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William Earl Dodge Stokes couldn't get it straight: Retrieve the embarrassing love letters to your old girl friends BEFORE you get married. He waited until four months afterward and wound up getting shot three times.

Despite the potential for tragedy, the evening was widely viewed as farce, and with good reason. This is the stuff that inspired Hollywood's screwball comedies. In some ways it resembles "Roxy Hart" and the subsequent musical, "Chicago."

Lillian Graham, an aspiring singer and dancer, was befriended by W. E. D. Stokes a few years earlier after she and her married sister, Stella Singleton, checked into the Hotel Ansonia. At one time she may have entertained hopes of marrying Stokes, but seemed to resign herself to being a girl friend on retainer. She and Stokes exchanged many letters; in most of hers she asked for money.

Stokes had told her he was forbidden by law to remarry. In February 1911, of course, he and Helen Ellwood did get married, in New Jersey. I've seen nothing about the effects of this marriage on Lillian Graham, but it may be safe to assume she was hurt and angry.

In the meantime she had befriended by Ethel Conrad, also a would-be actress who may have concocted a blackmail plot against Stokes, using letters he had written to Graham. Conrad visited Stokes at his office at least once. She claimed one visit was an errand of mercy, asking Stokes for help because Graham had attempted suicide. She said Stokes advised her to end her friendship with Graham, and claimed Stokes made several derogatory remarks about Graham and her family. Conrad also said Stokes complimented her on her looks. He also agreed to help her find a job.

STOKES CLAIMED Conrad later contacted him to say Graham was on her way to Europe and suggested he visit to apartment to retrieve his letters. He said that when he showed up at the apartment, Graham was there, and that both women confronted him and demanded $25,000 for the letters.

The women told a far different story. Both Graham and Conrad had recently purchased revolvers and insisted they used them on Stokes in self-defense. He was hit three times in his legs, but suffered no life-threatening wounds.

He wound up in a hospital, the young women went to jail ... but a day later they were bailed out by an enterprising vaudeville promoter who immediately booked them as New York City's latest act.
 


Mr. W. E. D. Stokes, proprietor of the Ansonia Hotel, told in the Tombs Police Court today before Magistrate Freschi of his relations with Miss Lillian Graham, who, with Miss Ethel Conrad, shot him in their apartment at Broadway and Eightieth Street on June 7.

Mr. Stokes testified that he had taken Miss Graham to dinner, for automobile rides, and had her as a guest at his stock farm at Lexington, Ky.

Showing every indication of nervousness, Mr. Stokes took the stand for cross-examination by Mr. Jordan, Miss Graham’s lawyer.

“I first met Miss Graham in 1906,” he testified, “when she came to the Ansonia with her married sister, Mrs. Singleton. After meeting the members of her family I called at the apartment often, and later took Miss Graham automobiling. She was my guest at dinner many times. I was first invited to the apartment to look at some pictures from Los Angeles.”

“Where was Miss Graham when you invited her to your farm in Lexington?” asked Mr. Jordan.

“She was in Memphis, Tenn. I wired her to come and bring her friends.”

Wanted to Get Letters
It develops that it was this telegram that Mr. Stokes was anxious to secure the day he called at Miss Graham’s apartment. It was found with a batch of eighteen letters now in the hands of the District Attorney.

“Miss Graham threatened to give the telegram and letters to Mrs. Stokes, and it was for that reason I was anxious to get them,” the witness said.

He further said he had not seen the letters since the shooting.

Mr. Stokes on the stand told a graphic story of the shooting, asserting that he had been lured to the place by Miss Conrad, who told him Miss Graham had gone abroad, and of an attempt to squeeze $25,000 from him.

Attired in becoming white gowns, the two accused young women, who are out on bail, arrived at the court at ten o’clock. They were accompanied by Mrs. John Singleton, of San Francisco, a sister of Miss Graham, and their lawyers, Messrs. Clark L. Jordan and Robert Moore. They often smiled broadly when Mr. Stokes went into the details of the shooting.

Tells of Telephone Call
After a few preliminary questions the witness said he was in his office at the Ansonia at half-past two o’clock on the day of the shooting, when he received a telephone call from Miss Conrad. She said she wanted to see him as she was leaving that evening with her brother for Mobile. She told him Miss Graham had gone, he said.

“All right,” Mr. Stokes testified he told her. “I’ll be over about six o’clock.”

“When I reached the house,” Mr. Stokes continued. “I asked the boy for Miss Conrad’s apartment, but he said he didn’t know her. The boy pointed toward Miss Graham’s door, however, but before I had time to knock it was opened by Miss Conrad.

“I walked into the parlor,” Mr. Stokes continued. “Before I had time to speak, Miss Graham appeared. Miss Conrad then slipped through a private hallway and locked the door. When the door was locked Miss Graham came toward me showing a revolver.

“ 'Now I got you,' she said. 'You insulted my dead mother and you made false and insulting statements about others of my relatives. You circulated reports around the neighborhood about me.' ”

“I started toward her,” Mr. Stokes said, “but she pointed the gun at me. Then Miss Conrad came in. She had her hands behind her back. ‘If you do as we say,’ Miss Conrad began, ‘you will be all right. Nobody saw you come here; we are two witnesses, and besides we have three women in a room who can hear every word you say. You often hear of wealthy New Yorkers disappearing. Well you can disappear the same way. Write what we tell you and everything will be all right.”

Mr. Stokes then told of the girls laying paper and pen before him, and telling him to write a denial of what he had said about Miss Graham. He refused and asked Miss Graham if she had forgotten the $150 given her to leave on the Baltic and $50 for spending money.

“They crowded around me then,” the witness went on, “but I said I’ll never sign your paper, because I never said anything about your relatives – meaning Miss Graham, nor I never told Miss Conrad any stories about you.

“Then Miss Conrad jumped up, waving a revolver, and shouted, ‘Death for you or give us $25,000!’ I asked them if they knew what they were doing, but they answered that if they killed me they could easily say that I had attempted to attack them. I told them I would fight the matter right there, and if it was death or one cent I would choose death.

“You Can Have Death”
“ ‘All right,’ Miss Graham answered, ‘you can have death,’ and fired. I jumped to one side. I felt a bullet in my leg. I struggled with Miss Graham for possession of the revolver and the other girl started shooting. The revolver Miss Graham held went off as I grabbed it, burning my hand.

“Before I had time to shout for help Miss Conrad ran to an open window and started to shout, ‘Murder!’ and ‘Police!’ I told her she couldn’t get the police quick enough for me. I then worked my way into the hall where several Japanese attacked me. Several men tried to get the revolver I had taken from Miss Graham, but I kept it for the police.

“When the police did arrive Miss Graham, who stood behind me in the hall and who had been urging Miss Conrad to get her revolver and blow my head off, shouted to the police that she did the shooting.”

First impression, at least in the case of Mildred Conrad, was deceiving. On the night of her arrest she may have seemed scared and reluctant to talk, but in the trial later that year, Conrad emerged as a defiant, brassy opportunist with an interesting past, though tame compared with the life W. E. D. Stokes had led.

Lillian Graham and Ethel Conrad were arraigned the next day and Stokes remained in the hospital. Injuries suffered at the hands of the three Japanese servants would turn out to be worse than damage caused by the gunshots. Stokes admitted he had had a relationship with Miss Graham and had made her sign a paper in which she admitted having other lovers. He also lured her to his horse farm in Lexington, Ky., where she claimed she was held as a virtual prisoner.

As for Stokes, well being shot three times, then beaten by three men ... well, that's obviously no laughing matter. But the "Shooting Show Girls" fiasco was widely regarded as a joke and hospital reports of Stokes' conditions were suspect ... because there were those who felt, with good reason, that Stokes was – and would remain – as sick as it was convenient for him to be.
 
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