HE COULD NOT REMEMBER SHOOTING

Manawatu Times, Volume LV, Issue 6838, 20 April 1932, Page 6

HE COULD NOT REMEMBER SHOOTING

Massie Under CrossExamination IN HONOLULU MURDER TRIAL New York Times Broadcast. HONOLULU, April IS. Lieutenant Thomas Hedges Massie’a story that he probably shot Joe Kahaliawai was unshaken when lie stepped down from the witness chair in King Kamchameha’s ancient courtroom today.

Two days of savage cross-examination did not alter Massie’s declaration that he held a revolver, that ho heard the cringing native admit a brutal attack on Thalia Fortcscue Massie (his wife), and that his mind then plunged into an eclipse so dark that lie cannot account for the strangest hours of his life. Over and over, forcing his story into the minds of the polyglot jurymen, the white-faced Kentuckian repeated lus testimony. Prosecutor John Kelley’s baffled efforts to shako that story only increased its force. “I. held a gun to frighten him,’’ Massie said. “You planned to kill him, didn’t you?’’ tho tenacious prosecutor shouted. “No, Mr. Kelley,” Massie answered. Threats of a beating broke Kahafiawai’s defiance, Massie declared. Kaiiahawai said: “Yes, we done it.” “That’s all I remember,” Massie said.

That void of mental blankness covers the actual shooting and the unsuccessful bfforts to disposo of tho body. The naval officer said ho was informed that Kahaliawai died on a chaise-lounge in tho Monroe Valley homo of Mrs. Fortescue, his mother-in-law and a defendant in the case, shortly after he was shot by a gun which Massie already had admitted holding over him.