The Washington times., 1936-11-18
DEATH BULLET,
GUN SOUGHT TO
AID DEFENSE
General Asks to Show
Exhibits to His Own
CriminoIogist
BY HAZEL MACDONALD

a motion for surrender or par
eel of grim exhibits to counsel
representing Brig. Gen. Henry H.
Denhardt, charged with the MUIR
der Of his fiancee, Mrs. Verna
Carr Taylor.
The exhibits include the gen.
erals gun, articles of his cloth
ing and Mrs. Taylor's, the death
bullet and fingerprint markings.
Interest centers about paraffine
casts of the hands of the general
and of the dead woman.
According to Detective Sergeant
John I. Messmer, of the Louisville
police crime detection laboratory,
tests of the casts of Mrs. Taylor's
hands are negative, showing that
firearms had not been discharged
in them and thus repudiating the
theory she committed suicide. The
result of tests on General Den
hardt's hands have not been dis
closed.
Defense to Argue
Defense Attorneys John Mar
shall Berry and Beckham Over
street were to argue for their right
to submit the commemorative as
sembled exhibits to their own
criminologists, in preparation for
Denhardt's examining trial Fri
day.
In seclusion in Louisville since
his release on $4,000 bond, the
one-time commander of Ken
tucky's National Guard will top
the list of witnesses at Fridays
hearing. Two other witnesses who
will contribute to the record are:
George Baker, the farmer into
whose driveway Denhardt'S stalled
car was pushed and who saw Den
hardt standing beside the car,
after the first shot was fired.
Collection Is Grim
j. B. Hundley, La Grange
barber, who found Mrs. Taylor'S
body in the ensuing search, with
General Denhardt's As automatic
nearby.
The grim collection of labora-
tory exhibits which was to be the
prize in today's arguments SYM
bolizes the end of a romance
whose beginning was delicately
patterned with offerings of long
stemmed roses and moonlit inter-
ludes on the country club veranda.
The mere mention of Verna
Carr Taylor's fair name pitches
any male within hearing into a
gallantly ante-bellum attitude.
The breath of scandal will never
touch the lovely victim of what
looks now like murder, rather
than a simple suicide, as was at
first supposed.
Mrs. Taylor's relatives prefer to
think that she had not yet quite
made up her mind to accept the
gruff hand of General Denhardt
when the events of November 6
intervened. But they can't deny
that she was wearing his ring
when she was found dead.
Widow Beautiful
Mrs. Taylor was 40 and very
fair. People who knew her all
her life babble incoherently about
her classic good looks without
being able to describe them.
Being, it is said, devoid of all
vanity, Mrs. Taylor hadn't been
photographed for Is years.
Her husband, Barclay Taylor,
died in 1881. Among his proper
ties was small laundry which
he had taken over on a bad debt.
Since every gentlewoman knows
when linens are properly white
and glossy, Barclay Taylor's
widow went into the laundry
business, making something bet
ter than a living for herself and
her two daughters, Mary, %, and
Frances, IT.
Mrs. Taylor had no suitors
during the first years of her
widowhood. Her job occupied
her completely.
Romance Last March
But last March, Henry Denhardt
1CUl1 Gu w OlO14dL1l NOuA4GJ 4oAAA'
The hard-bitten, clustering general
was known throughout the State
as colorful character. He was
60 and hero of three wars. His
wife had divorced him after 80
years of marriage.
The 800-acre farm he bought
had been in the Taylor family
since 1896. He began calling at
the comfortable bungalow in La
Grange where Mrs. Taylor and the
two girls lived next door to her
father-in-laW, Parker Dudley Tay-
lor.
General was Manly
Commenting on the progress of
the romance, Mrs. Taylor's brother
in-law, Reuben Thornton Taylor,
said:
During the courtship, we saw
no OutburstS of temper such as
those to which we have been
given to understand the general
is subject. He went to great
lengths to be agreeable. He was
not drinking all summer and the
company he kept was beyond re-
prOach. Otherwise, he would
not have been tolerated in our
circle"
But in spite of the generals
sincere efforts to please, his sue
cess was incomplete. Mary and
Frances resented him.