This Day in History: 1958-08-06

Two new lawyers for Edgar Smith, convicted earlier in the year of the murder of Victoria Zielinsky, filed a new appeal based on the recent decision in the Mallory Case. Mallory had been held incommunicado for seven hours for questioning. The attorneys claimed that Smith had been held for some twenty hours without warrant or arrest while being questioned by relays of officials representing the State. William Richter and Robert W. Hicks, both of Washington, were the fourth lawyers to enter the case since it broke. They also claimed that the unsigned confession, which they said was the cornerstone of the State’s case, had been improperly admitted as evidence and that the affidavit refutes Smith’s statement that a local man had been with Zielinsky after Smith left her on the night of the murder and was suspect. (Bristow)