Trip of Death
by David Anderson
Edited and additional material by Guy Hadleigh
Tiny snowflakes danced in the headlight beams. The tires crunched over snow ruts as the Buick sedan labored slowly toward the top of a hill a few miles outside Walden, New York,
“It's deathly quiet, isn’t it Bill?” breathed Phoebe Stader when the car reached the crest. For miles around the countryside lay asleep under the white blanket.
Bill Frazer brought the car to a halt. "Let's sit here awhile," he said. He took a bottle of applejack from the seat beside him. Lifting it in a salute, he smiled at Phoebe. “A toast to death."
“Why, Bill.” said Phoebe reproachfully, “you've been drinking too much. You're morose."
He put the bottle to his lips and drank deeply. Then he handed it to the woman beside him. Unknowingly, she, too, drank a toast to death.
When she finished, Bill Frazer, his eyes heavy lidded, faced her squarely. "You don't love me anymore, do you?" He spoke deliberately, like one declaring a truth.
Phoebe turned on him sharply. "I’m not going to spoil a perfectly nice evening by listening to that kind of talk.”
"Well it’s true," snapped Frazer. "Now that my inheritance is gone, you’re through with me, aren’t you?" Her silence aggravated him. He shook her. "Aren’t you? You’re through with me.”
"You’re drunk, Bill Frazer." Phoebe looked through the windshield at the falling snow. Tears came to her eyes. "I’ve broken up my home because of you," she said. "I’m going to throw away seven years of married life and get a divorce because of you. That’s how much I love you."
Frazer relaxed his hold on her. "Sometimes, Phoebe,” he said, "I lose my temper just thinking about you. I feel that something will come up to keep us from going through with the life we want. It’s like in that show we saw at Newburgh tonight—The Right To Love. We have a right to love, Phoebe, no matter what the world thinks. People say that because I’ve been married to Hilda for thirteen years and have two kids that I should keep on loving her. But I don’t. I love you. Phoebe.”
Mrs. Stader tried to quiet him. "We’ll get married all right. Bill. We’ll have the life we want."
Frazer’s moroseness increased. He took another drink from the bottle. "How can you be so sure,” he said.
"Hilda will give you a divorce, Bill,” Phoebe said in quiet voice.
“And I've already left Philip. When all the red tape is over, you and I can be married. While things are being settled, we can go to Florida. We can leave right away."
Sounds simple the way you put it," Frazer argued, "but it's not that easy. There’s you and me to think about. I had a lot of money two years ago when you and I met. Most of its gone now. That’s why you’ve been so cool to me."
Phoebe Stader shuddered as his accusing words poured out in a quickening stream.
“That’s why you came to Walden instead of staying in Rahway. You were trying to run away from me." Frazer stared drunkenly at the woman beside him. "Why don’t you say that it's all over between you and me? Why don’t you say it?”
"Oh. Bill," sighed Mrs. Stader, “you're impossible."
Darkness hid the color flushing up from his neck. They sat in stony silence, each staring at the snow. The car lights were off and their eyes were accustomed now to the darkness. They could see the full sweep of the valley stretching out before them.
Suddenly Frazer said: “I don’t like this neighborhood. Gives me the willies, like someone you can't see is creeping around. I think I'll put my gun in the front seat.”
“All right,” said Phoebe, "but we’d better not stay much longer.’’
Frazer opened the door on his side of the car and got out. He stepped into ankle-deep snow and opened the rear door. A .22 caliber rifle was shoved behind the back seat. Frazer pulled it out. As Phoebe Stader leaned over in the front seat to fix her stocking, a shot cracked the stillness of the night. The echo circled the valley.
Frazer heard a painful gasp. Then he saw Phoebe slump down in the front seat, her head resting against the side window. Blood, flowing from a wound in the back of her head, streamed down her neck and over her coat. Bill Frazer became panicky. He climbed into the front seat and shook the dying woman. “Phoebe. Phoebe, darling. I love you. I didn’t mean to do it." But her lips were sealed. He touched her chest and felt the faint beat of her heart. Phoebe Stader was still alive.
Frazer started the car and drove down the country road to the main highway leading to New Jersey. It was shortly after midnight, February 18.
As the passionate paramour drove through the snow with the dying woman beside him, the night became filled with fears. At an intersection in Walden, where Phoebe’s sister lived, he slowed down before a traffic signal. Again he leaned over and touched her. The heart still beat.
He started the car and raced toward Rahway, New Jersey, his home town. Speeding through Elizabeth, New Jersey, he again tested Phoebe Stader’s pulse and found she still was alive. A few miles farther, he came to Rahway and stopped before the house at 67 Cherry Street where his mother and cousin lived. Before leaving the car, Frazer felt Phoebe’s pulse. It was quiet. He put his head close to hers, than drew back.
Phoebe Stader was dead.
William Frazer sat numbly on the front seat, looking at the woman he loved. Her eyes, once dark and inviting, were now dead. Only now, it seemed, did Frazer fully realize the beauty of Phoebe Stader. Her raven hair was soft and lovely to touch. He remembered having stroked it lovingly. And now, with the recollection, he reached over and touched the lifeless hair. Pangs of remorse gripped him. He choked back sobs, but they kept returning.
Finally he got out of the car, locked the door and went into the house. The room where his cousin, Ira Jensen, slept was on the first floor. He trod softly to avoid waking his mother. Frazer went up to Ira's door. His knock was unanswered, so he walked in. Ira, a youth verging on twenty-one, stirred restlessly in his bed. Frazer shook him until he awoke. Ira pulled himself up on his elbows and gazed sleepily at his older cousin.
“What's the idea? Where've you been?" asked Ira.
Frazer sat wearily at the foot of the bed. "I’ve been up to Walden," he said. He looked sorrowfully at Ira “Oh. I’m in a beautiful mess. Phoebe is out in the car. She's dead."
Ira leaped from his bed. "Phoebe Stader dead!" he cried. "What do you mean? Are you kidding?"
"No. It’s true," was Frazer’s resigned reply. "She’s out in the car. Go see for yourself.”
Ira Jensen threw a coat over his pajamas. "How did it happen, Bill?" he asked.
"I don’t know. Don't be asking a lot of excited questions." Frazer kept rubbing his forehead with his hand as though he were trying to blot the past few hours from his mind. Ira became hysterical. "My God, Bill,” he gasped, "you’ve got a dead woman in the car and you sit around as if nothing happened. Did you kill her?"
“Stop with your questions," screamed Frazer. He arose from the bed. “Come on."
Ira followed him out of the room. When they reached the car, Frazer pointed to the front seat. "There she is," he said. “Will you help me move her into the back seat?"
Ira peeked through the window at the body. "There’s blood on her head, Bill."
"Shut up,” snapped Frazer. "Come on, help me move her.”
"I won't touch her.” said Ira, stepping back. “I won't."
"All right then. Get into the back seat."
“Where are we going?” asked the youth.
“I'm going to tell my wife." Frazer got into the front seat. When Ira had closed the rear door and seated himself behind the corpse, Frazer started the car and drove off. Young Jensen sat nervously staring at the wound in the back of the woman’s head. “Are you sure she’s dead. Bill?" he asked naively. “Did you take her to a doctor or anything?"
"No. I didn't go to a doctor. I was too scared."
Ira reached forward and gingerly touched Phoebe Stader's cheek. He withdrew his hand with a quick jerk. The cold lifelessness of the flesh chilled him.
Frazer pulled the car up before the house at 519 Jefferson Avenue. The pair got out. Frazer locked the car on its dead passenger and the two men entered the house.
Frazer’s wife, Hilda, a calm, intelligent woman and good mother, was asleep when her husband and Ira entered her room. She awoke as Frazer shut the door behind them.
"Where on earth have you been these last two nights, Bill?" she asked sitting up in bed. She noticed Ira’s worried eyes. "What’s wrong? Why are you here at this time of night, Ira?"
"Plenty's wrong, Hilda, I just killed somebody."
“Bill!" she cried, “Who?" Quick glances at her husband and Ira told her of the seriousness of the situation. “Who was it, Bill?"
Frazer sat limply at the foot of her bed. “You ought to know who,” he said.
Hilda leaned against the back of the bed for support. She knew. The amorous escapades of her cheating husband during the past two years told Hilda Frazer who it was. The pains, the shame, the suffering she had gone through came to mind as she spoke the name, "Phoebe Stader.”
"Yes, it's Phoebe,” said her husband.
So this, thought Hilda, was the end of Phoebe Stader and upon the shoulders of her unfaithful husband, Bill, rested the responsibility of the crime. But even now, she couldn't hate him as she thought she should. “Why did you do It, Bill? How did it happen?"
Pricked by the questions he didn’t want to answer. Frazer snapped: "I don't know.”
“What are you going to do?" she asked.
"What is there to do, Hilda? Where can I go?"
Hilda mustered control over herself. She got up and put on a dressing gown. Bill needed her now. He hadn't needed her in the past two years, but now he did. Poor, weak Bill, thought Hilda. His weaknesses have led him to problems beyond her power to solve, but he still was her husband. She'd do her best for him. "Bill," she said firmly as she sat beside him on the bed, “you’ve got to give yourself up. There's no other way out."
Ira Jensen, standing awkwardly beside them agreed with Hilda. Bill had to give himself up.
“I can’t do that," he wailed. “I just can’t"
His wife and his cousin pleaded and argued with him. But the fear was too great within him. Their appeals only irritated him. He snapped at his wife and at Ira. Finally Hilda told Ira to step out of the room for a moment. This early morning ordeal was hard on the youth and he willingly left the room.
For ten minutes he stood outside the door to Hilda’s room. He heard the calm, pleading voice of Hilda. She was begging Bill to give himself up.
There was silence in the room Ira stepped nervously toward the door. As he did, it opened. Bill Frazer, pale and haggard, came out.
“Come with me, Ira," he said curtly.
"Where to?" asked the worried youth.
"Don’t ask why or where. Come along.”
Obediently, Ira followed his cousin out to the death car. He got into the back seat. Frazer, tight-lipped and grim, climbed in behind the wheel. Like a woman in deep slumber, the body of Phoebe Stader lay slumped beside him. Frazer drove off.
Ira Jenson now was becoming afraid of his cousin. He wanted to leap from the car and run for his life. No telling what the mad Frazer would do now. Ira imagined the car racing head-long over some cliff, or hurtling into some building in a wild suicide crash. As these thoughts went through his mind, his fingers felt cold metal. They clasped around the rifle.
This might be a solution to William Frazer's troubles, thought the youth. It would mean blood on his hands, too, but it would be an act of mercy. But no. Not while the car was speeding at this clip. Ira's irritation increased.
“Bill," he cried, "where are we going?”
“Up to Bram Hall Road.” replied Frazer sullenly.
“Why?” asked Ira.
"Never mind," Frazer bluntly retorted...
The winter night was just beginning to fade into dawn when the two men and their dead companion reached the dreary Bram Hill Road. Frazer drove the car off the road into a clump of trees. He got out and opened the back door for Ira. The youth stepped out nervously into the snow. Frazer reached into the back seat and brought out the gun.
Ira looked questionably at his cousin.
''I’m going to kill myself," said Bill deliberately; “You walk up the road so you can't see me. When you hear a shot, you'll know I'm dead. Then go back to town and tell them about it. Go on now. Beat it before I change my mind."
Ira Jenson turned and walked quickly up the road. A chilling early morning wind whipped him. It wailed a requiem through the barren trees. When he was about fifty yards from the car, he stopped. The first thought that came to his mind was that he had forgotten to say goodbye to his unfortunate cousin. Ira and Bill always had been friendly, although Frazer was much older. Now Ira realized that he would never see Bill alive again. For a fleeting moment he contemplated dashing back to say some kind word of farewell. Then when he realized the deed William Frazer was about to commit he decided against any interruption.
Ten minutes passed. Whatever preparations Bill had to go through, he must be ready now. Ira braced himself against a tree. He tried to turn his thoughts to other things, the coming dawn, his plans for the future, the last movie he had seen. The image of all these thoughts came to mind, but his throbbing mind kept returning to the dominant thought: William Frazer is standing over there about to shoot himself.
Another five minutes passed. Ira looked anxiously in the direction of the car. Then the sound of a horn broke the morning stillness. Bill was calling to him. Ira returned.
“I can’t do it, Ira," said Frazer when the youth approached. "I haven't the nerve to pull the trigger.” Frazer handed young Jenson the gun. "Here, you do it.”
“Me?” Ira almost fell over. "You want me to kill you?"
“Yes." Frazer shoved the gun into the youth’s trembling hands.
"I won't do it. I won’t kill you."
"You've got to,” pleaded Frazer. His calm, deliberate manner frightened Ira all the more. The youth threw the rifle into the snow, Frazer picked it up. “All right," said Frazer, ‘if you won’t do it, then go on up the road again. I’ll try it again. This time I’ll do it."
Ira turned. "Goodbye, Bill” he called back haltingly. His cousin disappeared behind the car and Ira returned to his waiting place. This time another fifteen minutes passed. Then the youth heard his cousin's voice. “Ira. Oh, Ira.” He returned to the car.
"I haven't the nerve,” said Frazer. “It's all off. I’m going home to bed and figure things out. Come here and help me move the body into the back seat so people won’t notice it."
Ira refused.
“I can't lift her by myself.” protested Frazer.
“I won't touch her,” insisted Ira. "You go ahead and move her. I'll wait for you." Ira walked a few feet from the car and watched his cousin struggle to place the corpse of Phoebe Stader into the back seat. He propped her form against the back cushion and then covered her with a blanket.
Ira returned and climbed into the front seat where Phoebe Stader had died.
"I’m going to take it on the fly,” said Frazer as he started the car.
They drove back to the home of Frazer’s mother at 67 Cherry Street. When they pulled up before the house, Frazer sent Ira in for a box. The youth returned with a strawberry crate. Frazer pulled the blanket down from the corpse and rested the crate between the knees and the chin. Then he replaced the blanket. The corpse of Phoebe Stader resembled nothing more than a pile of luggage in the rear seat. Frazer locked the car. Then he entered the house and went to bed.
The first thing William Frazer did the next morning was to burn Phoebe Stader's pocketbook in the furnace after having removed about two dollars in change. Then Frazer gathered together some belongings and loaded them into the front seat of the death car. Then he drove away. Just as he and Phoebe had planned a Florida vacation a few hours ago, so, now, was William Frazer driving southward—with the corpse of the woman he loved..!
Ira Jensen found himself still obligated to his erring cousin when he woke up that morning. Frazer had left Ira a note asking him to get two hundred dollars from Bill’s mother and bring it to him at the Sir Walter Hotel in Rahway, North Carolina. Frazer’s note said he would be using the name of H. G. Devlin.
Young Ira felt duty bound. On Friday morning, February 20th, he met Frazer in Rahway and gave him two hundred dollars. Then Ira returned to Rahway by bus on the following Monday.
The past five days had completely unnerved the youth. He didn’t know where to turn. He visited Frazer's wife directly upon returning from Rahway. After talking it over, they both decided that the crime could no longer be kept from authorities. So Jensen went to Rahway's Chief of Police, George McIntyre. He unburdened himself of the terrible events that had taken place since the previous Wednesday morning.
McIntyre asked Jensen why he had not reported the death of Phoebe Stader upon first learning about it. The youth said that Frazer had warned him he would get ten years' punishment in prison for saying anything about it.
Chief McIntyre immediately contacted Roy A. Martin, Chief of Union County detectives, at Elizabeth. New Jersey. Martin hurried to Rahway and again Ira Jensen told his sensational story.
At first authorities were skeptical. This tale was almost too fantastic, they thought. They checked with Philip Stader at South Amboy. New Jersey. He reported that he had last seen his wife on Monday, February 16th, when she went to Walden, New York, to visit her sister, Mrs. Fred McLoughlin. Stader added that he was anxious because she was supposed to have telephoned him from Walden.
With that, police sent out a statewide alarm for the fugitive, William M. Frazer, who was carrying a dead woman passenger in a brown Buick sedan.
Now, six days after Phoebe Stader's death, the far-flung arm of the police was thrown into action.
Meanwhile, authorities at Walden, New York, contacted Mrs. Stader's sister, Mrs. McLoughlin. She confirmed that Phoebe had left Walden on Tuesday, February 17th, with William Frazer. But Mrs. McLoughlin showed defectives a letter which she had just received from Frazer, Dated February 25th, it had been mailed from Philadelphia. The letter said:
"Hoping you didn't worry about us, but we got pretty well canned up and instead of going to Walden we landed in Philadelphia. Phoebe is sleeping it off now, but she said to write you and let you know, and she will write later. My wife is suing me for divorce, and so I won't have to answer it, we are going on a trip. As you know this is the first one, but it will be the one to remember. We sold the Buick and bought a Packard and some new clothes and are on our way to California. How is that?"
It was signed: “Bill."
So, according to this letter, Phoebe Stader was alive on February 25th. Then, what about Jensen's story?
Martin figured that if Frazer was in Rahway—and Jensen believed that his cousin would remain there—it was obvious that the fugitive would not risk capture by staying at any one hotel or boarding house for very long. With this in mind, the shrewd Chief decided to break from his usual procedure and apply some armchair detective work. He figured that Frazer would make arrangements with friends and relatives for money to be sent to Rahway. A man of his caliber would not hold on to two hundred dollars for very long.
So Martin mailed a letter from Elizabeth to “H. G. Devlin, care of General Delivery, Rahway."
Then he talked to Chief of Police Winder Bryan, of Rahway, by telephone. Martin told Bryan of his mailing the letter to Devlin in care of General Delivery. Frazer, alias Devlin, might lie about receiving mail in that manner. If so, the Rahway post-office would be the most likely place to nab him.
Bryan sent two of his best detectives, J. E. Lowe and H. L. Peebles, to the post-office to keep watch for a man answering Frazer's description.
The next morning a newspaper item from Bowling Green, Virginia, told of the discovery of the nude body of a woman near Dawson. Virginia. The newspaper article said that the body was badly mutilated and identifying features were scarce.
Martin reasoned that if Frazer went to Rahway, his route south might have taken him through Dawson. So Detective Jeremiah McNamara was sent immediately to Bowling Green to check on the body. A few hours later McNamara reported to Chief Martin by telephone from Bowling Green.
"The buzzards sure did their job on this body." the detective said. “I can’t tell if it’s Phoebe Stader or not. Better have the husband come down here and take a look at it."
Louis Stader was willing to help police in any way. When informed about the body at Bowling Green, he went there at once. McNamara met him and took him directly to the Davis & Pegg morgue.
Stader shuddered as he looked upon the torn remains. Could this mute evidence of treachery be what was left of his beautiful and erring Phoebe? Stader examined the body minutely. He looked at the teeth and noted that the root of a decayed tooth was still visible. The toes were manicured the way Phoebe did hers, and the little toe on the right foot was turned under, just as Phoebe’s did.
Stader’s hands shook as he went over the gruesome remains. There was one more thing he must look for before being sure it was Phoebe’s body—a bruise he had noticed on her right leg a few days before she left home. The body in the morgue was turned on its side. There, on the right thigh, was the bruise.
Stader broke down and sobbed. "It’s Phoebe," he said. “It’s my wife." As authorities helped him from the room, Stader vowed to get the person responsible for this. “If I find him." he said, "they won’t have to use the electric chair on him.”
Following the identification, the body was sent to Elizabeth. With the discovery of the corpus delicti, the remaining job was to capture William Frazer.
So far the apprehension of Frazer depended on Chief Martin’s dummy letter addressed to H. G. Devlin. Although Detectives Lowe and Peebles had maintained a continuous watch outside the general delivery window of the Rahway post-office, no H. G. Devlin had turned up.
But only a few hours after the body of Phoebe Stader was identified at Bowling Green, Virginia, the general delivery clerk in the Rahway post-office signaled to Lowe and Peebles. The detectives noticed a sleek, well-dressed man standing before the window. He was puzzling over a letter in his hand.
Lowe and Peebles flanked him.
"Mr. Devlin." said Peebles, “you also answer to the name William Frazer. Am I right?”
In his astonishment, the captive let the letter slip from his fingers and flutter to the floor. Lowe picked it up. It was the dummy which Chief Martin had mailed from Elizabeth to H. G. Devlin.
"Why, yes,” said the man. “I’m William Frazer, so what?"
“You’re wanted for the murder of Phoebe Stader.” snapped Peebles.
Frazer paled. “Mrs. Stader dead?” he cried. “I know nothing about it.”
The detectives rushed him to police headquarters. When searched, identification cards were found in his pockets.
Word of Frazer's capture was dispatched immediately to Elizabeth and Union County prosecutor, Abe David, left at once for Rahway.
In the meantime, Rahway police pieced together other important links in the case.
They found the brown Buick sedan which Frazer had left in a parking lot. In the death car was a pair of scissors and a pair of pliers.
Rahway detectives then attempted to retrace Frazer’s trail since his arrival in the North Carolina city. They found that the prisoner had stayed at Craddock's Rooming House. Detectives questioned guests at the place. Some of them recognized Frazer's picture. But for the most part they knew nothing about him, explaining that he didn't get friendly with them.
But one of the guests, William T. McGrath, had a strange story to tell. He knew Frazer only as H. G. Devlin. McGrath said he was hitch-hiking to Florida when Frazer picked him up near Petersburg, Virginia. He was prepared to swear that he saw Frazer burn the blood-stained clothing of a woman in a roadside fire.
When Prosecutor David arrived in Rahway, he confronted Frazer with the evidence on hand. But the prisoner continued to maintain that he knew nothing of Phoebe Stader's death. “It's a blow to me.” Frazer kept repeating. “I was in love with Phoebe. He contended that he came to Rahway to look for a job and was going to Florida if nothing turned up.
But under David’s hammering questions, the illicit lover finally broke down. He admitted that Phoebe Stader was shot in his car on the night of February 17th, 1931. But he declared emphatically that the shooting was accidental. He was willing to be taken back to Elizabeth for further investigation. And at Elizabeth, in the unpretentious office of Prosecutor David, he unfolded his Odyssey of Death—a grisly journey that covered six states.
“On Tuesday," Frazer said, “I had a date to meet Phoebe at one o’clock in the afternoon. We went to Newburgh to a Chinese restaurant on the main drag and had something to eat.
"We had a quart of liquor and we drank,” Frazer continued. ’Then we went to a moving picture show. Afterward we went back to the chop suey joint and had something to eat and drink. Then we went to another moving picture show. We made up our minds to go to Florida. We started out but somewhere near Walden I got nervous or something while we were sitting in the car talking. I had a gun underneath the back seat of the car. I went back to get the gun. When I was getting it out it went off accidentally somehow. I did not know what to do. I thought I would go to Rahway. I went there and told my cousin and then told my wife."
Frazer related that both his wife and cousin advised him to give himself up. He then told of his two futile attempts to shoot himself.
David questioned Frazer about when and where Phoebe Stader died. The purpose in this was to determine which county had jurisdiction over the prosecution of the case. The killer said that he knew Mrs. Stader was alive when he passed the Durant plant on Frelinghuysen Avenue, at Elizabeth. He added that when he stopped the car at Rahway, she was dead.
This definitely placed the death in Union County, under the jurisdiction of David's office.
The one big remaining mystery was the death ride south. This Frazer described readily. He drove from Rahway to Philadelphia with the body of Mrs. Stader in the back seat. “I stopped in Baltimore and rested up that night (Wednesday). From there I went to Washington.” Arriving in the nation's capital shortly after midnight, Frazer said he parked the car and slept in it all night beside the corpse of the slain woman. The capitol dome was visible from where he slumbered.
“I left Washington the next morning." he continued, “with the body still in the car. I next stopped at Richmond for gas. I don’t know where I stopped next—maybe in Virginia. I don’t know how far I drove — it was on this road I took out the body. It was day time—it was still light.
“I dragged the body maybe a block. The ground was not paved - it was not in a city; that would have been a cinch. It was a field with a few trees and shrubs. Then I removed the clothing. I used the scissors, probably the same ones found in the car. I took the clothing off because it would be easier to trace the body with the clothes on. The pliers found in the car are the ones I used to remove the ring from her finger."
Frazer added that he arrived in Rahway on Thursday, February 19th. He then confirmed meeting his cousin, Ira, and receiving the money from him.
Chief Martin was anxious to clear up another bit of confusion. He pointed out that the letter which Mrs. McLoughlin received from Frazer in Philadelphia was dated February 25th. How could this be when the fugitive passed through Philadelphia Wednesday, February 18th? Frazer admitted that he wrote the letter to throw off any search for him. He also arranged for the belated mailing.
Anticipating a defense contention of insanity, the prosecution arranged to have Frazer examined by a board of alienists*. The board found him sane at the time the crime was committed and at the present time.
Frazer pleaded innocent. The defense built its case around the contention that the shooting was accidental.
Having received a court ruling that it was not necessary to prove a motive, the prosecution went ahead with a detailed presentation of the case. Among the numerous pieces of evidence brought into the courtroom was the Buick sedan which was hoisted up two floors. A large space usually reserved for spectators was taken up by the gruesome exhibit of the death car.
Throughout the trial William Frazer declared his love for Phoebe Stader. But the evidence against him was too overwhelming.
The jury found William Frazer guilty of murder in the first degree. No recommendation for mercy was made.
And at 8:14 pm on the night of April 1st, 1932, William Frazer paid with his life in the electric chair for the death of Phoebe Stader.
To his dying moment, his forgiving wife and mother remained loyal.
*Alienist – an archaic term for a psychologist or psychiatrist used to assess the competence of a court defendant, and which went out of general use around the middle of the 20th century.
