Horror, Rumor, Trigger

Straight out of Greek tragedy might come the situation of a man on trial for murder describing to a court how his wife was beaten and ravished and how he felt when she told him. The situation might be heightened today if the husband were a Kentuckian and the ravisher a brown-skinned buck.

"I telephoned the house. When she answered I could hardly recognize her voice. She said: 'Come home at once. Something horrible has happened.' I jumped in a car and rushed home. When I got to the front steps I could hear her crying. I went in and she collapsed in my arms. Blood was coming from her nose and mouth. Her lips were crushed. Her bruised eyes were swollen. Her clothes were all torn. I thought a truck had run over her.

"I kept asking her what happened and she said. 'It's too terrible.' She could only sob. She finally said some men had dragged her into a car, beaten her, carried her into the bushes and ravished her. I said, 'My god.' She sat dazed and kept saying, 'I want to die.' I tried to comfort her but I couldn't. Then I called the police."

He took his wife to a hospital where her broken jaw was wired.

"When she swallowed, she almost screamed with pain. I didn't have much money so I hired a day nurse and acted as night nurse myself. They gave me a pair of pliers and told me to cut the wires if my wife became sick. Otherwise she might choke to death. ... I tried to work but couldn't. I kept seeing my wife's crushed face. I couldn't eat. I couldn't sleep. I was haunted by what had happened to my wife. An abortion was necessary. It was worse than anything I could imagine. It had a strange effect on my mind. ... I kept hearing footsteps. I jumped up and ran out of the house but saw nobody. ... I used to get up and walk the floor. . . ."

Such was the recital, last week in Honolulu, of Lieut. Thomas Hedges Massie, U. S. N., on trial for murdering Joseph Kahahawai Jr., one of the Hawaiians accused of his wife's ravishment. Also charged with the murder were his mother-in-law, Mrs. Granville Roland Fortescue, and two naval enlisted men named Lord and Jones. Cunning old Clarence Darrow, Lieut. Massie's attorney, had put his client on the witness stand to bare his soul to a polyglot jury, expose the whole emotional background of his act. Prosecutor John C. Kelley had tried to keep the details of the assault and rape out of the evidence. They were admitted only when Lawyer Darrow announced that he planned to use them as groundwork for a plea of insanity.

Prosecutor Kelley did his best with a circumstantial case. To the jury he presented the external circumstances of the murder, which began with Kahahawai's abduction from the court house steps and ended with the arrest of Mrs. Fortescue,

Lieut. Massie and Seaman Lord speeding in a car with Kahahawai's corpse toward Koko Head. What Prosecutor Kelley could not give the jury were the intervening events within Mrs. Fortescue's high-hedged home.

Opening the defense Lawyer Darrow exhibited all his mastery of court dramatics. From Lieut. Massie's testimony he built up bit by bit the effect Mrs. Massie's experience had had upon her husband's mind, until his client's finger finally pressed the trigger of the revolver which sped a bullet into Kahahawai's lungs.

The ravishment of his wife was bad enough, Lieut. Massie testified, but the "vile rumors" that followed were worse.

"One was that I was getting a divorce. Another was that I went home the night of the dance and found my wife with Lieut. Branson, a naval officer, and beat up my own wife. I also heard that I followed her in a car and beat her up and that a crowd of naval officers had assaulted her. Another story was that my wife had never been assaulted at all but was merely a seeker after notoriety headlines. ... I got so I couldn't stand crowds, couldn't look people in the face. I felt miserable and couldn't sleep. I felt like I'd like to cut my brain out. . . .

"Then I went to see a lawyer to ask how I could stop these terrible tales which were cracking my mind. He told me the best way was to get a confession signed by one of Mrs. Massie's assailants. He warned that force must not be used.

"I talked it over with Mrs. Fortescue and we decided that the only thing for us to do was to try to get a confession. ... I did not have any purpose or intent of killing. ... I told Jones about it. . . and Lord agreed to help and went to my house and talked it over. . . . We decided the only way to get Kahahawai into a car was by a ruse so we fixed up a summons. . . .

"I heard Kahahawai sit down in the front room. I went in and confronted him with the gun, pulling back the carriage and making it flip into place. I wanted to scare him as much as possible. Mrs. Fortescue sat at his left. I put the gun on him and said: 'I've got you here to make you tell what happened in September. You did your lying in court. You'd better tell the truth now.'

"He said: I don't know nothing.'

"I suddenly said: 'Who kicked the woman?'

"He said: 'Nobody kicked her.'

"I said: 'You're not telling the truth. You said you weren't there and now you say nobody kicked the woman!'

"Mrs. Fortescue got up and said: 'He's been lying and he'll lie all day. Let's carry out our other plan.'

"I said: 'All right. Kahahawai, you know what happened to Ida [another alleged attacker, beaten by a mob] well, that's nothing to what's going to happen to you.'

"I told Lord to go out and get the boys. Kahahawai began to move forward in his seat. I said: 'Ida talked and he told plenty on you. If you don't talk when these men get back, you'll be beaten to ribbons!'

"Suddenly he said: 'Yes -- we done it!'

"That's the last thing I remember. ... Suddenly the picture came back to me --the assault on my wife when she prayed for mercy and he replied with a blow that broke her jaw."

Said Prosecutor Kelley: "If Massie killed Kahahawai, why did he use Jones's gun instead of his own?. . . Why, Massie did not even kill Kahahawai." But Prosecutor Kelley in his cross-examination was not able to change a jot or tittle of Lieutenant Massie's story. The officer told how he learned of his own actions : "Mrs. Fortescue said I stood there like a bump on a log. Later they put me in a chair. Jones. . . said I acted like a damn fool."

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