Dispatch, March 28, 1889
THE TAYLOR TRIAL.
Moral -- Murder
THIRD DAY OF THE EASTERN SHORE CELEBRATED CASE.
Some Interesting Testimony -- A Witness Causes Merriment -- Kissing Neighborhood -- The Prisoner's Denial.
ACCOMAC COURTHOUSE via TASLEY, Va., March 27. -- The trial of Mrs. Virginia Taylor was resumed in Accomack County Court this morning.
Justice Wimbrough, who held the coroner's inquest; Sheriff Wise, and Deputy-Sheriff Melson were examined briefly to show how the stomach of the deceased had been preserved and taken to Richmond and delivered to the State Chemist.
Asa Taylor, brother of the deceased, testified that the day after his brother was buried he went to see Virginia Taylor, found her at Modestown, and told her that people in the neighborhood suspected her of having poisoned her husband. He took her to Dr. Bowdoin's. On the way over she said she would never consent to have the body exhumed, and that if she could prevent it it should not be done. Witness had urged her to have it done to clear herself of suspicion and to get the $2,000 for which her husband's life was insured in the Knights of Honor. Mrs. Taylor told witness that it had only cost her husband $11 to join the order and that she would rather lose the $2,000 than have her husband's body taken up.
SHE CONSENTED.
After Dr. Bowdoin told her that he could not tell positively whether her husband had died from strychnine she consented to having the body taken up and an autopsy held. She did not appear to witness to be grieving much over the loss of her husband. Witness had never visited his brother's house after his marriage to the prisoner, but was on friendly terms with him. Witness heard much talk in the neighborhood about the prisoner being the cause of his brother's death, and he took steps to have a post mortem held.
Several witnesses testified to Taylor's good health prior to his death.
William Northam was asked by Mrs. Taylor on the day her husband was buried to see that he was securely put away, and at her suggestion he made three-cross marks on the mortar of the arch over the coffin to show in case the body should be exhumed secretly, as she had heard that it would be.
ASKED FOR DIX.
William Pettit said that he had visited the prisoner in jail. She had asked him where James Dix was, and to tell him that he must save his money, as he was the only one to whom she could look when she got out of jail.
The colored cook and colored servant testified that they had never seen any strychnine about Taylor's house nor heard of Mrs. Taylor's geese being killed on the marsh by dogs and foxes.
This ended the testimony for the prosecution.
THE DEFENCE.
The first witness for the defence was Miss Eliza Gardener, an elderly woman and aunt to the accused, who had lived several years as a domestic in Taylor's house. She stated that she had heard the deceased say some time last fall he intended to get poison from Temperanceville to kill rats with. When cross-examined she became very nervous. She admitted that she had had trouble with Taylor's wife and the farm hands. On one occasion she and Mrs. Taylor had a fracas because James Dix did not have warm food for breakfast. At another time Mrs. Taylor hustled her out of the door and told her she would better find a home elsewhere.
MERRIMENT.
Her peculiar ways, emphatic gestures, and odd sayings created unbounded merriment in the court room. As she left the stand, addressing the Commonwealth's attorney,, she said: "Judge, I am tired of you. Good-by, and I am going to leave you." She missed her way out, wandered into the bar, and got laughed up among the lawyers, but was finally extricated by the Sheriff and taken out.
John W. Colonna, whose sister is a wife of Mrs. Taylor's brother, said he had heard Taylor say about the 1st of last December that he had been using strychnine to kill rats. He became much confused on cross-examination.
THE PRISONER TESTIFIES.
After several other witnesses had testified to the friendly relations existing between deceased and his wife Mrs. Virginia Taylor, the accused woman, was placed on the stand. As she rose from her seat in the bar and walked to the witness-box every eye in the building was directed to her. She was clad in deep mourning and showed remarkable composure during the ordeal. She gave a minute account of her husband's illness; how she found him sitting at the table on Wednesday, December 13th, with his head in his hands, complaining of pains in the side and back; how that night just before going to bed he took a glass of whiskey, and how she was aroused about 10 o'clock by his jumping or jerking in his sleep. She related how the next morning, when several of the neighbors were there helping about killing the hogs, she went into the house and found him in another spell and tried to give him some medicine the doctor had left, but could not. She gave no account of his final attack on the following Saturday night, when after she had gone up-stairs to bed her husband called to her and told her he was feeling uneasy. She went down in her night-clothes and got sugar from the kitchen and sweetened the hot-drops left by the doctor and gave it to her husband.
A VIVID ACCOUNT.
She gave a vivid account of how the fatal spasm came on. She left her husband in the charge of William Parks and James Dix, and, taking with her her little ten-year-old boy, went out into the dark night to secure help from the neighbors, returning just after her husband had expired. She confessed that she bought the bottle of strychnine, but said her husband had requested her to get it. She was not in trouble when she bought the strychnine, as stated by Mr. Oldham, but was trying to recall the name of some medicine which she had promised to get for her old aunt. She had not, she declared, been indifferent to her husband during his illness. The doctors had said he was in no danger, and she was busy at the time with work that could not be neglected and neighbors were with him all the time. She said she had given her husband no medicine except that left by Dr. Bowdoin. She had, however, given him some household panacea just after his first attack and had given him whiskey several times during his illness. If she had given him any poison she did not know it. She had handed the strychnine to her husband, who had used some of it to kill rats, but could not tell what he had done with the rest of it.
THE DISINTERMENT.
She had opposed the disinterment of her husband's body because she knew his wishes in the matter. She had heard him say he would not allow one of his family to be cut up by the doctors. When Dr. Bowdoin explained it to her and informed her that the law would not regard her wishes in the matter she consented to the post-mortem. She confessed that she had kissed James Dix several times and sat on his knee, but said her husband knew all about it, and did the same thing with both married and single women. She indignantly denied that she had ever been guilty of any immoral conduct with James Dix. She had hugged and kissed several of the men who had testified against her, giving their names, and said that it was a kissing neighborhood. She denied ever having said that she hoped her husband would never come back from his fishing expedition in Gargatha Bay, and said Oliver Lucas had never told her not to kill her husband, nor, she declared, did she hide any barrels of flour or other property to keep it from being sold. She and her husband had never had any serious trouble. He had never charged her with infidelity, but had told her to be careful or the people might talk about her and Dix. She said she had never sent Dix word to save his money to support her when she got out of jail. In fact, she contradicted most of the damaging statements of every witness brought forward by the prosecution. Her answers were prompt and frequently amusing. She was subjected to a long and rigid cross-examination without having any portion of her testimony shaken.
Considering the fact that she is an uneducated woman, unable to read or write, and that she was never before in a court-room, her testimony was very remarkable. She created a favorable impression on the spectators. While she was on the stand the court-room was densely packed, and her ready and witty answers to the questions of the opposing counsel created much merriment. Frequently during her evidence she would turn to the jury, and, with a significant gesture, say "God knows I am telling the truth."
Mrs. Taylor's evidence concludes the testimony in the famous case. Argument will be begun when the court reassembles to-morrow morning.