With practically every seat in Wayne county’s magnificent court house filled, and with every available space filled with some interested spectator, each one anxious to hear every word of the evidence in the case, the trial of Fitzhugh Lane, Luther Sullivan, and Bert Coley, charged with false imprisonment, aiding and abetting prostitution, and assault upon the person of Alice Rose, Princeton girl, was taken up before Judge M.V. Barnhill yesterday morning, following the disposal of one minor case.
Able legal talent appears both on behalf of the defendants and with the state, and the case will, it is apparent, be hard fought throughout. Several welfare organizations have interested themselves in the case of the girl, and their representatives were present during the entire time the case was in progress yesterday and will doubtless be on hand today.
Judge Barnhill is paying particular attention to this action, and it is to be gone into in detail. Whether the taking of testimony will be concluded today is speculative but it was predicted yesterday that it would probably be tomorrow before the case would be disposed of and a verdict rendered.
How the Case Began
This action grew out of the alleged imprisonment of Alice Rose, 16-year-old Princeton girl, in a house near Goldsboro last May, it is alleged the defendants in the case and others who have since left the city and county. It was disposed of by agreement on one occasion, and then after the presiding judge had learned facts not brought out at the time, was ordered back on the docket. It is said that the testimony will bring out some of the most revolting transactions in the history of the county, and the testimony of the girl in the case yesterday afternoon substantiated this prediction.
The Rose girl, dressed in a plain black dress trimmed with white buttons, wearing white hose and white slippers, appeared more at ease yesterday than on the day last week when she appeared in court. It was said that she had been converted at the jail, where she has been incarcerated, on the previous afternoon, when the Salvation Army workers visited that place and held a meeting. Certainly she seemed to have herself more in hand and after the first few moments on the stand, her answers to questions put by counsel for the state and counsel for the defense rang out loud and clear over the crowded court room.
A Sordid Story
The girl told the court a story of having left her home at Princeton to come to Goldsboro to work in a hosiery mill, of her meeting with Sullivan, who she said, told her that her grandfather was ill and that he would carry her to him. Continuing , she told of a ride in an auto with Sullivan, of his attempts to secure whiskey along the route, of how he picked up Lane, and of how later she was carried to a vacant house near Revilo(?) Park. She recounted in detail her experiences at that place, of the visits of men, and alleged that her abductors forced her to have immoral relations with them. In detail she recited the trying hours that followed, of how several days later she was taken from that vacant house, where she had been forced to sleep on a lap robe and carried to another house several miles distant, on the Goldsboro-Kinston highway.
The girl told a thrilling story of her experiences in this latter place and then of how her captors had, under cover of darkness, removed her to a tobacco barn in or near Webtowm. where she remained from Saturday evening until Sunday evening; of how she was beaten there by them and of her subsequent escape, and later her arrest and incarceration in the county jail.
Smuggled Liquor
Continuing still further, she told how liquor had been furnished to her while she was in jail, and described how this was secured, stating that she threw a piece of twine from the window so that it would fall outside the jail yard, and Sullivan, Lane and others tied bottles of whiskey on one end of the string, and she would pull it back up to and through the bars of the window. Direct and cross-examination of the girl consumed more than two hours, but when she was excused from the stand she appeared to be ready to go on for another two hours.
Time and again she raised her voice above its usual p itch, as she told counsel on both sides when thy asked her why she did not explain her plight to some of the men who were brought into the house where she was held, that she had told them but not a one would help her.
It is apparent that the girl is lacking in education, and that she has not reached maturity. She is slow to think, and at times attorneys for the defense had to wait for a few moments while she racked her brain to remember times, places and persons. But as a whole the girl made an excellent witness, and made a more or less favorable impression upon those who sat around the courtroom merely as spectators.
Not Without Friends
And it is a noticeable fact that the girls is not without friends. Whether she had relatives in the court room, or whether they were not able to attend the opening session of the trial is not known, but some of the leading welfare workers in this city were on hand yesterday afternoon, and will probably be in the court room today to lend their support.
The prosecution, it is understood, have a number of witnesses to be heard this morning, and the defense, it is said, have an even larger number, all of whom will be placed on the witness stand in due time, and the taking of this evidence will consume several hours.
Incidentally Judge Barnhill yesterday ordered the court room cleared of all boys under age, and this morning the same thing will be done. No boys or girls under age will be allowed at any session of this trial.
From the front page of the Goldsboro News, Aug. 26, 1924
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn93064755/1924-08-26/ed-1/seq-1/
No comments:
Post a Comment