Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 40, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 September 1907 — GETS A LIFE TERM. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

GETS A LIFE TERM.

Chicago Jury. Convlcta Conalaatine of Murdering Mr*.' Gentry. Frank J. Coflfitautlne was conviated In Chicago night of tnurqer ? Ing Mrs Arthur Gentry and his .Sentence fixed at imprisonment for life. After battling for two“ and one-half Lours over the fate of the prisoner the jury delivered a finding of guilty, and fixed his punishment after the shortest murder trial in the history of Cook Countjk Foreman Krogness said: “There was never any doubt about Constantine's guilt, h it owing to the circumstantial evidence the penalty of life imprisonment was agreed upon by the jury.” The verdict. It la reported, wag a keen disappointment to those in the courtroom who had followed the course of the trial. They expected a death sentence. Constantine Chewed gum and said nothing when the verdict was read. Constantine's story- on the witness stand was the most dramatic, the most sensational narrative ever recited nnder oath in a Chicago court. He weaved a .story into a manifestly weak defense. He swore he did not kilTTier, He swore that he stood by while she cut her own throat fami ear to ear. He swore that she had confided to him her unhappiness; that she had begged him to take her away—to go abroad with her; that he had refused; that she slashed herself with a razor. He

explained bis flight by the fear that he would never be able to prove bis innocence—by the panic that, seized him when he realized how all the circumstances pointful against him. The story was lucid enough, but Constantine made a poor impression as a witness. lie contradicted himself several times as to dates, seemed greatly 111 at ease at moments and was seldom convincing. A bootblack, as be admitted himself to be, he still protested from the witness stand that the blood of royalty in bis veins. And thus the curtain is drawn upon a tragedy the like of which Chicago has not chronicled in many a year. It was one of such brutality as to shock and awe society. Constantine,, almost a member of the Gentry .femiiy, who had represented. *h'ffiiself to be the son of a r&YuTonalre In New York when as a matter of fact he was a profligate ex-■bootblaek, deliberately slashed to death the woman who had befriended him and who had housed him and lent him money. Then he fled. It was a long and persistent hunt. Finally lie was captured when about to sail for Italy, tbe home of his ancestors, where he claims some of them were members of the royal family. He had gone to Italy immediately after the commission of the crime, had been swept by the winds of Idleness and the remorselessness of, glipsts into other lands, and finally. Impelled by that intangible instinct that belongs to all criminals, lnld to return to the country of Ills crime. Kinding the police determined to have him. that the memory of that tragic January day had not been forgotten. fearful lest he be apprehended and brought back to the bar of Justice, he was about to sail away again, when be was arrested. Brought to trial. In an effort to gain his liberty, he defamed the character of his victim, n bride of six month*.