Murder at the Brown Palace

by Dick Kreck

  When the trial resumed, thirty minutes late, Elliott rose and addressed the court:

  If your honor pleases, there has been a good deal of discussion here between court and counsel with

  reference to the admission of threats. The state has uniformly objected to these admissions. I think there is no question about the law, never was any question about it. I want to say to counsel now, that if they have such testimony as that, so far as objection on the part of the state is concerned, it will not be made and they may introduce all of it without objection. We want it understood now, as we say, we don’t want any technicality to prevent the introduction of any testimony the defendant is entitled to. We don’t want any conviction upon that.

  Defense attorney John Bottom disagreed with Elliott’s interpretation of the law on self-defense, but he was delighted to seize the opportunity to bring into the record what led Henwood to believe his life was in danger. A successful plea of self-defense was his only hope. Some legal experts believed that the prosecutor’s reversal would open the floodgates of testimony and make public the most salacious of exhibits—Isabel Springer’s heated love letters to von Phul. It was a risk Elliott was willing to take because of the law that ruled that the accidental killing of a bystander—in this case George Copeland—is murder. Though von Phul was the focus of testimony, Henwood was on trial for killing Copeland.

  As the day’s first witness, a well-rested Henwood resumed his careful narrative, recounting, almost minute-by-minute, events leading to the showdown in the barroom of the hotel. He told how von Phul grabbed Isabel’s arm at the Orpheum Theater and how a distraught Isabel told him that von Phul came to her apartments, struck her, and tore up two photographs of Henwood.

  Henwood told the court that Isabel warned him, “‘You don’t know what kind of man you’re dealing with’; that he was absolutely desperate and would go to any length. I still thought I could appeal to the best side of him.” Cross-examined closely by Elliott, Henwood was alternately evasive, engaging, nervous, and confident. Elliott contended that Henwood acted, not out of concern for his friend John Springer, but out of jealousy over von Phul’s attentions to Isabel.

  Elliott grilled Henwood on his visits to police Chief Hamilton Armstrong, whom Henwood had asked to intervene. Henwood fudged his testimony.

  Question: Didn’t you ask the chief to run von Phul out of town? Didn’t you say, “He is annoying her, Mrs. Springer, and I want the son of a bitch run out of town?”

  Answer: No.

  Q: Didn’t you tell the chief this: “If he,” meaning von Phul, “sends those letters to Springer, I’ll beat John to it—I’ll kill the bastard myself”?

  A: Not that way, Mr. Elliott. I simply pointed . . .

  Q: I don’t care what you pointed. I want to know if you said that.

  A: I said, “John Springer is a big man here in Denver and if this man carries out his threat, John will kill him. This would ruin him. Rather than have this come about I had almost rather do it myself.”

  It was, Henwood said, after he received a note from Isabel, urging him to stay away from her, that he went to a hardware store on Lawrence Street and purchased the first gun he ever owned. The legal groundwork about threats laid, Bottom called for the woman in the case to return to testify. She was still in her rooms at the Savoy Hotel, but a phone call and a twenty-minute delay found her back on the stand.

  It was a far more composed Isabel Springer. She wore a plain tailored suit highlighted by a black velvet bow at the neck. As she had three days earlier, she wore a hat draped with a veil of blue chiffon. Her voice was clear (“a cooing soprano of softest, pleasing quality, steady as the unstruck string of a piano,’’ gushed The Denver Times) and her small hands, clad in white gloves, remained at rest in her lap. Her feet were planted firmly on the witness stand.

  Bottom immediately set about having her recite threats she heard von Phul make against Henwood. He pinpointed a note she had delivered to Henwood by her maid on the morning before the shooting. “You may state to the jury as near as you can the contents of that communication.”

  “I don’t remember the exact contents, Mr. Bottom, excepting that I said that I thought it was best for him not to come to our apartment anymore, for I thought it would be dangerous for him to do so.”

  Bottom wanted more. “What, if anything, did you communicate to Mr. Henwood either in this communication or through the mail with reference to Mr. von Phul having told you with reference to his getting a room on the sixth floor of the Brown?”

  “He said he had gotten a room [603] right next to the elevator, and that if he saw Mr. Henwood going to my apartment with Mr. Springer or alone that he would immediately come in and ‘fix him’; that was his expression.”

  Early on, her testimony strengthened the defense’s case that the promoter acted out of fear of von Phul and with

  justification when he opened fire in the barroom. But, then, Bottom committed the unpardonable lawyering sin—he asked one question too many.

  Question: When did you communicate to Mr. Henwood the fact that Mr. von Phul struck you on the evening as you have related?

  Answer: Why, I think it was the following morning,

  Mr. Bottom.

  Q: Now, will you state what you said to Mr. Henwood, as near as you can remember?

  A: I just stated that I begged him that he let me alone and let me take care of myself.

  Bottom quickly tried to turn her testimony to other subjects but it was too late. The question was planted in jurors’ minds: If she asked Henwood to withdraw, why did he

  continue to pursue von Phul? His defense that he was only acting to save his friend’s marriage was dealt a mortal blow.

  Later in her testimony, Isabel denied that she had told Frank Loveland, Henwood’s close friend, that she had felt a gun in von Phul’s pocket when she, her mother, and von Phul took a drive to the ranch on the morning of the shooting. “I will ask you if you do not remember telling Frank Loveland on that day and after that ride, that you felt a gun in Mr. von Phul’s pocket?” Bottom pressed. “I did not,’’ Isabel answered, emphatically.

  Both attorneys handled Mrs. Springer with gloves as soft and white as her own. Bottom barely challenged her claims that she pleaded with Henwood to let her deal with von Phul. On cross-examination, Elliott questioned her politely, showing none of the dogged aggressiveness that he displayed when questioning Henwood. He did, however, keep returning to whether she had asked Henwood to withdraw from her affairs.

  Question: Did you ask Mr. Henwood to assist you in any way?

  Answer: Yes, I asked him to help me, but later begged him to drop the whole affair and leave me to handle it.

  Q: Were you pleased with Mr. Henwood’s manner of handling this situation?

  A: I was not.

  Q: What did you say to him?

  A: I told him he was handling it wrong and for him to let it alone and allow me to treat it in my own way.

  Q: And told him you wanted him to keep out?

  A: I asked him not to do it.

  Q: You pleaded with him and begged that he let it alone?

  A: Yes, sir.

  Q: You told him he was making a mistake?

  A: Yes, sir.

  Q: Said to keep out of it; the only way to avoid trouble is for you to keep out of it, didn’t you?

  A: To let me do it myself.

  Q: And the only way to avoid trouble was to keep out of it?

  A: I feared there would be trouble if he did not stop right where he was.

  Inexplicably, her letters, the ones that precipitated the whole incident, were never brought up, never introduced into evidence. Except for portions of those that appeared in the newspapers, their contents were never revealed. When she was excused, all agreed that Mrs. Springer had been a splendid witness for herself, protecting her reputation at the expense of the man to whom she had gone for help. In her mind, Henwood and von Phul were little more than acquaintances, one of whom she knew
casually in St. Louis and the other whom she knew as a business associate of her husband. Although a witness for the defense, she did much to bolster the prosecution’s case.

  

  On Tuesday, June 27, the sensational tales that spectators who packed the sweltering courtroom had been waiting to hear finally surfaced. Determined to prove that Henwood’s motives for the shooting went far beyond his friendship with John Springer, Elliott asked Henwood about an incident at the Cross Country Ranch a week before the showdown at the Brown Palace. On Wednesday, May 17, as they had done many times, Henwood, Mrs. Springer, and her maid, Irma Braasch, went from the Brown Palace to the ranch, driven there by Thomas Lepper, the family chauffeur for sixteen years. It was a busy three days before John Springer arrived on Saturday afternoon, according to the testimony of Cora Carpenter, the Springers’ housekeeper at the ranch since early March. She told the rapt courtroom how she had unexpectedly come across Henwood and Mrs. Springer in the ballroom of the house. “Mr. Henwood was seated in a chair and Mrs. Springer stood in front of him. Mr. Henwood had his arms around Mrs. Springer’s hips and she had her hands on his shoulders.” When they saw her, she said, “Mrs. Springer pushed Henwood’s shoulders back and Henwood released her.”

  There was more. She related that Henwood spent his first night at the ranch in a bed in John Springer’s office on the first floor of the castle. The second night, she said, Henwood and Lepper moved the bed upstairs to the Red Room, connected to Mrs. Springer’s bedroom by a shared bathroom. Carpenter recounted that Henwood went to Mrs. Springer’s room about 5 p.m. to see if she were all right after she had taken a spill from her horse earlier in the afternoon. She didn’t see him come out. She did, however, see the maid carry trays of whiskey up to the room several times during the night.

  The next morning, she said, she found Mrs. Springer’s nightgown “torn into strips in front and about the neck.” Elliott then asked what condition Mrs. Springer’s bed was in.

  “It was rumpled and in great disorder.”

  “Had it been slept in?’’

  “It had been occupied.” And, she noted, Henwood’s bed had remained unoccupied all night.

  Henwood’s attorney was not about to let her testimony pass unchallenged. Irma Braasch, the maid, had left town and could not be found to testify, but Bottom tried to discredit Cora Carpenter’s testimony.

  Question: You say the maid carried liquor to the room while Mrs. Springer and Henwood were there?

  Answer: Yes.

  Q: One glass?

  A: One glass the first time, but two glasses the second time.

  Q: And how many trips did she make?

  A: I don’t know. Eight or ten during the evening.

  Q: What did they do with the liquor?

  A: I don’t know. Drank it, I suppose.

  Q: As a matter of fact, you do not know what was done with the liquor, do you?

  A: I know it was consumed.

  Q: Do you? Mrs. Springer might have shampooed her hair with it for all you know to the contrary, mightn’t she?

  A: I know it was consumed. She might have watered the palms with it.

  Q: Did she have any palms around her room?

  A: No, sir.

  Q: Then what do you mean by your remark?

  A: Well, I heard that one time she did water her palms with whiskey.

  Q: Where?

  A: At the Brown Palace Hotel.

  Laughter erupted among the spectators. Judge Whitford was not amused. “At the next manifestation of levity during this trial the bailiffs shall open the doors and clear the courtroom. This is not a theater.”

  During his turn in the witness chair, Henwood, perspiring heavily in the humid closeness of the room, denied any impropriety. Despite close questioning by Elliott, he refuted Carpenter’s testimony that she had surprised him and Isabel Springer in a compromising embrace and added, cryptically, “I wouldn’t have cared if she did see me.” He maintained that he spent only a few minutes in Isabel’s room and that he did not drink while he was there.

  

  With no more witnesses to be heard, Judge Whitford began the morning session of June 28 by taking thirty-five minutes to instruct the jury on the options for their verdict. He told the jurors that if they did not believe that Henwood was justified in shooting von Phul, they must find him guilty of murder in either the first or second degree. “There is no manslaughter in this case.”

  He laboriously explained the law:

  If you find from the evidence that the defendant, Henwood, at the time he fired the shot or shots at the said von Phul, honestly and in good faith believed his life was in danger, or that he was in danger of suffering great bodily harm, although such danger was not real, but apparent; and if the circumstances induced in him a reasonable belief that he was in actual danger of losing his life, or suffering great bodily harm, and if he acted from real and honest conviction as to the character of the danger induced by reasonable evidence, and not in a spirit of revenge or jealousy; he fired the said shots at the said von Phul in his necessary self-defense, and that by mistake the shots struck the deceased George E. Copeland, from the effects of which he died, then you are instructed to find the defendant not guilty.

  He went on to define what circumstances constituted first- or second-degree murder. While the judge read his instructions, Henwood sat passively, staring at him without expression. Bottom immediately launched into a long list of exceptions, including that the court failed to explain the circumstances of the shooting, that he drew too rigid a definition of self-defense and, most important, that Judge Whitford did not give the jury the option of finding Henwood guilty of manslaughter. There were thirteen exceptions in all.

  Day turned to night, but the trial went on. Determined to wrap up the case before another day passed, Judge Whitford called for a night session. Despite this, the courtroom was stifling and open windows allowed only slight breezes to enter. The temperature in Denver had risen to 94 degrees earlier in the day. The Times described the air as “foul, dank and laden with that undefinable odor found only where many are crowded together, perspiring and uncomfortable.”

  After Bottom read his exceptions into the record, Deputy District Attorney John Chiles began his portion of the prosecution’s summation. He restated the judge’s instructions and urged the jury to bring back a verdict of first-degree murder. “The charge here is for shooting and killing George E. Copeland, not von Phul. Henwood has the right to be tried for the Copeland shooting and, if convicted, then punished for that act. His actions and intentions towards von Phul are the measure of his liability in the murder of Copeland.”

  Chiles told the jury not to be fooled by Henwood’s claim that he was trying to save the Springers’ marriage.

  He told you that in endeavoring to protect the name of his beloved friend, John Springer, he shot von Phul, that he was trying to protect John Springer’s family. In this affair, he was trying also to protect the name of that fair creature—the wife of his friend,

  Mr. Springer....

  Do you believe he was telling the truth? If you do, you are easy, gentlemen of the jury, and I know you want to be fair. We showed you, gentlemen of the jury, a condition of affairs which amounts to this: Taken into the bosom of Springer’s family and received with open arms, Henwood took advantage of that fact—that kind and courteous treatment—and he destroyed Springer’s home. And then he tells you he was acting in Springer’s interest, after he had wrecked his home on the shores of lust and damnable, treacherous desire. Great God, is there no justice for a man like that?

  I’ll tell you what Henwood was acting under. He had had illicit relations with Mrs. Springer and he knew it, and he feared that von Phul stood higher in the affections of this lady than he did.

  For a mind-numbing six hours, relieved only by a break for dinner, Bottom once again walked the jury through the events leading up to the shooting and emphasized Henwood’s belief that he was defending his friend and his fri
end’s wife from von Phul and “Mrs. Springer’s foolishness.” He told the jury, “No one can have greater regret than this defendant at Mr. Copeland’s death. Mr. Henwood is being tried for all intents and purposes for the killing of von Phul, and in order to convict him in the Copeland case you must believe beyond a reasonable doubt that he killed him intentionally.” He asked for an acquittal. Henwood was moved to tears and dabbed at his eyes with a handkerchief.

  Bottom’s words had barely died away when Elliott tore into Henwood’s defense. Speaking in a low voice, forcing the jury to listen closely, he said, “Frank Harold Henwood killed George E. Copeland and Tony von Phul. Why should one attempt to prove to this jury that black is white, just because white happens to be the side he is allied with? I, for one, shall not try it. It is an insult to the intelligence of this jury.” There followed a brilliant summary of the evidence against Henwood—the bullet in von Phul’s back; the fact that Springer never testified on Henwood’s behalf; that Henwood himself said, “I shot Mr. von Phul. I intended to shoot Mr. von Phul. I knew what I was doing. I shot in self-defense’’; and that Isabel Springer pleaded with him to withdraw. He scoffed at Henwood’s contention that he acted only to save the Springers’ marriage. “Mr. Chiles said, ‘Henwood was taken into the bosom of the Springer family.’ God! How literally true that statement was.”

  It was past 10 p.m. when Judge Whitford finally excused the exhausted jury, which had listened to testimony for twelve hours. He suggested that they get a good night’s sleep before beginning their deliberations. By 9 a.m. the next day, the jury gathered in its second-floor room to begin deliberations. Rumors drifted to the crowds waiting outside that the jury already had decided that Henwood was guilty. The only question to be decided was to what degree. One observer claimed the vote almost immediately went to eight to four for first-degree murder. While they deliberated, bookmaker John Grim stood on the lawn between the courtroom and the jail, taking bets on the outcome. Most players were putting their money on first-degree murder. Others took a chance on second-degree murder. Few thought Henwood would be acquitted.