Crowd Storms
Court to Hear
Dr. Wynekoop
_____

    Chicago, March 1 (AP).--With lips trembling, Catherine Wynekoop, physician-daughter of Dr. Alice Lindsay Wynekoop, charged with the murder of her daughter-in-law, Rheta, testified in her mother's defense today that she had heard Rheta make a threat which indicated she contemplated suicide.
    Spectators who again today stormed the courtroom, sat silent as the 25-year-old physician told for the first time the sequence of dramatic incidents after comely Rheta's body was found drenched in blood on the operating table in the gloomy West Side home of her mother.
    Dr. Catherine told of a visit to Rheta the Sunday before the young wife's death.
    She said Rheta was crying with unhappiness over neglect by her husband, Earle Wynekoop, brother of Catherine.
    She said Rheta told her she would "do something Earle would be sorry for."
    Q.--What did you tell Rheta?
    A.--I told her that if she ever did anything like she was threatening to it would break mother's heart.
    Dr. Catherine's appearance as a defense witness presaged the calling of her mother to the witness box. Indications had been that the mother might take the stand today, and interest flared high as spectators swarmed into the criminal courts building in an attempt to gain entrance to the courtroom.
    The aged defendant probably will take the stand tomorrow. Throughout her daughter's testimony, she sat nervously toying with a water glass, her pallid face constantly lifted to watch her daughter.
    Dr. Catherine, looking younger than her years and decidedly unprofessional in a navy blue silk dress, was a deathly white when she took the stand.
    Dr. Catherine said she first learned of Rheta's death when her mother telephoned her at the Cook County Children's Hospital with which she is associated.
    Arriving home, she said she joined Miss Emid [sic] Hennessey, a boarder, and Thomas Ahern, an undertaker, and went to the basement, the scene of the tragedy.
    Q. What did you do when you went downstairs?--A. I was the first one to enter the operating room. I saw Rheta's body lying on the operating table, on her left side.
    Q. Did you see the bullet wound? --A. Yes, I did.
    Q. Did you have any conversation with Mr. Ahern about calling the police?--A. I told him that mother had asked me to call the coroner, but that I had not. He then called the police himself.

Source:

Unknown, "Crowd Storms Court to Hear Dr. Wynekoop," The Washington Post, Washington, D.C., Friday, 2 March, 1934, p. 16.