Lamson Case

To a neat bungalow on the Stanford University campus near Palo Alto, Calif., Mrs. Julia M. Place, a real estate agent, drove one of her clients last Memorial Day. She had heard that the house was for rent. She rang the doorbell, waited. When no one came she went around to the back yard, found a black-haired young man stripped to the waist bending over a bonfire. He said his name was Lamson and that he owned the house. ''There was nothing unusual in his actions or speech," said Mrs. Place afterwards. "He asked me to come to the front door. I called Mrs. Rass. and we waited a minute or so. As we stood there, we heard a peculiar sound. It might have been an hysterical cry. Then Lamson opened the door and cried: 'My God, my wife has been murdered!'

They rushed to the bathroom. In the tub was the nude, dead body of a 28-year-old woman, her head and arms hanging over the edge, the back of her head crushed and bloody.

The Lamson murder case threw the Stanford campus and the sedate town of Palo Alto into frenzied gossip and wild surmise. The dead woman had been a popular Stanford co-ed before she married David A. Lamson, 31-year-old sales manager of the Stanford University Press. They were campus socialites, neighbors of Theodore Jesse Hoover, dean of Stan- ford's engineering school and Coolidgesque brother of the ex-President (see cut). Dr. Blake Colburn Wilbur, son of Stanford's President Ray Lyman Wilbur, was their close friend, best man at their wedding. Who could have killed Mrs. Lamson? Her husband? The Stanford campus could not think so, but the State did. Last week David Lamson was on trial for murder in San Jose.

The case against him revolved around the discovery of a ten-inch pipe and pieces of charred clothing found in the fire he was tending that morning. County Pathologist Dr. Frederick Proescher testified that he found blood on the pipe and clothing, but could not say whether it was animal or human blood. To corroborate his evidence, a neighbor of the Lamsons testified that she had noticed heavy smoke coming from the fire, had smelled what she thought was burning flesh. The prosecutor alleged that Lamson had beaten his wife over the head with the pipe, then sought to destroy all evidence in the fire. Witnesses were called to testify that Lamson's domestic relations were discordant, that he had been attentive to one Sara M. Kelley, Sacramento divorcee. To the jury was shown a ghastly photograph, enlarged to life size, of Mrs. Lamson's corpse as found. Hearstpapers shocked their public by reproducing the picture seven columns wide.

The defense based its case on a single vital point: that Mrs. Lamson's death could have been caused by an accidental fall. Two doctors, one of whom was Blake Wilbur, testified that the wounds on her head might have resulted from a blow against the bathtub rim and faucets. Since the evidence against Lamson was purely circumstantial this point loomed important as the basis for "reasonable doubt." Desperately the prosecution sought to combat it. It called Dr. Arthur William Meyer, head of the Stanford anatomy department, who testified that Mrs. Lamson's scalp indicated that she had been seized and yanked forward. Pathologist Proescher claimed he had conducted a personal experiment to disprove the accident theory. He had undressed, got into the Lamson bathtub, deliberately permitted himself to slip and hit his head against the bathtub rim and faucets. "I was not even hurt," he testified.

Late last week it was rumored that the defense would call Brother Theodore Hoover as a character witness for Lamson.

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