Excerpts from the Testimony of Thomas Massie
[Defense Attorney Clarence Darrow] Q: Have you ever got it [the rape of Thalia] out of your mind?
A: No.... After Mrs. Massie's mother came, we knew that an operation was necessary to prevent pregnancy. This had a strange effect on my mind.
Q: Was it done, the operation?
A: Yes. I took her to the hospital and Dr. Withington performed the operation.
Q: Did you know, or did she know, that that pregnancy was due to you or not?
A: There couldn't be any doubt that it wasn't. ...
[Two days later, before the direct examination of Thomas Massie continues:]
Darrow: There seems to have been some little misunderstanding between the attorneys on the other side and ourselves and I want to set it right. We believe that the plea of "not guilty" puts this full question in issue and it is not necessary then or now to say who fired the shot; but we are perfectly willing to do it to save any more time or controversy on the subject. The evidence will show in this case that the defendant, Massie, now on the stand, held the gun in his hand from which the fatal shot was fired....
Your honor that [a plea of insanity for Massie] is exactly what we are relying on. We expect the evidence to show that this defendant was insane. I did not say that he would testify that he killed the deceased. We will show that the gun was in his hand when the shot was fired but that question as to whether he knew what he was doing at the time is another question.
Q: Had you any purpose or intent of killing the deceased?"
A: Certainly not.
Q: Do you know whether Jones and Lord-where they stayed that night?
A: They were at Mrs. Fortescue's. I know they were there. I got there the next morning. I had to wake them up.
Q: Evidently had slept there that night?
A: Yes, sir.
Q: Still sleeping when you got there?
A: Yes, sir.
Q: What time did you get there?
A: About seven o'clock, I think.
Q: Which bed did Jones and Lord sleep in, or bedroom, or don't you know?
A: They slept in what Mr. Kelley calls No.1 bedroom.
Q: That's the one where the double bed is?
A: Yes, sir.
Q: You get anything to eat there-anybody?
A: I had breakfast before I went there. I had a cup of coffee and Mrs. Fortescue was there getting some kind of breakfast for the two men and I think they went out into the kitchen and had some toast and coffee. I went out and talked with them. We went over all our plans in the kitchen. After breakfast we were on our way to the living room and Jones started talking about how we were going to get him in and I told him we had this summons idea and he was a little uneasy. He knew this fellow was pretty big. He said, "I have my gun here," and I said, "You can't take it down." He asked me why and I told him that Mr. Beebe [who had told Massie that an extracted confession could be introduced as evidence if no force were used] had said no force was to be used and no marks should be showing. He gave me his gun and I laid it on the kitchen sideboard.
Q: What was Jones' gun?
A: .32 automatic.
Q: Colt?
A: Yes, sir.
Q: Where was it?
A: On the kitchen side-board.
Q: Did you have a gun?
A: No, sir.
Q: You see any others there except the one Jones lugged?
A: I brought my own gun over there that morning.
Q: From your house?
A: I left it there at Mrs. Fortescue's.
Q: What did you do with it?
A: I think I put it on the settee.
Q: Do you know exactly where you put it?
A: I can't say for sure.
Q: And what was that gun?
A: That was a.45 service automatic.
Q: What time did you leave Mrs. Fortescue's house?
A: I think it was 25 of eight. ..
Q: Then what did you do?
A: I drove direct to Mrs. Fortescue's home and up into the garage, and I got out first and started into the house. When I got in the kitchen I remembered that I had put [Jones's] automatic on the side table, so I took it. It was in a holster.
Q: That was a .32?
A: A .32. Yes, sir. And I called out and said, "All right, come on in.
Major Ross is here," and they came in, and while they came in while they were on their way in-I went over to one comer of the living room and took off my dark glasses and gloves and I heard Kahahawai sit down in the chair and I turned around and he was sitting down, and just at this time Mrs. Fortescue and Lord came in. I took the gun and confronted Kahahawai.
Q: Just a minute. Before going on with that, do you know where Lord went?
A: He went over to the dining-room table and leaned against it.
Q: That is, Lord?
A: Yes, sir.
Q: All right.
A: So I took the gun and went over to Kahahawai, pulled back the catch and let it flip in place. I wanted to scare him as much as possible. I said, "Do you know who I am?" He looked startled and leaned back a little, and he said "I think so." I said, "Well, I got you up here to tell the complete story about what happened in September," and at that time he was sitting in a chair by the door and Mrs. Fortescue wanted to close the door, so she told Jones to go out and wait in the car and see that we were not disturbed. She closed the door and told [Kahahawai] to get up and sit on the long chair in the living-room, and I went over and sat in the chair in the dining room at his left-it was practical1y in the dining room, near the table, and then I put the gun on him and said, "You did your lying in the courtroom but you are going to tell the whole truth now."
He looked nervous and trembled and said, "I don't know nothing." I said, "You know you know what happened and you are going to tell it, and you had better talk now." He looked more confused and I said, "Where were you on the night of twelve September?" He said, "I was at the Waikiki dance." I said, "What time did you leave?" He said, "I don't know. I was drunk." I said, "How did you go home?" He said, "I went down Kalakaua A venue to Beretania." I said, "Where did you pick up the woman?" He said, "We didn't have no woman." I said, "You know you are not telling the truth." I said, "I warn you better tell it now."
He said, "I don't know nothing." I said, "Go ahead and tell where you drove home." He said, "We went down Beretania," and he started naming a bunch of streets and I don't know their names, and I let him go ahead a little while. He was talking about the route he went home, and I suddenly said, "Who kicked the woman?" and he said, "Nobody kicked the woman," and I said, "Now you are lying. You know you are lying and you see I know it, but you are going to tell the truth right now. You said nobody kicked her and if you were not there at the time how do you know that nobody kicked the woman? You must have been there." And he said, "I don't know nothing."
Mrs. Fortescue got up from the settee and said, "There is no use fooling with him any longer. He will sit there and lie all day." She said, "Let's carry out our other plan." And I said, "All right, we will, but I want to ask one other question."
Q: Where was Jones?
A: He went outside.
Q: Where was he?
A: He was outside in the car. Jones went outside to the car.
Q: Where was Lord?
A: He was there by me, at my left, leaning up against the dining-room table.
Q: That was toward the kitchen?
A: Yes, sir, toward the kitchen. And I told Mrs. Fortescue I had another question to ask him. I said, "You were a prize fighter once, weren't you?" and he nodded his head. I said, "Well, that explains to me exactly how you know where to hit a woman in one blow to break her jaw." He looked nervous and I think he wet his lips and he was squirming. I said, "All right, you are not going to talk, are you? We will make you talk." I said, "Do you know what happened to Ida?" He looked nervous and kept trembling and did not say anything. I said, "Well, you know what he got, but that wasn't anything compared to what you are going to get if you don't tell the whole story now."
He said, "I don't know nothing" I said, "All right, Lord, go out and get the boys. He will talk then," and then he began to move forward in his seat like that, and as soon as Lord had gotten out of the room I said, "All right, I tell you what is going to happen to you. I know you are lying and you know I know it, and you had better talk now." I said, "Ida talked and he told plenty on you" and he sort of quivered, and I said, "Now you are going to talk. If you don't talk before those men get back in here they will beat you to ribbons."
Until this point, Massie had sat like a statue, apparently intent upon conveying to the jury the precision of his recollection. But, as he neared the end of his story, his voice began to quaver with emotion. He said: [Kahahawai] sat there trembling and I said, "Now go ahead and tell the whole story. You know your gang was there." And suddenly he said, "Yes, we done it." The last thing I remember was that picture that came into my mind, of my wife when he assaulted her and she prayed for mercy and he answered with a blow that broke her jaw.
Q: Did you have a gun in your hand when you were talking to him?
A: Yes, sir.
Q: Do you remember what you did?
A: No, sir.
Q: Do you know what became of the gun?
A: No, I do not, Mr. Darrow.
Q: Do you know what became of you?
A: No, sir....
Cross-examination:
[Prosecutor Kelley]Q: Do you know who undressed the body of Kahahawai.
A: I know what I have heard.
Q: Who did it?
A: Jones told me.
Q: What did he tell you?
A: He said, "The stains wouldn't come out so we took the clothes off."
Q: Did anyone tell you where he died?
A: Yes.
Q: Who told you?
A: Mrs. Fortescue.
Q: Where was it?
A: On the chaise longue.
Q: Were you ever told by any of the other defendants what happened to the gun that you had in your hand when Kahahawai was shot?
A: Yes, sir.
Q: Who told you?
A: Jones.
Q: What did he tell you?
A: He said he took it over to my house afterwards.
Q: Do you know what happened to it over there?
A: He left it there.
Q: Did anyone ever tell you who took it out of your house?
A: No. They would not tell me who took it out. There were only two people who could have, I think.
Q: You were told, however, that it was taken out of your house?
A: Yes, sir.
Q: Did any of the three defendants ever tell you what you did after this shot was fired?
A: Yes.
Q: Who?
A: All three of them.
Q: What did Mrs. Fortescue tell you in that respect?
A: She said I just stood there like a bump on a log and she talked to me and I would not answer her, and she finally took me into the kitchen and tried to make me drink some oke and I would not do that and she sat me down on a chair and I think she said I stayed there.
Q: Did Jones tell you what your actions were after the shot was fired?
A: Jones was not very complimentary.
Q: What did he say?
A: He said I acted like a damn fool.
Q: Jones, by the way, is an enlisted man in the Navy, isn't he?
A: I resented it just as much as you are going to say I did.
Q: Mr. Massie, have you ever been implicated in a kidnapping plot before that time?
A: No, sir.
Q: Quite sure?
A: Quite sure.
[Kelley eventually gets Massie to admit that he and Thalia had once been arrested for kidnapping in 1927, but that charges were later dropped. A mother had filed a complaint when she saw the Massies wheeling her baby, who had been left crying in a carriage, some distance from where she left the baby. Thalia insisted that they pushed the carriage in an effort to quiet the bawling infant.]
(Excerpts from Peter Van Slingerland, Something Terrible Has Happened (1966))