THIS DAY IN 1918 IN THERECORD

Friday, April 26, 1918. The widow of Ignatius Hantow describes his death at the hands of Marie Hastings in county court today, The Record reports. Hastings, who lived upstairs from the Hantows at 342 Fourth Street, fatally shot Ignatius on September 27, 1914. Declared mentally incompetent, she was confined at the Mattewan State Hospital from September 1915 until January of this year, when she petitioned successfully for her release. Defense attorney Abbott H. Jones claims that Hastings was temporarily insane when she shot Hantow. She could receive the death penalty if convicted. Catherine Hantow testifies that she had left her two-year old baby in a cart in the yard while she prepared breakfast on the morning of the shooting. When she heard the baby cry, she looked outside to see that Hastings had shoved the cart into a wall, hurting the child’s fingers. Tending to the baby in the yard, Mrs. Hantow yelled up to Hastings that she was “a mean woman to hurt a child.” As Hastings laughed, Ignatius came into the yard to check on the child. He told his wife he would “ask Mrs. Hastings about it” as Hastings came back downstairs, yelling, “Where is the big Pollock?” Hantow asked Hastings what she’d done to the child, and according to Catherine, Hastings answered, “I’ll show you.” She then drew a pis- tol from beneath her apron and shot Hantow in the stomach. Catherine testifies that she then threw a milk bottle at Hastings, who ran back upstairs. Hasting’s son then picked up the bottle and threw it into the Hantows’ kitchen window. Ignatius remained on his feet until Deputy Joseph Casey arrived at the scene.

Jones, a former district attorney, subjects Mrs. Hantow to a “searching cross- examination.” She denies that her husband had grabbed a large stick she used for washing before confronting Hastings. The denial is corroborated by Catherine’s mother, Mrs. Wosil Symoble, who testifies through an interpreter.

Trying to undermine Mrs. Hantow’s credibility, Jones asks her “where Mrs. Hastings had been since 1914.” She answers that “she had read in the papers that Mrs. Hastings was in jail,” and “would not admit directly that she knew the accused had been declared insane and had been in an asylum.”

Pouncing on her evasive response, Jones asks, “Did you not call upon Supreme Court Justice [ Wesley O.] Howard and ask that Mrs. Hastings be kept in an insane asylum?”

Hantow confirms that she’d met with the judge, but had done so to ask him whether Hastings was “coming out of prison.” After testimony from Symbole and Deputy Casey, the court adjourns until tomorrow.