Witch Murder

In Buffalo, N. Y., last month occurred a sordid sex murder involving two red women. Into the home of Henri Marchand, artist for the Buffalo Natural History Museum, had walked Nancy Bowen, 66-year-old Cayuga Indian from the nearby Cattaraugus Reservation. She had confronted Mrs. Marchand, small, slight, with a question: "Are you a witch?" Jestingly Mrs. Marchand replied: "Yes." Thereupon Nancy Bowen beat her down with a 10-c- hammer, stuffed chloroform-soaked paper down her throat, left her dead.

Charged with instigating the crime was Lila ("Red Lilac") Jimerson, 39, a Seneca Indian, sallow, flat-chested, scraggle-haired, toothless, a consumptive whom doctors have given two years to live. She had been Marchand's model for Indian pictures for the museum. He had seduced her, continued his relations with her. She loved him. She had told Nancy Bowen on the reservation that Mrs. Marchand was a witch, that she was responsible for the death of Charley ("Sassafras") Bowen, Nancy's husband. Nancy Bowen went to the Marchand house, committed the crime which Lila Jimerson thought would give her Artist Marchand for her husband.

Last week the trial of Lila Jimerson for first-degree murder began in Buffalo. Suddenly the U. S. Government became interested in its ward, the defendant. Attorney General William DeWitt Mitchell instructed Richard Harkness Templeton, U. S. District Attorney at Buffalo, to take over Lila Jimerson's defense in the state court. When Mr. Templeton presented himself, with evident reluctance, at the trial, the state prosecutor, Guy Moore, fairly bellowed his protest:

"I deeply resent this eleventh-hour and unwarranted interference by Washington bureaucracy! I object to Mr. Templeton's unfair interjection into this case. He has no right here! I request the court to ask him to get out."

When Mr. Templeton asked for a long adjournment of the trial so he could study the case, the judge's turn to explode came: "The Attorney General of the U. S. is not running this court. Motion denied." Thereafter Mr. Templeton took a very minor part in the Jimerson defense. His presence in the state court was largely due to Kaw-blooded Vice President Charles Curtis, who asked the U. S. Bureau of Indian Affairs to look after Red Lilac's rights. When asked to explain his interest in the case, Mr. Curtis declared it was "only casual."

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