After he was gone, she swam the rest of the way to the shore. 'But he stood at the top of the bank throwing stones at me and I decided to float as if I were dead, hoping to fool him into leaving,' she told detectives. He threw her into the water to 'get rid of her,' and she said she was able to take off her heavy fur coat and undo the ropes that bound her legs. He cut them before ordering her out of the car. Bound and gagged, she complained that the bonds on her hands were cutting into her skin. Spell drove her in her own car to the Kensico Reservoir in Westchester County just over the New York state line. She stated that Spell had raped her a total of four times that night while her hands were tied.Д®leanor claimed that Spell, her butler-chauffeur, told her he was kidnapping her and forced her to compose a $5,000 ransom note to her husband who was away in Cincinnati. 'I was frightened to death and could hardly breathe,' she said repeatedly while being cross-examined ( Kingston Daily Freeman). She struggled at first, but he threatened to kill her. Eleanor claimed Spell hurled her onto the bed. She said she screamed, hoping to wake his common-law wife, Virgus Clark, asleep upstairs in an attic bedroom.

During the day and a half she spent on the stand testifying, Eleanor, 32, told the jury that 31-year-old Joseph Spell attacked her when she emerged from the shower in her Greenwich, Connecticut home on the night of December 10, 1940. I don't think I could have stood it much longer' ( The Helena Independent). Zeier in her conversation with the physician who examined her. He came to my bedroom door with a knife and raped me,' Eleanor told Dr. Did Eleanor Strubing accuse her chauffeur of rape and attempted murder?

Don marshall esq