Murder wasn’t part of the act

It was sensational news when actress Julia Morrison walked onto the stage and shot her leading man dead.
She was the wife of Frederick James, who had been the druggist at Moss Pharmacy in Lafayette, “where his genial smile always bade you welcome,” but the couple stayed in Lafayette only a couple of months after they were married.
“It was known that she was inclined towards the stage,” according to the Lafayette Advertiser, and they “went up North” to pursue her career. She was touring with a comedy troupe in Chattanooga on Friday night, Sept. 22, 1899, when she killed leading man Frank Leiden.
The orchestra had just finished the opening overture for “Mr. Plaster of Paris” and the “large and fashionable audience” gathered at Chattanooga’s Opera House thought the three gunshots were part of the show. They weren’t.
“The shots had been fired from a revolver in the hands of Mrs. Morrison-James,” according to the newspaper account. Julia, the leading lady in the play, had been involved in “a succession of bitter quarrels” with Leiden, and had slapped him and walked out of rehearsal that afternoon.
As the first act was about to begin that evening, she “came out of her dressing room with the revolver in her hand, walked deliberately up to Leiden … and fired twice.”
“At the second, he fell and then as he lay bleeding and dying, she fired the third shot, which struck him just below the eye.” He lived five minutes.
Both Julia and her husband were arrested and put in separate cells in the Chattanooga jail. She surrendered quietly, and “told a consistent, straight story, every word of which was corroborated by her husband.” She told police Leiden had made “improper proposals” and that he harassed and insulted her when she refused his advances Police were sympathetic, but she was still charged with murder.
Leiden was said to be popular with the rest of the cast. but at Julia’s first court hearing prosecutors found out that “the whole company had … slipped off … to New York rather than testify against Mrs. James.”
The troupe’s manager, a Mr. Harris, visited Julia’s cell before leaving town “and the scene … was touching and affecting,” according to the news account. “Both of them wept and after thirty minutes of conversation Mr. Harris came out fully convinced that Mrs. James was justified in the terrible act she had committed.”
He was not the only sympathizer. The actress was visited in her cell “by many influential ladies of Chattanooga” who brought baskets of flowers and fruit, and she was the recipient of “many attentions” from others, including the mayor of Chattanooga and his wife. Julia’s cell “was fixed up elegantly by the kind people of Chattanooga.”
“The motherless girl, charged with murder, sobbing out her remorse and grief on the bosom of the best women of the city . . . called tears to the eyes of all bystanders, men and women,” according to one account. Her visitors said “she has not the least remembrance of her act.” That amnesia was the basis of her plea of temporary insanity.
When the trial opened on Jan. 5, 1900, the Chattanooga Daily Times proclaimed that Julia was “on trial for her life.”
She did not dispute that she shot Leiden. A theater full of people were witnesses. But, as the Jan. 6 headline proclaimed, she told her story in “all its sensational details,” claiming that Leiden came to her dressing room and made an advance, that she pushed him away, and that the next thing she remembered was a policeman arresting her. The newspaper implied that she used her acting skills to add drama to her testimony.
Prosecutors claimed it was premeditated murder, pure and simple. They tangled her testimony under cross examination and cast considerable doubt on her alleged forgetfulness.
Her attorney made an impassioned argument that he was defending not only “this unhappy woman” but was arguing for “a vindication of all womanhood.”
“Great throngs” gathered to hear the verdict, and they didn’t have to wait long. It took the jury only two minutes to make a decision.
The big headline on Jan. 11 read: “Julia Morrison James A Free Woman.” The story said the verdict prompted “a remarkable scene” as her supporters celebrated.
The acquitted actress said she would go back on stage, but not as a performer. She planned a series of lectures on “The Other Side of Stage Life.”
A collection of Jim Bradshaw’s columns, Cajuns and Other Characters, is available from Pelican Publishing. You can contact him at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.