The Trial
One of Law's co-workers testified that Law had confided that Gaertner was a possessive lover who had threatened him with a knife when he tried to leave her, and that Law believed she would kill him one day.
Gaertner told Maurine Dallas Watkins: "No woman can love a man enough to kill him. They aren't worth it, because there are always plenty more. Walter was just a kid - 29 and I'm 38. Why should I have worried whether he loved me or whether he left me? Gin and guns - either one is bad enough, but together they get you in a dickens of a mess, don't they?" Gaertner was defended by William Scott Stewart.
Gaertner's defense was that Law might have killed himself with the gun. She was acquitted in June 1924.
Read more about this topic: Belva Gaertner
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