THIS DAY IN 1918 IN THERECORD
Saturday, April 27, 1918. The officers who arrested Marie Hastings for shooting Ignatius Hantow in September 1914 are the final prosecution witnesses at her murder trial today, The Record reports. The Hastings and Hantow families lived in the same building at 342 Fourth Street, the Hantows on the ground floor. Hastings admitted the shooting at the time of her arrest, but was declared mentally unfit to stand trial in 1915. She was confined to the Mattewan state hospital until January 1918, when she petitioned successfully for her release. While she’s now considered competent to stand trial, Hastings depends on a temporary-insanity defense to save her from the death penalty. While a sheriff’s deputy was the first law-enforcement officer at the scene, Hastings was arrested by patrolmen Bruno Cupolo and John J. Talbot. After nearly four years, their accounts of the arrest don’t quite match. Talbot testifies that Cupolo, who’d arrived earlier, had not yet confiscated Hastings’ gun. Talbot ordered Hastings to turn it over, and she got the weapon from under a dresser and handed it to Cupolo. Cupolo testifies that he asked Hastings for the gun before Talbot arrived, and that she consulted with her husband before turning it over. The patrolmen recalls that Hastings was “quiet, although very pale and her eyes were somewhat glassy and wild.” Captain Daniel Keenehan of the First Precinct arrived shortly afterward to question Hastings. He testifies today that Hastings told him that “she shot the man because he had assaulted her boy,” and refused to go to the police station because “she had not done anything wrong.”
While Hastings has claimed that she was defending her child, Hantow’s widow testified yesterday that Hastings had started the trouble by shoving the Hantows’ baby cart, with baby inside, into a wall. Ignatius Hantow tried to confront Hastings over that incident when Hastings pulled her gun out from under her apron and shot him in the stomach.
After the prosecution rests, county judge Pierce H. Russell calls an adjournment until Monday morning, when specialists are expected to testify that Hastings was insane when she shot Hantow.
Body Under Bridge
After The Record’s evening edition goes to press, the body of a South Troy man is found under the Poestenkill bridge at First Street. The Sunday Budget reports that Timothy Ryan had been missing since leaving for his job at Ludlow Valve on the morning of April 13. “Prior to his disappearance he had complained of pains in his head, and is said to have acted peculiarly for several weeks,” but it’s unclear this weekend whether Ryan’s death was accidental of self-inflicted.