The Californian from Salinas, California • 8

iiiiiiiiiHiiHiiiiriiiiniiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiini i 'IlIUllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllHlllllljlllllillllllllHIIIllllllIlQillilliHIIIIIIII -nli wiihhei )ihab In But a jury refused to believe Mrs. Eric Madison strange story that the man found dead in her apartment was someone else, and said she should hang ps I 7, Ir i.l 4 -v 1 V. s' KcVu MaJlion, tonvlcteJ ef the murder of her huiband and sentenced to hanged. By Erskinc Johnson IX pistol shots echoed through the halls of an exclusive apart ment house near a I follywood motion picture studio. Then woman screamed.

Frightened tenants stuck their heads out of doors. Other dwellers ran to the lobby. Confusion and excitement reigned. A search for the origin of the shots and the scream was begun. The apartment bouse manager commenced an investigation.

She knocked at the door of a suite occupied by Die Madison, auditor at the nearby him studio, and his wife, Nellie Madison. Is everything all right?" she asked, as Mrs. Madison opened the door and stepped out into the hall in pajamas. It was nearly midnight Yes," Mrs. Madison replied, suppressing a yawn.

I think the shots came from somewhere outside the building." Finally the search was abandoned. It was concluded that the shots were fired during the making of a picture at the Elm studio. The scream, it was supposed, came from a peacock, kept in a court at the rear of the apartment and was not that of a woman. On the following day the apartment house manager passed the door of the Madison apartment A note pinned to the door aroused her suspicions. Do not disturb, read the note.

Will call for my linen later." It was signed by Mrs. Madison. USING a pass key. the mana ger opened the door and entered the apartment She went to the bedroom and was terror-stricken. On the bed was the body of Eric Madison.

He had been shot six times in the back. Mrs. Madison was nowhere to be found. The police arrested Mrs. Madison, former Montana rodeo performer and crack pistol shot, a day later.

She was found in a closet in a mountain ranch nearly 100 miles from Hollywood. In her purse was a receipt for purchase of a gun, a note leaving her possessions to a sister in case of my death, and a paring knife. She carried the knife because she might want to pare something." Mrs. Madison would not discuss the shooting, and she remained an enigma woman until near the close of her subsequent trial on charges of killing Eric Madison, her fourth husband. Then, at one of the most sensational sessions in California court history, Mrs.

Madison denied that she killed him and in unequivocal terms expressed her disbelief that he was dead. The dead man wasnt Eric Madison 1 she told the court from the witness stand. I didnt kill him. Her sensational testimony came as a complete surprise, in view of the fact that Mrs. Madison attended the funeral of the murdered man and wept over the coffin.

son created another upon one of her Brown, an to aid in Brown accepted was alleged later that she once fired was because of vorced her in 1925. however, saying it Led by questions Madison, and later buried in the name of the man who shot him, the defense explained. Mrs. Madison, the defense said, through love and loyalty to her husband, helped cover up his supposed crime by permitting the body of the slain man to be buried as Madison. Her cool behavior on the night of the killing, the defense said, when she mingled with other residents of the apartment house, indicated she had not just killed her husband.

TYOZENS of witnesses appeared in court offering testimony both for and against tire calm, dark-eyed defendant's amazing story that the dead man in question was not the defendant's husband. Die Madison. Friends of the victim viewed photographs of the slain man and sard it was the body of Eric Madison. "There is no question of his identity," said a friend of many years. Mrs.

Georgia Madison, a former wife of Madison's, said she attended the funeral, had viewed the body and believed it to be that of Madison. The blood-soaked shorts worn by the victim, bearing a laundry mark which also was found on wearing apparel belonging Mrs. Madison, were brought to court A mole visible on the nose of the victim was said to be identical to one that Madison had. Even the bed on which the body was found was brought before the jury. Other persons were placed on the stand by the defense and they expressed doubt that the body was that of Madison.

These witnesses were shown photographs of the body and they declared they were unable to identify it as that of Madison. All said they had known him well. Mrs. Madisons brother, D. F.

Mooney, former sheriff of Dillon, Montana, where the defendant was born, went on the stand to testify that his sister and Madison, in his opinion, had been happily married. They appeared to be deeply in love with each other. No word of friction ever passed between them to my knowledge," he said. The couple was mar, ried a year ago at Palm Springs, fashionable California desert resort. details of Mrs.

Madisons story were attacked by the prosecution, i A police officer struck her story that she was in a clothes closet of the mountain ranch, change ing her shoes, when arrested. The officer said, she was hiding in the closet and that the lower part of her body was covered by her' coal. He said she was not changing her shoes. The owner of the ranch was called and testified that Mrs. Madison had told him that: she had had trouble with her husband and was expecting the police.

The rancher said that Mrs. Madison did not tell him she expected her husband at the ranch after he had finished his business in Bakersfield, as she testified on the witness stand. There was premeditation and malice in Nellie Madisons heart, not only when she fired those fatal jshots, but when she purchased the gun, the prosecution told the jury. Nellie Madison was cunning and smart a woman with a wicked heart. And this crime whiqh she committed was a horrible killing.

After 12 hours of deliberation, the jury found Mrs. Madison guilty of murder in the first degree. The judge sentenced her to hang on Sept. 24. Unless the verdict is reversed by a higher court, Mrs.

Madison will be the first woman in the history of California to meet death on the gallows in a legal execution. One other California woman was sentenced to hang, but die execution never took arrested her, approximately 24 hours after about a position offered him in Bakersfield, Calif. He told me to take the car if he did not return for me, and go to the ranch and that he would meet me there the next day as the place was only a short distance off the route from Bakersfield, and tht man he was doing business with had an automobile, she added. Mrs. Madison then told how, shortly after she had retired, she was awakened by the manager of the apartment and others who thought they had heard shots fired.

She recalled talking in the lobby and finally returning to her apartment. She declared that her husband did not return all night and about 9 oclock the next morning she took their automobile and drove to the mountain ranch. Sire asserted she was changing from a pair of high-heeled slippers to a pair of more comfortable shoes in one of the ranch house closets when officers walked in and Madisons body was found. AFTER hearing her story, the prosecutor asked Now, Mrs. Madison, what you want the jury to believe is that the last time you saw your husband was the night he left your apartment and that you have never seen him since, either dead or alive is that what you want the jury to believe? Yes, replied Mrs.

Madison, "that is correct." Well, continued the prosecutor, when they brought you back to Hollywood and questioned you, why didnt you tell the officers about this man your husband feared, that you have told us about today? No, I did not want to tell them anything until I saw an attorney and I did not do so, Mrs. Madison answered. "And there wasnt anybody lying on the bed in your apartment when you left for the mountain ranch, was there? demanded the prosecutor. Absolutely not, was Mrs. Madisons prompt reply.

Using the womans story as a foundation, the defense contended that Eric Madison was not slain at all, and was still alive. Madison feared an enemy who came to the Madison apartment to kill him but instead was shot by from their apartment, but she carried out his wishes and when he got in the automobile, Mrs. Madison said, her husband explained the odd procedure. JJE said whom sensation when she called former husbands, William J. ex-deputy Los Angeles city prosecutor, her defense.

on short notice although it at Mrs. Madisons trial several shots at him, and it this incident that Brown di- Both denied the incident, was accidental. from her attorney, Mrs. Madison told, in brief, the following story in which she denied killing her husband and expressed disbelief that he was dead at all: Her husband, she said, was employed at the motion picture studio near their apartment and she had worked there off and on, too, but was not so employed immediately before the murder. Two days before the crime, she said, her husband called her on the telephone and asked her to meet him at the studio in their automobile.

The studio entrance was only two blocks a man had got in touch with him he had trouble with before he met me and he did not wish to see this person, she testified. I also met him the next night and he said he was worried and wished he had a gun; he asked me to get him one and suggested going to a place where they rent guns to the studio. Mrs. Madison related how she was unable to rent a revolver at the place suggested by her husband, and said she purchased one in a Hollywood hardware store. Prior to this, Mrs.

Madison said, she and her husband had talked of visiting a mountain ranch, owned by a friend, over the week-end. On the evening the state claimed Madison was slain, she said he left their apartment about 8:30 p. saying he had to see someone (Copyright, 1934, by EveryWeek Magazine) BUT on the witness stand she looked without expression at the morbid morgue pictures of the victims bullet-riddled body and declared they- were not, in her opinion, pictures of her husband. Plans to exhume the body of the victim for a possible positive identification went astray, however, when the prosecution said its case against Nellie Madison was strong endugh without that. Prior to her startling testimony, Mrs.

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