Mendel Beilis -- "I could hear everything"

This is the summary of the 17^th day of the Mendel Beilis trial, which occurred on 11 October, 1913 on the Julian calendar, 24 October, 1913 on the Gregorian calendar.

This day occupies pages 1 through 44 of Volume II of the transcript.

 See the translation of the transcript for day 17.

 

 

Now we hear Amzor Karaev’s deposition.  The government has deliberately kept him in a labor camp so that he cannot testify first-hand about Singaevsky’s confession but, however, Makhalin’s testimony to first-hand knowledge about the confession makes this useless.  What’s more, having kept him out of court, the government can’t cross-question him and rip him the way they tried to rip Makhalin.  This would not have mattered if the case had gone the way the government wanted it to, but the bulk of evidence for the last 12 days has tended to destroy the government theory of the case and show that everybody who testified against Beilis lied on the witness stand and in their depositions.  So the prosecution had to present evidence that supports the story about the confession, and can’t cross-question the person who deposed to it.

Today the Malitskys come to the stand.  Zinaida Malitskaya supposedly heard the murder take place -- but when?  She told her husband it was in the morning, but that was in August, 1911 when he came home from his bee-keeping and buried his nose in the newspapers.  In November, 1911, she tried to tell Fenenko that it was in the evening, and her husband was with her and made her change the story to agree with what she told him.  The question is, when did the theory of a morning murder develop?  Adele Ravich's story of the body rolled up in the carpet was urban legend.  Vera's sister came over after Adele and never testified, so we don't know if she saw the carpet.  Ekaterina (and, we now know, Ksenya) were in the house from noon to three.  Singaevsky made Karaev think the murder happened after the Adamovich robbery.  See Kirichenko's testimony tomorrow.

Vipper puts Balavin on the stand with a number of purposes in mind.  One is to support Vasily Cheberyak’s contention that his children ate green pears and thus got dysentery.  The ones on the trees are not green enough in August to cause dysentery. 

Vipper tries to establish that the house on the Zakharchenko property, like the Prikhodkos’ house, made it possible to hear everything and so nobody could have been murdered there.  But on day 6 during the tour he tried to argue just the opposite.

Vipper tries to establish at the Zakharchenko property where the Cheberyaks lived, what has already been proven at the Zaitsev property; there were lots of people around who could hear what happened.  The problems are two.  One is that Beilis would have to be outside to drag Andrey to the kiln, and that’s why all those people would have seen him.  The other is Vipper’s argument on day 6 that nothing could be heard inside.  Finally, he ignores the fact that the gag required for ritual murder, and represented by the bloody scrap in Andrey's jacket pocket, would have made it impossible for any sounds to be heard outside.  

Vipper makes a point of bringing up the name of Nazar Zarutsky, whom Vera tried to suborn to say he was at the pugger the day Andrey was grabbed.  If Nazar was probably in the Zakharchenko court playing, he wasn’t on the Zaitsev property.  This time it’s Vipper who is ruining Vera’s credibility.

Judge:  Fyodor Boldyrev

Prosecution:

            Criminal Prosecutor, Oscar Vipper

            Civil Prosecutor Georgy Zamyslovsky

            Private Civil Prosecutor Aleksey Shmakov

Defense:

            Oscar Gruzenberg

Nikolay Karabchevsky

Dmitry Grigorevich-Barsky

Alexandr Zarudny

Vasily Maklakov

 
To "The Barber: Rudzinsky confessed"

Transcript page numbers restart because this is the start of Volume II of the transcript

 

		Page
Witness	Notes	Transcript	Translation	Statement
Amzor Elmurzaevich Karaev	Heard Pyotr Singaevsky confess to Andrey’s murder Testified by deposition	3	1554	3
Makhalin	Returns for more questioning	9	1566	54
Nikolay Aleksandrovich Krasovsky	Returns for more questioning	11	1568	127
Aleksey Feofilaktov	Letter to Karaev partly read in court	15	1584	241
Krakhmalyuk	Very short testimony about Vera	19	1587	279
Balavin	Neighbor of Vera	19	1587	291
Zinaida Malitskaya	Origin of “morning murder” part of theory	27	1608	749
Malitsky	Zinaida’s husband	35	1626	1181
Evgeny Kirichenko	Krasovsky’s/Ivanov’s subordinate	41	1637	1464

 

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018