Ethel Touhy
Next, the state called Eddie Schwabauer to the stand.
Tubbo Gilbert, of the Cook County States Attorney's Office, and Jake the Barber
had long since gotten to Schwabauer and bribed him to lie on the witness stand,
which he did and did well. He testified that on the night Factor was kidnapped
he was doing guard duty in Touhy's yard. This wasn't true. Weeks earlier Touhy
had fired him for being drunk on duty. Still, Schwabauer said that on the night
in question that the Touhy household was uninhabited all night. Schwabauer's
testimony directly contradicted Touhy's defense that he had spent most of the
night sitting on his front porch with his wife and her girlfriend, Emily Ivins.
Schwabauer's mother, Mrs. Clara Sczech, who
according to Touhy was "a poor, middle aged, bedeviled, bewildered
woman," testified next. Sczech was a maid in a house in Glenview, Illinois
rented in Eddie McFadden's name for one of the union bosses. There, she claimed
she saw Basil Banghart and someone who looked like Roger Touhy. Her precise
words were, "I'm not sure whether I seen him there or not." Then,
pointing at Touhy, a man she had known for at least five years, she said
"This here fellow looks quite a lot like him, still there is not quite so
much resemblance."
She ended her testimony with a lie, saying that
after Factor was released by his kidnappers, McFadden told her that she was no
longer needed to clean the house. The implication being that the house was
where Factor was held during his kidnapping.
Buck Henrichsen testified next. He appeared
completely relaxed, having spent the past seven weeks before the trial living
in protective custody at Chicago's finest hotel, the Palmer House, courtesy of
the States Attorney.
Roger didn't know anything about Henrichsen's
testimony until the day he took the witness stand. Of this unexpected testimony
Touhy wrote, "I didn't expect Buck Henrichsen to shove a knife between my
ribs and twist it. I had never done anything but good for him....Henrichsen
couldn't meet my eyes when Crowley called him to the witness stand. He was
ashamed."
Henrichsen testified that Roger ordered him to
find a house in Glenview for Eddie McFadden to rent, and that on the night
Factor was kidnapped, he had seen Touhy at Jim Wagner's saloon drinking with
Schafer, Kator, Banghart and the others who were now accused of the kidnapping.
His testimony of course was false. Regardless of
their validity his words proved to be very damaging to Roger's case. As far as
the jury knew Henrichsen was a former police officer and simple night watchman
around Roger's home who had no reason to lie about his employer on the witness
stand.
After Henrichsen's testimony, Roger demanded
that his lawyer, William Scott Stewart, place him on the stand. Stewart
refused. This led Roger to sign an affidavit requesting a new lawyer. Insulted,
Stewart refused to go on with the trial. Eventually he resumed but only after
Judge Feinberg threatened to jail him. When Stewart refused Feinberg's order
and simply didn't show up for court the judge sent his bailiff to Stewart's
home and escorted him back to the courtroom in handcuffs.
Touhy recalls, “As the trial moved toward a
close, I was fed up to the Adam's Apple with our lawyer. So were Kator and
(Schafer). Somebody had told me that Stewart had gone to lunch with Crowley and
that he had chatted with Tubbo Gilbert during a court recess....Stewart,
although he knew I was innocent, wouldn't listen to me...the
squabbling between us was endless.”
His fate was now in the hands of a man he didn't
trust.