St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 3

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH WEDNESDAY, MAY 6, 1959 ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH 3A Beating Victim Figures in Murder Trial ALDERMEN UNIT STABBING FATALlCONSTABLE fiOT VITALE, NEPHE SESSIONS ON I- a1 1 It ILLEGAL FEES, JURYJSIOLO Prosecutor Alleges -John L. Higgins Was Paid $1476 by Loan Firm. 0.

V) tr with CIRCUIT EAGLETON. LINDA MONTAGUE, the daughter. TO RACE TRACK Boy, 13, Said to Admit Knifing Two Girls Picking Berries New Orleans. in Kathy Fehler, 12 years old, daughter of an employe of Ca- hokla Downs race track, was stabbed to death yesterday near the Fehler home in New Orleans. Police arrested a 13- year-old boy who admitted stabbing Kathy and another girl, Judy Gulllot, 11, who is recovering from her wounds.

The girls were picking berries in a wooded area after classes at St. Francis Cabrlnl School, where they were sixth grade students. They were found by other children after the attack. Kathy's father, Robert Fehler, was living temporarily near Belleville. He is a race track calculator and is In the St.

Louis area only during periods when the Cahokia Downs track is operating. Police said Kathy was stabbed In the chest and back about 40 times. Judy had multiple stab wounds of the neck and chest. Major Al Therlot of the New Orleans police department said the girls apparently were lured deeper Into the woods by the boy, who told them he knew where there was a good berry thicket The coroner's office said the dead girl had been criminally assaulted. Police quoted the boy, an eighth grade honor student, as saying he thought both girls were dead when he left them.

He said he attacked them because they resisted his advances. The knife, with a three-Inch blade, was found at the scene. The boy was taken to a boys' home "for delinquency by reason of murder and attempted murder." Police arrested the boy after other children reported seeing him leave the area of the stab-bin gs. He reportedly told the others, "You'd better keep your mouths shut." Fehler left for New Orleans as soon as he learned of the killing. His wife was reported under heavy sedation at their New Orleans home.

The Feb lers also have a 10-year-old son. PART OF M'KNIGHT ROAD to nciosio oh iomys The east half of McKnlght road between Ellsworth drive and Deer Creek Woods drive will be closed for about 10 days beginning tomorrow, to complete road improvements started last November, John J. Leslie, county highway engineer, announced today. Work on the Improvements was suspended during the winter months. Pavement involved Is 621 feet long.

Finishing work will be done on an 8-inch concrete slab which was placed on the stretch last November. MAN'SDAUGHTER IE MUCH ASSAULTCOUNTS Circuit Attorney Says Witnesses Told of Seeing Two Beat Man on Parking Lot. John J. Vitale, notorious hoodlum, and his nephew, James Vitale, were Indicted on charges of assault to do great bodily harm yesterday by a Circuit Court grand Jury. The charges grew out of the alleged beating of William C.

Heiden- relch last Wednesday night on private parking lot at 1627 North Seventh street Circuit Attorney Thomas F. Eagleton said the Jury heard witnesses who reported they saw James and John Vitale strike Heldenreich and knock him down. The witnesses said John Vitale kicked the man viciously" after he was on the ground. Heldenreich. 2638 Terrace lane, Jennings, Identified James Vitale as one of his assailants, but could not say positively that he was struck by John Vitale.

He said James hit him when he told the men to get off of the private parkins lot He added that he was struck a second time and knock down, but he docs not know who hit him. John Vitale denied hitting Heldenreich, who Is assistant manager of Zlv Steel Wire 1617 North Seventh. Ha said he attempted to separata the two men when they began fighting. Heldenreich identified John Vitale as one of his attackers from a police photograph. John vitale and James, who lives at 809 Thomas avenue, Ferguson, surrendered to police the next day.

Heldenreich was treated at City Hospital for cuts and bruises. STUECK NAMED TO SECOND TERM AS MEMBER OF FPC Frederick Stueck, a Clayton lawyer, has been nominated to his second five-year term as a member of the Federal Power Commission by President Elsenhower, it was announced today in Washington. Stueck, who has offices at 8000 Forsyth boulevard, has been a member of the commission since 1954. He has been active in Republican politlct tor many years. SPECIAL! ROSE BUSHES t-yr.

eaiit. In $139 run lirownij gundlt I EVERGREENS llM Pfltwrt m4 1" Each PIMM P. MM NETTIE'S FLOWER GARDEN 1101 S. Grasd at Chippewa laiOM WHMayi I A.M. 'Ml I P.M ortof DON Constable John L.

HIgglns received Illegal payments amounting to $1476 between October 1957 and July 1958 from Financial Service a loan firm. First Associate Prosecuting Attorney Jasper Vettori told a Jury yesterday. The payments were made for subpena service which Higgins obtained on defendants in magistrate court suits, Vettori said in a statement at the opening of Higgln'a trial in the court of Judge Louis Com-erford of the Court of Criminal Correction. Higgins is charged with receiving illegal fees. The alleged violation is a misdemeanor punishable on conviction by a maximum or one year in jail and a $500 fine.

Three witnesses testified yesterday. They are Marvin Deutsch, former attorney for the loan company; Harry Reed, collection manager for the firm, and George McGrall, who aucceeaea ueutsch. They Identified "Dink sheets" which showed whether subpena service had been obtained on defendants in certain magistrate court suits. They said Hlcclns and hli deputies were paid for prepar- ing tne sneets for Financial Service to expedite the com-pany'i handling of litigation. Defense Attorney James J.

Rankin contended HIgglns was not required by law to make the sheets available and therefore was providing a service for which he could legitimately De paid. The witnesses also said HIg glns was paid for finding defendants not found at the ad-dresg given on the subpenas. This, too, was an extra service which Higgins was not required to perform, Rankin argued. HIgglns, 57 years old, was Indicted by a circuit court grand Jury last October. Last November, he was re-elected constable of the second district by a vote of 10.679 to 1682.

BURGLAR WAKES WOMAN AND FLEES WITH PURSE Mrs. Mary Ellen Moore was awakened early today by burglar who threatened her with a knife In her home at 5254 Raymond avenue, she reported to police. The man snatched a purse from a dresser and fled when Mrs. Moore and her 3-year-old son, ho was in the same room, began screaming. She called police.

A man answering the description of the burglar was arrested nearby at Union boule vard and Hodlamont avenue. He was Identified by Mrs. Moore, but denied the charge. The purse, which had contained $3, was found on the street near the burglary scene. I m.

JB WILLIAM C. EI DEN. REICH, photographed at-er tlleged beating by John J. Vitale. MISSIONARY ON FURLOUGH KILLED IN AUTO ACCIDENT The Rev.

Armand K. Graf of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, on furlough here since last October from his work as a missionary in India, was killed last night when the automobile he was driving went out of control on U.S. Highway 30 about 24 miles east of Kemmerer, Wyo. Alone in his car, the Rev. Mr, Graf, 49 years old, was en route to a speaking engage ment in a Lutheran church in Kemmerer.

He left St Louis about April 15 for a lecture tour in the west and was to have returned May 20. His tem porary residence was the Mission House at 6330 South-wood avenue, Clayton. He was to have returned to India In two months. The Rev. Mr.

Graf was born in rairview, and was a 1934 graduate of Concordia Seminary In Clayton. He had been a missionary In India for about 20 years. He was sta tloncd at Nagercoll, in Travan-ccre. A brother, Waldemar ural of Detroit survives. SAFETY PATROL DELEGATION DEPARTS FOR WASHINGTON A delegation of 33 school safety patrol members from Missouri, Illinois and Kansas will leave here this afternoon for Washington, D.C..

to attend the twenty-third annual School Safety Patrol Parade and Rally on triday and Saturday. George P. Marsh, president of the Automobile Club of Missouri, said the three-state dele gation would join more than 30,000 other patrol members I nurn to (inn jor cvcriia in Washington. I. I I -I.

I- Aim iiHiuirn inusrn lur ific trip, he said, are representative of some 750.000 patrol members who stand guard at crossings throughout the nation. Twelve patrol members from the St Louis area are In the group. Jlwa LERS Lasting Gifli MIOTIIFR'S DAY in Etwv Trice Ran tit I It S204 Orntt, An. MU. 11J40 IS HamptM Vlllw PL.

1-1414 at GrttnfitWi in th Si. loui Montagues' MRS. BROOKMAN. who gave party murdered woman attended. pltal In custody of the physi cians who are treating him.

The doctors have the power to release him when they believe he no longer needs treatment and care. If the jury finds Montague guilty and sane at the time of his wife's murder, a death sentence could not be carried out if he is found to be imane now. In that event, there would be further official proceedings. GR0NCHI CALLS Oil POPE ROME, May 6 (LTD Italian President Giovanni Cronchl made an official atate visit to the Vatican to meet Pope John XIII today. The visit was Gronchl's first with the Pope and Is traditional on the part of Italian presidents within a year after election.

It also marked the thirtieth anniversary of the Lateran pact Pope John gave Gronchi the Order of the Holy Cross. Only six other persons have received the award. Trsln Crash Halts Farade. NOG ALES, Sonora, Mexico, May 6 (L'PD The Independence day parade here was halted yesterday when a freight train smashed into part of a huge crowd, killing a woman and her 2-ycar-old granddaughter and injuring three other persons. IV CIIH FINANCES Televised Committee Meetings Thursday and Friday Nights to Be in Addition to Regular Ones.

Special sessions of the alder, manic Ways and Means Committee on the proposed budget and other fiscal matters will be televised each Thursday and Friday evening by Educational Television Station KETC (Channel 9) starting tomorrow. Chairman Louis Aboussle, Ninth Ward Democrat, said today the Thursday televised session would start at 8:30 o'clock and the Friday session at 8 o'clock. Aboussle said his committee, in deciding to hold such meetings In addition to the regular day sessions, believed the public should be given the opportunity of learning how complex the budgetary problems are and what legislative approaches to the problems are being made. He noted that Board President A. J.

Cervantes stated at his Inauguration It would be the purpose of his administration to establish closer communication between the Board of Aldermen and the public. Cervantes, in congratulating both the committee and Station KETC, said St Louis taxpayers would be able to know the extent to which the aldermen, go in attempting to achieve all possible economy In the city government. Department Heads Called. Meanwhile, the committee was to hear two more department heads today on the appropriations proposed in the budget for their departments. Former Mayor Bernard F.

Dlckmann, now director of welfare, and Joseph P. Sestrlc, director of public safety, were scheduled for appearances, along with representatives of the office of the president of the Board of Public Service. Commenting on the results of the hearings thus far, Aboussle said he was concerned that some departments and services already had been cut too deeply by the Board of Estimate and ApQortionment. Mayor Raymond R. Tucker told the aldermen when he submitted the budget that It represented "rock bottom" needs and would merely continue city services at the austerity level put into ffect last Jan.

1. Aboussie said he felt there was, perhaps, too little cleaning cf streets and alleys and not enough activity in tree trimming. The aldermen receive more complaints over lark of tree trimming than any other single Item. City officials have stated that certain sections of the city were visited by tree trimming crews of the old Works Progress Administration in the 1930s and have not been given any similar attention since then. Street lighting la another source of many complaints.

"Perhaps if our citizens were given more service in the area of these complaints, they might be more willing to accept higher taxes to finance them," Aboussle said. Bill for Special Election. A bill for a special election July 14 on a proposal to increase the earnings tax authorization to 1 per cent will come before the Board of Aldermen Friday. If the bill Is passed and the voters approve the doubling of the levy at the special election, the city could expect to receive about $3,000,000 in additional Income for the last six months of the fiscal year. This would be sufficient to covef an anticipated deficit of about $4,331,000.

However, pending this solution of the city's fiscal problems, the Estimate Board has recommended four stopgap revenue measures that would be repealed automatically if the higher earnings tax Is authorized and levied. These measures are now before the Ways and Means Committee but will not be taken up until the committee has completed Us study of the budget, probably by the end of this week. The proposals Include a 7-cent Increase on each $100 of assessed valuation of real and tangible personal property, a 75-cent Increase on each $1000 of sales under the merchants and manufacturers tax. a one-half cent rise in the gasoline tax and an annual $8 charge per household for rubbish collection. Muwuri-IHInoI Forecasts Missouri: Partly cloudy In west and north tonight; most ly cloudy in southeast tonight and tomorrow with widely scattered showers In southeast and east central tonight and extreme southeast tomorrow; cooler In west and north to night and tomorrow; a little warmer in extreme northwest tomorrow; low tonight near 45 In extreme northwest to mia die 60s In southeast; high to morrow In 60s In northeast to 70s and 80s In the bootheeL Illinois: Partly cloudy in northwest and scattered show ers and thunderstorms ending in southeast tonight; cooler in northwest and turning cooler in southeast tonight; mostly lair ana cooler tomorrow; low tonlKht in 40s In extreme northwest to near 60 In ex.

treme southeast; high tomor mostly in 60s. BOTANY 500 CLOTHES only DOUGLAS MONTAGUE, ATTORNEY THOMAS F. MRS. JOHN GOODWIN, who took key photograph in case. Montague Continued From Page One.

Mrs. Montague's absence from home. Mrs, Jones told her son that Montague told her the party had been somewhere on Columbia avenue. Jones testified he went to the street and found his sister's body lying on the floor in the back of the Automobile. She was not wearing earrings, he said.

After notifying police, Jones said he went to the Montague apartment and saw on the wall a mimeographed list of dates and addresses of the scheduled meetings of the Phi Mu Sorority, to which his sister be longed. The Brookman address was listed beside the date Jan. 6, he said. Mrs. Theola Huger.

who lives in the building containing the Montague apartment, said ahe came home about 12:30 a.m. the morning of Jan. 7 and noticed the Montague front door was propped open with a chair and the lights were on In the living room. Landlord Testifies. Mrs.

Elizabeth McKee. land lord for the building, said she lived directly above the Montague apartment She was awakened the night of Jan. 6, she said because her husband had a severe headache. While she was awake, she said, she heard the Montague toilet being flushed as many as 23 or 30 time wttnin an nour. Another witness before the Jury of 12 men wss Mrs.

Martha Jones, sister-in-law of Mrs. Montague. She testified she bought earrings for Mrs. Montague as a Christmas present last year. Police officers wno were called in on the Investigation told the court they found no earrings on the body when they removed it from the automobile.

Patrolman William R. Armstrong of the police labora tory said he examined the auto mobile thoroughly ana louna no earrings. Detective John Vlnlng of the police homicide squad testified earrings and a bolt were found In Montague's possession when he was questioned in the Detective Buresu Jan. 13. He told detectives, Vlnlng said, the earrings were a keepsake from his wife and the bolt a keepsake from his son.

Capt Doherty said the earrings were In a plastic container. When asked why he kept them In the container, Montague said he i Id so to preserve them, the officer testl- Other officers said two sets of ignition keys to the automobile were found In Mrs. Montague's purse, which was latched. There were no keys In the Ignition of the machine. Taxlcab Driver Joseph McTaggart.

101 A El-wood street a taxlcab driver, testified that on the night of Jan 6. he was in a restaurant at South Vandeventer avenue vinonhiffhway when a man atonped In the doorway and called: "Tell the cabbie I'll be in the cab." wnen iHctaKKmk i of the restaurant, a man was i in the back seat He asked to be taken to a Uvern, but or-dcred the- driver to stop near the Southwest nanx, jvmK- Mohwav and Southwest avenue, The man gave McTaecart $1 and told him to watt, i ne pas- senger went to the rear of the bank. He returned 10 minutes later and told to drive him to a tavern near Hampton avenue and Columbia. There KM 7- A The Botany 500 SPECTACULAR" ft NIGHT 'TIL 8:30 P.M DONALD JONES, broth-tr of Mrs. Montague.

passenger looked like Montague, but he could not make a positive identification. Now at Hospital. Montague has been a patient at St Louis State Hospital since shortly after his wife's death. He was confined to the hospital for mental treatment and custodial care, having been found mentally ill by the probate court. Circuit Attorney Thomas F.

Eagleton said, however, that any finding returned by this jury will supercede the probate court's ruling and be the governing decision concerning Montague's status. If Montague is found guilty of murder, the jury must assess the death sentence or a sentence of life imprisonment. But if the jury also found he was Insane at the time of the crime and is still insane, he will be sent to the state hospital at Fulton, Eagleton said. The jury could find that he was Insane at the time of the crime, but sane now. Such a finding would be the same as an acquittal, Eagleton said.

If he is found not guilty by rea son of Insanity, he would re main in the State Hospital here under the probate court order. Effect of Acquittal. If he is found not quilty by this jury, he likewise would be remanded to the state hospital. A Missouri law places such a person in a state mental hos- OPEN THURSDAY I chin embroidered Sheath Dresses in- cool White 149S 4 i i Ever-popular whHe row 41 broidery Liqhtweiqht for wear now thru summer, th season. Numerous your teiection Sizes for Zsunninqlmms NORTH atXTH $)T 4w Now.

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