Gastonia Gazette
Charlotte’s famous murder case is over. Nellie Freeman, admitted slayer of her youthful husband with a razor, has been turned loose after a hectic trial. She is now free to do as she pleases, in a free land.
No longer haunted by a fear of the chair, of the grim, gray walls of the state penitentiary, she stepped forth into the bright July sun Wednesday afternoon after the foreman of the jury announced in solemn tones that Mrs. Nellie freeman was adjudged not guilty.
Nellie Freeman severed the jugular vein of her husband, Alton Freeman, two months ago, when she threw her arms about his shoulders with the fateful razor in her hands.
“I didn’t mean to do it,” she said simply after the boy had writhed to the floor with his life blood flowing away. And after she had been freed, she said, “I hope the Freemans won’t think too hard of me.”
Smiling and demure this slip of a girl was unleashed of all shackles of the law when the verdict was read. After taking a human life in cold blood, after repeated statements that she meant to kill her husband because he was “unkind to me,” she lovingly approached him like Judas of old, and slew him.
Today she is free. She is free to marry again, to live as she pleases, to kill another man whose various moods incur her displeasure. If someone on the streets does something that she does not like, she has the right, according to her former crime and acquittal, to walk up and kill him.
Her misfortunes and tricks of fate, played u in full by sob stuff all over the country, well-meaning people prayed for deliverance. “She’s so young and pretty,” they said. “Of course she didn’t know what she was doing at the time,” say others. “She’s mentally deficient,” said the psychiatrists who examined her.
Attorneys McCall and Carpenter declared that the verdict was a mockery to justice. We agree with them. It was more than that. It was a travesty of justice. Every ne is supposed to be allotted the punishment according as his misdeeds have earned it. But in this trial maudlin sentiment and feeling overshadowed the face that a human life had been taken.
Upon what ground could an intelligent jury say that Nellie Freeman was not guilty of murder? Did she not kill him and admit it? That she was mistreated by her husband is another tale. It could have been told months ago to the police. Nellie could have left him as many other a woman has done.
And this is the upholding of the law. Is it any wonder that murders are becoming more common every day, when the murderer knows that he has every advantage and chance to escape the hands of the law to safety and security.
From page 3 of The Cleveland Star, July 26, 1926
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn97064509/1926-07-26/ed-1/seq-3/
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