Murder at the Brown Palace

by Dick Kreck

  “But we ask you for a verdict of not guilty. He was protecting the home of a friend—and the final closing of this tragedy was all through fear of the malignant, hating von Phul.”

  Bottom, who had befriended Henwood and had been his legal counsel almost since the sound of the shooting died away in 1911, mounted a careful examination of the witnesses’ testimony. But he also couldn’t resist a last chance to attack his rival, John Rush, charging that the district attorney had “framed up” the evidence and “trained” the witnesses. “There is not one of you gentlemen of the jury who was not asked whether you would be influenced by pathos and dramatic action. He meant pathos and dramatic action on the part of the district attorney and the state’s witnesses. Just remember the witness [von Phul’s cousin Fred] Cooke and how he acted on the witness stand. Remember how [Rush] acted when he had Henwood on the witness stand; how he asked Gladys Parker whether she was not a common prostitute. John Rush reminds me of a catfish in the Missouri River in which I used to fish, and I want to say to him that he is on my hook.”

  Bottom appealed to the jury. “The shooting of Copeland was purely accidental.” He, too, asked the jurors to examine von Phul’s jacket and draw their own conclusions. Bottom had been speaking for almost three hours. All the participants clearly were anxious to finish, because after a brief recess, rather than adjourn for the day, prosecutor Rush began the last summation. The courtroom clock read 7:35 p.m. as Rush launched into a three-hour diatribe that savaged Henwood, whom he described as “a wanderer,” “a vagabond,” “a ne’er-do-well,” and his behavior toward Mrs. Springer.

  “What do we find this vagabond doing a week after he met Mrs. Springer? We find him calling her by the pet name of ‘Sassy.’ John W. Springer came into this courtroom and said that Harold F. Henwood always had acted the gentleman. I say no gentleman, and no husband who is a gentleman himself, would allow a stranger to come into his home and call his wife by a nickname a week after he had met her! How would you like your wife to go shopping and to theaters and for long automobile rides with a vagabond who had drifted into town and butted into your circle?”

  Turning his attention to the lurid stories of nocturnal goings-on at the Springer ranch, when Henwood spent the night, his bedroom separated only by a bathroom from Isabel Springer’s suite on the second floor, Rush’s diatribe rolled on. “Springer wasn’t there on this fatal night of the torn nightgown and the mussed up bed. Henwood’s bed was untouched that night. Do you think he went out and sat on the woodpile all night? Or on the settee? No, the next morning Mrs. Springer’s bed was mussed up and Henwood’s untouched—and Mrs. Springer’s nightgown was torn before and behind from the vigorous treatment it had received that night!”

  He tugged at class prejudices, painting for a jury made up of working and, for the most part, married men a view of “high society” where misbehavior ran rampant. “Now, in high society, where morals are sunken to the lowest depths, where men don’t care what people may do to their wives, that may be the definition of a gentleman. If so, God help us! And if it is so, it would be better to send this man to the penitentiary for life, or to stretch his neck until he is dead, rather than send him back to such an environment!” Rush was not satisfied excoriating Henwood. He took Springer to task, too. “What sort of a gentleman do you call a man who will stand by while another man performs the duties of a husband to his wife and, after he divorces this wife because she has allowed this man to perform those duties, comes in here and calls his rival a gentleman and takes his hand before the public?

  “That’s the sort of a gentleman John W. Springer is—but I’m sure he’s not your kind of gentleman.”

  Shaking an accusing finger at the defendant, he shouted, “We have sunk low, indeed, when this society with its lax morals, its exchangeable wives, its indifferent husbands, its licentious ways, its preying lovers, its shameless women, is allowed to exist without let or hindrance!”

  Weary jurors hoped he was coming to the end. But Rush had one more salvo. “Gentlemen of the jury, because this defendant loved the wife of another man and saw her slipping away from him he shot Tony von Phul in the back. Because of a simple assault and battery, he shot von Phul in the back. He shot him in the back out of hatred, out of revenge, and the verdict can be nothing but murder in the first degree. And, gentlemen, when you return your verdict I shall expect you to rid this community of this vermin which fastened itself on a home and ruined and degraded it. I shall expect you to bring in a verdict of murder in the first degree, with a penalty of death!”

  At 10:30 p.m., he sat down. Twenty-two days after it began, it was done. The jury retired for the night. Each side believed it had convinced the jury of the righteousness of their case. Henwood was sure of it.

  The next morning, members of the jury gathered in their conference room at 8:30 a.m. and began debating the verdict, but after six hours they hadn’t reached a decision. All agreed on the first ballot that he was guilty, but only three wanted a first-degree murder decision; the other nine were split among verdicts ranging from second-degree murder to manslaughter.

  At noon the jury broke for lunch and made its customary walk to the Home Dairy restaurant at Sixteenth and Welton Streets, then resumed its discussion at 2 p.m. Given permission to sit at a jail window where he could see into the second-story jury room of the courthouse fifty yards away, Henwood was buoyed by what he saw. He could see the jurors pacing back and forth, breaking into small groups and talking

  animatedly, sometimes breaking into laughter. “I think they’re going to free me,” he said to another prisoner. “Don’t you think so?” There was no response. Henwood’s hopes were high. “Men don’t laugh when they’re sending another to the penitentiary, or to the gallows.”

  An hour, then two, passed.

  Suddenly, there was a buzz in the courthouse. After thirty ballots, the jury had reached its decision. The bailiff quickly called the downtown offices of Bottom and Rush to tell them to come to the courthouse. Deputies hurried to fetch Henwood at the jail. Judge Butler took his place. The jury, sequestered on the second floor, announced it was ready to report its verdict.

  The deputies found Henwood in a positive mood. He was sure that the jury had heard his claim that he was acting only as Springer’s friend, that he was deathly afraid of the volatile von Phul and had acted on those fears to defend himself.

  Wearing a derby and a dark suit and vest and surrounded by deputy sheriffs John Ronaldson, William Arnett, and James Rinker and by John Kenney, who had succeeded Patrick Riordan as warden, Henwood strode confidently toward his fate. He entered the sheriff’s office adjacent to the courtroom and waited to be called. Almost absentmindedly he began fumbling in his pocket, searching for his tobacco pouch and pipe. He laughed when he realized his pipe was missing.

  “Guess I must have gotten excited when I left the jail building,’’ he said to the lawmen. “I left my pipe behind.”

  “Have a cigarette,” offered one of the guards.

  He took one and said, politely, “Guess I’ll have to ask for a match, too.”

  He glanced around the room while he waited. “Gee, I’m well protected. Let’s see, how many deputies are there?” He counted six. “Well, I guess that’s enough to keep me safe, isn’t it?”

  Someone said, “Worried, Frank?”

  “Why should I be? They’re going to acquit me. I feel sure of it.”

  Then it was time. “Frank,” said Deputy Arnett, “they’re coming down.”

  Henwood straightened, discarded his cigarette, stepped forward, and smiled. “All right, Billy.”

  John W. Springer testifying that Frank Henwood always acted the gentleman around Isabel. (The Denver Republican, June 17, 1913. Courtesy of the Colorado Historical Society)

  Judge Charles Butler chastised opposing attorneys John Bottom and John Rush for intimidating witnesses and warned both men to use restraint. (The Denver Post, June 13, 1913. Courtesy

  of the Colorado Historic
al Society)

  Chapter Eleven

  The Final Verdict: “I Have Regrets”

  Judge Charles C. Butler leaned forward. “Gentlemen, have you reached a verdict?”

  “We have,” said foreman George Layton. He handed a folded piece of paper to court clerk John Bergen, who passed it up to Judge Butler, who glanced at it and handed it back. “You will listen to the reading of your verdict, gentlemen.”

  Rain clouds gathered outside the courthouse. Light faded from the room, and it took on a dismal gray hue.

  Bergen unfolded the note, read it carefully to himself, then read to the packed courtroom in a clear, loud voice. “State of Colorado, City and County of Denver. In the District Court. People of the State of Colorado vs. Harold Frank Henwood, defendant, No. 20182. We, the jury, find the defendant, Harold F. Henwood, guilty of murder in the first degree, as charged in the information herein and fix the penalty at death.”

  “Is that your verdict?” the clerk asked the jury. All twelve agreed that it was.

  The large clock on the courtroom wall read 4:37. For a few seconds after the verdict was read, the ticking of the clock was the only sound to be heard. Henwood, Bottom, and Lubers sat, unmoving, ashen-faced. Gripping the arms of his chair, Henwood leaned over and whispered to Lubers, “Can I have the privilege of addressing the jury?”

  “No, not now.”

  Suddenly, there was pandemonium as spectators and reporters who were jammed into the steamy courtroom bolted for the door to spread the news. Some rushed the defendant’s side of the long table to the judge’s left. Bottom and Lubers leaped to their feet and shouted, “Not this way! Not this way!” Bailiff George Kelly slammed his gavel on his desk and called for order. Those in the crowd paused, milled about for a moment, then retraced their steps to their seats. Judge Butler thanked members of the jury and dismissed them.

  Henwood rose slowly to his feet, his legs barely able to support him. To no one in particular he said, softly, “I am not afraid of death.” Deputies surrounded him to keep the crowd at bay while Henwood shook hands with his attorneys and with his friend Colorado Senator Thomas McCue, with whom he had had business dealings and who, for reasons known only to the senator, became Henwood’s primary financial supporter. McCue sat in the courtroom through the twenty-two days of the trial.

  Lawyers for both sides immediately began issuing self-serving interpretations on the verdict. Bottom was asked if the jury’s decision marked the end of his attempts to have Henwood freed. He responded,

  We haven’t begun to fight. Henwood was wished on me by two of his young friends the morning after the shooting. The first time I saw him was in the City Jail. He told me his story and said, “If the names of my friends have to be dragged into this thing I’d rather plead guilty at the start and let them do what they please to me.” That’s not the language of a coward or craven, is it? From that moment I’ve believed in that boy. There are any number of grounds for an appeal. We’ll find a way to carry on this case, never fear. For justice must be done the boy.

  Prosecutor Rush told a reporter,

  The sentimental public may regard me as cold blooded and without warmth of heart. But I give you my word, when I knew how the net was tightening about Henwood as the days of the trial passed by, a great pity for the man as a waster possessed me. When the jury brought in that just verdict I wanted to cry—not because I felt Henwood was getting what he did not deserve, but because the man had made such a fool of himself and had thrown away what should have been a useful life. At the outset of the trial John W. Springer came to me and asked that the thing be dropped or, if that could not be, he urged me to leave the Springers out of the trial. Mr. Bottom also made this appeal. I answered that if the defense would leave the Springers out, the prosecution was willing and anxious to make its case on the events in the barroom. . . .

  The jury heard and saw the witnesses, the jury balanced the evidence, the judge was so anxious to be fair that he leaned far to the side of the defendant and made the prosecution work twice as hard as they otherwise would have had to work. The prosecution’s part in the trial of this case was clean as a hound’s tooth.

  The Denver Times, reflecting community outrage over a series of trials in which alleged murderers had received light sentences or had been turned loose, editorialized in favor of the jury’s death sentence:

  This verdict clears the local atmosphere. The ancient injunction, “Thou shalt not kill,” had become a byword in the mouths of the ignorant. Murderers had gone unpunished of their crimes on flimsy pretext and through false sentiment. Jurors had listened to the galleries instead of to the law. Life had become quite cheap in this community. Last evening’s verdict brings a return to sanity.

  After the verdict, Henwood was shepherded by guards through more than a hundred curious bystanders, some of whom had lounged since morning on the lawns between the courthouse and the jail, and was taken to the condemned cell in the south upper wing on the second floor of the jail. He kept his eyes lowered, never glancing left or right.

  Once in the condemned cell, Henwood would be kept under surveillance night and day so he couldn’t take his life before the state could do it for him. Before he entered the cell, barren except for an iron cot and one chair, he was approached by warden John Kenney. “We must search you, Frank.”

  “All right, Johnnie.”

  As his clothes were removed, Henwood began shaking. Fearing that his nerves were giving way, a doctor was called and a small dose of strychnine prescribed. He refused it. When the search reached his vest, Henwood reached into one of the pockets and drew out a small piece of silver. “This is my last dime. I have been in jail just two years and am now at the end of my line. This goes and I am a broken man.”

  Also in the room were his attorneys and his friend Thomas McCue. Henwood told them, “The dying part I do not fear. It is the weeks I will spend here thinking that I have not been treated with fairness by some person, and prosecutor Rush, in particular. I look upon him as a persecutor, not as a prosecutor. He was malignant, vicious and unfair.” He turned to McCue. “Dear old Tom. You have been the only daddy I ever had. You and John Bottom have stood by me, haven’t you? If the law must have my life, it may have it. But it can’t take your friendship, Tom, and dear old John Bottom’s away from me, can it? I still have confidence in my friends on the outside.”

  Later, sitting on the bunk in his temporary home, he was alone except for guard Charles Boh, who perched on a chair outside the double set of bars that surrounded the six-by-six-foot cell. When dinner was announced, Henwood looked at Boh and said, “I can’t eat, I’m so broken up.” Boh nodded in sympathy. The condemned cell, the same one in which Giuseppe Alia, an Italian anarchist who murdered Father Francis Leo Heinrichs in St. Elizabeth’s Catholic Church on February 23, 1908, had been housed, was a stark, depressing space. There were no rugs or curtains, as there were in Henwood’s jail home for the past two years. Only steel. There were no privileges, although he was provided with reading materials and a typewriter. His lawyers would be his only visitors.

  Asked again later if he wanted food, Henwood said, “No. Tell Johnnie [Kenney] I don’t feel like eating. I would like to have my pipe and tobacco though.” His well-used briar was brought to him. He packed and lit it, then walked to and fro in the small cell. His nerves were shot, and he couldn’t stop pacing. He asked for Dr. C. B. James, the jail’s doctor, who examined him and prescribed a one-thirtieth grain of strychnine as a stimulant to steady his heart. It wasn’t until 2 a.m. that the condemned man lay down to sleep. As he lay on his bunk, he said to relief guard James Lalor, “Let’s refrain from discussing the verdict.”

  He awoke at 5 a.m. but remained almost motionless. Lalor kept a close watch on him. At 7, a new guard, John Harding, came on duty. Harding and Lalor watched the prisoner in twelve-hour shifts. Henwood declined breakfast but asked for a cup of coffee, then another. Finally, he accepted lunch brought by Harding. He eagerly consumed a porterhouse st
eak, potatoes, coffee, and asparagus on toast, his favorite food, which he had become accustomed to during his relatively luxurious days as a privileged prisoner. Some comforts remained.

  Despite the hearty meal, his mental health continued to decline. He told those around him that he was confident of acquittal in a third trial, but his demeanor had changed. He paced his cell for hours, his hands clasped behind his back. When guards asked questions, he responded with one-syllable answers. His despondency was deepening. Even frequent visits from evangelist Jim Goodheart and a Catholic priest, Father Panacelli, couldn’t throw off his torpor.

  Two days later, he was freed from his isolation on “murderer’s row.” The move into the general jail population was prompted by economics, not compassion. It was expensive having two guards watch him around the clock. Still, the switch buoyed Henwood’s spirits. Other prisoners, mindful of the favors he had done them, welcomed him warmly. “There is certainly a difference between solitary confinement in a cell that has been occupied only by murderers and being locked up out here where you can see the sun,” he told a reporter, then added quickly, “Not that I have any desire to be locked up at all, but that I feel almost like I had been given my liberty since being changed over here.”

  His first requests were for clean linen and a bath. It would be another month before he requested that his beard, which he had let grow during one of his depressed periods, be shaved off. Warden Kenney was taking no chances that Henwood, who vowed that he would never spend a day at the state penitentiary, would attempt suicide with a straight razor. For his shave, Henwood was escorted into a room and placed in a chair near the south windows. Kenney sat within two feet of Henwood, ready to leap if he tried to grab the razor as prisoner/barber Patsy Smith quickly shaved him without incident.