i doubt he did it
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Roscoe Arbuckle
kinickibeck — 14 years ago(September 30, 2011 10:51 PM)
his own wife said he couln't get it up how could he have rapped the girl
no that girl got an abortion and she died from complications but instead of owning up to her friends she put fatty to blame. -
metalman091 — 10 years ago(April 16, 2015 01:20 AM)
It's very clear Arbuckle was innocent of any crime. Any intelligent person can just read the facts as they are and not come to any other conclusion.
It became known as "The Arbuckle Party", but in truth, Arbuckle was a guest. Arbuckle was just one of many at the St. Francis that day.
Virginia Rappe was already a sick woman before going to San Francisco. She suffered from chronic cystitis, a condition that flared up dramatically whenever she drank. She was known for tearing off her clothes after drinking because of the terrible pain. She was also said to have had a few abortions which were probably very poorly done.
The troublemaking Maude Delmo1908nt told doctors that Arbuckle had raped Virginia, but doctors found no evidence of this.
Arbuckle was accused of using a piece of ice to simulate sex. The piece of ice later became a Coca-Cola bottle and then a champagne bottle. They couldn't keep their accusations straight.
Actors were warned not to defend Arbuckle. Buster Keaton was one of the few. William S. Hart, said to be a dull and humorless man and who had never met or worked with Arbuckle made some statements that presumed he was guilty.
Maude Delmont had a long criminal record with convictions for racketeering, bigamy, fraud, and extortion, and allegedly was making a living by luring men into compromising positions and capturing them in photographs, to be used as evidence in divorce proceedings. Would you take the word of someone like this?
Betty Campbell, a model at the party, claimed she saw Arbuckle with a smile on his face hours after the alleged rape. The accusation of rape occurred at the hospital. Campbell would have to have heard about the accusation and link it to Arbuckle's smile. Maybe he was smiling at a joke. In any case, Campbell revealed that she had been threatened by Matthew Brady the prosecutor in the Arbuckle case with perjury if she did not testify against Arbuckle.
One doctor, Edward Heinrich claimed that he had found Arbuckle's fingerprints smeared with the blood of Virginia Rappe on the bathroom door of room 219. However, Arbuckle's defense attorney's produced a maid who claimed that she had cleaned the room before the investigation and she had not seen any blood. Heinrich would later take back his testimony, and would say that the fingerprint evidence was likely faked.
Matthew Brady was an intense and aggressive man who wanted to be governor. He probably had a thing against movie stars and really wanted to make an example of Arbuckle.
One of these women who admitted that Brady had forced her to lie was Zey Prevon. Another man told the court that Arbuckle had bribed him not to tell anyone about harming Virginia Rappe turned out to be an ex-con charged with who was currently being charged with the sexual assault of an eight year old girl. The ex-con was hoping that Brady would reduce his sentence.
Helen Hubbard, a lady on the jury, told jurors [in the first trial] that she would vote guilty until "hell freezes over." Hubbard refused to look at the evidence or the court transcripts. She had already made up her mind in the courtroom. Her husband was a lawyer who worked for the D.A. It's surprising that she was not even challenged when being selected for the jury. She sounds like she was a sexist and bitter woman.
It's very clear. The bastards had a field day with Arbuckle. There is always someone to act as a scapegoat, and sadly, it was Arbuckle.
HE WAS INNOCENT!! -
mep1019 — 10 years ago(December 12, 2015 06:47 AM)
Arbuckle didn't do it. During the first trial of his, his testimony showed that. The transcrips of the first trial (November 14-December 4. 1921) still exist from courtroom records. Part of them are listed here:
On Monday, November 28, the defense called Roscoe Arbuckle to the witness stand as the very last witness. He was eager to testify. He had heard himself accused of one of the most terrible crimes imaginable and was relieved to able to publicly and emphatically deny it. He willingly wanted to tell his side of the story. For the past two months, the newspapers were filled with unfounded story after story that he rapped and crushed to death the much smaller Virgina Rappe. He walked to the stand looking tired and drawn, with dark circles obvious under his eyes (having been up for days rehersing his impending testimony with his lawyer). He was neatly attired in a dark suit, a dark necktie, a white shirt and his expression and tone of voice was appropriately somber. He would be on the stand for a little over four hours. His lawyer, Gavin McNab led the direct examination. Arbuckle was simple, direct, and unflusted during the whole process.
Gavin McNab: "Mr. Arbuckle, where were you on September 5, 1921?"
Roscoe Arbuckle: "At the St. Francis Hotel occupying rooms 1219, 1220, and 1221."
McNab: "Did you see Miss Virginia Rappe on that day?"
Arbuckle: "Yes, sir."
McNab: "At what time and where did you see her?"
Arbuckle: "She came into room 1220 at about 12:002000 noon."
Under his lawyer's gentile questioning, Arbuckle gave names of others at the party. He told how he had planned to take Mae Taub into town and was going into the bathroom to get dressed when he discovered Virginia Rappe in pain.
Arbuckle: "When I walked into room 1219, I closed and locked the door, and I went straight to the bathroom and found Miss Rappe on the floor in front of the toilet. She'd been vomiting."
McNab: "What did you do?"
Arbuckle: "Well when I opened the bathroom door, the door struck her, and I had to slide in this way to get in to get by her and get hold of her. She was laying face down on the floor. Then I closed the door and picked her up. When I picked her up she vomited again. I held her under the waist and the forehead, to keep her hair back off her face so she could vomit into the toilet. When she finished, I put the seat down, then I sat her down on it. 'Can I do anything for you?' I asked her. She said she wanted to lie down. I carried her into 1219 and put her on the bed. I lifted her feet off the floor. I went to the bathroom again to clean up the vomit on the floor around the toilet and came back in two or three minutes. I found her rolling on the floor between two beds holding her stomach and screaming in pain. I tried to pick her up but I couldn't. I immediately went out of 1219 to 1220 and asked Mrs. Delmont and Miss Prevon to come in. I told them Miss Rappe was sick."
He vehemently denied having ever put his hand over Rappe's mouth on the floor. He also told how a frantic Virginia had torn at her clothes and Arbuckle had helped her off with her dress and Fischbach came into the room. Then he said that Fischbach had taken the sick woman to the bathroom and put her in a tub of cold water. This was done, Arbuckle claimed, in hopes of calming down her apparent hysteria. When Virginia was carried back to the bed, Maude Delmont rubbed her abdomen with ice. Arbuckle said he tried to cover Virginia with the bedspread and an infuriated Delmont spoke rudely to him and he in turn barked, "If you don't shut up, I'll throw you out the window!"
The witness remained unshaken under an intense cross-examination by Assistant District Attorney Leo Friedman.
Leo Friedman: "What time did you say that Miss Rappe entered your rooms?"
Arbuckle: "Around 12:00 noon."
Friedman: "You had known her before?"
Arbuckle: "Uh-huh. About five or six years."
Arbuckle admitted to drinking some liquor but indicated that he was not drunk. The judge called a recess.
Court resumed with a startling exhibit by the prosecution. Virginia Rappe's bladder, in a jar of formadide, was brought into the courtroom!
Friedman tried to get Arbuckle to slip details about the room in order to get him to admit he had deliberately followed Virginia Rappe into the bathroom and raped her. But the defendant stuck to his story. Next, the D.A. tried to wring at least an admission of callousness from the witness.
Friedman: "Did you tell the hotel manager what had caused Miss Rappe's sickness?"
Arbuckle: "No. How should I know what caused her sickness?"
Friedman: (incredulous) "Why didn't you tell anybody at that time that you found Miss Rappe in the bathroom?"
Arbuckle: "Because nobody asked me."
Friedman: "Why didn't you tell anyone you found her between the beds?"
Arbuckle: "Nobody asked me. I'm telling you"
Friedman: (cutting him off) "You never said anything to anybody except that Miss Rappe was sick?!"
Arbuckle: "Nope."
Friedman: "Not even the doctor?"
Arbuckle: "Nope."