THE ARBUCKLE CASE

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2341, 13 October 1921, Page 4

THE ARBUCKLE CASE

DEATH OP MSS RAPPE,

STATEMENT BY NURSE,

DYING GIRL’S WISHES

American papers which came to Hand this week contained further details of the tragic case of Miss Virginia Rappe, the motion picture actress, in connection with whose death Roscoe Arbuckle is now awaiting trial on a charge of manslaughter.

Miss Rappe was well known as a motion picture actress, artist’s model, and designer of women’s clothes. She was reputed to have independent wealth as the result of oil investments. Her home was in Los Angeles, where she lived with her aunt. She first appeared in motion pictures about four years ago. In the last season' or two she had played leads with well-known men stars. She appeared as leading woman in two pictures produced by Henry Lehrman, and was reported engaged to Lehrman. , Miss Rappe’s aunt acted as chaperon for the girl, her friends say, and always accompanied her to the motion picture studios when she went to work before the camera. She was regarded as one of the best dressed women in the motion pictures, and is said frequently to have won prizes for dancing at a Santa Monica resort frequented by moving picture people. Miss Rappe was 25 years old, was born in Chicago, and first came into prominence in that city. This was in 1913, when she was earning a salary of £I,OOO a year as a travelling art model. She gave advice to American girls, and suggested that they choose original ways of making a living, and not slip into the usual stereotyped way which stenography afforded. She next appeared in the news early in 1914, when she returned from Paris. With another Chicago girl, Helen Patterson, the girls had made a the liner Baltic by their' daring attire during the trip to America.

Both landed in Chicago wearing pink pantalettes or bloomers, which showed below,their skirts when they walked. They were also wearing fruit bouquets' and fur anklets. Passengers on the ship said Miss Rappe and her companion had enlivened one evening by a “nightie tango,” a dance that was given with a nightgown worn over an evening dress.

The death of Miss Rappe, as has already been stated, occurred in Arbuckle’s rooms at the St. Francis Hotel, Los Angeles, following what was said to have been a very wild party. “I am used to seeing people die. That is my business. I see them die all the time.”

Nevertheless, Mrs Jean Jamieson, nurse who cared for Virginia Rappe and heard her moanings and accusations of Roscoe Arbuckle—who saw the beautiful girl pass away with the words on her lips, “Get Roscoe — follow this to the finish” —betrayed distinct emotion in telling of her latest “patient.”

“She, didn’t want me out of her sight for a moment,” said Mrs Jarneison. “From the time I took the case to the instant of her death she was continually calling me to listen to what she had to say.

“And al] her talk was about ‘Roscoe,’ as she called him, and the injury he had done her.” Mrs Jamieson, wise in the ways of patients, is scrupulously desirous of being fair, says an American paper. She knows that delirious persons sometimes say more than they mean.

“The tilings I have told the police in my statement,” she declared, “were said by the girl at the times when she was apparently in full control of her mind.

“At other times she rambled. She was in great pain throughout. When her condition was at its worst she made statements more extreme than the things she said when she was quieter. 1 shall tell these latter statements only at the trial, if there is one, and under the qualification that they were made in delirium. But the things I have told so far were said when her mind, as far as I could judge, was clear.” Mi's Jameison does not interpret Virginia liappe’s dying words as meaning that anyone was to “get” Arbuckle in the sense of revenge. The word “get,” she declares, was evidently intended to mean “find” or “bring.” This all-important distinction, according to the nurse, is based on the girl’s attitude as shown previously during the hours before death.

She wanted to get into touch with Arbuckle so that he would pay the expenses of her illness.” said Mrs Jameison. “The girl was far more worried over the money side of her plight than over other aspects. She said:

“.‘lt wouldn’t bo right for me to have to pay for all this, when it is Koscoe’s fault.’

“When she said, ‘Get Roseoe,’ I understood her to mean: ‘Get- him, and make him pay the bills.’ “The thing that worried her most, apart from the money, was the wrong done to her 'fiance, Henry Lehrman, Los Angeles motion picture director.

“‘I don’t want publicity about this, because I don’t want Henry to know of it,’ she said repeatedly. ‘lf lie knows of it, he will throw me down.’

“The thought that hurt her most of all, perhaps, was that Lehrman and Arbuckle had been fast friends for years, but that Arbuckle had

treated her wrongly despite his friendship for her fiance. “ ‘lt wasn’t right for him to act this way toward me, when Henry was so fond of him and trusted him so,’ the girl said. She repeated this in various ways. ‘What kind of way was that for him to treat a girl that was engaged to his best friend? she said. “As to the exact way in which she got her fatal injury, til egirl’s mind was a blank. I think she had been too intoxicated to remember it. At any rate, she never described clearly what happened in that room.

“She did not explain in any way the torn condition of her clothing. Nothing she said shed any light on that. She made no allegations that Arbuckle had hit her; only that he had ‘crushed’ her. * “The girl did not know that she was going to die. In fact, when I took hold,of the case I did not .think so myself. She was young and apparently had vitality. She sank very rapidly in the last 24 hours. Up to the very last, I think, she did not realise death was coming.”