ARTHUR.T Stories ------The Woman in the Case --I---Page 05

The defense claimed that it was clear that James Parker was the forger,
since he had admitted it in open court, pleaded guilty to the indictment
and proved that he had the capacity. The prosecution, upon the other
hand, argued that the evidence was conclusive that the defendant herself
was the writer of the check. The whole thing boiled down to whether or
not the jury was going to believe that Mrs. Parker had written "the
Peabody sheet" in the presence of the detective, when her husband
claimed that, with the exception of Mabel's signature, he had done it
himself and carelessly left the paper in his desk in the room.

[Illustration: FIG. 7.--Parker's copy of the signature of Alice Kauser, made in court in an attempt to shield his wife.]

The prosecuting attorney was at his wits' end for an argument to meet
the fact that Parker had written a sample forgery of the Kauser
signature before the very eyes of the jury. He found it at last in an
offer on his own part in open court during his "summing up" to write for
the jury from memory a better forgery of the Kauser signature than that
written by Parker himself, and thus to show how simple a matter it was
to learn to do so. He had taken up his pen and was about to give a
sample of his handiwork in this respect when the defendant grasped her
counsel's arm and whispered: "For God's sake, don't let him do it!"
whereupon the lawyer arose and objected, saying that such evidence was
improper, as the case was closed. As might have been expected under the
circumstances, considering the blunders of the prosecution and the
ingenuous appearance of the defendant, the trial ended in a
disagreement, the jury standing eight to four for acquittal.

The District Attorney's office now took up a thorough investigation of

the case, with the result that on a second prosecution Mrs. Parker was

confronted with a mass of evidence which it was impossible for her to

refute. A boy named Wallace Sweeney, sentenced to the Elmira

Reformatory, was found to have been an active accomplice of the Parkers
for several years, and he was accordingly brought down to New York,
where he gave a complete history of his relations with them. His story
proved beyond any doubt that Mrs. Parker was the forger of the checks in
the possession of the District Attorney, and of many others beside, some
of them for very large amounts. The evidence of Sweeney was of itself
quite sufficient to warrant a conviction. To make assurance doubly sure,
however, the District Attorney upon the second trial moved a new
indictment, setting forth as the forgery a check signed "E. Bierstadt,"
so that when Parker took the stand, as he had done in the former trial
and testified that he was the forger, he found himself unable to write
this new signature, and hence his testimony went for nothing.

But even the testimony of Sweeney was that of an accomplice, requiring
corroboration, while that of Peabody remained the evidence of "a mere

policeman," eager to convict the defendant and "add another scalp to his
official belt." With an extraordinary accumulation of evidence the case
hinged on the veracity of these two men, to which was opposed the denial
of the defendant and her husband. It is an interesting fact that in the
final analysis of the case the jury were compelled to determine the
issue by evidence entirely documentary in character. It is also an
illustration of what tiny facts stamp whole masses of testimony as true
or false.

On her examination Mrs. Parker had sworn among other things: (1) That

she had no knowledge of the envelope, the back of which had been used by
Parker for the purpose of directing Rogers, Peet & Co. to deliver the
clothes and money to his messenger--and, of course, that the words "Mr.
Geo. B. Lang" were not in her handwriting. This was one of the envelopes
claimed by the prosecution to have been originally addressed in pencil
and sent to themselves by the Parkers through the mail for this precise
purpose. (2) That she had never seen the "Kauser practice sheets," and
that the words "Alice Kauser," repeated hundreds of times thereon, were
not in her handwriting. For some reason unknown to the District
Attorney, however, she admitted having written the words "I am upstairs
in the bath-room" upon a similar sheet, but claimed that at the time
this was done the reverse of the paper was entirely blank.

Microscopic examination showed that among the words "Alice" and "Kauser"
on the practice sheets some one had written a capital "M." One of the
legs of the "M" crossed and was superimposed upon a letter in the word
"Alice." Hence, whoever wrote the "M" knew what was on the practice
sheet. An enlargement of this "M" and a comparison of it with the "M" in
the defendant's signature to her formal examination in the police court,
with the "M" in "_Mr._" in the address on the envelope and with that in
the "Mrs." on the "Peabody sheet," rendered it obvious that they were
all written by one and the same hand. Therefore it was clear that the
defendant was familiar with the contents of the practice sheets (Fig.

8.), even if she had not written them herself and had not told the truth in this regard.

Moreover, it was fairly easy to see that the same hand that had written
the words "I am upstairs in the bath-room" upon the second practice
sheet had at the same time and with the same pen written the rest of the
sheet. This was clearly perceptible on examining the "e's" and "a's."

A comparison of the address "Mr. Geo. B. Lang" (on Fig. 1) with the name Mrs. James D. Singley (on Fig. 4) also shows clearly that one and the
same person wrote them both. And to the accuracy of all these
self-evident propositions a leading handwriting expert in New York added his unqualified opinion.

Thus, but for a little carelessness in failing to destroy odd scraps of

paper and to disguise her penmanship which it seemed to her quite

unnecessary to do, as in the address of the "Lang" envelope, Mrs. Parker might well have gone free after all.

It is impossible to describe all the varied dramatic features of this

interesting case. No one who was present is likely to forget the

impression made by the defendant at her second trial, when in defiance of overwhelming proof she still struggled to vindicate herself.

Her counsel contended throughout the trial that she was a hitherto

innocent young woman led astray and started upon a criminal career by a
rascally husband, whom she still loved devotedly and for whose sake
she had prepared to confess herself a criminal. That James Parker
introduced his wife to a life of crime there can be no doubt, but that
she had a natural predilection for it must be equally obvious. It is
probably true that Mabel Parker's affection for her convict husband was
unfeigned and deep. The natural repugnance of the American jury for
convicting a woman was shown when in spite of the overwhelming proof
upon the Parker woman's second trial the jury remained out eight hours
and then found her guilty of "uttering only," with a strong

recommendation for mercy. She was sentenced to the Bedford Reformatory.