THE ARBUCKLE CASE.

Shannon News, 4 October 1921, Page 3

THE ARBUCKLE CASE.

FILM’S BIGGEST SCANDAL. '

“We have a complete case against Arbuckle,” said Captain Matheson, chief of the detectives .at San Francisco, who added that the straightest kind Of evidence would be presented to tfie Grand Jury this week, showing that the gross and criminal brutaity of Arbuckle was responsible for Miss Virginia Rappe’s death.

Arbuckle was pale and worried and very nervous when he rose this morning after his second night in gaol. He declined to make any further statement, on the instructions of his lawyers to say nothing. At least nine persons besides Miss Rappe and Arbuckle participated in the wild party which led to the tragedy, which American papers call the biggest scandal in movie life. California’s moral j reformers promise to clean up the. alleged rotten conditions amongst some of the most prominent movie folk, whom the police and officials say have been riding for a fall for a long time. /

Miss Rappe was the girl who, in 1915, startled Paris, appearing in the streets in fur anklets with pink pantalettes showing below her skirts, carrying armfuls of fruit instead of flowers.

Tremendously agitated over the Arbuckle case, the movie colony has been divided into two factions, one believing the comedian innocent and the other denouncing him. Mrs Jesse 5 Lasky, whose company handles Arbuckle, has arrived at San Francisco to decide how far tjie case will affect the corporation financially. Arbuckle’s salary was five thousand dollars a >veek (£1340 according to present exchange^rates). Torn silk undergarments were found in the automobile in which Arbuckle returned to Los ,Angeles, following the party at San Francisco. Arbuckle occupied the centre of the stage at his first appearance in a Teal Court this morning. Out of the cells trooped a long line of shuffling prisoners, Arbuckle among them. i. roll-call started, “Roscoe Arbuckle, murder,” read the sergeant. . “Yes, sir’” answered Fatty, stepping sullenly across the screen, while police photographers’ catfieras clicked. “Step out af the line,” commanded the sergeant, roughly. / Arbuckle was remanded and led away, handcuffed, with a man charged with petty larceny on his left side and a burglar on his right. A huge crowd, half of it women, thronged the Court. New York papers feature the Arbuckle case as the biggest personal scandal since Thaw killed Stanford White. ' . Nurse Jameson says that Miss Rappe told her that Arbuckle had been waiting to get her for five years, but Miss Rappe, who did not realise the seri-, ousness of her condition, did not/ want publicity, fearing that she would lose' her fiance, Harry Lehrman, of New York. The nurse noticed bruises on the patient’s body. Nurse Jameson f that Miss. Rappe was greatly hurt ami agitated because Arbuckle took advantage of her when he was a long and close friend of her finance and associated in business for five years. A MEDICAL WITNESS. San Francisco, September 26. The Arbuckle defence gained a victory when Dr. Beardslee, who attended Miss Rappe when she was first taken ill, testified that her injury could have been caused by a fall, or other cause, as well as by violence.