope of the indianapolis police force
really had answered the questions
he put to her shortly after the body
of her husband, the Rev. GAYLORD
V. Saunders, former Methodist
Episcopal minister and student at
an indianapolis embalming school,
Was discovered.
AAhO"l 01C says
Then she said, in response to
cross examination of Prosecutor
John j. Kelly as the state took the
witness at 1915 today, she signed
the statement because she was emo
tionally upset and didn't know what
l was doing"
Demurely dressed in black and
nervously Withdrawing and replace
ing white handkerchief from a
small black purse she held in her
lap, Mrs. Saunders on several oc-
casions during the mornings testi-
mony wept and halted her storyfof
a series of what she described as
indecent, immoral and unnatural
sexual practices to which her hus-
band had demanded she submit.
She told at the instance of her
own attorney before cross-examina-
ton began that he husband had
once told her he had given to Theo-
dore Mathers, 10, Coalmont, her
husbands roomate while he studied
in indianapolis, an overdose of digi-
tails and that Mathers had become
violently i'll. Mrs. Saunders said her
husband said that at that time he
had kneeled at the bedside and
prayed that Mathers would die.
Two Sisters in Court
With Mrs. Saunders in court we're
her two sisters and their husbands.
A croWed court room leaned tensely
on her every word. She told of at
tending the funeral for her hus-
band, at which his body never was
b. led.
Mrs. Saunders fatty denied
she had plotted with Mathers.
who is alleged to have fired the
fatal shot Feb. 2 in indianapolis
at Mr.. Saunders in return for $40.
Mathers, who is said by the prose-
cution to have been Mrs. Saunders
lover, will go on trial here next
week.
Under questioning by Merle N.
Walker. defense counsel, the comedy
hlack-haired widow admitted init
mate relations with Mathers twice,
but said that she was forced to do
so by her husband
He threatened to kill me-" she
said "One time he held a butcher
knife at my back"
Mrs. Saunders was forced to halt
her testimony frequently while she
regained her composure. She spoke
in a voice so low that even the
jurors had trouble in hearing her
From the first time I met him
until the last two years of his life,
Mr.. Saunders vas very good to me-"
she testified
Struck Her With Fist
Then he became irritable and
was not himself He mistreated me
and found fault with everything /
did. He struck me with his fist
and threatened my life with deadly
weapons.
HE threatened to kill our sons,
James, Is and Billy, IL.
During the last year he drank
excessively. He was drunk many
times. He also started to smoke
cigarets, including doped cigarets.
rTlenv Zines.
He drank whisky, alcohol and
white mule
He became unnatural in his sex
relations and submitted me to I'M
speakable indignities. He brought
home lewd pictures which he made
me look at and lewd stories which
ne made me read to him"
AbandOns Previous Tactics
Fighting desperately to save her
own life. Mrs. Saunders has
abandoned her previous efforts to
shield Mathers, as was testified
Wednesday by Chief Mike Morris
sey. indianapolis
She declared that she had seen
Mathers not more than ten times
and that she had not made love 70
him.
When asked by the defense
counsel why she had nos retaliated \
against her husband when ne struck
her once with his fist, Mrs Saunders
answered:
Because l loved him"
The prosecution won an unex-
pected point yesterday when DR..
Lester Rhamy. Wabash. the Saun-
ders family physician and a defense
witness. testified that Mrs. Saunders