Prohibition: Thirteen Years That Changed America (35 page)

Witness after witness came forward with descriptions of Remus’s hysterical grief after his return from Atlanta. Mueller told the court of the clock incident. Rogers recalled Remus’s phone conversation with Imogene. He had also, in the course of his reporting, met with Imogene on her own. Imogene had told him: “Remus will never hurt me, but please don’t let him hurt Mr. Dodge.”

“Remus’s conduct convinced me he was insane,” Rogers told the court. “I went so far as to report to my managing editor, in the summer of 1926, that he had lost his mind.” Another defense witness was Judge Beston S. Oppenheimer, who had earlier been involved in Imogene’s divorce, but had handed the case over to another judge at an early stage. He had come to the conclusion, after hearing Remus in his chambers, that the man was “crazy.” Rogers also told the court that the U.S. commissioner of immigration in Atlanta “told me that Remus was an alien, which was the reason for seeking deportation.”

Although the prosecution did its best to discredit the testimony of Willie Haar, the millionaire’s row convict and boolegger, he too made an impact on the jury. In Indianapolis after his release during the Jack Daniel’s trial, he told the court of parties he had attended. “Dodge and Imogene Remus were fondling, hugging and caressing one another and using profane language.” In an aside, he added: “It was funny that a lot of Prohibition officials supposed to be enforcing the laws were having liquor themselves.”

Thomas Berger, no ex-bootlegger but a wealthy industrial fair organizer (and a boyhood friend of Remus), was another valuable defense witness. He testified how, some months before the murder, Remus had asked him to act as mediator. He began an account of their conversation: “I said to Remus,” Berger recounted, “your wife wants nothing whatever to do with you. She is in love with Franklin Dodge. She would not refund to you any of the property. . . . She didn’t want a few hundred thousand dollars, but wanted to keep all she had.” The judge asked Berger whether, in his opinion, Remus was sane “despite the fact that Dodge was still alive.” “He ought to be where she is,” Berger replied, to loud, appreciative laughter. He also confirmed that Imogene had tried to have Remus deported.

“I told Remus that the chief immigration officer at St. Louis had
told me the department wanted to deport Remus,” he continued. “I told Remus I asked the immigration officer to find out who was back of it, and two weeks later I told Remus the officer came to see me and said that Uncle Sam would not be a party to deport an individual for private gain of individuals like Dodge and Mrs. Remus.” Again, Remus had flown into such a rage that “I thought he was going to tear one of his ears off. He wanted to go after Dodge and his wife.”
²

George Conners described his first visit to Price Hill mansion after Remus’s release. “The only thing in the house was a bed and a pair of shoes, which didn’t belong to Remus.”
³

By this time it was clear to reporters that the jury was on Remus’s side, but if any doubt remained, it vanished on December 8, when Elston called a surprise witness, Harry Truesdale. It was to be the turning point of the trial.

E
ston’s purpose in calling the witness, he told the judge, was to establish whether Remus had been insane. But it became increasingly clear, as Truesdale’s story unfolded, that his real purpose was very different.

Truesdale’s voice was so low that the court stenographer had to repeat some of his statements to the jurors. Only a verbatim account can adequately convey the tense drama of those few minutes.
¹

T
RUESDALE:
I followed him [Remus] several times and talked to him on October 5. [The day before the murder.]

E
LSTON:
When was the first time you saw him?

T
RUESDALE:
Sometime during the latter part of the summer. A man called Marcus pointed him out to me. [Marcus’s name had already come up. Conners had alleged that Marcus had been offering $15,000 to anyone who would kill Remus]. I saw him around four-five
P.M.
on October 5.

E
LSTON:
Did you talk to him?

T
RUESDALE:
I went there for that purpose.

E
LSTON:
Did you form an opinion about sanity or insanity?

T
RUESDALE:
I did, on that afternoon, when I told him what I knew.

E
LSTON:
Now tell us what you said to him and what he said and did that causes you to form that opinion.

T
RUESDALE:
I told him that out at Springdale dog track a man by the name of John Marcus told me he knew how I could make $10,000 and I asked him how it would be and he told me that if I would kill a man I could get that much money.

J
UDGE
S
HOOK:
Did you tell this to Mr. Remus?

T
RUESDALE:
Exactly. Marcus told me he would introduce me to the party that would give me the money.

B
ASLER:
Did
you tell Mr. Remus this?

T
RUESDALE:
Exactly. Marcus said he could not take me up right away so Marcus went over to see her and came back and said she would not see me right away.

E
LSTON:
Who?

T
RUESDALE:
Mrs. Remus. Three or four days later, in Cincinnati, Marcus told me she would see me and took me to the Alms Hotel, room 708.

He introduced me to Mrs. Remus by the name of Charles and we didn’t stay there long that afternoon, because she had people in the next room.

But she told me to come back the next day at three, which I did. She then told me that I would get $10,000 if I would kill Remus. She told me she would give me $5,000 and another person would give me $5,000.

I wanted some kind of surety but she would not give it me. I asked her who the other party was. She said “I will vouch for him, his money is all right,”

She didn’t state his name right at the time, but after a while she said his name was Franklin Dodge. She was very bitter against Remus and said she wished someone would beat his brains out.

She gave me $250 for expenses. Mrs. Remus told me Remus was at the Sinton Hotel, room 327.1 went to the hotel and sat on the left side of the elevator.

Once I passed his room which was open — one time I thought of
killing him in his room, but too many people went in and out. He always had a lot of callers. I kept on following him till a few days before the Dempsey-Tunney fight.

It was at this juncture that Remus burst into a flood of tears. His sobs got louder and louder until Truesdale could no longer be heard.

His daughter Romola, by his side that day, was also in tears. So was Mrs. Gabriel Ryerson, Remus’s sister, and several other spectators. Both women jurors started crying too. “The jurors,” the
Cincinnati Enquire
noted, “were highly sympathetic.” All eyes were on Remus, shaking spasmodically, bent over his desk, head in hands.

Between sobs, Remus asked the judge: “Will you adjourn the court for a minute, Your Honor?” Judge Shook ordered Remus removed from the courtroom. He was still sobbing as marshals escorted him out, brushing away photographers. “No, no,” he told them. Turning to the judge, he said: “I am sorry, Your Honor, I . . . cannot . . . help . . . it.”

The court remained in session for another thirty minutes, with Truesdale impassive in the witness box. Remus’s sobs could be heard from behind the door leading to the judge’s quarters. Finally Judge Shook adjourned the court.

The following morning a perfectly composed Remus entered the courtroom. “I wish to apologize, Your Honor, to you and the jury, for my unmannish [sic] conduct yesterday,” he said, and Truesdale resumed his testimony.

She said she wanted to see me at her hotel. Her bags were packed. She said she was going away. She told me I would have to hurry as it wouldn’t be long before the divorce case. She said she would be gone for ten days to two weeks. After this I saw Remus in Hamilton but had no opportunity to kill him.

Then on October 2 I called at the Alms Hotel. Mrs. Remus said she had been in Chicago for the Dempsey-Tunney fight. She said she was very anxious as the time was running short. She said she would meet me at midnight at the Rentschler building. I noticed a man on the corner and she said he was Dodge, the man who would give me the other $5,000.

Truesdale said Imogene and he walked to the Grand Hotel. She wanted to find out whether Remus was registered there under his
name. There was a car outside, with three men inside, one of them Dodge, and Imogene and Truesdale followed at walking pace. “I was a little afraid of this,” Truesdale told the court. Imogene said: “If I see him tonight, I’ll kill him myself,” and showed him a pearl-handled revolver in her bag. By this time Truesdale had had enough. He left. “I never got in touch with Mrs. Remus again.”

When he finally met Remus, the following day — October 5 — and told him what he had just told the court, Remus broke down. “I felt he was insane.” Truesdale added he had sought out Remus “because I feared I was being set up and would go to jail for something.”

The prosecution did its best to discredit his story. Truesdale had a “Bertillon” — that is, a major criminal record — and Sibbald made the most of it.

S
IBBALD:
You’re just a petty thief. You’d do anything if you got your price, right?

T
RUESDALE:
Yes, I would if I got the money for it.

S
IBBALD:
You’d come here and give perjured testimony if you got enough money out of it?

T
RUESDALE:
No, I don’t give perjured testimony.

S
IBBALD:
You’d commit murder for money but you wouldn’t commit perjury for money?

T
RUESDALE:
That’s a different thing.

S
IBBALD:
You know the woman is dead.

T
RUESDALE:
She must be. [laughter in court]

The prosecution tried to show that Imogene had never asked him to kill Remus, but simply to set him up with a woman, so that Imogene could burst in on him in flagrante.

Truesdale denied this. Sibbald abruptly changed his line of questioning.

S
IBBALD:
Did you divide the two hundred dollars with your partners?

T
RUESDALE:
No.

S
IBBALD:
Who were your partners?

T
RUESDALE:
Who were my partners? I don’t see why it’s necessary to bring . . .

Elston objected to the question.

T
RUESDALE:
I have no partners.

Truesdale denied he had been paid to testify, but, under further questioning, admitted staying at the Grand Hotel under the name of Harry Truelabe. Truesdale’s appearance had been carefully planned. Just prior to his testimony, William A. Hoefft, the cigar stand manager of the Sinton Hotel, had taken the stand. Hoefft had been seen with Remus the day before the murder.

“My God, Hoefft,” Remus told him, “I just had information I was going to be killed.” Hoefft told the court: “He sat with his head in his hands. I stayed with him for forty-five minutes. After quieting him down, Remus apologized. ... In my opinion he was insane.”