FULL TEXT: Perry, O., Dec. 16 – A fluffy blond-headed bride of 21, weighing less than 100 pounds:
Smashed her young husband's skull with a claw hammer and table leg in this little town the other night –
Bound his dead body with cords –
Nonchalantly pulled her hat over her sleek bobbed head –
Drove 35 miles to a friend’s home and a bridge party, where she won all the prizes and sang jazz songs –
Slept all night like a child –
Ate a hearty breakfast –
Spent a day Christmas shopping,. buying some gifts for the murdered husband in the love nest –
And only asked for more cigarets which she calmly puffed when the sheriff came to get her.
~ "The Modern Murderess." ~
And there, in the person of Mrs. Velma Van Woert West, you have a perfect picture of what officials are calling “the modern woman murderess.” The poise and coolness of a modern woman have been much discussed of late. But Velma West, known as "A Night Club Girl in a Curfew Town," is the first woman known to execute a murder with something of the same attitude with which other modern young women handle home and job, or do other feats unknown to the more hysterical women of olden days.
The murder of young “Ed” West, 26, has startled the country.
The murdered man belonged to a nationally known family. His father, T. B. West, is a man whose nurseries are known the country over. West shrubs and trees and seeds grow in yards of “love nests” from Maine to California, “love nests” very much like the trim little bungalow to which Ed West took his bride less than two years ago.
Perry thrilled when it heard that popular Ed West had brought a city girl home for his bride. Perry wanted to meet the bride.
A reception was given by the young bridegroom's parents. All Perry was invited to the big West home. All Perry came. Just what happened is not clear. But the faintly of the murdered man admit that “Ed’s wife” was never “taken up" by Perry.” Velma West was “different.” She smoked cigarets, and plenty of them, in public. Maybe other Perry girls smoked, too, but behind locked doors with only bosom friends or so for beholder.
Velma West was indifferent to all the things that Perry held dear – old families, old books, old music, old friends.
Velma laughed at the old and talked much about the “kicks and thrills” of life.
She was invited out a little at first by “Ed’s friends.” But Velma was bored by the parties. Besides, the invitations seemed to die a natural death.
So the young Wests began finding their good times in Cleveland, about 25 miles away.
~ Couldn't Agree ~
Three or four times a week the shiny green roadster took the road to the big city. The dead man’s relatives say that Ed didn’t always want to go. He worked in his father’s nursery all day long, managing gardeners, transplanting, digging, working with the famous West shrubs. He was tired nights.
Let’s stay home tonight, Velma,” he is quoted as saying. “Let’s just stay here alone and you play and sing while I sit in the big chair with the paper. It’ll be cozy.”
But Velma wouldn't stay. The city was in her blood—part of her. Folks went to bed at 10 o'clock in Perry.
It was a party that made Ed West die. Velma told him they were going to a bridge party at a girl friend’s home on the farthermost part of Cleveland that night. They were driving home from another nearby city when she told him.
“But I'm tired,” West told her “Let’s stay home tonight.”
After supper, Velma began dressing for the party, urging Ed to hurry up.
“But I’m not coming,” he said and she knew that he meant it. They quarreled. Ed got mad. Said things about her friend. “You hardly know her—she’s not your kind—won’t have you running with that crowd—Why won’t you play bridge with some of the nice Perry girls? Might join the Young People's Set.” Etc., etc.
Almost 24 hours later Velma West told the sheriff and county prosecutor what happened. They had not even questioned or accused her. Hardly suspected.
"Why did you leave the back door open when you went away?” was the calm question that brought a complete written confession from the flapper bride.
“All right, I’ll tell you everything.”
She did.
Ed finally struck her as they quarreled, she said. She “saw red.” Went down to the cellar, got a hammer, came back, hit him over the head with the hammer, and when he went down finished the job with a library table leg which was “just lying around” until the table could be repaired.
~ After the Murder ~
She bound him, threw a blanket over him, left the lights burning, went to Cleveland, and was “the life of the party” all right, talked and giggled with her gin friend until late in the night, slept well, ate a good breakfast, then went Christmas shopping with her mother. She bought a nice box of handkerchiefs for Ed and almost bought a scarf she thought he would like.
Officials were waiting for her at her mother’s home and took her to Painesville, the county seat. There she calmly told her story.
A plea of insanity and perhaps self-defense will be her move in court when the first degree murder trial opens in January. Meanwhile, this “modern woman murderess” smokes pack after pack of cigarets in her cell. She has not wept yet. Nor laughed She has only asked for more fags, and sometimes hummed snatches of modern jazz songs.
[Allene
Sumner, “A ‘Modern Woman’ Kills – Tears and Remorse? Ohio Hammer Slayer Gaily
Goes To Bridge Party Instead – ‘The Night Club Girl’ in a Curfew Town,”
syndicated (NEA), The Laredo Daily Times (Tx.), Dec. 16, 1927, p. 8; photo from
Ellensburg Record (Wa.), Dec. 29, 1927, p. 3]
***
FULL TEXT (Article 2 of 5): Courthouse,
Painesville, Ohio, Mar. 6 – Velma West today pleaded guilty to second degree
murder.
Exactly three months from the day, Dec. 6,
when she killed her husband, T. Edward West, the 21 year old Cleveland girl
stood before the court said that one word “guilty.”
In
doing so, she automatically sentenced herself to life in the penitentiary.
Life is what the law provides, but in ten
years she will be eligible for pardon.
Velma’s plea concluded many hours of
conference between the attorneys, the prosecution and the trial Judge J. D.
Barnes.
Judge J. B. Barnes immediately sentenced her
to life in the Marysville Ohio state reformatory.
When court opened at 9:30 a. m. Attorney Francis
Poulson, chief counsel for the blonde player, stepped forward.
“The defendant Velma West, at this time
desiree to enter a plea of guilty,” Poulson said.
Trial Judge J. D. Barnes looked at Seth
Paulin, Lake-co prosecutor. Paulin stood up and announced that the state would
accept the plea, ending the trial of a day’s duration.
At the court’s request Velma West was brought
to the bench, and was asked if she agreed to the plea of guilty.
“Yes sir.”
The
voice was almost a whisper. The girl trembled as she spoke.
The
crowded courtroom leaned forward to hear her.
Then
Judge Barnes asked if she anything to say before sentence was imposed.
Velma
gulped three times. Her voice had failed her. Finally she replied. “I have
nothing to say.”
The
plea and sentence brought to an end one of the most sensational murder cases In
the history of Ohio. Edward West, scion of a prominent family of Perry, Ohio,
nursery man, was found murdered In the west bungalow Dec. 6. His head had been
battered
by a claw-hammer.
The
following day Mrs. West was arrested at the home of her mother in East
Cleveland and although she presented a perfect alibi, later confessed to
Painesville authorities that she had committed the crime.
It
was expected the Perry housewife would be taken to Marysville, Ohio, this
afternoon to begin serving her sentence.
Judge
Barnes then outlined the conferences that have been held between defense and
the prosecution since yesterday morning. He said the attorneys had properly
conferred with the trial Judge and Judge A. G. Reynolds who handled the case up
to the present time.
“Judge
Reynolds and myself,” he said, “accept full responsibility for the
second-degree murder plea.
“We
are convinced the defendant could not have been convicted of first degree murder.”
Then
Judge Barnes sentenced Velma West to life in the Marysville reformatory. The
Wests’ wedded life was not a happy one. Velma did not fit in with the small
life of Perry, where West had built for her a bungalow.
Her love for her
husband, the prosecution had
learned, was exceeded by her love for another—a woman.
The
state’s lawyers were ready to go before a jury and picture Velma as one
afflicted with a sex complex that made her put the love for one of her own sex
above that of her husband, homo and happiness.
Attorneys
for Velma did not think she would be convicted of more than second degree
murder, but they did not want to put her on trial and place on record the story
of alleged abnormal love gathered by Sheriff Ed Rasmussen.
That
was one reason why a compromise was sought. The proceedings today took just
eight minutes.
Again
the courtroom was crowded. Still pale and extremely nervous, Velma sat behind
the trio of attorneys. B. L. Van Woert, Cleveland salesman and father of the
girl, was among the spectators. Her mother was not present. No member of the
West family was in the courtroom but T. B. West, father of the slain man and
James West, a brother who discovered the body, waited in the prosecutors
office.
Velma
found it hard to answer the judge. As she faced the court her formerly
chalk-white neck showed marks of red. She had great difficulty in finding her
voice. She half choked, like a person about to either cry or laugh.
Then
the judge asked her if she had anything to say. She struggled for control for a
moment and answered:
“I
have nothing to say.”
Judge
Barnes, without hesitation, pronounced sentence. He said; “This does not come
to the court as a new proposition this morning.
This
proposition was submitted to me before court opened yesterday morning. Counsel
for the prosecution and defense spent the entire day going over the matter.
They very properly took the matter up with
this court for advice and sanction
as to what was proper to do.
Not only with this court but with Judge Reynolds. After giving the fullest consideration to all of the evidence and circumstances of this case, both Judge Reynolds and I came to the full and complete agreement that a verdict of guilty of first degree
murder was not Justified by this
evidence. But that admittance of
a plea of guilty of second degree murder was the proper thing to do.
This would save a great amount of money, the expenditure of a great deal of time and produce the only outcome which could be expected from a full jury trial.
“I don’t think this is the time for talking.
Your crime was a horrible and
unthinkable thing. This staid community
was stirred by It. It was terrible. The
mandate of the law must be
fulfilled. This is the first time I have ever had to sentence a woman on a like
charge.” Velma walked back to her chair.
Her father came and bent low over her. She
wept violently. Then as suddenly as
they started the tears stopped. She dried her eyes and smiled.
“I am so happy,” she said. She had escaped the
threatened story of the woman she is said to have loved more than her husband —
Miss Mabel Young, Cleveland. Miss Young had hoped to cure Velma by having her
associate with wholesome young women of her own age, she said.
But had the trial gone on, there was a
possibility that Miss Young would not testify. She could not be found today. Velma West went back to her cell in
Lake-co jail immediately. She expressed a wish to go to Marysville at once.
“I want to get out in the sunshine,” she said.
Her father hastened away to telephone to the
mother the news of the sentence.
Sheriff
Rasmussen went to work at once
preparing the necessary papers for Velma’s commitment to Marysville.
The defense attorneys, however, made a
request that the taking of the girl to the reformatory be delayed so that she
may wind up some personal affairs.
They asked permission to take her to the
bungalow at Perry to reclaim her personal effects. She has not been there since
the night she fled to Cleveland after killing her husband. Rasmussen granted
the request, and the girl will not be taken to Marysville until tomorrow.
The
trial of the young woman, who
had rebelled against the small town
life of Perry, Ohio, after the active
social life of a popular debutante in Cleveland, opened yesterday.
There
were numerous conferences.
The
state offered to accept a plea
of guilty to a homicide charge. The defense offered to have the girl
plead guilty to second degree murder.
Then a continuance was taken until today.
Attorneys
for the state and the defense
had a long conference last night after which it was understood that the girl
would plead guilty to second
degree murder.
The
young woman was happy this
morning at the prospects of
escaping the tedious trial.
“I am
glad the anxiety is over,” she said. “Imprisonment is not pleasant to contemplate, but I am willing to
pay the penalty the law exacts. I am glad my friends and relatives will be
spared the anguish of a long and bitter trial.”
The
decision to end the trial abruptly through the second degree plea, it was
understood, was to spare the
family of the defendant and her slain husband from an unnecessary ordeal of
sensationalism which the state had promised to bring forth.
“Our
chief reason for wanting to
enter the guilty plea is that it will terminate all court action, chargesand
counter charges and all sensational and sordid revelations,”
Poulson
said. “If this case had gone to
a jury many relatively innocent people
might have been involved.”
[Charles E. Ahrens, “Velma West Gets Life For Murder –
‘Guilty’ Is Plea After Conference – State Accepted Plea On Second Degree Charge
and Perry, O., Woman Who Killed Husband With Hammer Is Eligible To Pardon in 10
Years,” The Star Journal (Sandusky, Oh.), Mar. 6, 1928, p. 1]
FULL
TEXT (Article 3 of 4): Marysville, Ohio
— Officials of Marysville women’s reformatory said today
they had established that Velma West, 33, hammer slayer of her husband who
escaped with three others, had the assistance of another other prisoner in
unlocking her cell early Monday.
Prison
officials reported to the state
welfare department that Mrs. Lenora Leach, 26, who had been sent to the
reformatory for smuggling, hacksaws to her former husband in the Gallipolis
jail, had aided the escape of Mrs. West after the frail blonde had written that
she wanted “one little adventure in this dull life of mine.”
Mrs. Leach
had denied seeing Mrs. West escape even though she slept on a cot in the
corridor just outside the latter’s cell. Her story was not believed and she was
placed in solitary confinement.
Another
prisoner was allowed to talk to Mrs. Leach in her solitary cell, and by
listening to their conversation, officials learned that she had unlocked Mrs.
West’s cell with a key which the hammer murderess had given her. The cell door
could be unlocked only from the outside. Mrs. West, it was established, then
unlocked the cell of a t least one other of the three who fled with her.
Ohio authorities ran down numerous tips today in their
search for the fugitives.
Two
girls who aroused suspicion were seen in Lorain at 3 a. m. A gasoline station
attendant at Russell’s Point reported seeing a son of a Marysville prisoner
with five women in his automobile, two of whom he thought might have been
fugitives.
Mrs.
Marguerite Reilley, reformatory superintendent, who had reformed Mrs. West from
a troublemaker into a model prisoner in three years and had called her the girl
who made good,” said that two other prisoners were under suspicion of aiding
the escape.
Mrs.
Reilley questioned Rachel Thomas, formerly of Mansfield, who is a good
wood-carver and who made two keys from nail files about a year ago, and Lenora
Leach, 26, formerly of Gallipolis, who slept in the corridor outside Mrs.
West’s cell.
Mrs.
Leach denied hearing anything early Monday when Mrs. West escaped.
“We
think she is holding something back,” Mrs. Reilley said.
Mrs.
Reilley revealed today that a Marysville man who had been a friend of Mary
Ellen Richards, one of the fugitives was sought for questioning. The
superintendent said the man had been missing for a week and his automobile, had
been standing in the street. Miss Richards worked m Marysville before her
conviction.
Mrs.
Reilley said, however, there was no indication that the man had contacted Miss
Richards recently.
All
prisoners were ordered today to wear uniforms. Prior to the escape, those
considered more trustworthy wore thin print ‘honor” dresses. Mrs. West escaped
in an “honor” dress.
“Maybe
I have been mistaken,” Mrs. Reilley said. “Maybe this place should be run like
any jail after all. It was a real
joy to see Velma develop from the kind of a creature she was when I came here
three and a half years ago. Her
failing me tears down the thing I have tried to build up ever since I have been
here.”
She
said there was a possibility that a master key which disappeared shortly before
she became superintendent was used in the escape.
Mrs.
West pleaded guilty to a second
degree murder charge after she had beaten her husband, T. Edward West, to death
with a hammer and table leg at their home near Painesville on Dec. 7, 1927. She
went to a bridge party in Cleveland
afterwards and was “the life of the party.”
The
letter which Mrs. West wrote to Mrs. Reilley in ink on yellow note paper
follows:
“Mrs.
Reilley .Dear:—
“I
wonder if you can ever forgive me for this — I am doing it for several reasons. Because I must have, one little
adventure in this dull life of mine — because I am so tortured with pain in
this body of mine that it drives me almost crazy—because I have lost, hope of
getting out as I would like to get out—it’s fear of these things that have finally
made, me do the thing that I have been fighting against, for years. — You’ve
been so wonderful to me, so understanding, so patient. — This thing isn’t easy
for me to do because I have a conscience and a tender heart. — I shall probably
always despise myself for it. — Do not blame the other girls. — I found out by
accident that they were going, and I asked them to take me. They didn’t want to
because of my health—but finally decided to, and promised to take care of me,
and .not subject me to anything immoral. That may be for them—but never for
cue, dear.
“If
this should in any way cause you trouble I shall come back Immediately, for I
love you, as I love my own mother. I only hope you can understand — oh, please
do.
“I
would be happy if you would let my mother and dad read this, and try in some
way to comfort them. I don’t know how to tell you just how I feel — I’m being
torn between two different ways — my desire not to hurt you, and my folks who I
love — and my desire to have just one little adventure before I get too old and
too dulled by pain ever to enjoy life — to tell you the honest truth I hope
someone catches us before we get out.
“This
is terrible — to be so utterly silly, but I cannot help it — darling, you have
been wonderful to me — and I realize that the others have done as much as they
could in here for my health. But I have not been without pain for so long now
that I’m at the breaking point — I’ve hid it as much as I could, after I
realized that nothing could be done for me.
“Please
don’t let them talk too awfully about me after this — I’m not bad — just
frightfully unlucky — in life.”
The
other fugitives are Virginia Brawdy, 19, Akron; Mary Ellen Richards, 23,
Cincinnati, and Florence Sheliner, 23, Gallipolis. Miss Helen Rahmel, night
matron in the building from which the four escaped, said she had tested the
doors of all cells Sunday night and had found them locked.
Mrs.
West might have had a chance for parole had she not escaped, Mrs. Reilley said.
In 1934, the parole board continued her case “until expiration of sentence,”
which meant life imprisonment. Last October, however, Mrs. Reilley asked the
board to reconsider her case and it had been taken under advisement.
[“Learn Aide In Flight of Velma West - Find Other Inmate
Helped Blonde Murderess in Unlocking Cell
to Flee Marysville.” Syndicated (UP), The Star Journal (Sandusky, Oh.), Jun.
30, 1939, p. 1]
***
FULL
TEXT (Article 4 of 5): Columbus, Ohio – Velma West, 53, who has been in the Marysville Reformatory for women since she
was 21, was denied freedom
Thursday by the, Ohio Pardon and Parole Commission. The board said It would
review her case again in 1964.
Mrs.
West was convicted of the second-degree murder of her husband, Thomas, 26, of Perry, Lakeco. She beat her
husband to death with a claw hammer after the two argued over going to a party
[“Velma West, 53, Is Denied Parole,” syndicated
(UPI), Sandusky Register May 29, 1959, p. 3]
***
FULL
TEXT (Article 5 of 5): Marysville, Ohio – Velma West, 52, famed flapper era
husband killer, died today at the Marysville Women's Reformatory where she had
been since she was 21.
Death
was attributed to natural causes. Mrs. West had suffered from a severe heart
condition for many years and over the past year was practically a full-time
hospital patient.
Mrs.
West gained nationwide attention during the roaring 20s when she killed her
husband because he objected to her going to a party.
She
had been in Marysville since March 7, 1928.
[“Velma West Dead At 52,” syndicated (UPI),
Mansfield Daily News (Oh.), Oct. 24, 1959, p. 5]
[2347-8/21/21]
***
