CHICAGO. March 6. (U.P.)--Dr. Alice Lindsay Wynekoop, 63-year old physician, was found guilty by a criminal court jury tonight on charges of murdering her daughter-in-law, Rheta, and was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison.
    Dr. Wynekoop, whose collapse had caused a mistrial at her first trial a month ago, sat in a wheelchair as the jury filed into the room.
    She showed no emotion as the verdict was read. She bowed her head for a moment and then listened as her attorneys filed a motion for a new trial. Judge Miller set the 17th inst for arguments on the motion.
    She was wheeled immediately into the judge's chambers, where her daughter, Dr. Catherine Wynekoop, and her oldest son, Walker, joined her. She embraced them and told them to "go home now and get some sleep."

    "You've been everything I could ask," she said. "Just go on home and don't worry. I'm not guilty. We'll wait for developments."
    A few moments later a matron wheeled the physician back to her cell in the county jail, where she has spent her time reading the Bible since her incarceration three months ago.
    The jury of young men received the case at 6:15 p.m. and returned its verdict, reached on the second ballot, two hours and fifteen minutes later. The first ballot showed 11 to 1 for guilty.
    The jury then began balloting on the penalty. One of the early ballots showed eight in favor of life imprisonment and four for a sentence of fourteen years. At 7:50 p.m. the jury sent word to Judge David that a verdict had been reached.

    Prosecutor Dougherty had asked the death penalty. Defense attorneys accepted the challenge and told the jury they were willing to gamble on all "death or freedom" for their client. Dr. Wynekoop, herself, suggested that proposal, it was learned.
    "I haven't long to live anyway," she said. "Any sentence carrying imprisonment would be equivalent to a sentence of death. I want to clear my name of this awful charge before I die. That is all that matters."
    While W. W. Smith, one of her attorneys, told in his concluding argument of her finding the almost nude body of Rheta on the operating table in the Wynekoop home basement, November 21, last, Dr. Wynekoop buried her head in her arms and cried for several minutes.
    Judge Miller in his instructions to the jury had outlined four possible verdicts: death in the electric chair; life imprisonment for any number of years not less than fourteen, and acquittal.
    "The slaying of Rheta was a crime of desperation, of a person driven by hate, love and greed for money -- Rheta's life-insurance money," Dougherty said. "Behind it was the defendant's love for her son Earle, and hate for anyone she conceived as standing in his way to happiness."

    The suggestion that Earle Wynekoop, husband of Rheta, may have known more than he had told was made by Milton Smith, another defense attorney. The defense had hinted at this previously but had not directly brought Earle into the case.     Earle, pampered favorite son of the defendant, did not appear at the trial of his mother.

Sources:

Picture: "Jury Convicts Her of Murder," The Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, Wednesday, 7 March 1934, p. A3.

Unknown, "Physician Convicted, Prison Voted for Dr. Wynekoop," The Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, Wednesday, 7 March 1934, p. A3.