“SUICIDE NOTES”

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 272, 12 August 1932, Page 11

“SUICIDE NOTES”

Forged Signatures MIAMI MURDER TRIAL Lancaster’s Admissions (By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright.) Miami, Au, ust 10. Charged with murdering the American aviator, Haden Clarke, at Miami on April 21, Captain W. N. Lancaster gave further evidence on his own behalf to-day. He declared that he did not kill Clarke. He contradicted the testimony of Mrs. Keith Miller as he described the dinner table quarrel the night before the shooting. Mrs. Miller was wrong, he said, when she testified. “I did not arise from my chair after telling Haden that his actions were not those of a gentleman in stealing Mrs. Miller’s love. I did push my chair back when Haden arose from his place to resent my remark.” Eventually, he said, Clarke gained control of his temper and admitted that witness was right. Later, as the two sat in the livingroom, Lancaster said that he told the pair that he planned returning to St Louis. “At that time,” he said, “I told them I was interested only in what Chubbie thought about it, not at all in what Haden thought.” Denial of Killing. Lancaster, with a voice steady and unemotional, described what he called the suicide of Clarke. Previously he had returned a calm “No” to a pointblank question by his counsel, Mr. Carson, as to whether he killed Clarke. “I was awakened,” he said, “by a bang. I. thought it was the window, and'called out. ‘What Is that, Haden?’ I heard a gurgling noise from the bed, and leaped from the bed to find blood streaming from Clarke’s face and a pistol lying beside him.” “Haden, wbat have yon done?” was his best recollection, he continued, of his next words. There was no answer. Lancaster said that he and Clarke, after going to bed, had talked over their tangled love affairs. "Haden nearly wept when he told me how their love had grown and about his position at that time with regard to Mrs. Miller.” Mr. Carson: Did yon discuss Clarke's past life? Witness: Yes, In great detail, since it had a direct bearing on his love for Mrs. Miller. He told me that he felt very badly about his situation, and confessed that he had had lots of affairs, but this was the first time in his life he had been in love. He dwelt at considerable length on his lack of finances. For the first time, Lancaster testified, he learned that Clarke was not divorced, and he advised Clarke to tell the whole story to Mrs. Miller the next day. “The last thing I ever heard Haden say." added witness, was, ‘Bill, you're the whitest man I’ve ever met.’ ” Awakened by Shot. Witness said that he fell asleep at the conclusion of the talk, to be awakened by the shot. Lancaster said that Clarke apparently consented to sign the two suicide notes which Lancaster had admitted he forged, but could not do so. “I looked around the room and out in the hall and on the table,” said witness, “and I could find no notes or anything to indicate what had happened. Then I sat down and wrote two suicide notes. I asked Haden if he could sign them. There was no answer .but a groan, and Clarke’s head moved feebly back and forward. Then I did something I should not have done. I took a pencil and signed the notes, one ‘Haden’ and the other *H.’ ” Lancaster told of the waking of Mrs. Miller, and calling the doctor, and of Mrs. Miller’s bathing Clarke’s head with a toyel. Witness'said that the pistol with which Clarke was killed was the one he brought from St. Louis to replace a borrowed weapon he had pawned. He and Clarke discussed the pistol, and he warned Clarke that it was loaded when he placed It on the table between their beds before they retired.