the talking, said his client was not prepared to make a statement then, but would do so in due course. He added categorically and somewhat sumptuously that his client had been completely justified in killing Dobbins.

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Neither the airman nor his lawyer made a statement at the inquest or before the grand jury, which proceeded to indict Mahon for murder. The resulting trial in General Sessions court in Charleston took three days and was conducted by Judge J. B. Pruitt.

According to testimony brought out during the trial, Dobbins met Mahon, who was dressed at the time in dungarees and leather jacket, late in the night at a local bar after leaving the Hallowe'en party. Together they went to a number of night clubs, one of which objected to the airman's presence because of his unsuitable clothes. Witnesses who saw them together at these night spots testified that Dobbins whom they characterized as a pleasant gregarious fellow and a free spender, picked up the tab for all drinks. The airman testified that he was invited to Dobbin's house and that he accepted the invitation. He further stated that on arrival at the house Dobbins put the door key in his (Mahon's) jacket pocket. Shortly before arrival at the house, Mahon said, Dobbins insisted on "lending" him. some money and thrust two bills into his pocket. According to Mahon, he did not want to accept the money, but apparently he made no attempt to return it, since he testified that later on after leaving the house he was surprised to discover that the two bills in his pocket were a $20 and a $5, instead of two ones as he had supposed.

Since there were no witnesses to the murder, there is only the airman's version of what took place. According to him, after arrival at the house Dobbins made "improper" advances to

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him and to stall for time he asked to go to the toilet on the second floor. While upstairs, Mahon said he picked up the heavy candlestick in Dobbin's bedroom with the idea of using it to defend himself. On his return to the living room, Mahon alleged that Dobbins renewed his "improper" advances and to "defend" himself he struck his host with the candlestick; then left the house and returned to the Air BaseDobbins' house key and money still in his pocket.

To support the defendant's plea of self defense it was necessary for his lawyers to attack the reputation of the victim. This they did with such vigor that it sometimes seemed as if Dobbins instead of Mahon were on trial. The defense could produce no witness who could or would say he had definite knowledge of any abnormal sexual tendencies in the vistim; on the contrary, those witnesses who knew the victim personally, including his employer and the colored maid whom he employed, described him as a pleasant mannered, well behaved young man, popular with all who knew him. This favorable concept of the victim had to be destroyed in the minds of the jurors by the defendant's lawyers, if they were to get their client off the hook, and the only way they could do so was by innuendo. They slyly elicited from the maid the information that the victim sometimes. used lavender sheets on his bed and that his housemate used yellow sheets with white stripes; that women were never entertained at the victim's home; and that on the contrary men friends dropped in frequently. Nothing in this information was damaging per se, but it was made to seem so by the insinuations of the defense attorneys. So clever were they in their attacks on the murdered man's reputation they even succeeded in obtaining from his housemate a statement that he once considered giving up

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