Murder Trial
A graying woman of fair complexion, standing at 5-feet 6-inches (168 cm) tall and weighing 134 pounds (61 kg), Grace Fortescue was charged with murder and convicted by a jury of manslaughter after the death of Joseph Kahahawai, one of the defendants in the alleged rape of her daughter.
Also charged and convicted with Fortescue were two sailors, Edward J. Lord and Deacon Jones, as well as Fortescue's son-in-law, Thomas Massie who participated in the abduction and murder of Kahahawai.
As of January 8, 1932, a criminal record indicates that while in Honolulu, Grace Fortescue lived on Kolowalu Street in Manoa Valley, a short distance from her daughter's home on Kahawai Street.
Attorney Clarence Darrow defended Fortescue, Jones, Massie and Lord and obtained a commutation of their sentence of ten-years imprisonment for manslaughter to one-hour in the executive chambers of Territorial Governor Lawrence M. Judd.
Read more about this topic: Grace Fortescue
Famous quotes containing the words murder and/or trial:
“Lizzie Borden took an axe
And gave her mother forty whacks;
When she saw what she had done,
She gave her father forty-one.”
—Anonymous. Late 19th century ballad.
The quatrain refers to the famous case of Lizzie Borden, tried for the murder of her father and stepmother on Aug. 4, 1892, in Fall River, Massachusetts. Though she was found innocent, there were many who contested the verdict, occasioning a prodigious output of articles and books, including, most recently, Frank Spiering’s Lizzie (1985)
“I have proved by actual trial that a letter, that takes an hour to write, takes only about 3 minutes to read!”
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)