Evening star., 1935-11-20
GIRL PATR|C|DE
SEEKS NEW TRIAL
Jury Gives Teacher Who
Slew Father rs Years
in Prison.
BY the Associated Press.

WISE, Va, November 20.-Edith
Maxwell, 21-year-old comely mountain
school teacher, looked today to fur
ther legal maneuvers to remove the
stigma of murderer of her father.
placed on her last night by a jury of
her mountaineer neighbors.
The girl the prosecution charged
with premeditated murder of her
father, because she objected to con-
forming to the strict code of conduct
set up by him, was convicted last
night of f1rst-degree murder and sem
fenced to Is years in the State peni-
tentiary.
The alteration which resulted In
the death of the girls father. Trigg
Maxwell, blacksmith, climaxed a quar-
rel between the two when the girl
returned home after midnight and
the father demonstrated with her for
keeping late hours.
Immediately after the jury's ver-
dict was returned defense counsel be-
gan preparation of written motion
to set aside the verdict and grant a
new trial. Judge H. A. w. Skeen said
he would allow several days for this
motion.
w. w. Dotson, the convicted girls
uncle and defense counsel, said If the
motion for a new trial is denied he
would carry the case to the Supreme
Court of Appeals.
Jury Works Swiftly.
Mountain Justice worked swiftly in
the case, and after 80 minutes delib-
Grafton the jury brought in its verdict
of guilty"
BY its verdict the jury apparently
discarded the self-defense contention
of the young woman's counsel and ac-
cepted the assertion of the prosecutors
that Trigg Maxwell was "brutally mur-
dered" in his cabin at Pound early on
the morning of July 81.
Fresh in their minds as they retired
to deliberate we're the closing words Of
Commonwealth Attorney Fred B.
Greear, who quoted the scriptural in
! junction, Honor thy father and thy
mother" He declared the Staying
was premeditated.
The defense used each of three eye
witnesses TO the tragedy, the Defend
ant, her mother, Mrs Anne Maxwell,
who is Jointly indicted for the Staying,
and the accused womans l2-year-
old sister, Mary Catherine. in an ef-
! III hot Fotl ~
drunk" had attempted to beat the
girl and that she had struck him
with a shot in self-defense.
Still outstanding on the criminal
docket is the murder indictment
against the mother, who will be
brought to trial, Greear said. at the
/ Spring term of court, in March.
Says Father Dropped Knife.
The daughter, mother and l2-year-
old Mary Catherine told a story of
a drunken father who advanced on
Edith with a knife after she had re-
turned home.
| Her father dropped the knife, Edith
( testified, but grabbed her by the hair.
She finally broke loose, she said, but
her father advanced on her again.
After falling to the floor and trying
to fight off his efforts to beat her,
she testified, she found shoe lying
near the bed, which she picked up
and used as a weapon in defending
herself against him.
The prosecution made capital of
testimony that the girl on several oc-
casions had threatened the life of
her father. and emphasized the testi-
mony Of Ruth Baker, Edith's ROOM
mate at East Radford State Teachers
College, that the defendant had said
dozens of times" that she would kill
her father.