accounted for and sworn to) his arrival at Bear Lake, the
pursuit and his capture—to say nothing of the various
phases of his arrest—what he said—this being most
damaging indeed, since it painted Clyde as false, evasive,
and terrified.
But unquestionably, the severest and most damaging
testimony related to the camera and the tripod—the
circumstances surrounding the finding of them—and on the
weight of this Mason was counting for a conviction. His one
aim first was to convict Clyde of lying as to his possession
of either a tripod or a camera. And in order to do that he
first introduced Earl Newcomb, who swore that on a certain
day, when he, Mason and Heit and all the others connected
with the case were taking Clyde over the area in which the
crime had been committed, he and a certain native, one Bill
Swartz, who was afterwards put on the stand, while poking
about under some fallen logs and bushes, had come across
the tripod, hidden under a log. Also (under the leadership of
Mason, although over the objections of both Belknap and
Jephson, which were invariably overruled), he proceeded to
add that Clyde, on being asked whether he had a camera
or this tripod, had denied any knowledge of it, on hearing
which Belknap and Jephson actually shouted their
disapproval.
Immediately following, though eventually ordered stricken
from the records by Justice Oberwaltzer, there was
introduced a paper signed by Heit, Burleigh, Slack, Kraut,
Swenk, Sissel, Bill Swartz, Rufus Forster, county surveyor,
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966
and New-comb, which set forth that Clyde, on being shown
the tripod and asked whether he had one, “vehemently and
repeatedly denied that he had.” But in order to drive the
import of this home, Mason immediately adding: “Very well,
your Honor, but I have other witnesses who will swear to
everything that is in that paper and more,” and at once
calling “Joseph Frazer! Joseph Frazer!” and then placing on
the stand a dealer in sporting goods, cameras, etc., who
proceeded to swear that some time between May fifteenth
and June first, the defendant, Clyde Griffiths, whom he
knew by sight and name, had applied to him for a camera
of a certain size, with tripod attached, and that the
defendant had finally selected a Sank, 3½ by 5½, for which
he had made arrangements to pay in installments. And
after due examination and consulting certain stock numbers
with which the camera and the tripod and his own book
were marked, Mr. Frazer identifying first the camera now
shown him, and immediately after that the yellow tripod as
the one he had sold Clyde.
And Clyde sitting up aghast. Then they had found the
camera, as well as the tripod, after all. And after he had
protested so that he had no camera with him. What would
that jury and the judge and this audience think of his lying
about that? Would they be likely to believe his story of a
change of heart after this proof that he had lied about a
meaningless camera? Better to have confessed in the first
place.
But even as he was so thinking Mason calling Simeon
Dodge, a young woodsman and driver, who testified that on
Saturday, the sixteenth of July, accompanied by John Pole,
who had lifted Roberta’s body out of the water, he had at
the request of the district attorney, repeatedly dived into the
exact spot where her body was found, and finally
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967
succeeded in bringing up a camera. And then the camera
itself identified by Dodge.
Immediately after this all the testimony in regard to the
hitherto as yet unmentioned films found in the camera at
the time of its recovery, since developed, and now received
in evidence, four views which showed a person looking
more like Roberta than any one else, together with two,
which clearly enough represented Clyde. Belknap was not
able to refute or exclude them.
Then Floyd Thurston, one of the guests at the Cranston
lodge at Sharon on June eighteenth—the occasion of
Clyde’s first visit there—placed on the stand to testify that
on that occasion Clyde had made a number of pictures with
a camera about the size and description of the one shown
him, but failing to identify it as the particular one, his
testimony being stricken out.
After him again, Edna Patterson, a chambermaid in the
Grass Lake Inn, who, as she swore, on entering the room
which Clyde and Roberta occupied on the night of July
seventh, had seen Clyde with a camera in his hand, which
was of the size and color, as far as she could recall, of the
one then and there before her. She had also at the same
time seen a tripod. And Clyde, in his curious and meditative
and half-hypnotized state, recalling well enough the
entrance of this girl into that room and marveling and
suffering because of the unbreakable chain of facts that
could thus be built up by witnesses from such varying and
unconnected and unexpected places, and so long after, too.
After her, but on different days, and with Belknap and
Jephson contending every inch of the way as to the
admissibility of all this, the testimony of the five doctors
whom Mason had called in at the time Roberta’s body was
first brought to Bridgeburg, and who in turn swore that the
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968
wounds, both on the face and head, were sufficient,
considering Roberta’s physical condition, to stun her. And
because of the condition of the dead girl’s lungs, which had
been tested by attempting to float them in water, averring
that at the time her body had first entered the water, she
must have been still alive, although not necessarily
conscious. But as to the nature of the instrument used to
make these wounds, they would not venture to guess, other
than to say it must have been blunt. And no grilling on the
part of either Belknap or Jephson could bring them to admit
that the blows could have been of such a light character as
not to stun or render unconscious. The chief injury
appeared to be on the top of the skull, deep enough to
have caused a blood clot, photographs of all of which were
put in evidence.
At this psychological point, when both audience and jury
were most painfully and effectively stirred, a number of
photographs of Roberta’s face, made at the time that Heit,
the doctors and the Lutz Brothers had her in charge, were
introduced. Then the dimensions of the bruises on the right
side of her face were shown to correspond exactly in size
with two sides of the camera. Immediately after that, Burton
Burleigh, placed on the stand to swear how he had
discovered the two strands of hair which corresponded with
the hair on Roberta’s head—or so Mason tried to show—
caught between the lens and the lid. And then, after hours
and hours, Belknap, infuriated and yet made nervous by
this type of evidence and seeking to riddle it with sarcasm,
finally pulling a light hair out of his head and then asking the
jurors and Burleigh if they could venture to tell whether one
single hair from any one’s head could be an indication of
the general color of a person’s hair, and if not, whether they
were ready to believe that this particular hair was from
Roberta’s head or not.
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969
Mason then calling a Mrs. Rutger Donahue, who
proceeded, in the calmest and most placid fashion, to tell
how on the evening of July eighth last, between five-thirty
and six, she and her husband immediately after setting up a
tent above Moon Cove, had started out to row and fish,
when being about a half-mile off shore and perhaps a
quarter of a mile above the woods or northern fringe of land
which enclosed Moon Cove, she had heard a cry.
“Between half past five and six in the afternoon, you say?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And on what date again?”
“July eighth.”
“And where were you exactly at that time?”
“We were——”
“Not ‘we.’ Where were you personally?”
“I was crossing what I have since learned was South Bay in
a row-boat with my husband.”
“Yes. Now tell what happened next.”
“When we reached the middle of the bay I heard a cry.”
“What was it like?”
“It was penetrating—like the cry of some one in pain—or in
danger. It was sharp—a haunting cry.”
Here a motion to “strike out,” with the result that the last
phrase was so ordered stricken out.
“Where did it come from?”
“From a distance. From within or beyond the woods.”
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970
“Did you know at the time that there was another bay or
cove there—below that strip of woods?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, what did you think then—that it might have come
from within the woods below where you were?”
(Objected to—and objection sustained.)