Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 34, Number 62, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 April 1902 — PATRICK HELD GUILTY. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

PATRICK HELD GUILTY.

New York Attorney Convicted of Murder of William Marsh Bice. “Albert T. i’atncßTTfis bmrceimeted-la-New York of the murder of the aged mill-

ionaire,William Marsh Rice. He Is also accused of forging a will to secure possession of the $7,000,000 estate pf the murdered man. After four hours of deliberation the jury told Patrick his ' doom. Self-possessed and calm, the prisoner did not flinch as the foreman answered “Guilty.” The penalty under the statute is death in the electric chair.

Next to the Molineux case, the Patrick trial has been the longest in court annals of New York. Fiction scarcely has a plot that rivals in dramatic interest the conspiracy to gain possession of the old man’s hoard of gold, slowly laid bare, during the long-drawn-out trial. Forgery poison, fraud, hypocrisy and ingratitude figured in the daring scheme to end the old man’s life and transfer bis milliofts to the plotters. Living the lone life of a recluse. Rice was betrayed by his own valet, Charles F. Jones, who became a tool of Patrick, but in the trial Jones revealed the plot and sealed Patrick’s doom.

Lawyer Albert T. Patrick, who posed as the confidential friend of the magnate, claimed to possess a will making him the residuary legatee of nine-tenths of the estate. It was not until the next morning, when a young man presented two chocks signed by Rice in favor of Patrick, one for $25,000, the other for $60,000, at the office of S. M. Swenson & Sons, 15 Wall street Rice’s bankers, that the first suspicions were aroused. Rice’s house telephone was rung up. Jones answered. When asked to call Mr. Rice to the telephone he said Rice was sleeping. When called again a few minutes later he informed the bankers that Rice was dead. Then the police were notified and detectives put on the cas&. As a result both Patrick and Jones were arrested for forging the checks, and later Jones, the valet, made the startling confession of having murdered Rice at the instigation of Patrick.

A. T. PATRICK.