Page:The Great Harry Thaw Case.djvu/199

 CHAPTER XVI.

Shocking Disclosures in Famous Affidavit.

DOCUMENT DECLARED TO HAVE BEEN SIGNED BY EVELYN THAW INTRODUCED IN EVIDENCE—CHARGES THAW CHOKED HER, AND BEAT HER WITH A RAWHIDE WHIP—ANOTHER ATTACK THE NEXT DAY—FAINTED IN AGONY—BEATEN AND CHOKED AGAIN AND AGAIN—DEFENDANT DECLARED TO HAVE TAKEN EVELYN'S DIAMONDS AND MONEY—THREATENED WITH BODILY INJURY UNLESS SHE WOULD ACCUSE WHITE, IS CHARGE—AFFIDAVIT ASSERTS WHITE DID NOT WRONG HER.

Startling charges that Harry Kendall Thaw administered unmerciful lashings to Evelyn Nesbit, and tortured her because she would not accuse Stanford White, were made in the famous affidavit prepared by Abe Hummel and allowed by Justice Fitzgerald to be introduced in evidence, after Hummel had sworn the prisoner's sweetheart—whom he later married—had signed and sworn to the document.

Threats of death were added to the pitiless whippings and torture, some of which made the girl—then traveling in Europe as Thaw's wife—faint in agony, and on one occasion confined her to bed for three weeks, so read the affidavit. In this document Evelyn declared White did not injure her. With blanched