The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1935-11-18
GIRL PATRIC|DE
FACES Jury OF
GRIM H|LLFOLK
'HllIbiIIieS' Pack Courtroom
as Slayer of Father
Goes on Trial.
DEFENSE ADMITS POINT
Claims Defendant, However,
Used Slipper Instead
of Electric Iron.


WISE, Va, Nov. 18.-In a court
room noisy With the Wailing of ba-
bies and the scuffling of mountain
GERS boots, jury was chosen in 30
minutes today to try Edith Max
Wcll-a girl who got new tangled
notions in the outside World-On a
charge of numbering her father. He
tried to whip her for staying out on
party until midnight.
In to the jury box filed IL men,
their clothes rough and their boots
caked with mud from the trail of
the lonesome pine. Before them sat
a black-haired girl, 21-year-old
school teacher who had broken the
code of the mountains by staying
out with her beau, Raymond Meade,
hours after the curfeW siren sound
ed its nightly warning.
Defense Admits Attack
The defense was prepared to adj
NIT Edith battled her father. Trigg
Maxwell, on the night of July 20
when she got back to her home at
a cross roads called, The Pound"
Her defense will be that she picked
up sharp-heeled shoe and bat
tered her fathers head with it be-
cause he was attempting to whip
her as lesson in what "a decent
woman should be adding us" The
state charges an electric iron was
the lethal weapon
Edith came into court, a iaunty
brown hat on the right side of her
head and Wisp of veil tumbling
to her nose. Her smart white shirt
waist, brown skirt and suede shoes
we're strangely out of place in this
baCkWOOdS courtroom.
Babies in arms walled protests
against the stuffy atmosphere; a
small boy chung procariouSly to a
balcony ledge above the court clock;
lean iaWed hill people, some in court
for the first time in their lives, sat
stiff and uncomfortable or thronged
the aisleS
Taken Off Your Hats"
Taken off your hats, you fellows"
shouted a bailiff. You're in open
court and this is a trial"
Judge w A. Skeen cut himself a
chew of plug tobacco and strolled
around the court opening windows
and telling Sheriff j. P. Adams:
Now, sheriff. I want you to keep
these people quiet; there's too many
OF them in here anyway"
Beside the bench stood a panel of
20 veniremen. Judge Skeen fired
questions at them and, being slightly
deaf, cupped his ears for the
answers.
DO any of you live within two
miles of the pOund?"
Nobody did
ANY of you kin to Edith
MaXwell?'
Guesses He's a Cousin
Il reckon So spoke up John Dot
son. "A cousin, l guess, but nobody
knows for sure"
Stand aside
Two more veniremen were dis
qualified because of distant rela-
tionship with the defendant. An
other was eliminated because, hitch
hiking to court this morning he had
picked up a ride with Common
wealth Attorney Fred B. Greear.
Then defense and the common
wealth struck names from the re-
naming veniremen, leaving IL in
the jury box
Court Clerk c. A. johnson ex-
planned to the jurors they either
could acquit Edith Maxwell or find
her guilty of anything from as
sault and battery to first-degree
murder, Furnishing her with any
thing from a $1,000 fine to death.
She stands accused of killing
Trigg Maxwell in defiance of the
peace and security of the common
wealth. the clerk droned "Hearken
to the evidence