MURDER TRIAL AT MIAMI

Taranaki Daily News, 6 August 1932, Page 7

MURDER TRIAL AT MIAMI

QUARREL OVER MRS. MILLER CHARGE AGAINST LANCASTER WOMAN FLIER’S TESTIMONY CHANGE IN HER AFFECTION By Telegraph—Press Assn. —Copyright. Miami (Florida), August 4. When the trial of Captain Lancaster, the British airman charged with murdering Haden Clarke, an American airman, was resumed to-day Mrs. Keith Miller, fiarlcee of Clarke, said she proposed suicide to Clarke only a few hours before he was found fatally shot. Yesterday Mrs. Miller said she and Clarke discussed mutual suicide for several nights before the shooting, but did not mention the subject again. She said her suicide suggestion was made after Clarke told her of his conversation with Lancaster regarding the proposed marriage. She quoted Clarke as having said: “I can’t stand it any longer; I am going crazy.” Mrs. Miller said they agreed in a conversation earlier in the evening that it ■■would be necessary to postpone the wedding until Clarke’s divorce decree was final. Under examination by Mr. James C'arson> counsel for the defence, Mrs. Miller described as highly cordial Lancaster s attitude toward her and Clarke when the flier came hurriedly from St. Louis on learning that Clarke hid succeeded him in her affections. Hundreds in the courtroom leaned forward eagerly to hear the testimony of the diminutive airwoman as Mrs. Miller elaborated, under cross-examina-tion, on her earlier testimony regarding the arrival of Lancaster from St. Louis the day before the shooting and the quarrel between the two men over hei at the dinner table that night. “After Bill (Lancaster) went to his room to read his mail Haden and I sat downstairs talking,” she said. “We were despondent about the marriage plans and the whole situation. Then-I made a fool suggestion; I said: ‘I wish we could end it all.’” AGREEMENT AFTER QUARREL. Then she told of Lancaster and Clarke retiring to their rooms and she to hers. In compliance with a request from Clarke she locked her door. Mrs. Miller said that Lancaster and Clarke after the dinner table quarrel the night before the shooting talked amicably through the evening of thenfutures and plans to postpone the marriage until Clarke’s divorce was finished. At the conclusion of their talk Lancaster announced that he would We away from, th© house next day. She. heard the men talking and laughing before she went to sleep. Testimony that Lancaster had threatened to get rid of Clarke was given by J. F. Russell, a former business associate of Lancaster. Russell is .now serving a Federal prison sentence for a conspiracy to smuggle aliens. He was formerly associated with an airways venture in which Lancaster was interested. The deputy-sheriff stood by Russell as he testified to the meeting of Lancaster, and other men at El Paso, Texas, on a proposition to operate a ec-umercial air line between Mexico and the United States. Russell testified that Lancaster tried to borrow. 25 dollars from him in Los Angeles to send to Mrs. Miller. “I was unable to lend the mney, Russell continued. “Lancaster was very much worried over her. financial destitution and his' failure to hear from “Chubbie.” I said: “You had better stay with us, Bill, and make some money.’ I told him that he had lost out with her and that since we left I had heard from my wife in Miami that Clarke and Mrs. Miller had been at my house frequently. I told him that.Haden had an inside trick. Bill asked, me if I thought Haden had double-crossed him. I said I thought that he had. Bill turned on his heel and muttered, ‘l’ll get rid of him.’ ’