Girl Witness in Murder Case Fails to Get Free
(Front page story)
Sarasota Herald-Tribune - Sarasota, FL - Oct 31, 1929
New Orleans, Oct. 30 (AP)
Because of a technicality of law, a court battle expected tomorrow in St. Bernard parish courthouse over counsel's demand for release from prison of the girl known as Ione Orde and Sammy Epstein, material witnesses in the Jack Kraft steamship murder case was forestalled.
Late today Judge J. Claude Meraux cancelled his order for the girl's testimony to be given in open court on the filing of a motion by District Attorney Leander H. Perez, of Plaquemines, and St. Bernard parishes, alleging that attorneys for the girl had failed to serve notice upon him within the 48 hour period required by law.
Failing in their effort to obtain release under bond of Epstein, the young ship steward's counsel obtained a court order fixing 2 p. m. Monday as the time when he will appear in Point a La Hache courthouse to give his testimony in the case.
District Attorney Leander Perez said he would fight the move to release the witnesses as they held the key testimony to "a strong case," against John McGouldrick, indicted second officer of the steamship Creole abord which he claims Kraft was slain.
(Continued on page two.)
Girl in Kraft Murder Case is Held in Prison
(Continued from page one.)
Meantime, officials continued their investigations into the past of the girl, whose true name was announced yesterday as "Gloria R. Ouzer," of Westchester, N.Y. This identification was announced on the statements of Reginald Taylor, of Worcester, Mass., member of a wealthy family who said he had met the girl in France.
Later he told authorities that Ouzer was not exactly her name and District Attorney Perez said he was convinced the spelling was "Uzer."
The girl continued to refer to Second Office McGouldrick as her fiancee despite his protestations that he never had any intentions of marrying the girl.
Mother to Aid Her.
New York, Oct. 30. (AP)
The Daily News will say tomorrow that "Ione Orde," held in New Orleans as a material witness in the death of Jack Kraft, was identified today by Mrs. Gloria M. Rouzer, of New York, as her daughter Gloria.
Mrs. Rouzer wired encouragement to the girl, engaged a Manhatten attorney and prepared to leave for New Orleans. Her suspicions that the girl was her daughter were aroused when she read reports that Reginald Taylor, of Worcester, Mass., had identified the girl as the "Gloria Ouzer or "Uzer" to whom he gave an athletic medal in paris in 1924.
Gloria Rouzer was placed in a French boarding schjool when she was 15, the mother said. Both mother and daughter at one time were employed in a Fifth avenue French dress designing house, and the girl was recently a model in a fashion show that appeared in Rochester, and Buffalo, N. Y., and Providence, R. I.
Miss Rouzer at 18 married an Englishman, Michael Powell, whom she met at Nice, her mother said. Later, Mrs. Rouzer added, they separated and Gloria, who is now 21, used the name "Gay Powell" in New York.
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