Detroit, Oct. 31 — James W. Crabb, 24, member of a Delavan, Ill., banking family who twice faced charges resulting from the fatal shooting of his 19-year old wife, died at 5:30 a.m. today in a receiving hospital.
Physicians attributed Crabb’s death to pneumonia complications. His mother, Mrs. Elizabeth M. Crabb, was at his bedside.
Sergeant Hyman Ulnick of the police homicide squad said Crabb was found unconscious yesterday in a room at the Paul Revere hotel where he had registered under the name of “Wall.”
Police said Crabb was arrested in March, 1938, and charged with responsibility for the death of his bride of five weeks, who was found fatally shot shortly after she and her husband returned from a party in their honor.
Crabb maintained the shooting was accidental, police said. He was charged with manslaughter but the jury disagreed. Later he was convicted on a perjury charge resulting from the first trial, but the Illinois state supreme court reversed the verdict and remanded to the Tazewell county circuit court.
Ulnick said identification was established through a social security card which bore the name of James W. Crabb, Bloomington, Ill. Crabb has been residing recently in Bloomington, but recently informed friends there he was going to accept employment.
The death of James Crabb was a tragic climax to a chain of adverse events that beset the Crabb family, holder of a high position in business and society for three generations.
When the first misfortune — the fatal shooting of Betty Collison Crabb — visited the family, Willis Crabb was a respected banker, landowner, and civic leader of a flourishing Illinois city. He poured much of his fortune into the defense of his only son, charged with manslaughter.
Current Obituaries in the Astoria South Fulton Argus