APACHE AND COLLEGE GIRL

Evening Star, Issue 21099, 11 May 1932, Page 5

APACHE AND COLLEGE GIRL

STUDENT'S FATAL VENTURE The strange tale of a tragedy, born of liquor, a white girl’s indiscretion, and an Apache Indian’s devotion to the traditions of his tribe, was tola in the Federal Court at Globe, Arizona, last month. Golney (Mac) Seymour, twenty-one-year-old Apache, is on trial for first degree murder. He is alleged to have beaten and stabbed to death Henrietta Schnierler, Columbia University student of anthropology, who went to Arizona last summer to live among the Apaches and write a thesis to win her degree. After his arrest Seymour—at times talking himself and at other through an interpreter—confessed on the witness stand. The next day at the start of cross-examination he repudiated that confession. ' The story goes bade to last July 18. The girl was at her cabin on the edge of the Indian settlement. Her presence there had been resented by some of the older braves, and the whites had ■warned her she was in danger, but she would not believe them. “I visited my father that day, Seymour said. “He told me of dance and asked mo get Elizabeth” (the son’s wife). “On way we met lots Indians with beer. I bought fifty cents worth of beer and drank a few times. Got Elizabeth. We both had horses. Reached my father’s wickiup. Robert Gatewood (his brother-in-law) invited me in to drink. I drank some tulaipai. “ I rode past white girl s house. “ She spoke of the dance. Asked me if I would lend her a horse. I said I only had one. She said 1 Maybe I ride behind you? I see lots you people doing it.’ I said ‘Those people married.’ She said ‘That’s all right. “ Then she asked mo in. She had something in a bottle. She said ‘ Drink it.’ I said, ‘ What is it? She said ‘Whisky.’ I drank some. “It burned my throat. She mixed some with sugar and water. It tasted good. She kissed me. “We started for a dance on my horse. We stopped at Muddy Draw to walk across. Then she began teasing me. I thought she wanted to ‘marry me. She didn’t fight. “ Then I felt very had about Elizabeth. 1 told her I ought not to have done this tiling. I told her I was going hack to Elizabeth at the range. She got very mad. She threw a rqck and hit me "in the breast. She cried she was going to tell on me. ■ Then she got a knife out of the bag and tried to cut me. “ I didn’t know what to do. I threw her down and took the knife. I hit her with a rock and cut her cheek. I don’t know how long we fought. I was, drunk. ‘‘Then she got up and walked a few steps, then fell down. Then I felt very bad. I cried. Then I jumped on my horse and rode away.” United States Attorney John C. Gung’l engaged in a day-long slashing cross-examination to break down Seymour’s previous direct testimony. “ Do you tell this jury you did not cut that girl that night or any other time?” demanded Gung’l after exhaustive questioning. This and other questions brought from the Apache only fresh repudiation of tho confession lie is purported to have made to J. A. Street, Department of Justice agent, on November 1. “I did not cut her,” Seymour declared stolidly.

“ Do you deny killing that girl to this jury?” “I did not kill her.” “ And you were drunk,” accused Gung’l. “ Yes—-1 was drunk,” Seymour answered.

“ You were so drunk you didn’t know what you were doing,” the United States attorney declared. “ I was not so drunk that I cannot remember,” denied the Apache. “If I was too drunk I could not remember.” '

Previously Elizabeth, Seymour’s nineteen-year-old squaw, mother of his two children, had testified in defence of her man. The timid little woman said she saw her husband drinking tulapai . (corn brandy) the night he met Miss Schmerler.

John J. Dougherty, Seymour’s counsel, failed in repeated efforts to force before the jury alleged facts regarding the Columbia student’s character and behaviour, but ho was allowed to read into tho court record, in the absence of tho jury, a statement for the purpose of appeal. “I desire to offer and am prepared to offer evidence to show,” Dougherty said “ Miss Schmerler did not , confine her activities to study of anthropology. I want to prove Miss Schmerler was engaged in study of abnormal sex impulses of the Indians, and that her conduct was such ns to arouse indignation and cause the Indians of tho reservation to question her morals.”