Evening star., 1949-02-09
Final Arguments
Due Today in
Edwards Trial
Defense Tries to
Show Flows in
Murder Confession
By W. H. Shippen, Jr.
Stcy Staff Correspondent

SiSi S'Si' $oHesPoHoenI
EALTIN1ORE, Feb. 9.-Attor-
MS prosecuting and defending
T., ---l2s A. Edwards were to pre-
Sc, closing arguments today at
TIE trial of the 23-year-old
man, accused of numbering a
girl and her escort near Glen
Burnie last September.
Anslem Sodaro, assistant Bal
timore prosecutor, was to lead
of for the State. He is to be
answered later today by Attorney
William j. McWilliams, a former
judge, who was appointed by the
court to defend the colored man
Edwards, who pleaded not guilty
when his trial opened here on
February /, expressed his wish
to be tried by three judges in
stead of jury. He has re-
pudiated his confession to the
Staying of Mary C. Kline. 18, and
john H. Mahlan. 25, postal en-
ploye. Both victims were resi-
dents of Glen Burnie.
A futter of excitement spread
Through the courtroom yesterday,
when a States witness, DR.. Earl
Roger, an assistant medical eX-
aminer, produced a human skull
to illustrate a point he was max
ing to the judges. The tenseness
subsided when the crowd realized
the skull was a well-cured relic
from the laboratory.
Shows Place of Fracture.
DR.. Royer used the exhibit to
show the judges where Miss
Kline's skull had been fractured
and where a bullet had entered
the brain.
The defense had tried to show
that the murders could not pos
sibly have been committed on the
might of September II in the man
ner described by Edwards in his
confession of last November.
The defendant had said he fol-
lowed an automobile which forced
him to jump into the ditch and
shot the driver through the head,
after the latter pulled off the
highway and parked in a clearing
Edwards, in his signed statement,
said he chased the girl when she
fled screaming into the bushes and
struck her on the head with his
automatic. He told investigators
he put the girl into a rear seat and
drove the two to another clearing
some Is miles distant. where he
removed the bodies and shot Miss
Kline through the head as she lay
on the ground.
Mr.. McWilliams is contending
that the amount Of blood in the
rear compartment Of the death car
indicates the girl was shot as well
as dubbed before being removed
from the clearing where the first
assault occurred.
Feared Mob Violence.
Edwards told the judges yester-
day that repeated police question
ing along one line as to their
theory of how the murders oc-
CURED, put secondhand words"
In his mouth.
He repeated that he confessed
only when he was taken to Balti-
more because he feared mob vio-
lence if returned to a Jail near
Glen Burnie. The defendant kept
trying to convince the judges that
his detailed account of how he
killed the couple was merely the
repetition of a theory continu-
ously impressed upon him by his
questioners.
Edwards, a veteran of the last
war, who drove a Quartermaster
Corps truck in France and Ger
many, denied he told officers he
had ever been familiar with white
women while in Europe. He freely
admitted possession of the foreign
automatic police said they found
in his home and that he had lied
to police when he told them he
had disposed of the weapon prior
10 LQe murders.
Charges Threat to Police.
The defendant reiterated that
police had slapped and threatened
him. On one occasion he said
many photographs were taken of
him when he was led outside a
Jail bare-headed and handcuffed
%o Do1;oa rIo;of caoYna IT Co1,orc
of Anne Arundel County.
One of the last defense witnesses
yesterday was nightWatchman
at a gravel processing plant near
the clearing on Chesterfield road
where the bodies were found. He
told of seeing two white men in
an automobile on the night of the
murders, one of them slumped
down in the front seat. The car
returned a second time that night,
he said, and he saw it third
time the following morning on
his way home from work, parked
near where the couple had been
dumped from Mr.. Mahlan's car.
In cross-examining the witness
Prosecutor Sodaro asked, "Were
you ever the operator of nudist
camp in that area?"
The witness admitted that he
had once lived in nudist camp
not far from Annapolis.
In voice charged with incred-
ulity, one of the judges exclaimed
What, a nudist camp in Mary
land?"
That's right, your honor" was
the reply.