The Miller Press

BEATTIE IS DEAD
CELEBRATED VIRGINIA MURDERER FINALLY GOES TO FACE HIS MAKER.

LAST HOURS IN PRAYER
Final Blow Comes to Aged Father Who Loyally Stood by His Favorite Son Through All His Troubles.

BEATTIE'S CONFESSION.
"I, Henry Clay Beattie, Jr., desirous of standing right before God and man, do on this, the 23rd day of November, 1911, confess my guilt of the crime charged against me. Much that was published concerning the details is not true, but the awful fact, without the harrowing circumstances, remains. For this action, I am truly sorry and believing that I am at peace with God, and am soon to pass into His presence, this statement is made."

Richmond, Va., Nov. 25. - The clang of a steel door—then the momentary picture of a white-haired father and a young son gazing at each other for the final time on earth—was the climax in the Virginia state penitentiary of the next to the last act in the tragedy of Henry Clay Beattie, Jr. At 7:30 o'clock, twelve hours before the execution, the boy condemned to die in the electric chair for the murder of his young wife last July, had to part with the parent who stood by him with fortune and fidelity throughout his ordeal. The youth never admitted his guilt to his father. But young Henry Beattie's conscience would not allow him to leave the rest of the world retaining the same impression and so, according to authentic report, he made a statement to his brother, Douglas, earlier in the evening. What this statement was no one knows save Douglas. But the general impression is that the only statement the boy could make would be a confession.

The last act of the tragedy began at 5 o'clock Friday morning, when Beattie was awakened by the arrival in his death chamber of his two spiritual advisers, Rev. J. J. Fix and Rev. Dr. Benjamin Dennis. They prayed with him until a short time before 7 o'clock when his breakfast was served. Just at 7 the 12 witnesses of the electrocution were summoned and watched in the room where sits the electric chair. Tests that made sure it is all right. Then at 7:20 with the clergymen preceding him, and a guard on each side of him, he was led to his fate. Still maintaining his bravado, he smiled as his guards strapped him in the chair. A moment more and Henry Clay Beattie, Jr., stood before his Maker, for the trial from which there is no appeal.

He was the thirty-seventh victim of the electric chair since its installation four years ago. Of the 37 he would only be the sixth white man. The first white man, one Gilbert, was a youth of only 23, just like Beattie. He went to the chair numbed and speechless from fright.