Evening star., 1936-04-30
ATTITUDE Of GIRL
PRIOR TO Staying
C|TEDBY COUNSEL
Insanity Only Explanation
for Scene in Hotel,
0'Shea Insists.
UNDERTAKEN IN TEARS
AS ARGUMENTS CLOSE
Likely Instructions of Judge on
Three Possible Verdicts
Are Forecast.
BY WILLIAM S. TARVER.

bI WILLIAM D. 1AhNEh.
The murder trial of William H.
Reaguer moved swiftly toward the
jury today as the 57-year-old Gull
peper, Va, undertaken, alternately
fretting and weeping, heard his chief
attorney describe his case as lone Of
the weirdest, saddest stories" ever
heard in District Supreme Court.
The lawyer, James A. O'Shea, in
his final effort to keep Reaguer from
going to the electric chair for the
Staying of his 21-year-old paramour,
Mrs. Willie Mae Wood. bride Of only
II days, told the jury:
There was no jealousy in this mans
mind"
With her head nearly cut from her
body with a pocket knife, Mrs. Wood
was found dead in a downtown hotel
room on the morning of October IL.
Reaguer, his wrists Slashed with tie
same knife, was sprawled across her
body.
Possible Verdicts Hinted.
Associate Defense Counsel Alfred
Goldstein indicated to the jurors that
instructions they will receive from
Justice Oscar r. Luhring will permit
verdictS Of guilty of first or second
degree murder, and not guilty because
of insanity.
Conviction of first-degree murder
carries a mandatory death penalty,
while the punishment for second
degree murder is imprisonment for
from 20 years to life. In the event
the jury decides Reaguer was insane,
he automatically will be committed to
St. Elizabeth's Hospital.
O'Shea attempted to show that Mrs.
Wood went willingly with Reaguer to
the hotel on the night she was slain.
Her 17-year-old cousin Miss Annie T.
O'Bannon, accompanied them and oc-
cupied an adjoining room. BY no
other hypothesis than that of insan-
| ity can be reconciled the conflicting
pictures of a "once well to-do UNDER
| taker in the little town of Culpeper,
nesting in the Virginia foothills" and
| the man who lay across the lifeless
O'Shea declared.
When the girl married Herbert r.
Wood, Reaguer wished her we'll and
never attempted to take up the broken
| threads of their affair, said the attor-
| ney. 1t was Mrs. Wood who sought
out Reaguer after the marriage,
O'Shea asserted, adding that he would
speak of her only respectfully, how
ever.
Bursts Into Tears.
At this point, Reaguer burst into
tears. He sat sobbing and biting his
fingers throughout the rest of the
attorneys address.
In soft voice which contrasted with
his former rasping tones, OShea read
to the jury the love letters Mrs. Wood
wrote to the undertaken, expressing
her love for him, asking for money and
| saying she was tired of married life.
The dead girls young husband sat
in back row of the crowded court
room, half smiling, with a cynical
twist to his face.
Mrs. Wood knew Reaguer was drink
ing when he came to the Culpepe-
home of her parents, where she was,
\ on the night Of October II, but was
not afraid of him, O'Shea said. If she
had been afraid she would never have
left her own home that night, he told
the jury.
Testimony Is Recalled.
The testimony of an attendant at
he washington garage that Mrs. Wood
urged Reaguer to hurry so they would
have more time together at the hotel
was cited by O'Shea as "a beacon L.
Illuminating the last acts and thoughts
of Willie Mae"
He sought to impeach the testimony
of John Sullivan. night clerk at the
hotel, who had quoted Reaguer as
saying after the Staying that this
woman double-crossed me, but she
can't double cross any one else" He
| said Sullivan did not say this when
he was put on the witness stand at
the coroner's inquest.
Assistant United States Attorney
Irving Goldstein will make the Gov
ernment's closing argument to the
jury this afternoon.
Defense Attorney Goldstein told the
jury the judge would instruct them
that they might find Reaguer insane
If they decided he was unable to dis
tinguish between right and wrong;
if he did not know that the acts he
performed constituted the crime
charged; or, If he knew that what he
was about to do was wrong, but was
unable to resist. He also said the
judge would charge that If the jury
found Reaguer was so drunk as to be
unable to form a deliberate intent, It
could not convict him Of first-degree
murder.
He emphasized the legal maxim that
good reputation alone Is suflcient to
create a reasonable doubt as to the
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