“I found no such froth in the lungs. Or very little.”
“So you have said. Dr. Riedell says it might be found in air-passages. Did you examine the windpipe?”
“I did not.”
“Why not?”
The doctor scowled, looked at his feet. Jim Wilcox paused his gum-chewing as the court awaited his answer.
“It was an oversight on my part. But it is my firm belief that if we had examined it, no mucous froth would have been found so long after death.”
“You say that, Doctor, but you don’t know it as a fact.”
“I know it.”
“But not as a fact. Yes or no?”
“No,” Fearing replied, tightly.
“Dr. Fearing, you have testified that the injury on Miss Cropsey’s temple indicates that she was struck on the head before she entered the water. Correct?”
“That is correct.”
“Did you see the lick struck?”
“No sir.”
“Do you swear it was struck?”
“I swear that somebody struck it.”
“Then you did not see a lick and won’t swear any lick was struck?”
“No—”
“Then your explanation is based upon the idea that the lick was struck?”
“Yes sir.”
“Then, if there was no lick struck, your explanation would count for nothing?”
“I don’t know about that.”
“Perhaps it is like the condition of the windpipe—you simply know the truth without any evidence.”
“Objection! Argumentative.”
“Sustained. Please restrict yourself to questions, Mr. Aydlett.”
“Thank you, your Honor. Nothing further.”
V.
The trial’s second day left the town in an unsettled state. Of course, Wilcox was still guilty. But the vigor of the defense could not help but arouse begrudging admiration.
Aydlett’s evisceration of the doctors encouraged those inclined to give Jim the benefit of the doubt. The town’s Republicans grumbled over the Democrats’ conduct toward the son of a former Republican sheriff. Certain preachers raised the subject from the pulpit: “I don’t hesitate to say that I believe the prisoner is innocent,” declared Rev. Lewelyn. “I will say that I condemn some things in his past life, and had he been a member of my church I should probably have censured him from the pulpit. But now I believe he is innocent of the dark charge that hangs over him.” In general, the town split along both denominational and political lines, with Republicans and Episcopalians inclined to withhold judgment, and Democrats and evangelicals—a fair majority—certain of his guilt.
Though it scarcely seemed possible, the courtroom was even more packed on the morning of the 17th. The temperatures outside had risen into the sixties, and with the windows sealed, it was twenty degrees warmer inside. Men fanned themselves with newspapers and hats; women dabbed their glowing foreheads with lace hankies, and suffered.
The throng fell silent as the Cropsey family processed into the courtroom. Ollie led the way—a willowy figure in black, her face concealed by a breast-length weeping veil. They took the row of seats reserved for them behind the prosecution, and Solicitor Ward turned to greet them in turn. When he got to Ollie, who sat on the center aisle, he leaned in to whisper in her ear. Ollie nodded, the crepe of her veil dancing over her features.
The first witness of the day was Mr. C.A. Long, one of the boatmen who found Nell’s body in the river. He recounted the story of how he found her floating not far from the Cropsey residence, how he had secured the body and alerted the family, and the condition of the corpse when he found it. As these facts were not in dispute, there was no cross-examination.
William Cropsey was the first direct relative of the victim to take the stand. He was clad in an ordinary black suit, with black bow tie. Where his eyes had been on the back of Jim Wilcox’s head for almost every minute of the trial, they unaccountably wandered once he was called to testify.
“Mr. Cropsey, I think I speak for the entire court in our sympathy at your loss,” said Ward. “We hope to detain you no longer than necessary.”
“That’s all right.”
“Can you recount for the court the events of early morning of November 21st?”
Cropsey repeated the story of how he woke up after midnight to use the necessary; how Olive told him Nell was missing, and the immediate search for her; the early morning trip to the Wilcox house to talk to Jim.
“How would you describe the defendant’s manner when you spoke to him?”
“He seemed unconcerned. When Mr. Reid brought him to our house, and my wife begged him to tell her everything, he was cold to her.”
“In what way ‘cold’?’”
“He was more interested in excusing himself than reassuring her.”
“And did he take part in the search for Miss Nell?”
“He did not. He never made a single move to do so. It was genuine strange.”
“Did his manner convince you that he had some hand in her disappearance?”
“Absolutely not, sir. All I wanted was the whole story. When there was talk of lynching, they came around to ask what I thought. I told them to let the law take its course. If I had any hostility toward Wilcox, all it would have taken was one word from me.”
Cropsey stared at Jim. This time it was the latter’s turn to look away.
“But you soon came to believe your daughter was dead.”
“After enough time, a parent just knows. Nell was a sweet girl, a loving girl. She would never set her family to unnecessary worry. If she’d have run off, she would have gotten some word to us.”
“To your knowledge, was Ella Cropsey suicidal?”
“No. Never.”
“Can you describe the morning her body was found…?”
Jim procured and folded a piece of paper into a neat, tiny square. Then he unfolded it and used the creases to tear it into small sections. At one point, he yawned.
“Finally, Mr. Cropsey, can you tell the court the effect this affair has had on your family?”
“My wife’s health has declined. She requires constant medical care. To this day, she is barely able to move about the house. The children have been strong, but anyone can see the burden it has put on them. To think one of our own can simply vanish from the face of the earth, and from such a quiet, ordinary community. How could it not shake anyone’s sense of security?
“All we ever wanted was the truth,” he said. “That’s all we want, even now.”
“Thank you. No further questions.”
Aydlett rose. “I too, would detain you only as long as necessary, sir.”
Cropsey nodded.
“You say the defendant was ‘cold’ when you fetched him. But he was not under arrest at that point. He did come voluntarily after all.”
“I don’t regard the circumstances to have been ‘voluntary’. The deputy didn’t give him much choice.”
“Can you attest to your own good feelings, if you were pulled out of your bed in the middle of the night? Pulled out of bed, and accused of complicity in a crime?”
“Objection! Hypothetical!” interjected Ward.
“Sustained.”
“I would never have been in that position,” said Cropsey.
Aydlett fetched up a bitter laugh. “I submit Jim Wilcox would have said the same, before all this…”
“Mr. Aydlett, you are warned again to watch your tone,” said the judge. “This is a bereaved father.”
“Understood, Your Honor. Mr. Cropsey, the defendant allegedly returned several personal items to your daughter that evening. Did you search for those items?”
“We did. We scoured the house and the grounds outside for days. The pictures never turned up.”
“And the broken parasol?”
“It was on the floor in the hall. I almost stepped on it in the dark.”
“On the floor, you say. Any idea how it got there?”
“No.”
“Any theory?”
“No.”
“Let the record show that the witness displays a definite lack of curiosity about this question—”
“Objection!”
“Sustained. The record will note no such thing. Do you have anything further, Mr. Aydlett?”
“No, Your Honor. But the defense reserves the option to recall this witness should the need arise.”
The bailiff called Miss Olive Cropsey. If anticipation made a sound, it was heard loudly in the courtroom that morning. The correspondents in reporters’ row got to scribbling the moment she rose. “Ollie is a tall and graceful girl,” appraised the Raleigh News & Observer, “twenty-one years old, with soulful, sorrowful blue eyes, a mouth that expresses volumes of tenderness and sympathy: a face of classical contour, fair-haired and flushed. Her raiment of black emphasized her beauty.”
Presented with the Bible, she removed her gloves. When she said “I swear”, it was in a small, wavering voice.
Mr. Ward rose and came in close, head lowered, as if approaching a skittish horse. “Miss Cropsey, you are Ella Maud Cropsey’s older sister, yes?”
“Yes. We call…we called her Nell.”
“She was a small thing, was she not? Can you show us her height, relative to yours?”
Ollie stood up and held a flattened hand at the level of her veiled nose. “She came up to about here,” she said, then took her seat again.
“Thank you. Can you tell the court something about Nell, as you knew her? Would you say she was a good and proper girl?”
“She was as kind and sweet a sister as anyone could wish. She was a joy to her parents, a pillar of love and support for all of us. She was the soul of our family.”
She is well-rehearsed, thought Aydlett.
“Can you describe for us the history of her relationship with the defendant?”
“We came to Elizabeth City on April 4th or 5th, 1898…may I lift my veil?”
“You may,” said the judge. “Bailiff! Open the windows!”
Ollie took the hem of her veil and folded it over the top of her hat. Chairs creaked as their occupants leaned forward.
Her face was pale and shone with perspiration. Said the Raleigh News: “When she exposed her sweet features, the spectators heaved an involuntary sigh of relief…the jury itself was visibly impressed.”
She spoke softly as she began, but gathered strength as she went on—except when she faltered, and looked down to gather herself. Her tone, sad yet resigned, struck onlookers as the ideal embodiment of the tragic heroine, like in certain performances they had seen above the department store.
“We knew Jim Wilcox in June that year. He came to our house and met Nell. He seemed to show her attention from the first—”
“Is that the man?” asked Ward, indicating.
Ollie glanced down at the defendant, nodded. She would not look Jim in the face, but Jim’s eyes never left her. There was a sardonic twist to his mouth as he anticipated a torrent of falsehoods. Most onlookers took this for a villain’s mocking smile.
“He used to come to see her every Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday, and later he came most every afternoon. He paid her much attention. They would walk and ride and sail together, and Jim took her to all the shows. Twice when they went sailing they got back late at night. He bought her flowers and presents, some very nice ones — a silver dish, a gold ring inscribed ‘July 17’. That was her birthday. He gave her pictures of himself.
“Last fall they quarreled. It was September when I heard them having little spats. I heard Nell say to Jim, ‘If you’re going to act like this the rest of the season, you can stay home.’ Nell went to religious meetings and joined the Methodist church in October. Jim used to wait at the church door and walk Nell home.
“For a while they did not speak. Carrie came to visit us and they began speaking again. On November 7th, when we had a house guest, Jim came to visit. When he got up to leave, Nell said ‘Pull!’, as if she were spurring a horse. She said it in front of this house guest—”
“Did the defendant make any response to this?” asked Ward.
“He just got his hat and left. After that time Jim came two or three times a week, but Nell would never go to the door with him. She would talk in front of him about what fun she would have in New York, when she finally enrolled at school. That Tuesday before she disappeared, Jim came. Nell and I sat on the lounge and Jim sat nearby. He said to Nell, ‘I suppose your toe is getting better?’—meaning the corn she had on it—and all she said was, ‘A little.’
“The next day Jim took Carrie to the skating rink. He had started to pay attention to her instead of Nell, when Nell had turned cold on him. When they got back Nell was writing. Jim and Nell never exchanged a word during his half-hour’s stay. Jim had brought some apples, but when he offered one to her, she refused to take it.
“Jim tapped me on the shoulder and said ‘You’re a nice girl.’ I suppose he meant I was nice compared to a certain other girl. I said, ‘Yes, I’m mamma’s angel.’ Nell and Carrie played together on the harmonica and the mandolin, and Uncle Hen came in and joined them with his fiddle. Jim just sat and listened. Nell said, ‘Here I go to dance with my old lame foot.’ Carrie passed the apples around, but Nell still wouldn’t take any.”
“After that we just sat around talking. Somehow the subject of how we’d like to die came up—”
“Did Nell raise that subject? Or the defendant?”
Ollie frowned. “I can’t remember. It was just one of those things we talked about, like what foreign countries we’d like to visit, or which period in history we’d most like to live. It was just something to pass an evening.”
“I understand,” said Ward. “Please continue.”
“I said I’d like to drown most of all, because I’d read somewhere that the moment of…of passing was a pleasant sensation. It was said to be, an almost ecstatic feeling. But then Nell said—”
There was a catch in her voice, and she had to stop. Into that pause, that space of grief, no one made a sound.
“—Nell said that she would rather freeze than drown. She said that water would make her look a mess, because her hair would fall out. Where if she died of cold, she would be preserved as she was. Carrie said that between freezing and drowning, she didn’t care, but that she would never want to burn to death, because that was the most painful.
“Then Jim boasted he could put his hand under the kettle that was boiling on the stove without burning himself. He lifted it up and got some smut on his hand and put it right on the iron. He held it there for a long time. Then he put some of the smut on my face and gave Carrie a smudge on the end of her nose. Playfully. He didn’t do it to Nell. I got a corn cob and rubbed it on the stove to put some on his face. We all laughed, except for Nell, who didn’t say anything when Jim did his trick with the stove.”
“Miss Cropsey, was the defendant angry at the cold treatment he received from your sister?”
“Objection!” shouted Aydlett. “Witness could not possibly know the private feelings of my client.”
The judge scratched his nose. “Sustained.”
“Rephrasing,” said Ward. “Miss Olive, in your opinion, did Mr. Wilcox appear to resent his treatment at the hands of your sister?”
For the first time, Ollie looked directly at Jim, who stared back from under raised eyebrows.
“I would say, yes he did. I’m sorry, Jim—”
“Please direct your statements to counsel, Miss, or to the bench.”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“To continue, Miss Olive,” said Ward, “can you describe what happened on the night of November 20th?”
“That night we were all in the dining room after supper—”
“Who was there?”
“Myself, Carrie, Roy Crawford, and Nell. Someone was at the door, and we all knew it was Jim from how he rang the bell. Nell was fixing the lining on the coat she was going to wear on the
trip to New York—it was cold on those Old Dominion steamers that time of year. She didn’t get up to answer the door. Carrie said, ‘I’m getting tired of poor manners,’ and went to let him in.
“Jim sat on the rocker by the hall door. He was very still, continued to look at his watch and compare it with the wall clock. He and Nell did not speak. He spoke when spoken to and managed to talk a little, but was very still. Nell played the harmonica and when Uncle Hen came in, he played a tune or two. Then he got up to go upstairs, and Nell said, ‘Oh, you are too stingy with your wind.’
“Jim asked if there was any water in the pump. I said there was a little, and got him a glass. He said he did not want it because it might be poisoned. It was strange thing to say, and none of us had an answer to it. Jim kept taking out his watch, checking it five or six times. After a while, Jim managed to tell us that Miss Barrett was going to be married. After that conversation died out, no one said anything. Carrie said good night to us all and went upstairs.
“Then Jim got up, took out his watch again, and said ‘It is eleven o’clock and my mama said I must be in at eleven tonight.’ I said, ‘Jim, you must be getting good.’ He rolled a cigarette, took his hat from the the back of the rocking chair, and put it on. He stepped out in the hall and turned around and said, ‘Nell, can I see you out here a minute?’ Nell didn’t answer, but got up and went with him. She went outside as soon as he made his cigarette. I heard them talking in the hall, and heard the screen door close. I looked at the clock: it was 11:05. That was the last time I saw my sister alive.”
With this, Ollie bowed her head and wept in silence. Muffled sobs were heard from the gallery. Grown men welled up in the jury box, and the pencils of the reporters surged into motion.
“The auditors, sad-faced and sympathetic, drank in the strong feeling which stirred this young woman’s breast and remained immoveable but for heaving bosoms and wet eyelids,” gushed The News & Observer. “It was a scene which comes only once in most people’s lives. The eloquence of Clay, Webster or Calhoun, or the efforts of an emotional star at a stage climax could not have produced the effect made by the words and demeanor of this beautiful girl…” At this point the correspondent alluded again to her “heaving bosoms”, but his editor removed the repetition from the published version.
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