Atlanta Daily World

Youth Sentenced To Die In Death Of White Woman

By PETE GREENLEAF

A 20-year-old Negro youth, Eddie McKinney, on trial for the murder of an Atlanta white woman watch-repairer, was found guilty Wednesday, after an all-white jury deliberated forty minutes at the end of his two-day long trial. Fulton Superior Court Judge Luther Alverson sentenced him to be electrocuted on June 15th.

McKinney, who lived in an alley basement apartment near the 8th Street spot where Mrs. Wilhelmina Edelman was shot, stood calmly before the bench to hear the sentence.

Before pronouncing sentence, Judge Alverson asked him about other crimes for which his record showed convictions in Florida. McKinney quietly admitted he was guilty of them all. The judge then pronounced the death sentence.

The youth's younger brother Freddie, 19, and a friend, Ben Crawford, 18, pleaded guilty to four counts of robbery Tuesday morning before the murder trial of Eddie began. Freddie was jointly indicted with his brother for the murder of the Atlanta woman, but only Eddie was on trial for the crime.

Judge Alverson had said he would withhold sentence on the two youths for the robbery counts until after the murder trial of Eddie was completed. It is expected that he will pronounce sentence on them today.

The murder trial got underway Tuesday after a lengthy process of picking jurors.

Twenty-nine prospective jurors excused themselves (Continued on Page 4, Col. 4)
Youth Sentenced (Continued from Page One) from participation on grounds that they did not believe in capital punishment. Assistant Solicitor Tom Luck, during the trial asked for the death penalty. He wove the case of evidence and testimony from witnesses, that to many observers seemed "air tight" from the beginning.
McKinney had been arrested two nights following the robbery and death of Mrs. Edelman when a uniformed "night watch" patrolman checking doors of businesses in the area observed the Negro youth standing in an alley behind several Peachtree businesses. Officer J. L. Rayburn testified he searched McKinney and retrieved a pistol he threw a few feet away as the policeman approached.
Mrs. Edelman was ambushed in front of 128 Eighth Street as she left a party at the home of friends. At the time she carried a pocketbook full of matches which had been left with her for repairs.
Homicide detectives said she had been shot in the face and the pocketbook was missing.
Detective J. F. Inman said he went to McKinney's basement apartment on a search warrant and found nine watches in the apartment. All were identified by owners as watches they had given to Mrs. Edelman to repair at her Peachtree Street shop.
Detective Inman told the court that McKinney admitted the crime and explained that he accidentally shot the woman when she resisted his purse snatching attempt. He said McKinney told him he had the pistol on Mrs. Edelman and grabbed the strap of the shoulder-length pocketbook and demanded that she give it to him. But the woman, unlike other victims whom he and his brother and friend had robbed at other times, Mrs. Edelman told him, "I ain't going to give you nothing."
The detective said the youth stated that he stumbled as he pulled at the strap and the gun went off in her face.
State Crime Laboratory experts testified that the gun found in McKinney's possession and bullets found in his home all added up to being the gun that killed the woman. Dr. Rees Smith testified that he made a paraffin test of the youth's fingers and found traces of gun powder to prove that he had recently fired a gun.
Detective Inman testified Wednesday that McKinney told him he had accosted Mrs. Edelman alone, although his brother had been his partner on other robberies and Ben Crawford at other times. On the night of Mrs. Edelman's death, the two brothers had robbed a victim on 14th Street but got into an argument over division of the money, he said he was told. Freddie demanded the gun but Eddie kept it and Freddie went home. Shortly afterwards, Mrs. Edelman became his victim.