Rensselaer Journal, Volume 11, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 July 1901 — THE FOSBURG MURDER MURDER TRIAL [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE FOSBURG MURDER MURDER TRIAL

Youth Charged with Murder of His Sister. CASE FULL OF MYSTERY. Family Declares Deed Wee Done by One of Three Unknown Burglars— State Lays Claim to Theta —Sensation at Plttefleld, Han. Robert S. Fosburg was placed on trial at Pittsfield, Mass., Thursday morning, charged with shooting his

sister. May Fosburg, on the night of Aug. 20, 1900. The formal preliminary step was taken today when the young man was called before the Superior Court and pleaded not guilty to the indictment for manslaughter. In addition to the fact that the Fosburgs are people of wealth and social standing, the killing of the handsome girl of 18, In the dead of night and under peculiarly dramatic circumstances, was in itself so shocking an affair that the country rang with the story for months before it took on the added Interest of young Fosburg’s Indictment and arrest for the crime. Before that event nobody outside a narrow circle In touch with the Chief of Police and the Prosecuting Attorney here had the remotest suspicion there was anything else in the tragedy than just what the Fosburg family said there was —a plain case of murder committed by burglars caught in the act of pillaging the house. It is the theory of the prosecution that burglars had nothing whatever to do with the crime. The State will endeavor to prove that Miss Forburg was killed as the result of a furious family fight which broke out in the dead of the night, and that the story of the invasion of the house by burglars was hastily concocted to save the reputation of the family and to avert the punishment of one of its members or a crime which even the prosecution does not charge was premeditated or evti, intended, so far as the victim was concerned, on the part of the person who committed it. It is not the theory

of the police that young Fosburg, even in the heat of passion, intentionally aimed at his sister the shot which took her life. It is their theory that the shot was aimed at another member of the family, either Fosburg’s wife or his father, and that Miss Fosburg, presumably while acting as a peacemaker in the family brawl, came in range of the bullet. There was a guest staying with them—Miss Bertha Sheldon of Providence. In her honor they were having a merry evening and retired close to midnight. Story Told by tha Family. According to the story told by the family, Mr. Fosburg, Sr., was awakened about 1:30 in the morning by a flash of light and was confronted by a masked man, who held a pistol to his head. Mr. Fosburg struck the pistol away, and then between Mr. Fosburg and the burglar there was a terrible struggle, during which one of Mr. Fosburg’s ribs was broken. Mr. Fosburg also received a heavy blow on the head, presumably inflicted by some weapon

in the nature of a sand club, and the hands of a confederate of the burg* lar with yrhom Mr. Fosburg was clinched in a deadly struggle. Mrs. Fosburg, Sr., by this time had come to her husband’s assistance, and she too was beaten, but beyond severe bruises received no lasting injury. The noise of the struggle awakened other members of the family in their respective rooms. Miss May Fosburg got out of bed and went across the room to the door opening into the hall. As she reached it and was about to step into the hall a man standing on the threshold of the spare room opposite fired two pistol shots, one of which struck her in the heart, killing her instantly. As she was sinking to the floor her brother, Robert Stewart Fosburg, the same who is now under indictment for killing her, who was rushing through her room to reach Ae scene of the struggle, caught her in his arms and laid her down. Then he, too, had a fierce struggle with one of the burglars, and was struck on the head by a confederate as his father had been. One burglar rushed down the back stairs and escaped by the door; two more of the gang got out of an upper window to the roof of a veranda and so to the ground.

ROBERT S. FOSBURO.

MAY FOSBURG.