Prohibition: Thirteen Years That Changed America

by Behr, Edward

  Why the prosecution advanced the conspiracy theory is a mystery. It certainly added nothing to the case against Remus, for a conspiracy was not required to prove his own premeditation. Perhaps Taft assumed that with Remus’s conviction practically a foregone conclusion, this would enable him, in a subsequent trial, to indict Conners and Klug as well. Instead, he only weakened what, on the face of it, appeared to be an open and shut case.

  Subsequently, the Remus trial was scrutinized almost as relentlessly as the O. J. Simpson proceedings some seventy years later, and in retrospect it was clear the conspiracy charge harmed the prosecution’s case by detracting from Remus’s own dramatic role as executioner. It was in any case impossible to sustain, for there was not a shred of evidence to back it up. Conners, Klug, and Blanche Watson all insisted, in court, that there had been nothing at their dinner with him the night before to indicate that Remus intended to kill his wife. They also recalled their shock at the news of Imogene’s death with such conviction the jury clearly believed them.

  More damaging still to the prosecution was its unsuccessful attempt to dismiss as irrelevant any of Imogene’s behavior prior to her murder. “The State doesn’t think that the evidence should go back further than twenty-four hours,” Sibbald said in his opening statement.

  Elston, in his opening statement, argued against this. “Insanity is our defense,” he announced, “and insanity that dates back two years, brought about by a conspiracy on the part of his wife and this Franklin L. Dodge — a conspiracy to divorce Remus, keep him in jail, get his property and then deport him.” He outlined a conspiracy of a very different type — “a conspiracy to deprive the defendant of every last cent of the fortune he possessed, to keep him in prison as long as possible, and when all his sentences had been served, to deport him.” Imogene Remus

  . . . used the defendant’s money to hire assassins to take his life. . . . Insanity may show itself in different ways. We will show that after his spell in Atlanta penitentiary there was a very great deterioration in his mental faculties. We expect to show his mind snapped because these things bore down so heavily on him, because, after all, he is only human.

  Judge Shook decided evidence of this type was relevant, and would be heard. Remus had requested that all of Dodge’s and Imogene’s financial records be produced as evidence, and this too was granted — a huge advantage for the defense, though no reporters, at this stage, were prepared to bet on the trial’s outcome.

  The facts themselves were beyond dispute, for Remus had indeed gone straight to the police after the shooting, and other direct evidence was overwhelming. But, from the start, the prosecution behaved with singular incompetence. Ruth, Remus’s stepdaughter, was questioned about his attitude toward her after his release from Atlanta — and although she referred to his “disagreeableness,” she admitted under cross-examination by Elston that Remus was only trying to recover his property, including Ruth’s car — which he had paid for.

  The prosecution was equally inept in its handling of George Klug, Remus’s driver. Under cross-examination by Elston, Klug told the court that he had been threatened with jail unless he confessed to his part in the conspiracy, but was told “You won’t go to jail if you admit to driving Remus to the railway station.” Klug, treated like a hostile witness, admitted that prior to driving Remus to the Alms Hotel, he had spent the entire night gambling, only returning to the hotel at five thirty in the morning.

  The absurdity of the conspiracy allegation became apparent when another witness, William Hulvershorn, took the stand. Hulvershorn told the court how, at the wheel of his car in Eden Park, “I saw this man hurrying in the park like he was trying to make a train or something and I gave him a lift.” The man jumped in, and asked to be taken to the central station. On the way, he said: “You don’t know who I am?” Hulvershorn said no, and he replied “I’m George Remus.” “The famous George Remus?” Hulvershorn asked. “Glad to know you.” When the car arrived at the railway station, Remus appeared disconcerted. “I meant the central police station,” he said, adding, “I shot someone in the park.” A titter ran through the courtroom when Hulvershorn added: “I didn’t believe him when he told me who he was.”

  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.

  15

  REMUNS REDUX

  Eston’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

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

  ELSTON: When was the first time you saw him?

  TRUESDALE: Sometime during the latter part of the summer. A man called Marcus pointed him out to me. [Marcus’s na
me 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.

  ELSTON: Did you talk to him?

  TRUESDALE: I went there for that purpose.

  ELSTON: Did you form an opinion about sanity or insanity?

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

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

  TRUESDALE: 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.

  JUDGE SHOOK: Did you tell this to Mr. Remus?

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

  BASLER: Did you tell Mr. Remus this?

  TRUESDALE: 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.

  ELSTON: Who?

  TRUESDALE: 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.

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

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

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

  TRUESDALE: No, I don’t give perjured testimony.

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

  TRUESDALE: That’s a different thing.

  SIBBALD: You know the woman is dead.

  TRUESDALE: 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.

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

  TRUESDALE: No.

  SIBBALD: Who were your partners?

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

  Elston objected to the question.

  TRUESDALE: 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.”

  Afterward, Elston told reporters Truesdale had agreed to testify because “he adhered to an underworld code that you make a clean breast of things when capital punishment is involved.” “I’ve checked his story,” Elston said. “There are witnesses, we can verify it.”

  Elston was now quietiy confident. Truesdale’s testimony, he believed, had made a huge impact on the jurors, turning Remus into the victim and Imogene into the executioner. The prosecution did its best to fight the tide, with evidence that relations between George Remus and Imogene had been far from idyllic long before Remus was released from jail, but their witnesses — Imogene’s daughter Ruth and Elizabeth Felix, a friend of Imogene’s — failed to shake the jury, in that they recalled instances of minor spats that occur among the most devoted couples. Ruth said Imogene had often been in tears after seeing Remus in Atlanta jail “because he had been brutal and unkind.” In the light of the earlier testimony, Felix’s claim that Imogene had been “morally irreproachable” was, to say the least, unconvincing.

  Remus’s character witnesses had far greater impact. The most prominent was Clarence Darrow, the criminal lawyer whose brilliant advocacy and showmanship had long turne
d him into a superstar. Slipping into his co-counsel role, Remus could not resist making the most of this, referring to Darrow as “the sage of the twentieth century. . . . How proud am I to know that this great humanitarian takes up his time to testify for me.” Judge Shook cut him short with a curt “That’s enough.”

  Darrow praised Remus as a man and as a lawyer, and said he knew nothing of his investigation by a grievance committee of the Chicago Bar Association, but “if he was investigated, I would not regard an indictment as affecting peace and quiet.”

  Taft did his best to turn Remus’s emotional outburst to the prosecution’s advantage. “Don’t you know he was known [in Chicago legal circles] as the weeping, crying Remus?” he asked. “I knew he was a very emotional fellow, somewhat unstable,” Darrow said.

  Taft tried again. “Would you regard Remus as characteristic of a law-abiding citizen?” Elston objected, and the question was withdrawn.

  The jury probably missed the point. In legal circles, Darrow’s anti-Prohibitionist views were well known, and almost certainly explained his presence in court.

  Taft brought up Remus’s bootlegging past with another character witness, also a well-known Chicago attorney, Thomas S. Hogan. Again, his questions backfired.