Q = Delphine Delmas

A = Evelyn Nesbit (Mrs. Thaw)

A. . . . So I began to tell him how and why I had first met Stanford White. I told him that a girl named Edna Goodrich had asked me to go to dinner with some friends of hers and—

Q. Mrs. Thaw, will you permit me right here—you have mentioned the name of a certain lady whom I do not know and I would request, if the request meets the approval of the district attorney, that in giving the narrative you omit, unless he insists on it, the names of any other persons in this case except Stanford White.

Mr. Jerome: A very proper request and I concur most thoroughly.

The Court: (to the court stenographer): Let the name be expunged from the record and the term young lady be substituted.

Q. Proceed.

A. So this young lady asked me to go to a dinner party with some friends of hers, and I said I did not think my mother would let me go. She came again and asked me to go to dinner—a day or maybe two days later—I do not remember which. This time I said I would ask my mother and my mother refused to let me go. Then this young lady and another young lady came and asked me to go on a lunch party with these same friends. They said there would be very nice people there, the very best in New York society, and my mother then said she would let me go. This young lady came for me one day in a hansom cab. My mother dressed me and we got into the hansom cab and I remember hoping that we would go to the Waldorf because I wanted to see it. But instead of that we went down Twenty-third Street up around where I lived, up Broadway, and turned in at West Twenty-fourth Street and stopped at a dingy-looking door. Edna Good—

Q. Yes. Be careful.

A. This young lady got out of the hansom cab and asked me to follow her. I got out too and we walked across—

Mr. Jerome: She is relating an occurrence, if Your Honor please, and should be instructed to confine herself to what she told Mr. Thaw.

The Court: Did you tell this to Harry K. Thaw? All of it?

The Witness: All of it.

The Court: About the Waldorf?

The Witness: Yes, sir.

Q. We may as well fix the time of this lunch, something the district attorney has suggested to me. When was that lunch, please?

A. I'm pretty sure it was in August.

Q. What year?

A. 1901, and I was then sixteen years and some months old.

Q. You say your mother dressed you on that occasion?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. Now, as you proceed with your narrative, I will again caution you to state only what you told Mr. Thaw.

A. Why I told him that the door opened without anybody opening it. The door opened itself, and we went in this door, and then we went up some steps and another door opened in the same way. Then we went up some more steps and when we got halfway up I stopped and asked this young lady where we were going. She said "It's all right, come right along," and we started upstairs again. And I followed her, and then a man's voice called downstairs "Hello," and then we—

Q. Did you see the man?

A. I could not see him. Not until I got to the top of the stairs.

Q. You heard the voice first before seeing the man?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. And then you saw him?

A. Yes.

Q. Who was the man?

A. Stanford White.

Q. Kindly proceed.

A. When we went into the room there was a table set for four people. The furnishings in the room were very fine. They were of velvet. But I thought the man was very big and ugly.

Q. Very brilliant, you say?

A. No; he was very big and I thought he was very ugly.

A. Yes, and he asked us to take off our hats. So we took off our hats and—

Q. Permit me, there was another gentleman with him?

A. Not then. The other gentleman came a few minutes after—well, this other gentleman came in later and we sat down at the table, and I remember them teasing me because my hair was down my back and I had a short dress on.

Q. You still wore short dresses?

A. Yes, sir, not very short; but they were to my shoetops.

Q. Now state what you narrated to Mr. Thaw of that lunch.

Q. We had this lunch party, and then this other man went away. He said he had business on Wall Street, and he went away. And then we went up two flights of stairs and got into another room, and in this room was a red velvet swing, and Mr. White would put us in this swing and we would swing up to the ceiling.

Q. When you say "us" you mean yourself and this other young lady?

A. Yes, and turn about.

Q. He would swing you?

A. Yes, he would push us until we would swing to the ceiling. There was a big Japanese umbrella on the ceiling, so when he pushed us our feet would crash through. And then after a while Mr. White said he was a hard-working man and he had to go back to his business, much as he would like to stay all day to swing us. And then he asked this young lady to come with him for a moment, that he wanted to speak to her, and they left me up in that place all by myself. After a few moments they came back and there was some talk about riding around the park, and then this young lady was to go to a dentist. Mr. White said that while she was there this dentist was to look at my teeth also. We went downstairs and got into an electric hansom and drove around the park, this lady and myself, and then she took me to the dentist. We said nothing to the dentist about looking at my teeth. She simply had something done to her teeth, and then she brought me home. I told Mamma all about it.

Jerome: One moment, will you. If Your Honor p]ease, this testimony is admissible only as to the effect it may have on the mind of the defendant. As Your Honor knows the People will not be allowed to introduce any testimony to show that the facts did not occur. I ask Your Honor at this point to instruct the jury that the only purpose of this testimony is to show that the mind of the defendant was affected by the narration to him of these facts. The rules of evidence do not permit the district attorney to controvert the facts, the only question being whether they were or were not told the defendant.

Delmas agreed and the jury was so instructed.

Q. Proceed then with the next statement you made to Mr. Thaw.

A. I told him that the next time I saw Mr. White he had written a letter to my mother, asking her to call at One-sixty Fifth Avenue. She went there and when she came back—I told Mr. Thaw that she went—and Mr. Thaw wanted to know what Mr. White had said to my mother, and I told him that Mr. White had requested her not only to take me to the dentist and have all my teeth fixed, but that she was to go too about hers. And my

mother said no, it was a very strange thing to do. But Mr. White said he had done it for nearly all the other girls in "Florodora," and they'd all gone to this dentist to have their teeth fixed and that we were to think nothing of it, but simply go and have our teeth done. And then the next time I saw Mr. White was at another luncheon in the same suite of rooms in Twenty-fourth street.

The Court: Did you tell this to Mr. Thaw?

A. Yes, and that Mr. White had told me there would be several parties there whom I already knew, but I must not ask who until I got there. He asked me not to say anything to the first young lady I had gone with. And before that, I told Mr. Thaw, Mr. White had sent me a hat and a boa.

Q. A what?

A. A hat and a feather boa and a long red cape. My mother made me a new dress, and sent it to the theatre one night and told me I was invited to a surprise party. I was to put on the new dress, the boa and the hat, and a carriage would wait for me west of Thirty-ninth Street, west of a grocery store that was there then. I went out of the theatre and across the street and a man came out of the doorway of the grocery. The man was Stanford White and we got into the carriage and drove to Madison Square Garden and went up the elevator and into the tower to his apartment. There was a young lady there and another man.

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Q. Proceed with your narrative, madam.

A. Mr. Thaw asked how they behaved at the party and I said very nicely.

Q. Did you tell him what room and apartment you had gone into in the Madison Square Garden Tower?

A. I did. I told him it was in the part of the tower that Mr. White had his apartment.

Q. Did he ask you to describe these apartments to him?

A. No. He said he'd been in them once himself.

Q. You told him, as I understand you, that this party was perfectly proper?

A. Yes, and that I had a very nice time and I had supper there, and that Mr. White wouldn't let me have but one glass of champagne. I told him that Mr. White said "This little girl was not to have more than one glass" and that she was not to stay up too late and must be taken home to her mother. And he took me home to my mother, took me clear to the door of our apartment at the Arlington Hotel, and knocked at my mother's door.

Q. What time of night was it then?

A. Half-past one or a quarter of two.

Q. Proceed then.

A. I told Mr. Thaw there were three or four parties like that with the same people.

Q. ln the tower?

A. In the tower, all in the tower.

Q. Did you give him a description of the parties, whether anything peculiar or strange happened there? Did you tell him, as with the other, they were all apparently proper?

A. Yes.

Q. You say the same persons were present at all these parties?

A. Yes, the same people.

Q. Very well, then, what else did you tell him about the events of this time?

A. I told him that Mr. White came to call on my mother several times, and asked if she wanted to go to Pittsburgh to visit her friends there. She said no, she couldn't go and visit there and leave me alone in New York. And then he came to see mother several times while I was there. I remember hearing him tell her it was not impossible for her to go to visit Pittsburgh, if I was left with him. He said she might go and visit Pittsburgh and leave me in New York in perfect safety, and that he would take good care of me. And he made me promise I would not go out with anybody but him while Mamma was away.

Q. Proceed.

A. And Mamma told me he was a very grand man, and I remember he gave her the money to go. And the next day, I think, after she left Mr. White sent a carriage for me at ten o'clock in the morning and told me I was to come to the studio and have photographs taken. So at ten o'clock I got in the carriage and went to his studio in East Twenty-second Street.

Q. I think we better fix the time of this visit to his studio.

A. It was in 1901, sometime in August, I would say.

Q. You told Mr. Thaw about the occurrences that took place in that studio?

A. Yes, I said there were no curtains in the windows and it looked as though nobody lived there. Then when I got upstairs there was a man I knew, a photographer I'd posed for. He was there with another man, the man who carried his plates to and from the camera and the dark room.

Q. You say you described to Mr. Thaw what took place in that studio?

A. Yes, I told him they showed me a dressing room, and gave me a very gorgeous kimono that Mr. White said came from Japan.

Q. Mr. White was there when you first came in?

A. Yes, and after I posed for a long, long time I got very tired. Then Mr. White told the photographer and the other man they could go. The other man, I think was sent out to get some food. And then I went into the dressing room, and shut the door, and took off the kimono and put on my dress. While I was in there. Mr. White came to knock on the door and to ask if I needed any help, and I said no. After I got dressed I came out again and there was some food in the studio.

Q. Proceed, then.

A. We sat down and ate. Mr. White said he wouldn't let me have but one glass of champagne, and then he put me in a carriage and sent me back to the hotel.

Q. Your mother, I think you told me, was away at this time?

A. Yes, in Pittsburgh. And the very next night after I posed for the photographs I received a note from Mr. White at the theatre asking me to come to a Party and saying he would send a carriage for me. After the theatre I went in the carriage to the Twenty-fourth Street studio. Mr. White was there but no one else. I asked him if the same people were coming as to the other parties, and he said, "What do you think? They have turned us down." And I said "Oh, it's too bad. Then we won't have any party." He said, "They have all probably gone off somewhere else and forgotten about us." I said, "Had I better go home?" He said "No, we will have some food anyhow, in spite of them." So I took off my hat and coat and we sat down at the table and ate the food. Then I remember Mr. White going away for a while and then coming back. So after we had supper, when I got up from the table he told me I had not seen all of the place, that there were three floors, and that there were very beautiful things in all of the various rooms, and that he would take me around and show them to me. So he went up another flight of stairs, not the one I had gone up before but a little, tiny backstairs and we came into a strange room that I hadn't seen before. There was a piano in this one and paintings on the wall and lovely, very interesting cabinets. I sat down at the piano and played something. Then Mr. White asked me to come and see the back room. We went through some curtains—and the back room was a bedroom. And there I sat down at a table, a tiny, little table. There was a bottle of champagne on it, a small bottle and one glass. Mr. White picked up the bottle and poured the champagne into the glass until it was full. I didn't pay much attention as I was looking at a picture over the mantel, a very beautiful one that attracted my attention. Then he told me what it was and told me he had decorated this room himself and he showed me all the beautiful things in it. lt was very small. Then he told me to finish my champagne, which I did. I said I didn't care much for it. The champagne was bitter and funny-tasting, and I didn't know whether it was a minute after that, or two minutes after that, but a pounding began in my ears, a something pounding, then the whole room seemed to go around, everything got—black.

Q: I do not wish, madam, to distress you any more than is necessary in this matter, but it is absolutely essential that you should go on with your testimony.

A. Then, when I woke up, all my clothes were pulled off of me. I was in bed. 1 sat up in bed and I started to scream. Mr. White got up and put on one of his kimonos, the kimono was Iying on a chair, and then I moved up and pulled some covers over me, and there were mirrors all around the bed; mirrors on the sides of the wall and on the top. Then I looked down and saw blotches of blood on the sheets. Then I screamed and screamed and screamed, and he came over and asked me to please keep quiet and that I must not make so much noise. He said, "It's all over, it's all over." Then I screamed "Oh, no!" And then he brought a kimono over to me and he went out of the room. Then, as I got out of the bed, I began to scream more than ever. Then he came back into the room and tried to quiet me. I don't remember how I got my clothes on or how 1 went home. But he took me home. Then he went away and left me and I sat up all night—

Q. Where was Mr. White, madam, at the time you regained your consciousness? You say you found you had been stripped. Did you describe to Mr. Thaw where White was?

-A. Yes. He was right beside me.

Q. W'here?

A. In the bed.

Q. Dressed or undressed?

A. Completely undressed.

Q. Did you tell anything more on that occasion to Mr. Thaw than you have related? If so, please relate it to the

A I told him Mr. White came to me again next day. I was sitting there in a chair. I hadn't eaten anything. I had not gone to bed. I w,as quiet now and sat staring out of the window. After a while, he said to me, "Why don't you look at me, child?" I said "Because I can't." Then Mr. White got down on his knees beside me and picked up the edge of my dress and kissed it. Then he told me I must not worry about what had occurred. He said that everything was all right. He said he thought I had the most beautiful hair he'd ever seen. He said that everybody did these things, that all people were doing these things, that this was what all people were for, all they live for. He said that I was so nice and young and slim that he couldn't help it, and so did it. And he told me that only very young girls were nice, and the thinner they were the prettier they were, and that nothing was so loathsome as fat, and I must never get fat. I looked at him. I said "Does everybody you know do these things?" and he said "Yes." And the first thing I could think of was this sextette. I asked him if the sextette did these things. He sat down and started to laugh. He laughed and laughed. Then he said, "That is a good thing." Then I asked him did several other people that I had met do these things, and he said "They all do." He said that everybody did these things and that the great thing in this world was not to be found out; that I must be clever about that. He made me swear I would not tell my mother. He said I must not tell anybody, that people did not talk about these things, did not tell about them. He said some girls at the theatre were very foolish and got talked about. He said they ought to take the example of the society womenj that they ought to see how the society women understood and realized the great thing was not to be found out. He spoke of several who were clever about it.

Q. What else did you tell Mr. Thaw about that conversation?

A. I don't remember anything more.

Q. Did you state anything that Mr. White had told you of this stupor that you had fallen into?

A. Yes, and he asked me not to ask him anything about it, that he had not hurt me, and that I must not worry about it.

Q. What was the effect of this statement of yours upon Mr. Thaw?

A. He would Get up and walk up and down the room, and then bite his nails, and say "Oh, God! Oh, God!" And he kept sobbing.

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