Holyoke, Mass

Depot Hill, before the brick blocks were built.

Depot Hill

17 March 1933

Accused Woman Takes the Stand at Murder Trial

Mrs. Mary Walence Tells of Events on Night Her Husband Was Slain — In Tears Several Times

Mrs. Mary Walence of Holyoke, charged with the murder of her husband, Paul, early in the morning of July 11, 1932, took the stand in her own defense yesterday afternoon. Her trial is being held before Judge Daniel T. O’Connell and a jury in criminal session of superior court. In a voice which could scarcely be heard, Mrs. Walence told the story of that fateful night and of the days preceding it. Frequently, as she told of the harmonious relations which existed between herself and her husband, her voice broke. Several times the little white-faced woman gave way to tears, but she smothered her sobs — and at times her words — in her handkerchief, which she held tightly in her right hand.

For nearly an hour Mrs. Walence sat in the chair by the witness stand and told her story in reply to questions by Atty. Thomas C. Maher, chief counsel for the defense. Several times she paused to take a sip of water in an endeavor to recover her composure and several timed Judge O’Connell was obliged to ask her to keep her voice up that the 12 men on the jury might hear what she said. She was still being questioned by Atty. Maher when court adjourned for the day at 3:55 and it is believed she will be put on the stand again as soon as the court opens this morning at 10. It is also thought that the case may reach the jury tomorrow afternoon and there is a possibility that a verdict will be brought in before another 24 hours have passed.

Heard Him Return

The night of her husband’s death Mrs. Walence and her daughters retired about 10 or 10:30, she testified. Mr. and Mrs. Walence and their daughters had been to Hartford that afternoon by automobile. They had returned home about 6 or 6:30 and after supper Paul went out. She next saw him about midnight, when he returned. She said she had been awakened by the slamming o the garage door and she heard him come into the kitchen and then into the bathroom. While in the bathroom he changed to his pajamas.

Shown a picture of the bedroom, Mrs. Walence wept as she pointed out her bed and that of her husband. Her attorney urged her to compose herself and helped her to drink some of the water which was in a tumbler on the stand beside her.

Regaining control of herself, Mrs. Walence, under  the kindly questioning of Atty. Maher, continued with her story. Her husband came over to her bed and sat down beside her. He had been drinking, she said, because she smelled the liquor, but she denied that he was drunk.

“I ask hm if he were very busy that he come in to late,” she said. She then declared that he explained to her that he had started to come home at 11 and then two men came in and he sat drinking and talking with them for another hour. He then told her, she related, that if she cold run the place better than he could, to do so.

Husband a Bootlegger

Previously, Mrs. Walence, in answer to a question as to the nature of her husband’s business, had said he ran a grocery store and a speakeasy. “He was in grocery store and liquor — bootlegger,” she said in her rather hesitant and somewhat limited English.

After talking for about 10 minutes, she said her husband got into his own bed and she turned over toward the window, with her back to her husband’s bed, when she went to sleep.

She testified that “some kind of noise” woke her up, but that she was not fully awake at once. Then she heard to noises “something like someone makes Fourth of July.” In answer to the question as to where these noises came from she replied” –

“It seemed to me like it was on the outside of the house.”

The defendant said she lay still and listened for a while and heard some noise near the window near the closet, but did not know what that noise was. She then got out of bed but did not see anyone. She called Paul, and he didn’t answer, and she started from the side of her bed toward the light switch. The way led around the foot of her husband’s bed, and just as she reached the foot of the bed, her daughter, Stella, turned on the light in the bedroom. It was then she saw her husband had been shot, and she started to cry and to scream.

Memory Fails

She said the children cried, too, but that she was so upset that she does not know what happened next. The next thing she knew she was in the kitchen, but how she got there she said she was unable to tell. The children gave her medicines there in the kitchen and wiped her face with wet towels.

At this point Atty. Maher questioned her about the medicine. She said it was some she started taking about a year before for nervous spells and a pain in her back, but that it had been four or five months before she had seen a doctor.

She remembered, she said, men coming into the kitchen, and although she knew that they were police officers she did not know their names. “Stella asked me something about poppa coming home,” Mrs. Walence said, and she talked with one of the police officers through Stella, who acted as interpreter.

She told of remembering Capt. Cullen coming to the house, and of seeing him afterward at the police station. She said that while she was in the kitchen, Capt. Cullen told her to get dressed, that she had to go to the police station. For quite a long time, more than two hours, she estimated, she was questioned at the police station. The Polish language was not used there, all the talk being in English, she said.

Asked hoe she was feeling at the police station, the defendant declared that she was “feeling bad,” was crying and dizzy. She said she remembered a doctor coming and giving her medicine, after which she felt better. She was asked at the station, she said, if she wanted anything to eat, “but I wasn’t hungry at all and didn’t mind,” she added. At the point court adjourned for the day.

Recalls Married Life

When Mrs. Walence was seated in the chair by the witness stand, after having been sworn in, she told of her marriage 23 years ago, on January 23, 1910. Continue Reading →

27 April 2012

Holyoke in 1881

The city of Holyoke in 1881. In the foreground is the old Connecticut River railroad passenger station at the foot of Dwight Street. On the right of Dwight Street and near the top of the hills is the Windsor Hotel, which later burned down. The steeple of the Second Congregational Church is standing where later the Marble Hall stood. (Click on image to see a larger version).

From The Springfield Republican.

16 March 1933

States Gun Fires At Close Range in Walence Murder
State Police Ballistic Expert, Capt. C. A. Van Amburgh, Testifies in Woman’s Trial
Slayer Stood Between Two Beds
Firearm Discharged No More Than 12 Inches From Holyoke Man–Mrs. Walence is Disturbed

Bullets which killed Paul J. Walence, 44, of 71 Linden Street, Holyoke, while he lay in bed the night of July 11, 1932, were fired by a person standing between Walence’s bed and that of his wife, and came from the .25 caliber automatic found later outside the Walence home. This was the testimony given by Capt Charles A. Amsburgh, state police ballistic expert, when he was called to the stand by the commonwealth in the trial of Mrs. Mary (Szerbink) Walence, charged with the murder of her husband. The case is being tried before Judge Daniel T. O’Connell and a jury in superior court and the fourth day was completed yesterday.

The gun was fired at a distance not greater than 12 inches from the victim, Capt. Van Amburgh declared in answer to a question by District Attorney Thomas F. Moriarty. The witness declared that it would have been impossible for the gun to have been fired at a greater distance, because had it been, there would not  have have been such distinct powder residue on the pajama coat Walence was wearing. Had the gun been fired at a distance greater than 12 inches the flakes of unburned power which Capt. Van Amburgh found on the pajama coat would not have been there, he testified. All the shots were fired from above and at an angle of about 45 degrees, he said.

From the location of five shells — four of which were found under beds in the room — as testified to by other witnesses, Capt. C. Amburgh declared it his belief that the gun used in the shooting must have been fired within the room. This merely substantiated his previous opinion based on the power residue and particles which he found on the sleeping garment he said.

When District Attorney Moriarty started to question the captain about the bullets, the chief counsel for the defense, Attorney Thomas C. Maher, announced that such questioning would not be necessary as it was agreed the bullets had been fired from the gun found later in the yard.

Mrs. Walence Breaks Down

Mrs. Walence’s rigid composure broke for the first time yesterday afternoon when Harold E. Whitcher, Springfield chemist, was being cross examined by Attorney Maher concerning the chemical analysis he had made of threads taken from the vicinity of the holes in the pajama coat. Just before this the district attorney had held the blood-stained garment up for identification by Whitcher. At the sight of it, Mrs. Walence, the first woman to be tried for murder in this county in 13 years, shuddered. A moment later she began to weep and was shaking with sobs while the chemist was being cross examined.

Judge O’Connell declared a recess and she was escorted by the police matron and a deputy sheriff from the crowded courtroom. After a few minutes she was brought back and the jury recalled. Capt. Van Armburgh was then placed on the stand. When the blood-stained pajama coat was shown to him for purposed of identification, Mrs. Walence again started weeping, but soon regained control of herself and sat, white-faced and tight lipped, while the state police officer gave his testimony.

Once before in the afternoon a recess had been declared by Judge O’Connell to allow another women interested in the case to regain her composure. This earlier recess came when miss Mary Kostek, 25, of Hatfield, the “mystery woman” of the case, was forced to identify Mrs. Walence.

Miss Kostek was asked by the district attorney if she had seen Mrs. Walence since the day in July of 1931 when she met her at the House of Providence at Holyoke. Miss Kostek replied in a low voice that she did not want to see Mrs. Walence. Judge O’Connell cautioned her that although the question might embarrass her, she would have to answer. District Attorney Moriarty then asked if she saw the woman in court.  Finally Miss Kostek looked at the defendant and broke into a fit of weeping, whereupon Judge O’Connell recessed court to allow her to recover.

Miss Kostek, an attractive young woman who was dressed in somber colors, wearing a black hat and veil, took the stand early in the afternoon. She testified that she lives at Hatfield but is employed in housework at Holyoke. She declared that she knew Paul Walence for about 2 ½ years and that when she first met him she was 22.  She said she did not know at first that he was married but that when she learned he had a wife she tried to break away from him.

Continued Under Threats

She told of her inability to do this because of his insistence that they continue to keep company, and of his threats to kill her and kill himself should she refuse to continue going with him. These threats so terrified her, she said, that she acceded to his requests and continued to see him. She admitted having gone to his place of business. There was drinking there, she stated, and girls frequented the place. She used to see him twice a week, she declared.

On July 6, 1931, Miss Kostek visited Walence in the House of Providence Hospital at Holyoke, she testified. While there, Mrs. Walence came in and asked her who she was. Walence declared that Miss Kostek was a nurse but Mrs. Walence shouted she was not a nurse and, grabbing her, tore her dress to pieces, the witness said. Asked what Mrs. Walence said to her on that occasion, the witness replied that she preferred not to repeat the remarks.

Miss Kostek’s brother, Stanley, was the next witness to take the stand. He testified that Mrs. Walence visited him and warned him to keep his “wife” away from her husband. It was then that Mrs. Walence learned for the first time that the “other woman” was Kostek’s sister, for Kostek is not married.

When court opened yesterday morning at 10, Capt. Peter A. Cullen of the Holyoke police was placed on the stand for a resumption of the cross examination, which was started Tuesday. He partly identified Miss Kostek, although he said he could not remember her last name. Other witnesses to testify yesterday included Dr. P. J. Moriarty, medical examiner, who explained that the brown marks on the pajama coat were powder marks, and Wilbur Boyer, of 452 Appleton Street, Holyoke, who told of being on Suffolk Street in the vicinity of Linden Street the night of the shooting and of hearing five shots, two, then a brief period of silence and then three more in rapid succession.

William C. Mengel of 159 West Street, Holyoke, a garage man and a close friend of three years’ standing of Paul Walence, testified after Stanley Kostek had been on the stand. He said that he and his father had called on Paul Walence the night of July 10, 1932, and that they left about 10 that night after a half-hour’s visit.

Mr. Whitcher, a chemist told of examining the pajama coat and of finding evidence of powder residue around the holes in the garment. He made the chemical analysis in the presence of Capt. Van Amburgh, he said. Asked what he meant by “powder residue,” he explained that it was powder “partly or wholly burned.” “It comes from burning powder,” he added.

J.J. Granfield Aids

Aiding District Attorney Moriarty on behalf of the commonwealth is Assistant District Attorney John J. Granfield. Representing the defendant are Attorneys Thomas G. Maher and Gregory Scanlon of Holyoke and Attorney Stanley F. Closek.

At 8 yesterday morning a line of spectators for the trial gathered at the courthouse, two hours before court convened, and by the time court opened at 10 there were about 500 persons waiting to occupy the 60 seats in the courtroom. According to officials at the courthouse the trial is drawing more public attention than any case in years.. When the noon recess was declared at 1 in the afternoon the courtroom was cleared of all spectators, with a result that most of those who sat in at the morning session failed to get seats for the afternoon. Promptly at 2, when court convened, the doors were closed leaving a large number of the hopeful standing in the corridor outside the guarded door of the courtroom. A few of the gained entrance a little after 3 when the regular afternoon recess was declared and some of the spectators within the room left.

Adapted from The Springfield Republican.

Previously published articles about this case:

• Part I: Police to Charge Wife With Killing of Holyoke Man
• Part II: Probable Cause Found in Murder Trial at Holyoke
• Part III: Thousands Gather at Walence Rites
• Part IV: Indictment Given to Court By Grand Jury
• Part V: Executors Appointed, Source of Gun Held Accountable
• Part VI: Judge Appointed, Jury Selected
• Part VII: Testimony Begins at Holyoke Today
• Part VIII: Marital Relations of the Walences

Valuable Trophies Won By The Falcos For Athletic Supremacy Since 1920

Above: This group of 27 cups and two statues, of which the Falco athletes and officials are very proud, occupies a prominent place in the Falco Auditorium soon to be closed indefinitely. There are 14 cups won in basketball, six in baseball, two in soccer and others for various sporting and field day event. The time covered is from 1920 to this year. The Falcos excelled in basketball, winning nearly every time they were in the Dusty league. Whatever happens in the future of the Falco hall, the cups will be taken proper care of.

08 April 1931

Joe Bower Through

For an indefinite period there will be no organized athletics at the Farr Alpaca plant at Holyoke. Falco Hall is to be closed and the concern will not be represented in the Industrial baseball League this season, whereas in the past the Falcos have been among the bulwarks of the circuit in both baseball and basketball. Joe Bower, in charge of Falco athletics for some years, will resign his position May 1, when Falco hall is closed, and has no definite plans for the future.

Adapted from The Springfield Republican.