A NEW TRIAL Granted to Trefethen by Supreme Court. Verdict of Guilty Set Aside. Murder of Tena Davis Questioned Yet. Evidence of a Medium Not Admitted. Full Bench Holds That It Was Admissible. Declarations of the Girl About Suicide. Trefethen Seen in Jail Says He Expected Result.
The full bench of the Supreme Judicial Court, in a decision sent down this forenoon, has set aside the verdict in the case of James A. Trefethen, convicted of the murder of Tena Davis, and ordered a new trial.
The court holds that the evidence of the medium Sarah L. Hubert, as to statements made by Tena Davis a short time before her death should have been admitted.
The opinion of the court is as follows:
The principal exception in this case is to the refusal of the court to admit the testimony of Sarah L. Hubert. The exceptions recite that:
“Sarah L. Hubert, a witness called in behalf of the defendant, testified that her business, which she advertised in the newspapers, was that of a trance medium; that on Dec. 22, 1891, in the forenoon, after 10 o’clock, a young woman called at her place of business in Boston for consultation. There was sufficient evidence to go to the jury of her identification as Deltena J. Davis. Upon objection being made to the testimony of this witness, counsel for the defendants stated to the court, aside from the jury, that they offered to prove by this witness that at the interview on Dec. 22 the young woman aforesaid stated to the witness that she was five months pregnant with child, and had come to consult as to what to do, and added later in the interview that she was going to drown herself. The court refused to admit the testimony, and the defendants duly excepted.”
The exceptions also recite that:
“The evidence offered in behalf of the Commonwealth was wholly circumstantial, and tended to show that on Dec. 23, 1891, Deltena J. Davis left her home in Everett at about 7 o’clock in the evening, and was last seen on the corner of Ferry st. and Broadway, which is near her home in Everett, at about 25 minutes of 8, the same evening. On Jan, 10, 1892, her dead body was found in the Mystic river, a short distance below the Wellington bridge, about three miles from her home. There were no marks of violence on the body when found, nor was there any evidence that poison had been administered, nor did her clothing show Any Signs of Violence.
“The physicians called in behalf of the Commonwealth testified that the cause of death was drowning, and that from the stage which digestion had reached, death occurred between two and one-half and three and one-half hours after the deceased had eaten her last meal. There was evidence that the deceased ate her supper about 5 o’clock on the evening of Dec. 23, and that the partly digested food found in her stomach corresponded with that which it was testified she ate at that meal.
“The deceased was unmarried, and at the time of her death was pregnant with a male child, and was about five months advanced in the state of pregnancy. The defendants contended and argued, without objection, that all the evidence introduced Continued on the Fourth Page.
The Boston Globe – 20 Oct 1892, Thu – Page 1 Return to the top Return to James A. Trefethen web page