“When we sat down at the table we talked about Rheta. At the end of the meal Dr. Wynekoop went to the telephone; she was worried about Rheta. She had told me that if Rheta saw some moving picture that she liked, she would stay and see it. She said that she had left the house before Rheta did. I think she said she left the house about two-thirty or three.
“I had noticed Rheta’s coat and hat on the table in the library and remarked about it. I said, ‘Here is Rheta’s coat and hat,’ and Dr. Wynekoop answered, ‘She probably wore her good coat and hat to the Loop.’ I talked with Dr. Wynekoop after dinner. She had asked me to go to the drug store to have a prescription refilled and to get her some tablets.
“The drug store is situated at Madison and Kedzic avenues. That store did not have as many tablets as she wanted so I stopped at the drug store at Homan and Madison and got a full bottle. After I completed my purchase I went back home. I arrived home about a quarter after seven, I should judge; perhaps half past. I sat down in the library with Dr. Wynekoop and we talked for about an hour.
“We discussed at least two books while sitting in the library. One was Strange Interlude and the other was The Forsythe Saga. I don’t know the author of Strange Interlude; I am not familiar with it. I had procured a copy of it from the public library for her. I haven’t ever read it.
“During the course of our conversation we discussed my hyperacidity. She said she had something in the office that she thought I could use... The glass case where she kept the drugs was inside the operating room. She never got the medicine for me.”
Dr. Wynekoop never got the medicine for Miss Hennessey, because the body of Rheta Wynekoop was lying face down on the operating table in the basement surgery, covered with a blanket, her clothing lying about on the floor, a blood-stained towel at her mouth and a pistol near her head.
Now here rises an interesting situation. According to Dr. Alice’s confession, Rheta’s murder took place sometime early in the afternoon on that tragic Tuesday in November. These are her words — remember them? — “The scene was so overwhelming that no action was possible for a period of several hours.”
Yet, according to Miss Enid Hennessey’s testimony, here we have Dr. Alice preparing dinner shortly after six, apparently in normal health and spirits. A good substantial dinner, of pork chops, cabbage, potatoes, a salad, peaches and cookies. A place was set at the table for Rheta. Later in the evening there was an undoubtedly leisurely discussion of Strange Interlude and The Forsythe Saga. And Dr. Alice was sufficiently self-possessed to suggest a medicine for her old friend’s hyperacidity.
If both Dr. Alice’s confession and Miss Hennessey’s testimony were correct; if Dr. Alice cold-bloodedly murdered Rheta that afternoon and then proceeded with the normal routine of getting dinner, and chatting with her friend — well, “What a woman!” For, from what we know of Dr. Alice, she was nervous, in delicate health, even hysterical at times. (Remember that note to Earle!) To have murdered her daughter-in-law, cold-bloodedly or any other way, and then appeared her usual self at dinner time and in the evening, must have taken a little doing. Yet, according to the case against her, that is exactly what she did — and it is interesting to reflect, at this point, that Miss Enid Hennessey appeared as a witness for the prosecution.
Dr. Alice didn’t call the police, the undertaker, or the coroner’s office. She didn’t need to call a doctor to make certain that Rheta was dead. She called Dr. Catherine, then on duty in the Children’s Department of Cook County Hospital, and said, “Something terrible has happened here... it is Rheta... she is dead... She has been shot.”
So, let’s look at a little of Dr. Catherine’s testimony at the trial (keeping in mind that Dr. Alice had previously been sufficiently calm and collected to prepare dinner and hold a conversation with her old friend Miss Hennessey about books).
“I noticed her gait was a little unsteady, her hands were trembling, her face was flushed. I helped her to a chair in the dining-room and rushed out in the kitchen for stimuli. I put a teaspoonful of aromatic spirits of ammonia in water and had her drink it.
“Mother said she just groped her way up the stairs, that on the way everything was black, she felt dizzy, that the next thing she knew she was at the telephone calling me. I went up to the room and called Miss Hennessey. She came down. After that Mother called Mr. Ahearn.”
Dr. Catherine Wynekoop’s testimony regarding her mother’s behavior on the night of the murder came much later in the trial, she being a witness for the defense. But perhaps we should consider it now, remembering Dr. Alice’s own description of her reactions to Rheta’s death in her “confession” and Miss Hennessey’s description of the early evening.
By all means, let us not draw any conclusions from these excerpts from testimony. But I cannot omit one comment: if both of them are true, and there is nothing to suggest that they are not, and if Dr. Alice did murder Rheta, then the stage lost one magnificent actress when a young girl named Alice Lindsay decided to study medicine!
As the trial continued, there was no doubt that Dr. Alice was far from well. She was brought in for each court session in a wheel chair, and a physician was constantly within call. This created a bit of legal argument, during which curious, non-legal minded citizens wondered if the ill and elderly Dr. Alice was being tried for murder, or for the state of her health.
This is a gruesome thing to be remembering, but it comes back to me now, how during the trial betting ran fairly high as to whether or not Dr. Alice would survive it. If you cared to bet that she would, you could get some remarkably fine odds. A bartender in East St. Louis offered thirty-to-one. And it is one of the great regrets of my life that I didn’t take him up on it.
Following Miss Enid Hennessey’s testimony, and some routine testimony regarding the scene of the crime, the State called the grief-stricken father, Burdine H. Gardner, to the stand.
Now there are some cynical people who have suggested that his appearance was intended, deliberately, to appeal to the sympathy of the jury, in view of the fact that his testimony contributed little that was not already known. Far be it for me to believe that “The People of the State of Illinois” would do such a thing! Had it not already been agreed that Dr. Alice’s wheelchair should be kept out of sight of the jury, and that no “Physician, medical person or nurse” should be in attendance on her in their presence, in case “the incapacity of the said defendant might arouse the sympathy of the jurors?”
Burdine Gardner testified that his daughter had been in ill health, and that her mother-in-law had been worried about her. He added one highly plaintive note.
“I did not hear any more from the defendant until I learned my daughter was dead. I was first informed of her death by a reporter from the Chicago Tribune, who called me just before midnight on November 21, 1933.”
Those Chicago reporters — they simply attend to everything!
He was followed by a witness with a lovely name — Veronica Duncan. She lived next door to the Wynekoops, and was evidently a friend of the family. She also was evidently a girl who liked fresh air and exercise, judging from a few excerpts from her testimony.
“She (Dr. Wynekoop) commented on the pleasantness of the day and asked what I was doing that afternoon. I told her I thought I might go for a walk, and suggested that Rheta go along...”
“... I... had suggested that Rheta come over to get me to go for a walk...”
“... she (Dr. Wynekoop) told Rheta she could go for a walk with me if she wanted to...”