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Note: N7 death source: Virginia Bureau of Vital Statistics via family search. He died at age 5.
Street address was 310 East Sixth street in Richmond.
Coroner's Jury Meets.
The coroner's jury met at Morrisette's undertaking rooms yesterday morning, Coroner Dr John W Brodnax presiding, and Commonwealth's Attorney Page being in attendance.
In the room was a small white coffin holding the body of the boy. On the coffin a silver plate inscribed, "Our Little Darling." while a profusion of flower, placed there by tender hearted women, rested on the floor beneath
There was a smile upon the dead boy's face, a smile as happy and peaceful as though he had never known pain or persecution.
The witnesses testified in almost the identical language used by them in interviews published in the Times-Dispatch of yesterday.
Virginia Chronicle
Times Dispatch
4 July 1905
Page 1
Sickness and Death Have Strangely Followed Smith Case.
Attorney Page and Witnesses Ill
Judge Clopton Forced to Continue Manchester Trial Until To-morrow on account of sickness- Prisoner and Jury were Sadly Disappointed.
Disaster seems to surround the Smith case, and the old saw that "misfortunes never come singly" is more than bourne out in the murder trial that is now going on in the Corporation court of Manchester.
Since that Wednesday night of April 26th, when poor little Ralph Smith, five years of age, was food lying naked and dead on the floor of his mother's bed room, his body covered with bruises and with fresh wounds upon his face and head, fate has laid a heavy hand on several who wee, or have been in anyway connected with the case. The misfortunes that have followed are more than unusual; they are uncanny.
Ever since that night two months ago, when Mrs. Estelle Townsend Smith was arrested, charged with murdering her own son, the black hand of misfortune has not rested upon her along. Her husband, who had left the city with his employer's money ws captured in New York and brought back to Manchester, charged with being a party to the murder of his son. Next the aged mother mother of the prisoner, Mrs. Charles Townsend, was stricken down, and it was not thought that she would be well enough to make the long journey from New York to the side of her unhappy daughter. Following this, came the death of Mr. Turner, the next door neighbor of the Smiths, who was one of the most important witnesses for the Commonwealth. It is said by his stricken family that the death of Ralph smith preyed upon him, and that from the time of the tragic event until death claimed him two weeks later, the awful scene was ever before his eyes, and the story was ever upon his lips.
There is an article in an on line newspaper "Virginia Chronicle - Evening News, June 30 1905:
You can google and find it but additionally, a clue
her mother was Mrs. Charles Townsend. Her brother Dr Wisner R Townsend "a distinguished New York Surgeon.
In October of 1904 he was five years old. so he was born in October of 1899.
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=168732934
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