Thrill-Hungry Spectators Jam 'Hex House' Hearing

By Hap Haggard

Originally Published in The Tulsa World on Friday, April 7, 1944

Brief peeks at life in "hex house"—doggy but mysterious duplex where many-named Mrs. Fay H. Smith is accused of enslaving two young women as part of a confidence game—brought gasps from a packed courtroom Thursday.

Pale blue eyes glued on her accusers, Mrs. Smith listened stonily as plumpish, brown-eyed Virginia Evans testified she helped swindle her own father, and Willetta Horner, bobbing her close-cropped, brownette hair for emphasis, told from the stand of following her spiritual adviser's instructions to perjure herself.

Poker-faced, Mrs. Smith sat between her attorneys, Luther Lane, and Harold McArthur, as they lost a brisk legal duel with County Atty. Dixie Gilmer. She was remanded to county jail in default of $6,000 bond, set by Common Pleas Judge Carver Smith.

The defense waived preliminary examination on the only case in which use of any mystic power by Mrs. Smith was directly alleged. In the charges upon which she was bound over every reference to hypnotic influence was prevented by state objection.

But testimony indicated that both girls were obedient to the will of Mrs. Smith who they have previously asserted kept them in serfdom while living richly off their combined earnings.

Gilmer maneuvered—by means of carefully baited objections—the defense into insisting on testimony that strengthened the state's own case.

Obvious defense strategy will be to contend that Mrs. Smith's two accusers—whether proteges or slaves—voluntarily joined in whatever plan was afoot in "hex house." And from the cross-examination by Lane, it was apparent that Gilmer faces a stiff fight when the cases come to trial in the next term of district court.

Not until then—in about six weeks, Gilmer said—will the throng of morbidly curious upper-stratus Tulsans who thronged the court be treated to the spicy details for which many a mouth openly watered at the hearing.

A sizable segment of Tulsa's elite—including the wives and children of several of the town's richer families—rubbed shoulders with former relief clients. But from the colonel lady to Judy O'Grady each obviously waited for the same thing, racy testimony.

Mouths hung open and the crowd edged collectively on its seat as the first witness—Miss Evans—took the stand. There were excited calls for a doctor as a woman in the audience fainted.

Gripping the arms of her chair, the 31-year-old woman related her introduction to Mrs. Smith through a librarian at the Christian Science reading room here, and told of indorsing checks sent by her father, Tom Evans of Stroud, to pay a fictitious nurse under whose care she was supposed to be.

"Did you at any time suggest any scheme or plan in connection with this check?" Gilmer asked after she had identified one for $35 as coming from her father.

"No," Miss Evans answered firmly, "Mrs. Smith told me that my father needed to be saved and that by making him suffer he would see the light and be saved."

Mrs. Smith, too, leaned forward. The expensive feathers on her chic hat quivered slightly as Miss Evans continued:

"We made him believe that if I were sick, he would be more willing to pay."

As part of the plan to make her father "suffer," she said, Mrs. Smith wrote him often, emphasizing that his daughter was in a serious mental and physical condition. Yet, she added, she went to work for the Oklahoma Natural Gas company "two days after I moved in with Mrs. Smith" and worked there 3 1/2 years.

Actually, she said, she had sinus, but "I thought she could heal me." When she first went to live with Mrs. Smith at ritzy Sophian Plaza, Miss Evans said she paid $25 a month rent. This gradually was increased until at the last she was turning over her entire earnings as an office worker.

Lane eyed her in disbelief. "Do you mean to tell the court you were hypnotized?" he asked.

Gilmer quickly objected then batted down two other queries by Lane who asked if she had told Mrs. Smith she "had often sinned," or if she had come to Mrs. Smith in a remorseful attitude."

"Did you love this lady very much?" Lane asked.

The crowd moved forward visibly and palpably excited by the word "love." It settled back as Gilmer's hand rose in objection, inched ahead again as he reconsidered.

"I love the person I had in mind then," Miss Evans answered.

Audibly, the crowd settled back in wait.

"I though Mrs. Smith was a pure, good and honest woman," Miss Evans went on. "I thought she was a scared, Godly woman. I had absolute confidence in her. Anything she told me to do, I would do without question."

Miss Evans declared she faithfully helped Mrs. Smith in the scheme to bilk her father—but that when the weekly checks arrived, she turned them over to Mrs. Smith. Besides, she testified, her father for some time thought she was ill and unemployed and sent her $31 weekly for living expenses. This too she said, went to Mrs. Smith.

ILLNESS FICTION MAINTAINED

All during this time, she said, the group maintained the fiction that she was seriously ill. When the worried father would visit—and she stressed that such visits were allowed only after cleared by Mrs. Smith in advance—she would take time off from her job at Mrs. Smith's bidding and sham illness.

The influence of Mrs. Smith grew, she said, becoming so great that at one time when she was ordered to leave the apartment, "I begged on my knees for permission to remain."

"Did you ever threaten to kill Mrs. Smith?" Lane asked, and when Gilmer shot in a quick objection, he asked if she had ever threatened suicide.

"Oh, I didn't mean it," Miss Evans answered. "But I was at my rope's end."

Lane probed deeply into Miss Evans' attempts to get a fake birth certificate under the name of Beverly Fontane.

MRS. SMITH'S IDEA

She declared that the idea was Mrs. Smith's, quoting her as saying "no one will ever pay you a good salary if you have wealthy parents."

Her testimony closed the assertion that she "believed in Mrs. Smith" until last Tuesday. That was the day that "hex house" collapsed about Mrs. Smith with the two girls' story to officers.

In questioning her, Gilmer—in a sense—"legalized" the term "hex house," first applied to the mystery-shrouded apartment by World reporters and adopted by other Tulsa scribes after substitute "catch phrases" failed to click.

“All these events you have been relating happened in ‘hex house’ at 10 E 21st, didn’t they?” Gilmer asked.

“Yes, in the hex house,” Miss Evans answered.

FATHER ON STAND

Her father, a portly, gray-haired Stroud merchant, took the stand and briefly outlined the arrangement between Mrs. Smith and himself. The arrangement, he said was broached to him by mail—and with the testimony Postal Inspector George Hill evinced keen interest.

Lane scored heavily, however, when he drew from Evans the admission that he had never seen the name of Mrs. Smith on any of the checks.

Miss Horner, tense, nervous and obviously near the breaking point, detailed the manner in which the checks were cashed. As Gilmer handed her the check in question—State Exhibit “A”—the slender girl’s trembling hands were relayed to the slip of paper, which fluttered visibly.

But she stood her ground under cross-examination by McArthur, who shot question after question which Gilmer met with objection after objection.

The questions piled “one up” on the objections when McArthur piled her with inquiries about her true name and Judge Smith cut short a wrangle between the two attorneys with:

CAUTIONED BY JUDGE

“Now, Mr. Gilmer, you are right. However, I can‚t sustain objections unless you make them.”

“Your honor, I‚ll make them. I can guarantee you,” Gilmer rejoined.

The testimony settled down to an even keel. Under cross-examination, Miss Horner testified she would take the checks indorsed to “Thelma Watson” and cash them at Bill‚s Hut (now Stauffer‚s restaurant) 108 East 18th, indorsing them as Thelma Watson.

Asked if she knew this was a felony, Miss Horner replied:

“The first time I knew of the plan was when she told me what to do. Sir, I had my instructions.”

McArthur leaned back, looked at her sternly, and—with the hand of Gilmer raised in anticipation—demanded:

“You knew this girl Virginia Evans was gypping her old man, didn‚t you?”

Gilmer leaped to his feet, but the witness answered:

“Sir, I was taught not to question anything I was instructed to do.”

EMPLOYMENT QUESTIONED

Gilmer grinned and settled back. He was on his feet a second later, after McArthur asked her about being employed at the Stanolind Oil company. The defense attorney explained he was testing the credibility of the witness.

“Overruled,” announced Judge Smith. “Working up there won‚t damage anyone‚s reputation.”

He sustained several state‚s objections to McArthur's questions that followed, in which the defense sought to show that Miss Horner was a party to the conspiracy.

"I'll ask you, then, Miss Horner if it wasn't true that you were stealing articles from your employer," he asked—as Gilmer's hand raised—and then continued, "and didn't you get fired for it?"

“Your honor, I'll withdraw the objection,” Gilmer conceded. “I think that question should be answered.”

Miss Horner flushed.

"Yes, I took a few articles," she began, and McArthur leaned forward triumphantly.

SOLD TO BUY FOOD

"But I took them, and sold them, to get money to buy myself something to eat, and to put some soles on my shoes," she added. As McArthur settled back, Gilmer grinned at Assistant County Atty. Matt Simms, who winked.

Further cross-examination brought out that Mrs. Smith had bought the girl four expensive suits, and Gilmer and McArthur clashed over the matter. Judge Smith sustained state objections, but under re-direct examination, Gilmer reopened the money question.

"What did you do with the money you made?" he asked.

"I gave it to Mrs. Smith."

"Every last dollar? Every last dime?"

"Yes, every dime."

McArthur jumped to his feet.

"Now, didn't she really put every last dime into those four expensive suits she bought you?" he asked and received a negative reply.

OTHER ACCUSATION MADE

"Miss Horner, you said you stole some articles—erasers and such—but how about that roof-full of stuff you stole?" he asked.

"That is assuming a state of affairs not now in evidence, and that never will be in evidence," Gilmer objected.

"That's what you think," McArthur rejoined.

After Bill Stauffer had testified as to the cashing of the checks and recounted that the two girls ate meals there at times, Miss Horner was recalled by McArthur.

"Isn't it true that you and Virginia Evans have spent all your time up in the Tulsa World newsroom since all this began?" he asked. Gilmer's objection prevented an answer.

Lane then demurred to the evidence as insufficient, which Judge Smith over-ruled.

“The court finds the offense charged has been committed, and the defendant is in the court‚s opinion, guilty," he ruled. The matter of bond was passed until the other charges were examined.

Thrill-hungry onlookers retained their seats during this 1 ½ hour recess, were called in support of the swamping the jury box and routing the press from their assigned seats. More spectators pushed and shoved into the courtroom, jamming the aisles, and standing there deep at the rear of the room.

First witnesses, after the noon recess, were called in support of the state's contention that Mrs. Smith suborned perjury in forcing the two girls to testify falsely against Andrew Milek, former occupant of the un-hexed half of the "hex house."

There were E.M. Lothridge, deputy city court clerk, and City Judge Tom Shaw. They recalled the case, verified the information, and testified that Milek was found guilty of three charges brought by Miss Horner—then living as Janet Sherman.

TESTIMONY RECALLED

Judge Shaw recounted that testimony of all three witnesses—the three principals in the "hex case" and that of Milek, whom he said was adjudged guilty, asked who received a new trial and was dismissal of the cases at that time there was no charge of perjury in the petition for a new trial. He said, "Miss Evans testified that she was advised and carefully coached in advance as to what she should say on the stand in city court until far into the night. She declared that Mrs. Smith outlining the strategy, and the two girls the case as it stood wasn't strong enough and that Milek would have to be represented as a "peeping Tom."

She said Mrs. Smith ordered them to say they had seen Milek peeping through the window and had so testified--knowing it was perjury. She did so, she explained, because "I did not think Mrs. Smith would tell me to do anything wrong."

Under cross-examination, she maintained she had received all her orders through Mrs. Smith, as had Willetta, and that the two "only spoke to each other when it was necessary." A series of state objections prevented her from answering question designed to show that Miss Horner had a personal interest in suborning the perjury.

"But hadn't you, yourself complained that you had seen people looking in the windows? Didn't you complain to Mrs. Smith that you thought your own mother was looking in through windows and haunting the house?" Lane demanded. An objection was sustained.

Miss Horner took the stand, testifying that the privacy at Mrs. Smith's apartment had been jealously guarded during the years the two women lived there and that Mrs. Smith had tried to force Milek to move.

Mrs. Smith did not want Milek around, she said, and "one day she told me to go out and attack him. He had never annoyed me, but I did what I was instructed to do."

"I went out and hit him several blows with a stick," she said. "He never struck me at all, but I was ordered to say that he struck me forcibly and I fell to the ground."

"Why did you do that?" Gilmer asked.

"Because Mrs. Smith so instructed me," she answered.

McArthur bored in relentlessly under cross-examination.

"Are you telling the truth today?" he asked, after being overruled on an earlier question. Miss Horner said she was.

"How do you know you are?" he shot at her, drawing a reprimand from Judge Smith. Several nervous onlookers clapped their hands. The bailiff scowled.

Gilmer was angered, barking at the laughing McArthur, "that isn't funny to this girl."

"He knows better than that judge," Gilmer said. "Or maybe he just doesn't know better--so I'll excuse him on that."

Both girls testified they went over their parts carefully. Miss Horner testifying that she typed and memorized hers. Miss Evans that they rehearsed until "far into the night."

Milek testified briefly and said he had not intruded on Mrs. Smith's private property. He said he hadn't seen many people around the place.

"Did you ever see Mr. Fontane?" Gilmer asked. Mrs. Smith lost her composure for a fleeting instant at that reference to her fictious husband.

In final arguments McArthur declared that the testimony of an accomplice in perjury must be corroborated. Judge Smith although over-ruling the motion took note of the attorney's reference to the two young women as "self-confessed liars."

"I can see where the state may have some difficulty on this count," the judge agreed, "but it was subornation of perjury when Mrs. Smith instructed them to testify falsely and if anybody wanted to get rid of Milek, it could only be Mrs. Smith.”

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