Jasper County Democrat, Volume 12, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 August 1909 — TANGLED WEB WEAVED DURING THAW’S TRIAL [ARTICLE]

TANGLED WEB WEAVED DURING THAW’S TRIAL

Mother’s Testimony to Sara Son Is Proving a Boomerang. White Plains, N. Y„ Aug. 3. —How Harry K. Thaw conducted himself at the Matteawan asylum was described by Dr. Amos B. Baker, first assistant physician of the institution. Qistrict Attorney Jerome expects to be through with the state’s alienists today and Charles Morschauser, Thaw’s lawyer, will put his client on the stand, possibly late in the afternoon. Mrs. Mary Copley Thaw heard Jerome introduce against her son testimony she had willingly given heretofore to save his life. This testimony was seized upon by the state to prove the young man insane. It included the mother’s accounts of his nervous temperament as a child, materially valuable to Thaw when he was in danger of the electric chair, but now menacing to his hope of proving himself a sane man. One thing quoted by the district attorney was her s’atement concerning the prisoner that “his body was too puny for his head.” Last fall the prison authorities searched Thaw’s pockets when he was asleep and the next day he offered SSOO reward for the detection of anyone tampering with his clothes. The fruits of this search appeared in court when Dr. Baker handed in as evidence about thirty newspaper clippings. They were not read. • \