EVIDENCE COMPLETE. FILM’S BIGGEST SCANDAL.

Taranaki Daily News, 26 September 1921, Page 5

EVIDENCE COMPLETE.

FILM’S BIGGEST SCANDAL.

Vancouver, Sept. 12. “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 the Grand Jury this week, showing that the gross and criminal brutality of Arbuckle was responsible for Miss Virginia Rappe’s death. Arbuckle was pale and worried and was 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 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.

Mr. Jesse Lasky, whose company handles Arbuckle, has arrived at San Francisco to decide how far the case will affect the corporation financially. Arbuckle’s salary was five thousand dol- • lars a week ( £>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 real court this morning. Out of the cells trooped a long line of shuffling prisoners, Arbuckle among them. The rollcall started, “Roscoe Arbuckle, murder,’' read by the sergeant. A huge crowd, half of it women, thronged the court.

“Yes, sir,” answered Fatty, stepping sullenly across the screen, while police photographers’ cameras clicked. “Step out of the line,” commanded the sergeant, roughly. Arbuckle was remanded and led awity, handcuffed, with a man charged with petty larceny on his left side and a burglar on his right. 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, out Miss Rappe, who did not realise the seriousness 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 said that Miss Rappe jvas greatly hurt and iagitated because Arbuckle took advantage of her when he was a long and dose friend of her fiance, and associated in business for five years.