by Dick Kreck
Meanwhile, Henwood waited in his cell. E.T.R., the warden’s fox terrier, nestled in his arms. His friend Frank Loveland stopped by to offer support. The prisoner brushed dog hair off his blue serge suit as he talked with a small group of reporters. “He seems to know that there is something wrong,” Henwood said of E.T.R. “He always comes to see me when I come back from the courtroom but this morning he is either trying to show me that he is glad I am staying in or that he feels I may take comfort in his presence.”
Try as they might, the reporters could not get Henwood to talk specifically about the case, other than to say he was sure he would be acquitted and “that nothing was shown by the prosecution except what the spleen of a vindictive old woman [Cora Carpenter] against Mrs. Springer could inspire.” He explained that because he still stood to be tried for killing von Phul, he couldn’t talk about the case. His confidence that he would win acquittal was not wholehearted. “Naturally, I am as nervous as a bug on a stove. But out of this I have learned one thing—that is, who my friends are, the value of friendship.” And still he waited.
When the jury returned from lunch at 2 p.m., all twelve men were in agreement. Informed that the jury, after only four hours of deliberation, had reached a decision, the bailiff called Judge Whitford and the attorneys to the courtroom. A few minutes before 3, everyone, including Henwood, had taken their places. Henwood, much of his bravura evaporated, looked around the room nervously and scanned the faces of the jurors, searching for a clue to his fate. Clerk William Rice asked jury foreman John Baxter, who amused other jurors during the trial with his habit of consuming three times a day a drink made of sugar, vinegar, and water, if they had reached a verdict. “We have.”
The written verdict was handed to Judge Whitford, who took his glasses from his vest pocket, unsealed the envelope, read the note, and handed it to Rice. “Gentlemen,” said Rice, “listen to the reading of your verdict.” Henwood tensed, the color left his face. “We, the jury, find the defendant, Frank H. Henwood, guilty of murder in the second degree, as charged.”
Henwood scarcely moved. He blinked rapidly and his lips quivered slightly, but he said nothing. Bottom was on his feet, demanding that members of the jury be polled individually. Each man was asked, “Was and is this your verdict?” Each said it was. Bottom made a brief attempt to have one of the jurors, Joseph Duval, disqualified because he once lived under a different name in Cripple Creek, but his protest was overruled. Thwarted, he told observers, “This case will be reversed. The verdict will not stand. We’ll win yet.”
Crestfallen, Henwood was led back to his cell. On Banker’s Row, where privileged prisoners were kept separated from the general prison population, in the west wing of the County Jail, he paced up and down the corridor all evening. At first he refused to talk about his trial, but then he shared with other prisoners his one opinion of what happened: “Whether she meant to or not, Mrs. Springer gave me the double cross. Her testimony, when she stated that I had ‘butted in’ on her affairs after she had told me not to, hurt me. It hurt me because it was with her consent that I tried to get those letters from von Phul.”
Two days after the decision was announced, Isabel Springer’s four-year marriage came to an end. Her aggrieved husband was granted a divorce, based on her disregard for their marital vows. The divorce settlement included her keeping her married name and her promise that she would leave Denver and never return. Before she left town, however, she fired both Carpenter and Lepper for their testimony that reflected on her character, leaving her brother, Arthur Patterson, in charge of the Cross Country Ranch.
She saved her harshest criticism for her maid, Irma Braasch, who supplied to Springer and his divorce attorneys much of the information on Isabel’s nights with Henwood at the ranch and about her letters to von Phul. “Irma Braasch is a snake in the grass,” she told The Post. “I hope no one will ever be so deceived in a maid as I was in her. I had her in my employment for over a year before I discovered what a viper she was and the poisonous effect of her sting. I consider Irma one of the immediate causes for my present unhappy condition.”
Bottom launched a series of appeals based upon, among other things, the judge’s denial of a continuance when the case began, Judge Whitford’s claim that there was no manslaughter verdict possible, and various prejudicial remarks made by the judge in the presence of the jury. Henwood was due to be tried for the murder of von Phul, but Bottom claimed “former jeopardy,” arguing that the two men’s deaths were one incident. On July 26, only two days before Judge Whitford was to sentence Henwood for Copeland’s death, Bottom appeared in court and recited ninety-one errors, reasons Henwood should be granted a new trial. He read through the long list and said he would produce a witness who would tell how he overheard a barroom
conversation in which Judge Whitford referred to one of those who witnessed the shooting as “our star witness.”
“I want to know, Mr. Bottom, on what information you as a lawyer base this charge?” Whitford interrupted.
“When I put it in there I believed it, your honor. If you and the district attorney will say that it is not true I will admit that it is not.”
“I do not say it is not true. I am not called upon to say so. You have charged everyone connected with this trial, except for yourself and the defendant, with misconduct. As a man claiming to be a reputable lawyer, it is scandalous and unprofessional. I want to know who told you.”
“I was told by someone.”
“I ask you to tell me where you got your information.”
“I will sometime later.”
“You will tell the court now. I am talking to you as a lawyer claiming to be a reputable lawyer. You are standing there charging this court with misconduct.”
“If your honor will allow me to consult with my client.”
“You don’t have to consult with your client.”
“I don’t think I can inform the court unless I consult with my client.”
“Then you refuse to tell the court now. Mr. Bailiff, bring in the stenographer. It’s a shame that any lawyer at this bar will stand before this court and read to him such charges and not have the courage to tell the court who told him. I want to know the source of your information, Mr. Bottom, but we will pass over the matter for the present and you may proceed with your reading.”
“Yes, your honor. I should like to be heard later on that.”
“You will not be heard later. The court will take up the matter, but the hearing is ended.”
It was a veiled threat—a not very subtle one—that Judge Whitford would remember the conversation when the time came to decide Henwood’s sentence.
For his part, Henwood continued to wear a public face of confidence. “We are going on a fishing trip when this is over, Mr. Bottom and I. I am not afraid to go up for my sentence, and I never have been.”
He appeared before Judge Whitford for sentencing on July 28. Bottom asked for a delay until his appeal could be heard by the state Supreme Court but was turned down.
Facing Henwood, Judge Whitford said, “Have you anything to say why the court should not pronounce sentence on the verdict of the jury?”
“I have.” Slowly, he walked to a water pitcher on the attorneys’ table and poured himself a glass. He drank it slowly, then approached the railing in front of the prisoner’s pen, his left hand resting lightly on the rail. His voice taut, he launched a vitriolic and angry diatribe at the judge. Despite the fact that his fate hung in the balance—Judge Whitford could give him a sentence that ranged from ten years to life—Henwood, who sat through ten days of a trial he thought unfair, went on for thirty minutes. Glancing from time to time at a small notebook, he said, in part,
Judge Whitford, I am not surprised that I am up here for sentence before you after the attitude you have taken toward me since this trial started. I have been over in this jail for perhaps two months. I have seen criminals, innocent men and others, afraid to come to trial before
you because you hold the reputation of being a prejudiced judge, a biased judge—a man with a mind for just one thing, and that is conviction. A man is guilty before he enters this courtroom, in your estimation.
My idea of a judge is that he is fair and just to both sides. I never have had that justice from you; I never expected it after I heard you overrule my attorney one day—a good honest man who has had practically no money from me, who has put his hand in his own pocket to help me, who knows that thing against my honor is a lie and that the district attorney must know, in his own heart, although he is a prosecutor, that it is a lie.
When Mrs. Springer was on the stand she was not permitted to testify fully, but her testimony was held back, and you know it. The woman was put under morphine before she was put on the stand—and you know it and everybody knows it. The woman came on the stand here with a divorce hearing hanging over her head—a woman that had been shamed; her name had been in the papers, dragged through the dirt, and everything else.
I don’t think it would make any difference how young my life was, if I were up here for sentence before you—it would make no difference. This is my personal opinion of you, Judge Whitford. From my observation, it does not make a bit of difference how young a life is or how old, whether man or woman, your one thought is, and always has been, conviction. You have been a prosecutor all your life and you know nothing else; it is like kleptomania with you, you have a desire to convict.
I have sat here to see my lawyer abused by you—I cannot call it anything else but abuse—you have allowed the district attorney to walk around and swagger through the courtroom and laugh out loud and criticize everybody, while my lawyer has been a gentleman since this trial started.
This is the first chance I have had to speak as a man would speak. I have noticed since I have been here that practically every day—almost every evening—you and the district attorney and his assistants go home in the same automobile together—go outside here and have some mutual understanding. I don’t think that is right; I don’t think it is right to the people of the state of Colorado. I know that you are going to pass sentence on me, which is the happiest part of this trial for you. I have not only been prosecuted, I have been persecuted.
I was not tried on the von Phul murder; I was not tried for shooting von Phul; I never murdered him. I shot him in self-defense, and everybody knows I did, and you never could have brought in a verdict of anything else but “not guilty” if you had tried me for the murder of von Phul. There is one thing that, as long as I live, I will spend everything I have got to wipe this thing off the slate—and you will help do it—call me the wrecker of the Springer home! Because, by God, I can’t sleep at night. I can’t do anything with that on my shoulders.
Judge Whitford, I cannot call you anything but a prosecuting judge. You should be called a prosecuting judge, you have been prosecutor on this bench; you have prosecuted me more so than the district attorney.
I stand ready for your unjust sentence.
No one spoke until Judge Whitford pointed out, in measured tones, that Henwood was surrounded in jail by men he had convicted. He explained how evidence convinced the jury that Henwood was guilty.
Henwood cut in. “May I interrupt?”
“No.”
“In talking, I forgot something. You will ruin my case. I would like to . . .”
“Very well. I thought you were through. Say anything further that you want.”
Henwood took up where he left off:
I believe it has been stated that I shot von Phul in the back. You have never shown that I shot von Phul in the back, and the evidence goes to show that the first shot might have struck him in the wrist. I am just as sure in my heart that the man was facing me as that I am facing you now, and that his first movement was to reach for his gun. The doctors brought by the state could not tell which direction the bullet went in his shoulder.
Now, there is not an American citizen who can satisfy himself in his own mind that after a man has struck a man and knocked him on the floor that [he] will immediately turn his back completely around. I have always claimed that the man was looking at me. I have always claimed that he put his hand on his hip pocket.
I think Mr. Chiles and Mr. Elliott will see the day when they are big enough to take me by the hand and say, when all of these things come out, that I have been wronged. All the truth is going to come out.
When Henwood stopped talking, Judge Whitford resumed, explaining that both attorneys believed Henwood was either guilty of murder or should be acquitted—“one extreme or the other”—and there was no in-between. The judge agreed with the attorneys. “The jury returned a verdict of second degree in the face of that testimony,” he said. Then came the decisive moment. Judge Whitford looked down at the defiant Henwood and said,
I believe from what you have said that you shot purposely and with the intention of killing von Phul.
I believe that you did it out of jealousy and revenge, excited by the passion that you entertained for the Springer woman, and that you shot to put von Phul out of the way; that you got your gun for that purpose. That being the case, the court being so advised, it would seem a case where the court, in the performance of its duty, ought to impose the maximum penalty under the law.
In this case, the judgment of the court is that you be confined in the penitentiary at Cañon City for and during your natural life.
Crowds lined up to watch John T. Bottom, left, and Frank Henwood walk from the courthouse to the jail. (Rocky Mountain News, June 24, 1911. Courtesy of the Colorado Historical Society)
Mrs. Cora Carpenter. (The Denver Post, June 14, 1913. Courtesy of the Colorado Historical Society)
Chapter Seven
Isabel Springer: “The Butterfly”
One by the one the petals fell from the blooms of the primrose path, to bring her at last into the tangle of thorns which snarled themselves at the end, which enmeshed her, tore at her with their poison-tipped lances, which dragged her downward, downward to the mire.”
Courtney Ryley Cooper’s flowery obituary on page one of The Denver Post on April 20, 1917, wrote an unglamorous finish to a decidedly glamorous woman. When she died in a New York City hospital charity ward, Isabel Patterson Springer was alone except for an actress friend.
In her lifetime, she rose to the top of Denver society, blessed with not one but three homes and showered with adulation. As the bride of John W. Springer, one of the city’s most respected businessmen, she lived among the luxuries of the Brown Palace Hotel and the city’s attractions, particularly the theater, which she attended frequently. She and her wealthy husband traveled widely, wintering in Pasadena, California, and visiting New York City often.
Isabel was a woman of charm and exceptional beauty, with large dark eyes and a soft, almost cherubic, countenance. She had a bountiful bosom and narrow waist of the type popular with turn-of-the-century women and their admirers. She preferred to wear her ample brown hair in the swept-up Gibson Girl style. Her dark eyebrows emphasized her piercing brown eyes. Her nose was more prominent than she might have liked, but it gave her face strength. She was born in 1880 to James and Amelia Evarts Patterson, either in Arkansas or in Michigan, both of which she claimed, at various times. As a child, she moved to St. Louis with her family and grew up in comfortable surroundings. Her family was among the city’s social set.
In 1900, when she was only twenty years old, she married John E. Folck, a traveling shoe salesman. The couple moved to Memphis, Tennessee, but the marriage was unhappy almost from the beginning. Folck drank heavily and frequently pummeled her with abusive language and his fists. She was young, vibrant, and accustomed to the gay party life she had led in St. Louis. Her husband was frequently away from home, peddling footwear on the road in Missouri, Arkansas, and the Indian Territory. By June 1906, the two were separated.
Isabel moved back to St. Louis and took up residence in the Jefferson Hotel, center of the city’s social scene. She was much in evidence
among the gay set, earning the sobriquet “The Butterfly” because of her fondness for attention and diversion. She and the wife of a wealthy St. Louisan were often observed cruising the city in the friend’s eighty-horsepower touring car, “perhaps the finest then in St. Louis.”
She was perceived to be the typical American girl, “chic, haughty, graceful and above all else, shatteringly pretty.” Like other fashionable women, she wore her hair swept up, topped by outsized hats, blouses with huge sleeves, and long dresses with just the tiniest bit of ankle exposed. It was a style Isabel took to with flair.
When the twentieth century opened, many states forbade women the vote, the right to own property, or the right to claim their own earnings. In 1893, Colorado became the second state, after Wyoming, to grant women suffrage. By 1910, the suffrage movement was gaining power, although women wouldn’t get the universal vote until the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified in 1920. But women already were beginning to move outside the home, driving automobiles, working in offices, and even smoking cigarettes. It was a time of great upheaval in American society. As Henry Allen noted in What It Felt Like, a decade-by-decade look at the twentieth century, “Women ignore their mothers’ lessons on how a lady appears in public. They slowly jettison corsets, shed chaperones and hike their hemlines over their ankles. They face the camera with an amused wise guy wariness. Sometimes, for mischief, they pose with cigarettes. The face of sublimity starts to become the face of sexuality.”
Isabel was clever with the opposite sex, like many of her peers who were accomplished at “dazzling their menfolk with feminine wiles.” Though she was carefree and unconventional in her personal life, she was far from emancipated. After she married John Springer, this wealthy man took care of her worldly needs. She lived amidst maids, housekeepers, and chauffeurs. As a woman of leisure, she enjoyed ample time to read “romantic fiction that created an ideal of the softly genteel but indomitable female, and magazines that gave practical how-to instructions for achieving the ideal. Articles preached decorum and cautioned against dangerous new ideas.” They were warnings she chose to ignore.