Evening star., 1936-01-09
DENY HEWITT GIRL
WAS WEAK-M|NDED
New Jersey Psychiatrist and
Nurse Questioned on
Sterilization.
BY the Associated Press.

by tHe hSSOCldleu FItSs
SAN FRANCISCO, January 9.-Au-
thoritles investigating the steriliza-
ton of Ann Cooper Hewitt, 2l-year-
old heiress, which is the basis Of a
$500,000 damage suit against her
mother and three doctors. studied
conflicting reports of the girls men,
tality today.
Mrs. Marcy c. Scally, San Fran
cisco psychiatrist. one of the de-
PENDANTS, stated before the operation
in 1884 the girl was feeble minded. "
DR.. Lawrence A. Collins, senior resi-
dent physician at the New Jersey
State Hospital for the Insane. stated
he found her perfectly normal in
all respects" when he examined her
last November in Hackensack.
Miss Hewitt charged her mother
Mrs. Maryon Hewitt McCarter, plotted
the operation so she never could have
children to inherit benefits of a huge
trust fund established by her father,
Peter Cooper Hewitt.
Assistant District Attorney August
L. Fourtner and Police Inspector
George Engler of the police homicide
bureau questioned persons in the case
to obtain evidence for possible presen-
tation to the grand jury.
Mistreatment Told.
They said the nurses who attended
the operation, Miss Anne Lindsay
and Miss Grace wilkins, told then
Mrs. McCarter had "shamefully mis-
treated and browbeaten" her daughter
Fourtner is to continue questioning
other witnesses He said he woulc
present the evidence to the county
grand jury IF and when the fact
justify such a procedure"
He and Engler declared they hao
been unable to find legal justification
or authority" for the sterilization OF
the girl. but had not yet made a COM
plete study of the physicians right
to perform the operation under
statutes governing such operations.
The investigators said they were
anxious to determine whether the
sterilization might be construed as a
form Of mayhem" felony carrying
imprisonment from to II years.
Secrecy Stressed.
Engler said Miss wilkins informed
him that following the operation Mrs
McCarter ordered immediate disposal
of the removed organs. She quoted
Mrs. McCarter as saying:
Get rid of those things quick! ]
don't want Ann or anybody else to
know about it,
Miss Wilkins also made an affidavit
stating that when Mrs. McCarter OBJ
tained $1,000 from the Hewitt estate
for the operation she exclaimed:
Now that the covered wagon has
arrived. We'll go out and celebrate. "
when I was first employed, Miss
Wilkins stated, II understood it was
to be a mental case. Half an hour
after I saw the girl for the first time
I knew that here was no insane per-
son.
I'VE discussed, that first night, the
news events of the day. I gathered
she probably had been retarded and
so had an inferiority complex. But
she decidedly was no moron.
Kept Upstairs.
"I observed three months Of abuse
of her by her mother. She was kept
in pajamas upstairs. Mrs. McCarter
remarked she didn't want her to come
downstairs because she'd realize then
there was nothing wrong with her and
would want to go out.
THE girl was afraid to eat. She
told me she had been threatened with
poison, but had been forced to deny
that threat in writing.
Her letters were censored. So were
her telephone calls. She was forced
to sign letters asking money from the
estate without reading them"