University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER XIX.

SOME PICKED-UP STITCHES.

Reference has already been made to an indirect connection between
Mrs. Hattie Marshall, wife of Lester Marshall, and the McCue case.
This grew out of publications in several newspapers which referred to
a letter addressed to J. Samuel McCue and entrusted to a jail guard for
delivery. The papers seemed to have some authority for intimating
that the contents almost put the missive into the class of love letters.
Mrs. Marshall indignantly denied the impeachment, and gave out the
following for publication over her own signature:

"I wish to correct the mistake that was printed in yesterday's papers.
As for my writing Mr. J. Samuel McCue a love letter or being a warm
friend of his that is false. I think I can give good account of who
started this rumor, and I certainly did send Mr. McCue a business letter
concerning some business matters. I tried to get to see him, but could
not get in, and I am ashamed to think my name was so badly used.
Thanking you for your kindness, Resp."

To the newspaper men she explained that it was a brief note inquiring
the amount she still owed him on a sum borrowed to pay a police
court fine for her husband, and for which she had hypothecated her
gold watch.

Mrs. Marshall seemed glad to explain things. "I have been done a
great injustice by all this talk," said she, "and I know who is at the
bottom of it. The offender is my husband. He is seeking to ruin my
reputation. So far from my being in love with Mr. McCue, I have never
written to him but once in my life. That is the letter referred to in the
papers. I gave it to one of the jail officials for delivery. It had reference
to a watch of mine which the prisoner has.

"How absurd and unjust it is to injure my reputation by cruel reports,"
added Mrs. Marshall, when "I have just been in Charlottesville
one week after a three weeks' visit to Orange county.

"And the idea of my being in love with Mr. McCue! I hardly know
him except in a business way. He collected some rents on property belonging
to my mother and was our lawyer. Indeed, he was to have represented

me in my suit against my husband, but his arrest prevented
his acting."

The following is a copy of the letter which the jail guard says was
handed him for delivery to J. Samuel McCue by Mrs. Hattie Marshall,
and which is now published for the first time:

* * *

C. L. DeMott, City Engineer of Charlottesville, prepared several diagrams
showing the McCue premises and their relation to other localities
involved in the case. The plan of the second floor of the McCue
residence as made by Mr. DeMott is printed in this volume. There is
only one error in this plan. The blood-stained bat is indicated as found
in the bath-room, when in fact it was in the bed chamber.

The Engineer's drawings show that Skinner, in his room on the lot
of F. B. Moran, where, he testified, he heard some one crying at the
McCue residence, was 100 feet from the bath-room where the murder
was committed, and that the residences of F. A. Massie, W. J. Keller,
C. G. Maphis, Judge R. T. W. Duke, and others were in hailing distance
on the same street. The residence of T. J. Williams, the only person
outside of the family notified, was shown to be one-half mile from the
scene of the murder.

While on the stand Mr. DeMott, after identifying his drawings, testified
as follows:

"I went to the bath-room in the McCue residence at the request of
Commonwealth's Attorney Gilmer and turned on the hot-water spigot.
It took twenty-five minutes and fifteen seconds to fill the tub. There

was a stoppage of about forty seconds during this time. I infer that
it would require nearly twenty-five minutes to fill the tub if nothing was
in it.

Measurement on the tub shows that it contains about forty-five gallons
of water, up to the overflow point. With a body weighing about
115 pounds in the water the same quantity of water would be displaced.

"This would make about twelve gallons less in the tub, provided it
was up to the point of overflow. It would therefore take about sixteen
minutes to fill the tub if the whole body was immersed. It overflows
when about two-thirds full.

"There was no difference in time to fill the bath tub whether the
spigot was turned up or down. In the week days the steam pump is
running, and the pressure is about the same then as at night. It would
therefore probably be about the same on the Sunday night of the murder
as at this time."

The following was published in several papers as a probable explanation
of some things which the evidence did not make entirely clear:

There never has been a satisfactory explanation of why the water was
turned on in the bath tub, and why it was that the tub, which requires
fifteen or twenty minutes to fill from the spigot, was full in so much
shorter time than that, assuming, as has been done, that the spigot was
turned on after the shot.

A theory which was not examined before or during the trial, it seems,
is now based upon the testimony of Mr. Frank A. Massie, a part of
which was to the effect that while walking in his yard across the street
from the McCue residence and a short time before the news of the crime
spread abroad, he saw some one rush out of the lane which runs down
beside the McCue residence and up the street in the direction of Dr.
Frank McCue's home.

The theory referred to is to this effect: That if the murderer was J.
Samuel McCue, as the jury and the people believe, he had beaten his
wife and choked her until he thought her dead, and put her in the bath
tub and turned on the water to make either the impression that she had
committed suicide or to drown her, should a spark of life remain, after
which he rushed up Park street a square and a half, and, reaching the
Doctor's, then ensued the conversation which was heard by Dr. McCue's
wife while she was undressing to go to bed. This conversation, she said,
took place at the 'phone. It is believed that what she took for the telephone
bell was the door bell, and that Dr. McCue's brief answer, "All
right," was made to his brother at the door.

Returning home, so runs the hypothesis, McCue found his wife not
dead, but outside of the tub, which helps to account for the wet condition
of the bath-room floor, as to which all agree. Then followed the

appeal, which Charles Perry heard, not to kill her, as she would die anyhow;
and then, too, followed the gunshot which put an end to all.

If this story be true it was during the brief time that McCue required
to go to his brother's home for pretended aid—or for whatever purpose—
that Charles Skinner heard the crying for from three to five minutes.
It is held to be entirely improbable that a man in a murderous frenzy
would have permitted the crying of his victim for a period of even so
long as this.

* * *

The following are the principal items of cost attending the McCue
trial: Fauquier venire, $212.28; Fredericksburg venire, $401.60; Richmond
venire, $438.44; Petersburg venire, $497.20; jury, mileage and
attendance, $321.20; witnesses for Commonwealth (estimated), $100;
guards at jail, $150; Commonwealth's Attorney fee, $10; Clerk Corporation
Court, $2.50; board bill for jurors, $150. Total, $2,283.22.

In addition to the above, the city of Charlottesville undertook to assist
the jurors in paying their board bills, and to foot the bills for extra
policemen. The cost of the stenographers was borne jointly by the
prosecution and the defense, and amounted to several hundred dollars.
The pay of the jurors was inadequate to meet their legitimate expenses.

* * *

On the 14th of September, 1904, ten days after the murder, a deed of
trust was recorded in the corporation clerk's office from J. Samuel
McCue for $12,500 in favor of the attorneys employed in his defense,
naming the amount each was to receive for his service; that is to say,
Daniel Harmon $5,000, John L. Lee $5,000, Walker & Sinclair $2,500.
(It has already been stated that on account of illness Daniel Harmon
was compelled to withdraw from the case when the prosecution was
ready to put on its first witness, and that J. Tinsley Coleman of
Lynchburg became one of the counsel for the defense.)

These mortgages covered nearly all the real estate of the ex-Mayor
in Charlottesville and Albemarle save the dwelling and lot on Park
street formerly occupied by the accused and his late wife as a residence.
This was deeded to Mrs. McCue by her husband on June 20th,
1903, with the following proviso:

"If I survive my said wife then, at her death, the whole of the property
hereby conveyed, whatever may be its form at that time, shall
revert to and thereafter belong to me just as though this deed had
never been made."

The property thus reverts to Mr. McCue at this time.

By a deed filed in the corporation Clerk's office and recorded later
McCue conveyed to his brother, Police Justice E. O. McCue, certain
lots in Charlottesville to secure payment of a bond for $2,500.

Mr. McCue also conveyed to his brother his law library, valued at
$500 and three bookcases. The original deed of trust is in the prisoner's
handwriting.

* * *

A few days after his arrest, when speculation as to the nature of his
defense was indulged in, it was believed that the plea of insanity would
be entered. It was a fact published in the newspapers that his attorneys
visited the Western State Hospital at Staunton and investigated
the records to learn to what extent, if any, the antecedents of the
accused had undergone treatment at that institution. While the people
on the street corners in Charlottesville were discussing this phase of the
case the accused lawyer was examining papers and running off letters
on his typewriter. There seemed to no sort of pretense on his part
that he was not responsible.

It seems that there was quite a run on the clerk's office of this city
for information by clients of the accused attorney. They were searching
the records to see how he had disposed of business intrusted to him.
McCue in the last five years, it is said, did the largest loan business
of any lawyer at the Charlottesville bar, as well as the largest business
in collections.

McCue had been regarded as a wealthy man. What the present status
of his financial condition is, may be inferred from the mortgages he has
given. A prominent young lawyer of Charlottesville declared soon after
the arrest that he owed him a good deal of money and that suits involving
about $10,000 will be instituted against him at the next term of the
court. The ex-Mayor, he believed, owed a total approximating, or perhaps,
exceeding $50,000.

Somewhat related to the above story, is the one to the effect that the
accused admits signing his wife's name to negotiable notes due the
banks of Charlottesville to the amount of $12,000, and without her
authority. It is said that the lawyers, representing the claims of the
bank, called at the jail about a week after the trial, and inquired of
the prisoner if the signature of his wife was genuine or authorized,
and that he replied that he had endeavored to secure the endorsement
of his wife; that she had refused to sign, and that he had personally
signed her name. These notes were presented to the administrator of
the murdered woman who informed the holders that, in his opinion,
the signatures were not made by Mrs. McCue.

* * *

Some time before the trial the accused addressed the following letter
to W. Sam Burnley, a Charlottesville attorney and justice of the peace:

"Your letter of several days since was received, and I should have
answered ere this, but my poor heart has been too severely crushed and

my spirits too severely depressed. In fact, I have been dazed. My
irreparable loss in the death of my darling wife was sorrow sufficient,
much less this awful persecution that is being heaped upon me.

"If God be for us, who can be against us?" I must desist, however,
lest I murmur. `For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth
every son whom he receiveth.' `If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with
you as sons; for what son is he whom the Lord chasteneth not?' `I know
whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that
which I have committed to him against that day.' `And we know that
all things work together for good to them that love God—and He knows
that I love Him better than I do my uneventful existence. My dear
boy, can it be that we have been striving too much for the perishable
and not sufficiently for the imperishable? If so, let us each see that we
make no mistake in the future.

" `What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his
own soul, or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?'

"You and I, old fellow, have had some serious moments and talks together,
for all of which I am truly thankful. I would they had been
more frequent.

"God be with you till we meet again."

These I infer are the dear ones who have preceded us, and are interceding
for, and beckoning us on, and somehow in faith's sweet vision
I can discern "the silver lining," and when I am released and my
innocence vindicated, how dearly I shall praise Him, so pray for me
and my dear little motherless ones, my brother in Christ, as I shall
pray for you.

I had one of the purest and best mothers that ever existed, and so
was my dear and darling wife. They are pleading right earnestly for
me now; how faithfully I must strive to meet and dwell with them
again; I do so dearly love and cherish their sacred memories.

Improve the present, dear boy, do your very best for your faithful,
dutiful wife. She is a good, honest woman, I have seen it plainly
written on her face, and she is the mother of your darling children,
which means so much.

I enclose you the statement as requested. I remain your sincere
friend and brother in Christ.

* * *

Clerk R. W. Duke, in his official capacity, has to keep the weapon and
also the bloody shirt and gown which figured in the case. Until all
hope of new trials has been abandoned and the ex-Mayor finds himself
face to face with the gallows, he must preserve these ghastly souvenirs
of the killing, which have now assumed the dignity of legal "exhibits."

Mr. Duke declares that he will burn the gown and shirt as soon as
he can. As for the gun, he does not know what will become of it. The
weapon under a certain statute now becomes the property of the Commonwealth.
Judge Morris, perhaps, would have the authority to return
the weapon, which is an expensive magazine gun, to the McCue family.

GEORGE E. WALKER,
Of Counsel for Defense, Who Did Not Participate in Argument.