A DRAMATIC TRIAL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 118, 5 October 1912, Page 10

A DRAMATIC TRIAL.

AND ITS SENSATIONAL ENDING. Eecently the leading incidents of a magisterial investigation into the charge of attempting to shoot her husband preferred against Mrs. Daisy Ulrich Opie Grace, resulting in her committal for trial, were cabled. The trial took place at Atlanta (Ga.), and ended on Augugl; 2 in a verdict of acquittal. The scene when Mrs. Grace told her story to the jury was intensely dramatic. Staring straight at her paralysed husband, Eugene Grace, who looked cynically at her from his stretcher, she told the jury that she didn't shoot her husband, but that her husband had shot himself during a struggle with her, aHd that the quarrel was over another woman to whom Grace had been attentive. Her first words on the stand were:

Gentlemen, lam innocent. I did not shoot my husband, God knows, and he (indicating her husband) knows it. ■With Hushed face and hands trembling, she spoke in a clear but low voice, declaring that her husband, whom she is accused of shooting, had tried to kill her several times. Once, she said, he tried to drown her; again, he stabbed her; and, finally, the day he was shot he seized a pistol, and in the struggle that followed he wounded himself. The statement was not made under oath, and there was no cross-examination.

I have spent 15,000 dol. on him. I have taken his abuse and his beatings time and again. Mr. Grace and I were out in my own auto, and he became angry at me and tried to push me out of the ear. Another time lie threatened to pawn a valuable pin and ring of my former husband be- " cause I would not give him money. The final scene came on March 5, when Mrs. Grace says she learned that Grace had arranged to use money she had given .him to take a trip north with another woman. They quarrelled. Grace had a pistol, and in a struggle with her he accidentally shot himself. Mr. Grace thought, the wound was slight, and. he made me swear on the Bible never to speak of it, in order to avoid ruining our social standing. I have kept that oath until to-day. There was silence for two minutes in Court after Mrs. Grace concluded, and it was only broken when Grace whispered: '"lt's all a lie." AN EXTRAORDINARY SCENE. "God bless you, gentlemen!" cried the woman in the dock when the verdict was pronounced. There was a note of hys teria in her voiee, and she seemed to be on the point of collapse; but her lawyers patted her on the shoulder and urged her to restrain herself, which she accordingly did. Then the crowd in the Court cheered, and the women gathered round, and some wept over her. At length the deadly pallor left Mrs. Grace's face, which was relieved by a flush, and she smilingly said, as she shook each juror's hand: "I feel like kissing and hugging £ou all. I trusted you all the time. I knew that you would not believe what they said about me." As she left the courthouse the people in the street gave, her a tremendous cheer. The verdict of acquittal was generally expected, as it was conceded that the State Attorney had utterly failed to substantiate the averment that Mrs. Grace drugged and shot her husband, in order to secure his life insurance of £SOOO. Mrs. Grace's statement had a tremendous effect on the jury, and its main statements were generally credited, especially those relating to the large sums she bad lavished on Grace, and his attentions to other women. It developed that Mrs. Daisy Graee's remarkable story of the shooting of her husbaiJd was a carefully-prepared declamation, pruned, amended and polished by her lawyers, and as carefully rehearsed as a dramatic offering by a professional actress. For over two months Mrs. Grace rehearsed the statement until she was letter-perfect. There were 8000 wordsin the statement, but Mrs. Grace never faltered once in its delivery. On being told the verdict in New York, whither he was taken after the evidence had closed, the husband maintained in very coarse language that his wife was guilty. He has instructed his lawyers to sue for a divorce.