by Kip Gayden
After luncheon Attorneys McConnico, Seay and Baskerville, representing the defense, and Attorney-General Moore and B. Bibb Jacobs for the state and the Cobb family, held consultation in regard to the bond to be set for Mrs. Dotson’s appearance in the criminal court for trial.
While the lawyers conversed, the crowd still hung about the hall, trying to get a look at the woman. They jammed back into the court on which the private room opened, and many climbed up on the grating to look in at the windows.
At 1:45 o’clock the grand jury filed into the court and foreman R. D. Marshall handed the findings to Judge Neil. Dr. Dotson was in the room, and sat laughing and talking with his lawyers while the report was being read by the court. A special ruling by the court permitted citizens of Gallatin to sign Mrs. Dotson’s bond, after it had been announced that $20,000 had been the sum agreed upon.
The bond was quickly written out and signed and an order for the prisoner’s release was sent to the jail. On account of the crowd at the doors and the fear, Mrs. Dotson was taken to the courtroom through the rear of the building. When she entered the room it was practically empty, with the exception of attorneys and newspaper men.
Without a tremor, she walked within the bar. K. T. McConnico met her midway and standing before Judge Neil she listened attentively to the reading of the report of the grand jury. Mr. McConnico immediately entered a plea of “not guilty” to the charge set forth in the indictment, and Mrs. Dotson, after a few preliminaries, was released.
Closely surrounded by her husband and lawyers, she walked to Union Station, a few blocks distant, where she boarded a train for Gallatin.
When seen Monday by a representative from the Tennessean and American, the lawyers for the defense declared they had nothing to say, that the trial would speak for itself.
Those who signed Mrs. Dotson’s bond were as follows: Tom Bradley, $10,000; W. P. Freeman, $500; Ed S. Anderson, $1,000; Walter Dotson, $4,500; B. H. Hix, $500; V. C. Walden, $1,000; H. J. Dotson, $2,500. The latter bondsman is the father of Dr. Walter Dotson.
CHRISTIAN’ S STORY RAN on Tuesday, the day after the arraignment, accompanied by the blurred picture of Anna’s appearance there. In fact, there was a succession of stories in various papers about the Dotsons, covering everything from Walter’s medical practice to Anna’s activity with the Sumner County suffragettes. It was the only topic of discussion in the newspaper office. In fact, Christian was starting to get a little tired of being summoned to conversations willy-nilly. It was hard to get his work done.
Detective Sidebottom collected a few column inches, too. He was widely interviewed about his views on the case, and much was made of his trips to Gallatin, during which he interviewed people who knew the Dotsons, the Cobbs, or who had any information to offer about the case. He even located a neighbor who claimed to have heard pistol shots from the Dotsons’ backyard not too many days before the crime. Sidebottom seemed very interested in this; he said he had a hunch it might explain something about Anna’s motivation. “I believe the husband might have been a conspirator,” he told Christian. “I’ll bet he had something to do with the gunfire in the backyard. At first, I suspected there was more than one shooter. All of the witnesses said they heard four shots. But after meeting with the coroner and after he described the exit and entrance wounds on Cobb’s body, I now think there was only one shooter: Anna Dotson. Though I still think Doctor Dotson had something to do with Anna going to the barbershop with the intent to kill Cobb.”
ANNA AND WALTER RETURNED to Nashville for a meeting with J. M. Anderson not long after the arraignment. Anderson had a fine, leonine countenance, with graying hair and a strong chin. He smiled at her as she entered his spacious office and removed her veil, and came around from behind his large desk to hold her chair as she sat. He shook hands with Walter and Mr. Baskerville before returning to his tall-backed, oak-framed leather chair. As he seated himself and bridged his fingertips, Anna could easily imagine him on the bench, presiding over a trial.
“Well, I’m glad we could all sit down together,” he said. “Anna, I sincerely hope I can be of assistance to you in this trouble. How did things go with Judge Neil?” he said, looking at Mr. Baskerville.
“As I feared, Anna was indicted for first-degree murder,” Baskerville said.
Anderson nodded. “I was afraid of that, too. I want you to know from the outset, Anna and Walter, that this is going to be an uphill battle. I took the liberty of meeting with Attorney General Anderson, who’ll be prosecuting the case—no relation, by the way,” he said with a little smile. “I called him up and asked him to have a cup of coffee with me over at a café on Demonbreun. From our informal conversation, I could tell he believes the state’s case is very strong. He gave me every indication he plans to ask for the maximum penalty.”
Anna swallowed and nodded. “I understand, Mr. Anderson. And I’m prepared to accept the consequences for my actions.”
“Well, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Anderson said. “We’ve got some time before the trial, probably?”
“The twentieth of May,” Mr. Baskerville said. “About two months.”
“Well, then. Let’s talk about that. You entered a plea of not guilty. That would guarantee a jury trial and as I’ve already said, the state thinks it has a rock-solid case.”
“Mr. Anderson, I didn’t murder Charlie Cobb,” Anna said.
Anderson glanced at the two other men in the room, then studied the backs of his hands for a few seconds. “Well, Anna, I hear what you’re saying, and I believe you’re sincere in saying it, but I don’t know offhand how we’d convince a jury to make such a fine distinction.” He looked at Walter and Mr. Baskerville again, then back at her. “I wonder, Anna, if you’d consent to being examined by a psychiatrist?”
“I’m not insane, Mr. Anderson.”
“And your demeanor bears that out, I must admit. But Anna, I want to save your life, if there’s any way possible. Will you let me make an appointment for you with Dr. J. W. Stephens? He’s the director of the City View Sanitarium, and the best psychiatrist in Nashville. I’d like his opinion on your mental state.”
“I’ve heard of him. He’s a fine doctor, Anna,” Walter said.
“Well, if it will prove to you and everyone else that I’m not crazy, I’ll go see him,” Anna said. “But I tell you, I knew what I was doing.”
“Fine, then. I want you to see Dr. Stephens. And Anna, Walter, listen to me: I must, in fairness, tell you that if you won’t at least consider temporary insanity as a defense in the case, I don’t see how I can represent you.”
Walter nodded quickly. Anna just stared at him for a few seconds, then shrugged.
TWO DAYS LATER, Anna stepped out of Walter’s Winton Six onto the grounds of City View Sanitarium, on a hillside overlooking the Murfreesboro Pike. She walked toward the building, her apprehension building with each step. What if, somehow, Dr. Stephens concluded she really was insane? Would he lock her up here, in a padded cell, bound in a straitjacket? Would she ever see Mabel and Scott again?
Anna tried to force these thoughts out of her mind. She wasn’t crazy, and she knew it, and of course Dr. Stephens, if he was as good as everybody said he was, would see that soon enough. She glanced at Walter, walking beside her with his palm on her elbow. He was looking straight ahead. Anna could tell he was worried, too.
They were met at the massive front doors by a very pleasant-looking orderly, dressed in white. He took them up a flight of stairs and down a very clean hallway, to a solid-looking door made of some dark wood and set with panes of frosted glass. He motioned them inside into a waiting room, then crossed the room and tapped on a smaller door. The door opened, he said a few words to whoever was inside, then smiled at them and left.
It was quiet here. Anna was relieved; she’d been prepared to hear the wails and cries of the inmates, to see someone running half-naked down a hall, pursued by orderlies. But as far as she could tell, the City View Sanitarium was a well
-kept, orderly place.
Dr. Stephens came into the waiting room and greeted them. He told Walter he wanted to see Anna alone, then took her back to his office.
“Do you know why you’re here, today?” he asked when they were both seated.
“You’re supposed to examine me and determine my sanity in the matter of the killing of Charlie Cobb.”
Dr. Stephens nodded and then sat back in his chair. “Tell me your version of what had happened that day, and how you feel about it.”
She told him.
“I knew what I was doing, Dr. Stephens. I killed Charlie Cobb, but it wasn’t murder—at least, as far as my vow to God was concerned. I killed him to protect my husband and my brother, to keep them from committing violence or being killed themselves. I did it for my family, Dr. Stephens. There was no other way.”
32
Anna saw the psychiatrist two more times, during the weeks between her pleading and her trial. Stephens told J. M. Anderson that he believed Anna suffered from a mental condition he called “monomania,” in which the subject was perfectly sane in all areas of life except one; with respect to that single area or topic, a monomaniac was so fixated as to be incapable of rational thought. He said that he believed Anna Dotson exhibited the symptoms of monomania with respect to Charlie Cobb. From that perspective, he said, she might very well have been functionally insane when she committed the crime.
Anna didn’t believe a word of this, but since it seemed to give Mr. Anderson, and especially Walter, a ray of hope, she kept her thoughts to herself. She had agreed to be examined, but only on the condition that she was allowed to speak on her own behalf at the trial. J. M. Anderson told her that in most cases involving temporary insanity, the jury wanted to hear the defendant anyway, so he thought this was a good idea. But Anna knew what she meant to say if certain questions were asked. Anderson’s plan for an insanity defense was all well and good, but Anna had already decided she was going to tell the truth as far as she knew it, and the consequences would just have to take care of themselves.
IN THE WEEKS PRECEDING THE TRIAL, Anna, Walter, and J. T. Baskerville made dozens of trips into Nashville to confer with J. M. Anderson. Every time, Anderson would try to persuade Anna to plead guilty to a lesser offense so that he could offer the prosecution a sure conviction in exchange for a lighter sentence. And each time, Anna would quietly and firmly refuse. One day, about two weeks before the trial was set to begin, Anderson, exasperated, said, “Confound it, Anna! You’re painting yourself into a corner with your stubbornness.” He looked around at Walter, who was smiling. “What on God’s green earth have you got to smile about, Dr. Dotson?”
Walter looked at Anna and shook his head. “That’s my Anna. Stubborn as a mule when she gets a notion into her head. I couldn’t ever change her; her mother and daddy couldn’t, and they tried for years before me. I don’t think there’s a lawyer, judge, jury, or court in the state of Tennessee that can, either.”
“Well, your stubborn wife is going to get up in front of a jury of twelve stubborn Tennessee men, and then we’ll see whose mind gets changed.”
ANDERSON WAS WORRIED. He had a two-part strategy: First, he would attempt to convince the jury that Anna Dotson was not mentally competent, using Stephens’ expert diagnosis of monomania; next, he hoped to show that Charlie Cobb had seduced her, exerting such force of will as to emphasize or even bring about her mental instability, then exploiting it for his own gratification. He had notified the prosecution of his intent to amend Anna’s plea to not guilty by reason of insanity, and they would presumably call their own experts to refute Stephens’ diagnosis. Still, it was as good a defense as he thought he could mount, under the circumstances.
But what kept J. M. Anderson awake nights was the character of his client, the way she presented herself. On the one hand, she was forthright, confident—and much too good-looking for her own good. Her candor could be disarming, and he suspected a jury of men would be as subject to her charm as anyone else. But would they believe she was insane? Would they really permit themselves to buy into Charlie Cobb’s emotional power over her? Anderson just couldn’t convince himself that they would. Furthermore, he was all too aware that Anna, once she got up on the witness stand, might say just about anything. With a single sentence, she could knock his defense strategy galley west. There was just no way to predict how she was going to respond; even her husband admitted as much, for pity’s sake! About twenty times each day, Anderson regretted having promised her she could take the witness stand.
In the meantime, he moved for a continuance, on the basis of “adverse and prejudicial publicity.” The trial had already been rescheduled for mid-June, but the public interest hadn’t waned. Judge Neil reviewed his motion until just after the first of June, when he denied it. Next, Anderson made an emergency appeal to the Tennessee State Supreme Court, asking for either a continuance or a change of venue to another county. He cited the extensive and unflattering newspaper coverage of the crime and claimed that it was highly unlikely that an impartial jury could be chosen anywhere in Davidson County. Infuriatingly, the court ruled against him, stating that “a prospective juror could not be automatically disqualified simply because a particular potential juror had read newspaper accounts.”
J. M. Anderson had run out of cards to play. Anna Dotson was going to go on trial, that trial would be in Nashville, and it was going to begin on June 17, 1913. There was not a thing in the world that he or anyone else could do about it.
33
It was shortly after eight in the morning on June 17 when Paul Christian went over to the press office located in the police department. He usually shared the newsroom—and the typewriter—with the courthouse beat newsmen from the other papers, but not this time. Tacked to the door was a cardboard sign that read “Paul Christian.” Underneath the sign was another cardboard notice tacked to the door: “No other reporters will be allowed entry without permission of Paul Christian, by order of the Nashville Police Department.” It was signed “Sidebottom.” The room contained one hard bed with enough room for one reporter to stretch out on, two rickety chairs, a desk, and a typewriter—Spartan accommodations at best. But the small room was convenient to the courthouse, police department, and jail; it was an amenity all the reporters had come to appreciate. And, apparently, it was to become Christian’s exclusive home away from home for the seven-day trial.
He went over to the courthouse and up to the second floor. A court officer was waiting for him; the bailiff took the reporter into the courtroom and up to the first row of spectator benches. A card was attached to the back of that section of the long oak bench, and it read, “Paul Christian, Tennessean and American.”
Folks were sure going to a lot of trouble for him, he thought. Of course, he was the prosecution’s star witness.
From the scowls and mutters he was getting from the fellows from the other papers, this special treatment wasn’t sitting well with them. Christian had to admit, if he’d been in their shoes, he’d have grumbled, too. As far as anyone could remember, no one reporter had ever been given an exclusive reserved seat in a criminal trial.
Just before nine o’clock, one hundred adult men residing in Davidson County answered their subpoenas to appear as prospective jurors in the case of the People of Tennessee v. Anna Dotson. Twelve men from the pool of over one hundred would be chosen to decide her fate.
The courthouse was crowded. Besides the hundred men who were summoned there were many others: curiosity seekers, attorneys, reporters, and interested citizens. Surprisingly, given the generous coverage the trial had been receiving for nearly three months now, the officials were neither prepared nor equipped to accommodate such a large crowd.
As the prospective jurors began to gather outside Judge Neil’s courtroom, located on the second floor, the massive crowd was spilling out and down to the ground floor; some of the subpoenaed jurors were sitting on the low walls along the sidewalk cut into the hillside, outside the side do
ors of the building.
Christian saw the defense team and the state’s entourage, led by Attorney General Anderson, hurrying into a side conference room, just off the main courtroom. Later, the lead prosecutor would tell the press that he had made what he characterized as his “first and last offer” to the defense team: a plea of guilty and a recommendation for a life sentence with possibility of parole after twenty years.
Christian could tell from their faces that Anna’s lawyers thought it was a good offer. Defending someone who had already confessed had to be weighing heavily on their minds. Anna’s lawyers approached her as she stood beside the entrance to the courtroom, next to her husband, Dr. Dotson, and their two children.
Anna was wearing a long brown dress with a brown mesh veil covering her face. Her dress was conservative and though her veil hid her face, nothing camouflaged her attractive figure.
J. M. Anderson came out of the conference room and walked briskly toward Anna, Walter, and their two frightened children. He said something to her and then ushered them all outside for a few minutes. When they came back in, the defense attorney’s face was more grave than ever. Christian guessed he’d given Anna some advice related to the impromptu meeting he’d just had with the prosecution, and she’d refused it.
“Wouldn’t even discuss it with her husband,” the reporter heard Anderson say to E. T. Seay, one of the assisting defense attorneys.
“Life in prison with parole after twenty years sure beats the noose,” Seay said.
The men in the crowd that was milling around the courthouse were mostly studying Anna when they could; the few women there looked like they were doing their best to avoid having anyone think they were noticing her.