Murder by Gaslight

Was it Murder?

2012-01-28T05:00:00.000-08:00

Little Murders

(From The Evening Statesman. Marshall, Michigan, February 12, 1887.)

WAS IT MURDER?

The death of Bart Garfield said to be surrounded by Mysterious Circumstances.

Referring to the death of the late Bert Garfield, mention of which has previously been made in these columns, the Bellevue Gazette says: "Suspicions have been mentioned of foul play, and the reasons given thereof; still we hardly think grounds exist on which to base such views. It is said that after his injuries he partially regained consciousness, and indistinctly uttered something about "poker" and "lantern." It is also claimed that when found his cap, gloves and overshoes were missing, and it is hardly probable that he would have been on top of the train in that condition. Reports are also current of trouble between him and the engineer and other train hands, and that the engineer on one trip would not allow him to enter the cab compelling him to ride in the cold on top of the cars. The wound (or fracture of his skull) is said to have been such as one as would have been caused by a blow from a hammer or small blunt instrument,—possibly the end of a poker,— and not such as would have probably been received had he fallen from the top of the train and struck on the hard, frozen ground. Bert's experience as a railroad brakeman was short. Less than three months ago he left a good home with his parents on their farm in Convis, and pushed out into the world to battle for himself among its vicissitudes. Now he fills an early grave."

This morning a reporter of the STATESMAN interviewed a gentleman of this city who has known the Garfield family for years and he stated that in his opinion Bert Garfield was murdered and that the relatives of the deceased also entertained the same opinion. The authorities should investigate this matter.

The Evening Statesman. Marshall, Michigan, February 12, 1887.

The Mysteries of Pearl Bryan

2012-01-21T07:34:00.000-08:00

Someone with a knowledge of American murder ballads would likely notice a serious omission at Murder by Gaslight—the 1896 murder of Pearl Bryan that inspired three distinct ballads, each with several variations. The reason I haven’t yet posted on the death of Pearl Bryan is that I have written a book on that murder and was hoping to publish the book before the post. But at the moment, I have no idea when that might happen.

In the meantime, an article I wrote some time ago on the death of Pearl Bryan was recently published by the magazine, Kentucky Explorer, and I have decided to reprint the article here. “Pearl Bryan: Headless Corpse Found on Northern Ky. Farm” –originally titled “The Mysteries of Pearl Bryan”—explores some of the unanswered questions in a case that today is usually presented as open-and-shut. It is longer than the average post, but it is a complicated story and still just the tip of the iceberg.

And here is a version of one of the ballads, “Pearl Bryan” recorded in 1926 by Burnett & Rutherford:

"Pearl Bryan" - Burnett & Rutherford

The Mysteries of Pearl Bryan

When the headless corpse of a young pregnant woman was found on John Locke’s farm in the Highlands near Ft. Thomas, on February 1, 1896, the shock was felt far beyond the Ohio Valley. For the rest of that winter and most of the spring the Ft. Thomas Tragedy unfolded in daily newspapers across America and, for a time, rivaled the murder of Lizzie Borden’s parents, four years earlier, for the dubious distinction of “Crime of the Century.” The woman was Pearl Bryan, from the little town of Greencastle, Indiana and the mystery of how she had come to Kentucky, and there met such a gruesome fate, seemed as unfathomable as it was incomprehensible.

Today, more than a hundred years later, Lizzie Borden still captures the public imagination. Forensic experts, using the latest techniques, continue to investigate the Borden family home (now a Fall River bed and breakfast) and speculate what may have occurred that day. By contrast, the story of Pearl Bryan is largely forgotten outside of Northern Kentucky.

They began with equal sensation; why is one story now a part of the American narrative and the other all but lost? The answer seems to be the not-guilty verdict in the Lizzie Borden case. It made the mysteries permanent. If she did not kill her parents, then who did? If she was really guilty, how did she get away with murder? Pearl Bryan’s killers were arrested less than a week after her body was found, by summer there were two convictions, and the following March two men were hanged. There were no loose ends, no mysteries.

On the surface the Pearl Bryan case seems to be an example of efficient law enforcement and swift justice with nothing left to investigate. But a closer look reveals unanswered questions from beginning to end and mysteries at every turn.

Who was she?
With no means of identification it became increasingly likely that the identity of the headless body would never be known. Because she was found so near the fort, the killer was first assumed to be a soldier and missing prostitutes and dancehall girls the most likely candidates for the corpse. The first mystery of the Ft. Thomas Tragedy was solved astonishingly fast. L. D. Poock, a Newport shoe store owner took an interest in the shoes the victim was wearing. They were a petite, size three cloth topped boot, very stylish but unusual in a size so small. Inside the boot was the imprint of a shoe store in Greencastle, Indiana, and numbers Poock knew to be the manufacturer’s lot number. With a little investigation he was able to locate the manufacturer, who told him the date of the shipment and verified that they were sent to Greencastle. There was only one pair of size three in the lot.

This news was enough to send Campbell County Sheriff Jule Plummer and two Cincinnati police detectives to the little town of Greencastle, Indiana. A search of the books of Louis and Hayes shoe store revealed that the shoes had been purchased the previous September by Pearl Bryan. Late that night her parents identified Pearl’s clothing and learned the awful truth of their daughter’s death.

Though it had been surprisingly easy to identify the headless body as Pearl Bryan, the question “who was Pearl Bryan” would never be fully answered. In the newspapers, and for the most part in the trials, she was portrayed as a poor, innocent, farm girl, seduced and ruined by a blackguard, an older man from the east. True, she was a farmer’s daughter, but that farmer was Alexander Bryan, a wealthy patriarch and one of the most prominent men in Putnam County, Indiana. Pearl was a blond, twenty-two year old music student at DePauw University and she worked in her sister Mary’s dress shop in Greencastle, making sure the store carried the latest fashions. She was by no means unsophisticated. Pearl told her parents she was going to Indianapolis to visit some family friends but went instead to Cincinnati. There is no question that she went to have an abortion.

Whose child was she carrying?

Pearl was bright and vivacious, but she had her dark secrets as well. It may have been true, as the prosecution claimed, that she was seduced and, in her one moment of weakness, became pregnant, but there was much speculation to the contrary in Greencastle. Pearl’s family and many of her friends first assumed Will Wood, Pearl’s second cousin, was the father. Will had known Pearl his whole life and the two had always been close confidants. Though popular with the boys, Pearl had no regular suitor and Will was always present. Others, though, believed that Pearl was having a secret romance with Scott Jackson, several years her senior, who had come to Greencastle from New Jersey a year earlier. At the time of Pearl’s death, Jackson was studying dentistry in Cincinnati, just short trip across the Ohio River from the spot where the body was found. Scott Jackson quickly became the prime suspect.

Will Wood was the son of Dr. Deloss M. Wood, the Indiana Presiding Elder of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Scott Jackson lived next door with his mother. She had come to Greencastle to be with her daughter, Scott’s half-sister, who was married to Professor Edwin Post, a classical scholar, soon to be the dean of DePauw University. What had begun as an investigation of Kentucky whores and soldiers was fast becoming a rural Indiana society murder.

Jackson was arrested outside his rooming house in Cincinnati and Wood was detained in South Bend, Indiana and persuaded to come to Cincinnati for questioning. After initially denying any knowledge of the matter, Jackson admitted that Pearl Bryan had come to Cincinnati for an abortion that he was to arrange. It was all to be done as a favor for his friend Will Wood, the author of Pearl’s misfortune. Wood concurred that Pearl had gone to Cincinnati for an abortion; he had seen her off on the train. But he said it was Jackson, not he, who had seduced his cousin.

Which of these two would have been the father of Pearl’s child was never determined with certainty. On the witness stand Scott Jackson admitted to having “criminal intercourse” with Pearl Bryan but not before Christmas of 1895 when he was home on vacation and already knew Pearl to be pregnant. Will Wood denied he ever had sexual relations with Pearl but several witnesses, in sworn depositions, claimed that Wood often bragged of having a “soft snap” with Pearl and spoke in detail of his sexual encounters with her.

What happened between Wednesday and Saturday?

Alonzo Walling, Scott Jackson’s roommate, was arrested several hours after Jackson. Jackson claimed he had left Pearl in Walling’s care the Wednesday before she died and that Walling was to facilitate the abortion. Walling said he had never made the Wednesday appointment and believed his roommate had murdered Pearl Bryan in cold blood. He said that Jackson had told him he planned to lure Pearl to Cincinnati on pretext of obtaining an abortion, poison her, then cut the body into pieces and deposit them in outhouse vaults around the city. In their statements to police, Jackson and Walling each denied any firsthand knowledge of the death but believed the other was, actively or passively, responsible.

Unable to extract a confession from Jackson or Walling, the police proceeded to build a circumstantial case based on testimony of witnesses who had seen the prisoners with Pearl Bryan that week. On Wednesday, after both Jackson and Walling claimed to have seen Pearl for the last time, she was positively identified by Smith Von Fossen, a salesman at Hockett Brother’s Pianos on Fourth Street in Cincinnati. She had come in to shop for pianos; anxious to have her parents buy one for the home. She left her parents’ address with Von Fossen who watched as she left the store and met a man on the street. Mrs. Plymouth Weeks, a spiritualist, saw Pearl on Thursday. Pearl had come for a reading accompanied by a man she referred to as “Doc”, Scott Jackson’s Cincinnati nickname. Friday night Jackson, Walling, and Pearl were seen at Wallingford’s saloon on George Street in Cincinnati. Jackson and Walling were well known at Wallingford’s and that night Dave Wallingford and his porter Alan Johnson saw Jackson come in with a blond woman. Walling came in later and the three of them left in a horse cab driven by a third man.

The cabman was the missing piece and after several newspapers offered large rewards for his identity, George Jackson, an African-American hostler who worked in a Mt. Auburn stable, came forward. George Jackson claimed he had been approached by a man, presumably Alonzo Walling, offering ten dollars to drive a doctor and his patient across the bridge to Kentucky. George Jackson agreed and Walling returned with a coupe rockaway carriage. Walling sat next to him as Jackson drove the horse into the country. George Jackson heard a woman moaning inside the carriage and tried to quit the job but Walling pulled out a pistol and persuaded him to continue. When they reached their destination Jackson saw another man emerge with a woman, barley able to walk by herself. When the two men took the woman into the woods, George Jackson took off by foot back to Cincinnati.

The trip from Wallingford’s saloon in Cincinnati, to Locke’s farm in Newport, Kentucky became the official story of the Pearl Bryan murder; the “unbroken chain” of eyewitnesses. But it was a chain with several weak links. Jackson and Walling admitted to being at Wallingford’s with Pearl, but claimed the night was Tuesday. Wallingford and Johnson testified that that Scott Jackson was wearing a full beard when they saw him Friday night as he had for the previous six months. Jackson testified that the beard had been shaved off that afternoon. This was corroborated by his barber, Fred Albion, and by his landlady and her family who had remarked, that afternoon, how strange Jackson looked without his beard. As suspicious as it was that Jackson shaved his beard the day Pearl Bryan died, he could not have been seen at Wallingford’s Friday night with a full beard.

Pearl was wearing a checked cotton house dress when she was found, a dressing gown Pearl’s mother had made for her sister Jenny, handed down to Pearl when Jenny died. It was not a dress to be worn outside the house. It would surely not be worn to a saloon by someone as concerned with fashion as Pearl.

But it was George Jackson’s story of the ride to Kentucky that proved most controversial. The first mystery is why Walling would have hired him in the first place. Both Walling and Scott Jackson were experienced horsemen, if Walling already had a carriage, why would he pay George Jackson, then sit next to him while he drove? He would be, in effect, hiring a witness. George Jackson brought his story to the police two weeks after it occurred, plenty of time to study newspaper pictures of the prisoners, but he had difficulty identifying them at the jail. In fact it was the coincidence of their last names that helped George Jackson identify Scott Jackson. George Jackson was asked to pick the prisoners from a circle of men. As he scrutinized one man the police chief thought he had gotten too close and said, “Jackson, step back.” Instinctively, Scott Jackson, the Jackson who had been taking orders from police all week, took a step back. He quickly realized his error and recovered his position but the movement was noticed. A moment later George Jackson identified Scott Jackson.

George Jackson’s reputation also cast doubt on his story. In Springfield, Ohio, he was known as a conman and a seeker of notoriety. Both his former employer and the Springfield Chief of Police publicly expressed their belief that Jackson was lying. After testifying at Scott Jackson’s trial, George Jackson was tried in Springfield, in an unrelated case, and convicted of perjury.

Was there another story?

As in any murder investigation, there were false confessions and misleading information provided by unstable or unscrupulous individuals. A woman in Indianapolis was held for several days after an anonymous tip said she had information regarding the case. Lulu Mae Hollingsworth was reluctant to speak but under questioning she admitted she knew Pearl Bryan and had run into her at the Indianapolis train depot the week of her death. Upon learning of Pearl’s condition, Miss Hollingsworth put together a mixture guaranteed to terminate her pregnancy. Pearl took the medicine then boarded a train to Cincinnati where she died in Scott Jackson’s room.

Hollingsworth’s story was taken seriously enough for Sheriff Plummer to offer train fare to send her to Newport for questioning. However, the more she spoke, the more outlandish her story became. By the end she claimed that Alonzo Walling and Will Wood were also with Pearl in Indianapolis and Walling performed the abortion in an abandoned building. This story contradicted hard evidence and Miss Hollingsworth was released. She maintained that she had letters from Scott Jackson that would prove her story true and would release them only to save Jackson’s life. This never occurred.

The defense in Scott Jackson’s trial tried to introduce an alternative story of Pearl Bryan’s death. A private detective named John Seward, employed by Walling’s attorneys had assembled a collection of witnesses ready to testify that Pearl Bryan died at the hand of a doctor in a house on George Street in Cincinnati. An unemployed brakeman named William Trusty claimed he drove Pearl Bryan’s dead body from George Street to Locke’s farm.

The story was fabricated by Seward who had coached his witnesses’ testimony. The police had been on to the plan from the beginning. Some of the witnesses were threatened with perjury charges and refused to testify. Trusty, who did not know the plan had been foiled, told his story on the witness stand and was charged with perjury. He and Seward both skipped bail but were eventually captured and convicted. To the end, however, Trusty maintained that his story was true and it was only Seward’s elaborations that were lies.

Did they confess?

In separate trials, Jackson and Walling each testified in his own defense but added nothing to what they had always maintained. Neither man knew what happened to Pearl Bryan after Wednesday of that week. They were both convicted and sentenced to death; they both appealed the verdict. The appeal process took nearly a year but finally the verdicts were upheld. A double hanging was scheduled for March 20, 1897.

In the days of public execution, the confession and repentance of the condemned man were considered part of the ritual. Then, as now, execution was serious business and an admission of guilt by the convicted man was a guarantee that taking his life was justified. The need for confession was especially strong when the conviction was based on circumstantial evidence.

Attorneys for Jackson and Walling had other ideas regarding confession. With the appeal lost and the hangings less than a week away, their only hope was to tell all and plead to the governor for mercy. Walling’s fate, especially could hinge on the truth revealed by Jackson. While there was near universal acceptance that Scott Jackson was guilty of first degree murder, there was a growing sentiment that Walling’s crimes were lesser and done under Scott Jackson’s evil influence. The two men agreed with their attorneys, the time had come to tell all.

On March 18, Jackson and Walling were put together in a room with a table and chairs, given paper and pencils and an almanac to verify dates and left to write their confessions. What they came up with surprised everyone. In separate statements they told virtually the same story beginning with Pearl Bryan’s arrival in Cincinnati for the purpose of having an abortion. Walling contacted May Smith, his girlfriend at the time, for the name of an abortionist. She put him in touch with Dr. George Wagner of Bellevue, Kentucky and arrangements were made to send Pearl to his house. On Wednesday Walling met Pearl in Cincinnati and gave her directions; Pearl went to Dr. Wagner’s by herself. On Thursday Jackson and Walling went to Bellevue to deliver Pearl’s valise, and on Friday they went back for the operation.

There were complications from the beginning and when Pearl appeared to be in pain, Wagner sent Jackson to Foertmeyer’s drugstore for ergot. He administered the ergot but it had no effect. He opened her dress and injected her with a clear liquid then gave her some whiskey to drink. Pearl became unconscious and after a few moments Wagner said she was gone. They loaded her body into a vehicle and took her to a secluded spot. Dr. Wagner severed her head with a dissecting knife and wrapped it in her cloak. He drove Jackson and Walling to the bridge to Cincinnati, then they went their separate ways.

The confessions pleased no one. Scott Jackson did not admit guilt, nor did he exonerate Alonzo Walling. They also implicated a prominent Bellevue physician. When the confessions were made public, May Smith came forward and confirmed that she had procured Dr. Wagner at Walling’s request. Druggist Foertmeyer confirmed that he had filled a prescription from Dr. Wagner for ergot on the night of January 31, 1896. He further stated that he had received telephone messages from Scott Jackson to Maude Wagner, the doctor’s daughter, earlier in the week. Popular or not, the confessions were gaining credibility.

There had been rumors of the Wagner family’s involvement in Pearl Bryan’s death even before Jackson’s trial. The defense subpoenaed Anna, Nellie, and Maude Wagner, the wife and two daughters of Dr. Wagner, but they were never called to testify. Dr. Wagner himself could not be subpoenaed because shortly after the body was found he was committed to the Eastern Kentucky Asylum for the Insane, in Lexington.

Like every story regarding Pearl Bryan’s fate, this one was tantalizing but less than satisfying. May Smith was not new to the case; she had, early on, told the press that she had received letters from Scott Jackson admitting his guilt. The next day she recanted, claiming she was drunk when she told the story. Though it was clear that May Smith had inside knowledge in the matter, she was considered too unreliable to testify for either the defense or the prosecution.

Foertmeyer had testified in Scott Jackson’s trial. He was one of several witnesses who had seen Jackson and Walling in Bellevue with Pearl Bryan, and was introduced only to show that the three had been seen together in Kentucky. Foertmeyer, under oath, had said the calls from Scott Jackson were to a Miss Watson. He made no mention on the stand of filling the ergot prescription because, he explained later, no one asked him. Foertmeyer’s motives were questioned when it was learned that he and Dr. Wagner had a long-standing feud and Wagner never sent him prescriptions.

When the confessions were made public, the Wagners were outraged. They produced a telegram indicating that Dr. Wagner had been at his father-in-law’s home in Nicholasville the night of Pearl Bryan’s death. At the asylum, Dr. Wagner was pronounced cured of insanity and returned home to address the accusations.

The confessions were sent to Governor Bradley who read them but remained unmoved. Citing discrepancies between the two statements and contradictions between the confessions and each man’s sworn testimony, the governor declared the confessions untrustworthy. He further stated that admitting to the attempted abortion showed “an utter disregard for human life.” Governor Bradley saw no reason to overturn the rulings of two Campbell County juries and the Kentucky Court of Appeals. Respite was refused; Scott Jackson and Alonzo Walling were hanged together on March 20, 1897. They each proclaimed innocence to the end.

An Unfinished Story

The execution of Scott Jackson and Alonzo Walling essentially closed the books on the Pearl Bryan case, while Lizzie Borden’s acquittal guaranteed that her case would stay open forever. But as news hardens into history, a dispassionate eye can see that the story of Pearl Bryan’s death is far from finished. Jackson and Walling were not innocent in Pearl’s death but the story that convicted them of first-degree murder, the “unbroken chain” of evidence, is unlikely at best. While the mystery of Lizzie Borden hinges on the truth or falsehood of her simple assertion of innocence, the mysteries of Pearl Bryan involve a myriad of half-truths and improbabilities.

Despite the best efforts of police and citizens of Campbell County, Pearl Bryan’s head was never found. This is the most solid and enduring mystery. To her parents’ sorrow Pearl was buried incomplete. Her story, too, remains incomplete and the mysteries of Pearl Bryan deserve another look.

Sources:
Cincinnati Enquirer, February 1896 – June 1896, January 1897 – March 1897

Cincinnati Tribune, February 1896 – April 1896

Cincinnati Post, March 1897

Greencastle Banner Times, January 1897 – February 1897

Greencastle Democrat, February 1896, January 1897 – March 1897

Indianapolis Sun, February 1896

Poock, L. D. Headless Yet Identified; A Story of the Solution of the Pearl Bryan or Fort Thomas
Mystery, Through the Shoes, Cincinnati, OH: Hann & Adair, Printers, 1897

Originally published as "Pearl Bryan: Headless Corpse Found on Northern Ky. Farm" by Robert Wilhelm in Kentucky Explorer, Volume 26, No. 6, November 2011
Also posted at Northern Kentucky Views

The Veiled Murderess

2012-01-14T06:00:00.000-08:00

In 1854, a woman calling herself Henrietta Robinson stood trial in Troy, New York, for poisoning a neighbor and his sister-in-law. Despite the judge’s admonitions, she sat through the trial with her face covered by a black veil, hiding her appearance from the throngs of spectators who had come to watch. Everything about the defendant was a mystery—her motive for murder, her behavior before and after the crime, and even her true identity. It was well known that “Henrietta Robinson” was an assumed name, but who she really was has never been determined.

Date: May 25, 1853

Location: Troy, New York

Victims: Timothy Lanagan & Catherine Lubee

Cause of Death: Poisoning

Accused: Henrietta Robinson

Synopsis:

In the early 1850s, Henrietta Robinson was a well-known figure in Troy, New York. She was, at first glance, a beautiful, refined, young woman of means, but those who had close encounters with her knew Henrietta to be wild and unpredictable with an unfounded fear of persecution. She was quick to take offense, and travelled heavily armed, pulling her revolver at the slightest hint of insult. According to biographer, David Wilson, writing in 1855:

She fancied that a gentleman who resided near her, in addition to his active participation in the general persecution that raged against her, had stopped he navigation of the Hudson River. She was found groping in the dark through the halls of public buildings, inquiring for the police office, and demanding of the authorities, assistance to protect her house, which, all the time, had remained unmolested and undisturbed. She wandered about the city at night, armed with her revolver, and presented it at the breast of one who had the curiosity to observe her movements. She sallied out at a very early hour in the morning clad only in her night garments, and arousing an acquaintance from sleep, requested the loan of a dress, with the singular apology that she had forgotten her outward apparel on leaving home.

Through all of these episodes she kept her background a secret, or rather, told stories so contradicctory that none could be believed. Sometimes her father was a lord who had driven her from his castle, sometimes she attributed her misfortunes to a wicked step-mother, sometimes she was the daughter of a humble Irishman in Vermont. But always, she was the target of a terrible conspiracy, and lived in constant fear of its agents.

Troy, New York

In 1853, Henrietta Robinson was living in cottage with a servant girl and an elderly gardener. On the corner opposite her cottage was a grocery store run by a man named Timothy Lanagan. He and his family lived in an apartment connected to the store. The store sold alcohol and had a bar where the locals would congregate for music and dancing.

Henrietta would send the gardener or the servant girl to Lanagan’s store for provisions. Before long these provisions included beer and sometimes brandy. These orders became so frequent that people in the neighborhood believed she must have been in a constant state of inebriation. Eventually she would come out herself, and join the rowdies drinking at the bar in Lanagan’s store. But the alcohol did not improve her disposition and she would often be provoked by some real or imagined insult, to draw her revolver. More than once, she had to be forcibly ejected from the building.

On the morning of May 25, 1853, Henrietta purchased a quart of beer form Lanagan’s store. Two hours later she went back and was drinking at the bar until she got into a heated argument with one of the patrons and Mrs. Lanagan requested that she leave. At one o’clock she returned again and found Mr. and Mrs. Lanagan having dinner with Catherine Lubee, a sister-in-law of Mr. Lanagan who had been staying with them. They invited Henrietta to join them.

After dinner, Henrietta offered to repay their kindness by treating them to beer on her account. Mrs. Lanagan declined, but Mr. Lanagan and Miss Lubee agreed and he went to get the beer. Henrietta also requested some sugar which, she said, would make the beer taste better. There wasn’t enough beer to fill all the tumblers so Mr. Lanagan went for more. When he returned he found that Henrietta had added the sugar to their glasses. At this point Henrietta decided that she did not want any beer and left the store. Two hours later Timothy Lanagan and Catherine Lubee were seized with a mortal sickness.

They had been poisoned with arsenic. There was little doubt as to who was responsible, Mrs. Lanagan told the police what had happened, a local druggist told them he had recently sold Henrietta arsenic, and arsenic was found in Henrietta’s cottage. When Lanagan and Lubee died, Henrietta Robinson was arrested for their murders.

Through a series of delays and postponements, Henrietta Robinson was not officially indicted until February 1854, nine months after the murder. Her trial did not commence until May. The delays left the people of Troy with the impression that powerful forces were at work behind the scenes to protect her. In July Henrietta tried to commit suicide by drinking vitriol. It was unknown how she obtained the poison, but some speculated that the same mysterious forces would prefer her death in prison to a public hearing.

As the story of Henrietta Robinson spread throughout the United States and Canada, articles appeared in various newspapers claiming to identify her. One said she was actually a Mrs. Campbell, who kept a drinking house in the suburbs of Quebec and had run away with a cab-driver. A Troy paper claimed she was the daughter of a Dr. Robinson of Montreal, who had died nine years before in a lunatic asylum. A newspaper in Albany claimed she was the daughter of an Irish gentleman of rank who had been disinherited for marrying the son of her father’s steward.

The most interesting story of Miss Robinson's history began as a rumor circulating in Troy. Someone who had attended the Troy Female Seminary identified her as a classmate named Emma Wood, daughter of William F. Wood, a prominent citizen of Quebec. When the story was printed by the Troy Times, Mr. Wood sued the paper for libel. The Troy Daily Whig received a card from the Wood family, categorically denying that Henrietta Robinson was their daughter. Though four of Mr. Wood’s five daughters had attended the Troy Female Academy, all had since married and were living in England, Ireland and Scotland.

Trial: May 22, 1854

The case finally came to trial nearly a year after the murder. Henrietta Robinson was well represented by attorneys who used Henrietta’s history of erratic behavior and lack of motive in the double murder to try to prove her innocence by reason of insanity. The prosecution argued that drunkenness is not insanity and not a defense against murder. To someone in Henrietta’s condition being thrown out of the bar was motive enough.

But the defendant herself grabbed all the attention at the trial by appearing every day with her face covered by a black veil. When witnesses were called to identify her, she would reluctantly lift the veil for the witness's eyes only. On the third day of the trial, the judge told Henrietta to remove the veil or face charges of contempt of court. Henrietta responded, through her attorneys, that she would rather submit to whatever punishment required than to remove the veil. The judge relented and Henrietta Robinson wore the veil for the rest of the trial.

In the end the jury agreed that, in spite of her antics, Henrietta Robinson was not insane and was responsible for her actions. They found her guilty of first degree murder. Upon the reading of the verdict Henrietta jumped up and shouted:

“Shame on you judge! Shame on you! There is corruption here! There is corruption in the court!”

Verdict: Guilty of first degree murder

Aftermath:

Appeals kept the case open for another year, but the defense attorneys' request for a new trial was denied. On June 14, 1855 Henrietta Robinson was brought into court and, at the judge’s request, she raised her veil as the sentence was read. She was sentenced to hang on the third of August.
As the execution date approached, the governor of New York received appeals from citizens throughout the state to spare Henrietta’s life. Whether at their urging, or due to the influence of the unseen forces that seemed to protect Henrietta, the governor agreed to commute her sentence to life in prison. The news did not please Henrietta; she had made peace with God and was fully prepared to die.

Sometime before the sentencing, Henrietta had been recognized again, this time as Charlotte Wood, another of Mr. Wood’s daughters who had attended the Troy Female Seminary. Many accepted this as her true identity, but Miss Robinson never confirmed it.

Henrietta Robinson spent eighteen years in Sing Sing prison then was transferred to the prison in Auburn, New York. In 1890 she was transferred again to the Mateawan Hospital for the Criminally Insane where she spent the last fifteen years of her life. Hospital records indicated she was seventy-eight years old at her last birthday, but she said she was eighty-nine. Though she was urged to reveal her identity on her deathbed, the veiled murderess took the secret to her grave.

Resources:

Books:

Wilson, D. Henrietta Robinson. New York: Miller, Orton & Mulligan, 1855.

Newspaper:

"The 'Veiled Murderess' ; Her Life and History." The New York Times 31 July 1855.
"Veiled Murderess Dies with 50 Years' Secret." The New York Times 15 May 1905.

Alfred Taylor

2012-01-07T20:31:00.000-08:00

Little Murders:

From Defenders and Offenders:

Alfred Taylor.

In July, 1888, Alfred Taylor of Lapeer, N. Y., killed Melville Frieze of Richford, in same State. Taylor had a wife, while Frieze was a single man. They lived for a while near each other and Taylor became jealous of Frieze’s attention to his wife. Taylor and a companion who had been out hunting and who had a loaded rifle in his hands, were sitting a grocery store at Hartford Mills, when Frieze entered the store. He jumped up and snatching the rifle out of his companion’s hand, fired at Frieze. The bullet struck his victim in the breast, just above the heart, and passed through his body. The wound was mortal, and death followed a few hours later.

Defenders and offenders. New York: D. Buchner & Co., 1888.

He Knew Too Much

2011-12-31T06:00:00.000-08:00

Winfield Scott Goss was a chemical experimenter with a well-known fondness for intoxicating spirits. When his workshop, in a cottage outside of Baltimore, exploded in February 1872, no one doubted that the badly charred corpse found inside was his. No one, that is, but the four insurance companies who had sold policies on Goss’s life totaling $25,000. They had many questions, and Goss’s friend and brother-in-law William Udderzook had all the answers. But rather than quelling their doubts, Udderzook’s “plausible stories” only fuelled them—he seemed to know too much.

Date: July 1, 1873

Location: Jennerville, Pennsylvania

Victim: Winfield Scott Goss

Cause of Death: Stabbing

Accused: William Udderzook

Synopsis:
The afternoon of Friday, February 2, 1872, Winfield Goss and William Udderzook went to the cottage that Goss rented for his experiments, trying to create a substitute for India-rubber. They stopped at a store near Goss’s workshop where they purchased a gallon of kerosene oil in a wicker-covered demijohn, and a bottle of whiskey. They also stopped at the home of a neighbor, Gottlieb Engle where they borrowed an axe to chop firewood. Around dusk, Goss filled an oil lamp with about a quart of kerosene from the demijohn. About six o’clock Udderzook went to Engle’s house to return the axe. He stayed for dinner with the Engles, then he and Gottlieb Engle returned to the cottage.
The three men drank whiskey from the bottle Goss and Udderzook had purchased that afternoon and had been drinking for about an hour when the oil lamp went out. Udderzook tried to relight it using a candle, but the dripping paraffin made the wick harder to light. Engle proposed that they cut off a portion of the wick, and Udderzook suggested going to the store for a new wick. They finally decided it would be most expedient if they went to Engle’s house for another lamp.

Engle and Udderzook went to Engle’s house, where they stayed for fifteen to twenty minutes before starting back with the lamp. They saw immediately that the Goss’s cottage was on fire. They watched as flames shot out of the window. No attempt was made to enter the burning building, but Udderzook sent Engle to Goss’s residence in Baltimore to tell his family that Winfield Goss had probably burned to death. About an hour after returning to the burning building Udderzook expressed concerns to Mr. Lowndes, the owner of the building, that Goss was inside the burning building.

Lowndes was amazed that Udderzook had not given the alarm sooner. It was now too late to save Goss if he were inside; the roof and one wall had collapsed. As soon as they were able, spectators at the fire tried to ascertain if Goss had been burned with the building. They were able to pull out a body burned past recognition. Udderzook said he had visited every room in the cottage that afternoon and he knew there had been on one else in the house—the body had to be Goss’s. In telling the story Udderzook mentioned every possible detail and was ready to account for and explain any inconstancies.

Four days after the fire, Winfield Goss’s brother, A. C. Goss, wrote to the insurance companies, relating the story of the fire and giving the coroner’s verdict: “That W. S, Gross came to his death by the explosion of an oil-lamp.” There were four insurance policies written on Winfield Gross’s life, all payable to his wife, Eliza. The first was for $5,000 written by the Mutual Life Insurance Company in 1868, the second for $5,000 by the Continental Life Insurance Company of New York in May 1871, the third $10,000 by the Travelers Insurance Company of Hartford in October 1871, and the fourth for $5,000 by the Knickerbocker Life Insurance Company of New York, in January 1872, less than a month before the fire. The insurance companies smelled a rat right away and began their own investigation.

The investigators were troubled by a number of minor facts, which when taken together, seemed to indicate fraud. Why, for example, was a strong, athletic man as Goss was known to be, unable to escape the burning building? Mr. J. C. Smith, a junk dealer, searched the ashes of the cottage, for a watch and chain that Winfield always wore, raising suspicions when he was unsuccessful. A week later, A. C. Goss, the deceased’s brother, “made a thorougher search” and the found the watch, chain and keys. A. C. Goss also testified that he was home the night of the fire, but his landlady said he was not home for dinner and did not return until late. The proprietor of a livery stable identified A. C. Goss as the man who engaged a horse and buggy that night.

The investigators now speculated that A. C. Goss had picked up his brother prior to the fire and taken him by horse and buggy to the railroad station; the person who died in the fire was not Winfield Goss. While they were not ready to charge anyone with fraud, they would not pay any of the claims unless the body could be conclusively proven to be that of Winfield Goss. Reluctantly, Mrs. Goss agreed to the exhumation of the body so the teeth, the only, feature of the body not destroyed past recognition, could be examined. Winfield Goss was known to have had a perfect set of teeth and had never been to the dentist for the smallest cavity. The body from the fire had a number of decayed or extracted teeth and the front teeth were irregular.

The insurance companies refused to pay the claims and Eliza Goss filed a law suit against them. The suit did not go to trial until May 1873. The trial lasted ten days and the jury found in favor of the plaintiff—the insurance companies must pay. Mrs. Goss, A. C. Goss, and William Udderzook were delighted with the verdict, but they were far from receiving payment; the companies filed a motion for a new trial and it would be November before that case would be heard.

In fact, the insurance companies had been correct; Udderzook and the Gosses had conspired to commit fraud. The body in the house had not been Winfield Goss; it was a cadaver that William Udderzook had acquired. William Goss had been living in Newark, New Jersey, under an assumed name, since the fire. The conspirators worried that with Goss’s intemperate habits and exuberant personality he would not be able to keep the secret much longer.

On June 6, 1873, William Udderzook arrived at the hotel in Jennerville, in Chester County, Pennsylvania, accompanied by a man named Wilson. Udderzook was absent from the hotel the next day, returning in the evening with a horse and buggy hired from a neighboring livery stable. He settled the hotel bill and drove away with Wilson. Around midnight he returned alone to the livery stable.

About a week later a farmer on a road near Jennerville noticed a number of buzzards circling a spot near the road. He looked closer and found a mutilated body just barely covered with leaves and dirt. The body had been stabbed in the chest and the arms and legs had been severed and thrown into the woods. There was enough evidence for a coroner’s jury to determine…

“That the same man (name unknown) came to his death between the hours of seven o’clock P.M. July 1, 1873 and July 2, 1873, from wounds inflicted by a dirk-knife or other sharp instrument, in the hands of William E. Udderzook, of Baltimore Md.”

The body resembled descriptions of Winfield Goss and a ring found in the buggy hired by Udderzook was identified as belonging to Goss. William E. Udderzook was arrested for the murder of Winfield S. Goss.

Trial: Octover 21, 1873

The prosecution retold the story of the fire at Goss’s cottage, and they had been able to trace Goss’s movements since the fire. He checked into the Central Hotel in Philadelphia under the name A. C. Wilson. Mr. Wilson’s handwriting was identified as identical to that of Winfield Goss. He boarded near Athensville where he pawned a finger-ring that was later identified has Goss’s. He then went to Newark, New Jersey, where he stayed until June 25 when he went to Philadelphia to meet the defendant. The two then travelled to Jennerville, where Udderzook had grown up.

Gainer P. Moore, the man who discovered the body, testified to its condition and said that though the body had been mutilated…

“I raised the head out from the ground, the face had a natural look. By that I mean I could have recognized it easily if I had known the person in life. I have no doubt of this.”

The prosecution then proposed to show Mr. Moore a picture of Winfield Goss to determine if he could recognize him as the man he found. Though the defense strenuously objected, the court allowed the photograph to be used. Moore testified that the man in the picture bore a strong resemblance to the man he found by the road.

The jury began deliberation on the afternoon Friday, November 7 and returned a verdict at two o’clock on Sunday—guilty of first degree murder.

Verdict: Guilty of murder

Aftermath:
The defense appealed the verdict on several grounds, most importantly that the court should no have alowed photographic identification, arguing that a photograph was twice removed from reality—the photograph is a copy of the negative which in turn is a copy of the subject—and therefore unreliable. The argument went as far as the Pennsylvania Supreme Court who set legal precedent by allowing the photograph as evidence.

William Udderzook was hanged shortly after noon on November 12, 1874. He maintained his innocence to the end.

Resources:

Websites:

MainLine Today - Picture Perfect

Executed Today - 1874: William Udderzook, because a picture is worth a thousand words

Books:

Lewis, John B., and Charles C. Bombaugh. Strategems and conspiracies to defraud life insurance companies: an authentic record of remarkable cases. 2nd ed. Baltimore: Office of the Baltimore Underwriter, 1896.

Udderzook, William E., and George L. Barclay. The Udderzook mystery!: containing a detailed and accurate account of the life of the murderer, his trial and sentence, the disappearance of W.S. Goss, and many strange mysteries closely bearing upon this great case .... Philadelphia: Published by Barclay & Co., 1873.

A Bloody Christmas Eve

2011-12-24T05:00:00.000-08:00

Little Murders

(From The Galveston Daily News, Galveston Texas, December 26, 1885.)

A BLOODY CHRISTMAS EVE.

SHOCKING BUTCHERIES AT AUSTIN.

Another Chapter of Crime form the State Capital That Makes the Blood Run Cold.

Austin, December 25—Of all the murders that have been committed within the annals of Austin those of last night (Christmas eve) stand out in bold relief. Just one year ago this month the first of the series of murders was committed and since that time the assassins have

STRUCK BLOW AFTER BLOW

with fatal results, and, although the mayor, police force and citizens at large have used every effort to put a stop to those bloody deeds, the perpetrators are still at large. Heretofore the fiends have been satisfied with murdering and raping colored servant girls but last night, as though to start afresh, after twelve months of bloody work they murder and rape white women without apparent fear of detection. The fiends with evidently consummated plans went systematically to work at an hour when scarcely half of the population had retired. When people were passing to and fro, celebrating Christmas eve, they struck down one woman and

MURDERED AND OUTRAGED

another, and inflicted a probably fatal wound on a man. At about 11:30 last night, M. H. Hancock, a carpenter residing at 203 East Water Street, was awakened by groans. He was stopping, as was his custom, in a room occupied by him only. He arose, and went into the next room in which his wife slept and found the room in disorder and his wife absent and blood on the bed and floor. Following a bloody trail which led him out of the front door around the side of the house into the back yard and there, lying in

A POOL OF BLOOD,

more dead than alive, he found his wife, a woman about 40 years of age. He at once cried for help, which aroused the neighborhood. The body was taken into the house and the police and doctors summoned. Upon examination of Mrs .Hancock it was found that she had been struck twice with an ax. Both blows had been dealt on the left side of the head, one directly across the ear, cutting it in two, the other between the ear and eye which fractured the skull. The doctors think it impossible for her to recover.

At the same time the above bloody assault was committed Mrs. Phillips, the wife of James Phillips, an architect living at 308 West Hickory street, was awakened by the cries of her son, a man about 28 years of age, who with his wife and 18-months-old child, occupied a room on the opposite side of the house from hers. Upon reaching the room, which she had only left about an hour before, she found the babe sitting up in a bed covered with blood, but unhurt. Her son lay in bed weltering in blood, with

A FEARFUL DEEP GASH

under the ear, extending from the back of the head to the throat, and beside him in the bed lay a bloody ax. His wife (Eula Phillips) was missing. The old lady at once gave alarm, and those who came to her relief instituted search for the missing woman. Again a bloody trail was followed; this one led out on the gallery through the yard across another gallery, which connected the tow house, then into another yard to some out-buildings, which were partially surrounded by a rail fence, and there on the cold, hard ground

SATURATED WITH BLOOD

lay the missing woman—dead. She had been struck in the forehead, directly above the nose, with the butt end of an ax, across the breast lay tow heavy fence rails and unmistakable signs of rape were evident. The mayor and entire police force were aroused and every effort possible to lead to the detection of the murderers was made. In both instances the fiends used axes that belonged to the premises on which the deeds were committed.

THE CITIZENS AROUSED.

In pursuance to a call of the mayor about 500 citizens assembled in the representative chamber this morning to take action in regard to the murders. Speeches were made and a committee of four from each ward was appointed to co-operate with the city officials to assist in ferreting out the criminals. There has been so far one arrest made, the person being Oliver Townson, a negro who has been arrested several times before on suspicion of having been connected with the various murders that have occurred but against whom no direct evidence has been obtained.

The Galveston Daily News, Galveston Texas, December 26, 1885.

Cheating the Gallows

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The body of Mary E. Hill was found lying outside her Philadelphia home, by her maid returning from church the night of November 22, 1868. She had evidently been killed in her dining room by blows to the head with a fireplace poker, she was then dragged into the sitting room, then Mrs. Hill was thrown out the second story window. Though two people were tried for this murder and one was sentenced to be hanged, there would be no execution.

Date: November 22, 1868

Location:   Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Victim: Mary E. Hill

Cause of Death: Beaten with a poker

Accused:   George S. Twitchell

Synopsis:
About four years earlier, Mrs. Hill’s daughter, Camilla, had been engaged as a housekeeper for a widower named Twitchell, on a farm near Carpenter’s Landing, New Jersey. Shortly after taking over the farm, Mr. Twitchell was joined by his son, George, who had been attending college in Connecticut. Though Camilla Hill was several years older than George Twitchell, the two became romantically entwined and eloped to New York City.

They lived in New York for a short time then moved to Philadelphia, where George Twitcheill engaged in the produce commission business in the Spruce Street Market. Twitchell was unsuccessful at this and the couple moved in with Camilla’s mother Mary whose husband, a wealthy contractor, had recently died leaving her an estate and an abundance of funds.

George and Camilla Twitchell induced Mrs. Hill to change from her rather unpretentious mode of living to one of costly ostentation. Meanwhile, George Twitchell went into business again, this time manufacturing shingles in Camden, New Jersey. He failed at this as well and in November 1868 the business went bankrupt, leaving George Twitchell hard pressed for money.

In spite of that, the Twitchells appeared to be on the best of terms with Mrs. Hill—this was attested to by the servants who lived in the house. They continued to live quite well on Mrs. Hill’s money. However, real estate broker named Joseph Gilbert would later say that Twitchell had induced him to put Twitchell’s name on a deed he was buying for Mrs. Hill. Gilbert had also told him that whenever in anyone else’s presence Twichell acted as if he was on good terms with his mother-in-law, but at other times he referred to her as “an old bitch,” and Gilbert remembered him saying he wanted to “kill the old bitch.”

Around nine o’clock, the night of Sunday, November 22, 1686, Sarah Campbell, a servant of Mrs. Hill, returned from church. The door was locked and she had to ring the bell repeatedly before Mr.Twitchell came to answer. He was just partially dressed, as if he had already gone to bed. Mr. Twitchell remarked on what a cold night it was then said, “I wonder where mother is,” implying that Mrs. Hill was still outside. He let Sarah in, then returned to his bedroom.

Sarah opened the door leading to the yard, and was horrified to see the dead body of Mrs. Hill on the brick pavement beneath the windows of the sitting-room. She called for Mr. Twitchell who came out, exclaiming, “My God what is this?” He and Sarah carried the body into the kitchen. Mrs. Twitchell came downstairs in her nightclothes and found her husband washing her mother’s face with a wet cloth. The neighbors were given the alarm and a doctor was sent for. They were met at the door by Mrs. Twitchell how cried, “Mother had been killed, she fell out of the second story window.”

An examination of the upstairs room revealed drops of blood on the floor of the dining room and the sitting room, and blood on the windowsill of the sitting room. Mr. Twitchell’s shirt was found and it was bloodstained as well. Mrs. Twitchell claimed that her mother always carried a large sum of money— $2,000 - $3,000 —  in her bosom, and was in the habit of telling people about it. The money was not there when the body was found and Mrs. Twitchell believed that a burglar had murdered her mother for the money.

It seemed unlikely that a burglar would risk capture by throwing the body out the window. Mr. and Mrs. Twitchell, who were the only occupants of the house at the time, became the prime suspects and were arrested for the murder of Mrs. Hill.

Trial: December 28, 1868

George Twitchell was tried first. The evidence against him was circumstantial but strong. Mrs. Hill was murdered in the dining room, and fresh cigar ash there indicated that her killer was familiar enough to sit and smoke while they talked. They no doubt argued about money, he became angered and decided to kill her, first going to the kitchen for a larger poker than the one in the dining room. He returned and used the poker to beat Mrs. Hill to death. To confuse the evidence, he threw the body out the window, then went outside and placed the bloody poker under the body. He removed his bloodstained clothing, went to bed, and waited for Sarah Campbell to return and find the body.The defense argued that George Twitchell’s character had been exemplary, with no history of violence or bad behavior. He and his wife did not stand to gain by Mrs. Hill’s death; her husband’s will had stipulated that the estate would go to his wife until her death, then would be passed on to his relatives, not hers. None of the missing money that Mrs. Hill had allegedly been carrying on her person had been traced to George Twitchell.
They claimed that the murder had been done by someone outside the family. The blood on Twitchell’s shirt had come from carrying the body into the house. Charles Altgelt, who lived nearby testified to seeing two men leave Mrs. Hill’s house as he walked by around 9:00 that night—one nondescript, the other tall wearing a very long coat. The entryway was dark, not lighted as he would have expected.
The prosecution pointed out that the blood on Mr. Twitchell’s shirt was not smudged as it would be from carrying the bloody body, by in sprinkles, the same as the walls of the dining room—sprinkles that could only be accounted for “…by an open artery or the dash of a weapon upon a bloody surface.” Additionally, witnesses testified that Twitchell was not wearing his shirt when he carried the body into the house. They gave no significance at all to Mr. Altgelt’s testimony about strangers leaving the house.

The jury deliberated for only thirteen minutes before returning with a verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree.

Camilla Twitchell was then tried and found not guilty of the murder of her mother.

Verdict: Guilty of first degree murder

Aftermath:

George Twitchell was sentenced to be hanged, but the execution was delayed due to appeals. The defense filed a request for a new trial on a number of technical grounds. The new trial was denied and the case was appealed to the United States Supreme Court, which upheld the lower court’s ruling.

With no more possible appeals, the hanging was scheduled for April 8, 1869. On April 3, Twitchell nade a confession of sorts. He claimed that on that night he had been in bed when his wife came in and said “I have had a quarrel with my mother and killed her.” Twitchell helped Camilla throw her mother’s body out the window and he made a solemn vow to the Eternal God that he would never reveal what happened. However, after his conviction, he believed that his wife would come forward and tell all. But she did not, and with his execution just five days away Twitchell decided to break his vow and tell the truth.

The general public did not believe the confession. Twitchell was considered untrustworthy, and nothing he said changed the evidence. Even if his wife had wielded the poker, the blood spatter on his shirt indicated that he must have been standing next to her. But even if she did it, Camilla Twitchell had already been acquitted and could not be retried for the murder. One matter was settled by the confession, it proved that the murder had been committed by one or the other of the Twitchells. Mr. Altgelt’s “tall man,” with his “long coat,” was proven to be a myth. Most Philadelphians were now satisfied that Twitchell’s execution would be justified.

The morning of April 8, when George Twitchell was to be hanged, the jailers found him lying dead in his cell. Twitchell had cheated the gallows; he committed suicide by taking prussic acid. It was never determined who had supplied it for him.

Resources:

Books:

Lawson, John Davison. American state trials: a collection of the important and interesting criminal trials which have taken place in the United States from the beginning of our government to the present day. St. Louis: Thomas Law Books, 1916.

Pinney, S. U.. Reports of cases argued and determined in the Supreme Court of the Territory of Wisconsin, and in the Supreme Court of the state of Wisconsin: with tables of the cases and principal matters. Chicago: Callaghan, 1874.

Twitchell, George S., and F. Carroll Brewster. The trial and conviction of George S. Twitchell, Jr., for the murder of Mrs. Mary E. Hill, his mother-in-law with the eloquent speeches of counsel on both sides, and Hon. Judge Brewster's charge to the jury in full : to which are added many interesting facts in regard to the Hills and Twitchells never before published. Philadelphia: Barclay & Co., 1869.

Cherry Scott

2011-12-10T06:09:00.000-08:00

Little Murders:

From Defenders and Offenders:

Cherry Scott.

Cherry Scott is a mulatto woman, who killed her mother, and was brought to Dallas, Texas, from the Indian Territory where the crime was committed. Her mother, herself, a married brother, his wife and two other children all lived together in Fannin County, and were employed in raising a crop. The sister-in-law would not work and this made Cherry Scott angry, and therefore when she was told to do some work she refused, ordering the sister-in-law to do it. A quarrel ensued and the mother sided with the daughter-in-law. This so angered Cherry, the next morning, while the mother lay in bed, Cherry approached her bed with a rifle and shot her dead.

Defenders and offenders. New York: D. Buchner & Co., 1888.

The Six Capsules

2011-12-03T08:00:00.000-08:00

Helen Potts, a nineteen year old student at Miss Comstock’s School in New York City, decided not to join her roommates at a concert the night of January 31, 1891. Helen was feeling ill, but she had a remedy prescribed by her boyfriend, a medical student named Carlyle Harris. When the girls returned, Helen told them of the wonderful dreams she had been having about Carlyle. But she also complained of numbness throughout her body; before long she could not move and her breathing was labored. The dreams soon vanished, giving way to nightmare, revealing a world filled with deceit, betrayal and ultimately murder.

Date: January 31, 1891

Location: New York, New York

Victim: Helen Potts Harris

Cause of Death: Poisoning

Accused: Carlyle W. Harris

Synopsis:

After the girls had gone to bed, Helen began moaning and had difficulty breathing. They sent for their principal, Miss Day who tried, unsuccessfully to have Helen sit up. Miss Day sent for the school physician, Dr. Fowler and his assistant, Dr. Baner. By the time they arrived, Helen had lost all muscle control, her pupils were almost completely constricted, she was bathed in cold perspiration, and her breathing rate was two breaths per minute. The doctors tried whiskey, caffeine, atropine, and digitalis, with no success. Helen rallied briefly then fell into a deeper stupor. A third doctor, Dr. Kerr was brought in, and they applied electric shock, with no success. As a last resort they tried artificial respiration to keep Helen breathing, but nothing would revive her. She died before dawn.

Carlyle W. Harris

From the symptoms, Dr. Fowler was convinced that Helen had died from an overdose of morphine and he began searching her room for signs of the drug. All he found was an empty prescription box with a label that read “one before retiring” and was signed “C. W. H., student.” When he asked the identity of C. W. H., the girls replied that it was Helen’s boyfriend Carlyle W. Harris, a medical student at Columbia University. Though the hour was late, Dr. Fowler sent for Carlyle Harris and had him brought to Helen’s room.

Harris’s first response upon seeing his dead girlfriend was “My God, what can they do to me?” When asked why they would do anything to him, Harris responded that he had made out the prescription but he was not yet a physician. Harris told Dr. Fowler that Helen had complained of headaches, and he had prescribed twenty-five grains of sulphate of quinine and one grain of sulphate of morphine. He instructed the pharmacist to put the mixture into six capsules, so that each capsule would contain only one-sixth of a grain of morphine. He had given her only four of the capsules to reduce the risk of overdose. Harris knew she had already taken three of the capsules, because Helen had told him they were not working. He had urged her to take the fourth capsule as well.

Dr. Fowler remarked that no one had ever died from one-sixth of a grain of morphine, and even if she had taken an entire grain it would not have produced the effects he saw. There must have been a terrible mistake. The two capsules Harris had kept were examined and, just as he had said, each contained only one-sixth grain of morphine.

Upon learning of her Helen’s death, her mother hurried to New York from her home in Asbury Park, New Jersey. The coroner wanted to perform an autopsy but Mrs. Potts asserted that Helen had always suffered from heart problems; she was convinced that her daughter had died of natural causes. The body was taken for burial in New Jersey.

Authorities in New York remained unconvinced and managed to get a warrant to exhume the body. Fifty-five days after she was buried, the body of Helen Potts was disinterred and autopsied. The examination revealed that her heart and other internal organs were perfectly healthy, but her brain was in a congested condition, indicative of opiate poisoning. A chemical analysis of her stomach and intestines showed significant traces of morphine, but, though quinine is the more stable of the two drugs, not a trace of quinine was found.

When questioned under oath, Mrs. Potts admitted that she had lied about her daughter’s heart condition. She knew that an autopsy would bring unwelcome publicity and she was anxious to get her daughter’s body back to New Jersey as soon as possible. Mrs. Potts then made another startling revelation: Helen Potts and Carlyle Harris had been secretly married for nearly a year.
They had met in the summer of 1889 when Helen was eighteen years old and Carlyle had just finished his first year of medical school. Introduced by mutual friends, they spent time together in Ocean Grove, New Jersey where both families were staying. In the fall, Harris resumed his studies at Columbia and the Potts moved to New York. When Carlyle came to call, Mrs. Potts was first glad to see a familiar friend but when his visits became more frequent and is attention to Helen more marked, Mrs. Potts became concerned. When her daughter spoke of engagement, Mrs. Potts put her foot down, and tried to separate the two, telling Harris that Helen was too young.

On February 7, 1890, Helen was invited to go see the stock market by Carlyle Harris and his brother McCready, and, since both brothers would be present, Mrs. Potts gave her permission. Carlyle picked her up at 10:00, but they never met up with McCready, and they never went to the stock market. Instead, they went to City Hall and were married by an alderman. At Carlyle’s insistence, they used assumed names: she was Helen Neilson (her middle name) and he was Charles Harris (his father’s name.) They did not reveal the marriage to Helen’s mother or to anyone else.

Within six weeks of this date, Mrs. Potts noticed that Harris was visiting her daughter much less frequently. While this pleased Mrs. Potts, it greatly distressed Helen. The family had moved back to Ocean Grove and Harris would make plans to visit, only to break them at the last minute, leaving Helen in a constant state of sorrow. To cheer her up, Mrs. Potts invited a friend of Helen’s a Miss Schofield, to spend some time with them at Ocean Grove.

When she next saw Carlyle Harris, Helen insisted that he tell Miss Schofield about their marriage. After some argument he agreed. The reason she was so adamant was that Helen was about to undergo an abortion and wanted someone to know about the marriage first; the reason Harris agreed was that Helen refused to have the abortion if he did not tell. Harris told Miss Schofield about the marriage and she said he must tell Helen’s mother. Harris refused.

Later the same day, Harris himself, attempted to perform an abortion on his secret wife. The operation left Helen week and pale, and when she did not improve she went to see her uncle Dr. Treverton, in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Dr. Treverton had to perform a second operation; Harris had killed the fetus, but had not removed it.

The marriage could no longer be kept a secret from Mrs. Potts, who of course became livid on hearing the news. She demanded that the marriage be made public immediately and that the couple have a proper church wedding. Harris insisted that revealing the marriage would ruin his career and convinced Mrs. Potts to wait until he graduated before making the announcement. He also suggested that she send Helen to Miss Comstock’s school, an elite finishing school in New York, where she could learn how to be a doctor’s wife. Mrs. Potts agreed, but also demanded that Harris give her a copy of the marriage certificate and an affidavit stating that, though they had used assumed names, he and Helen were truely married.

While still in Scranton, Carlyle Harris, after a few drinks, had a discussion with one of Dr. Treverton’s friends, in which he continually bragged of his amorous conquests. He said when he could not overcome a girl’s scruples with fast talk, he would use ginger ale, secretly laced with whiskey, to break down her inhibitions. When this did not work, he had been known to go so far as marrying a girl, just to get her into bed. Helen Potts had not been his first bride, and hers had not been his first abortion.

When this news got back to Mrs. Potts, she wrote to Harris with an ultimatum: either he agree to a church wedding on February 7, the anniversary of their secret wedding, or she would go public with the story herself. On January 20, 1891, Harris wrote back saying, “All your wishes shall be complied with, provided no other way can be found to satisfy your scruples.”

After Mrs. Potts revealed all of this information to the New York authorities, a warrant was sworn out against Carlyle W. Harris for the murder of Helen Potts Harris.

Trial: January 14, 1892

In Carlyle Harris’s trial, the prosecution proposed the among the four capsules that Harris gave Helen Potts, was one capsule filled with as much as five grains of morphine. It would not have mattered what day Helen took the capsule, as long as she followed his instructions and took a capsule every day, one of them would kill her. If it had been one of the first three, the remaining capsule or capsules would indicate that only one-sixth grain of morphine had been in each. If the fourth capsule was the lethal one—as it in fact was—then the two capsules still in Harris’s, though less convincing, would still tend to show that each had only one-sixth grain of morphine.

It came out in the trial that, within ten days of Helen’s death, one of the classes Harris took at medical school had been focused on the effects of morphine. A large bottle of morphine had been shown to the class, and the students had unsupervised access to it. There would be no way to know if someone had taken any of the morphine. It was believed that Harris obtained the drug this way.

Harris handled much of the examination of witnesses himself. He brought out testimony stating that some people were especially susceptible to morphine poisoning and could die from as little as a sixth of a grain. The prosecution countered that by taking the first capsule with no ill-effect, she had proven that she was not one of these people.

Carlyle Harris’s motive for killing his wife was strong. Though the evidence against him was circumstantial, it was compelling. The jury was convinced that the simple, but sophisticated plot by Harris to kill Helen Potts had been uncovered. He was found guilty of first degree murder.

Verdict: Guilty of first degree murder

Aftermath:

The case was appealed, but the appeal failed.

Shortly before his execution, Harris issued a statement professing his innocence of murder but admitting that his life had been immoral. He hoped his execution would serve as an example to other young men who might fall into evil ways with women.

Carlyle W. Harris died in the electric chair at Sing Sing prison on May 8, 1893 while more than 1,000 people stood on the hill outside the waiting for the black flag to be raised, signaling the prisoner’s death. His last words, before the switch was pulled were:

I have no further motive for any concealment whatever. I desire to state that I die absolutely innocent of the crime of which I have been convicted.

Harris’s mother remained thoroughly convinced of her son’s innocence. On May 9, 1893 she placed the following ad in a New York newspaper:

Harris, Carlyle Wentworth, eldest son of Charles L. and Frances McCready Harris. Judicially murdered May 8, 1893.

Engraved in his tombstone are the words:

Murdered by Twelve Men
If the Jury had Only Known.

Resources:

Book:

Harris, Carlyle W.. The trial of Carlyle W. Harris for poisoning his wife, Helen Potts, at New York. New York: [s.n.], 1892.

Magazine:
Snively, H.M.. "The Six Capsules." Pearson's Magazine Jan. 1919: 17-22
Newspaper:
"Carlyle W. Harris is Dead." The New York Times 9 May 1893

A Weschseter Tragedy Revived.

2011-11-26T08:04:00.000-08:00

Little Murders

(From The World. New York, New York, November 18, 1885.)

A WESTCHESTER TRAGEDY REVIVED

Sudden Death of a Man Whose Name was
Connected with a Brutal Murder.

When the announcement was made in Kensico, Westchester County, yesterday that Wesley Stillison had been found dead in his bed there were many inquiries as to whether he had committed suicide. His sudden death recalled the particulars of a terrible murder committed in that village three years ago, in which Stillison's name was unpleasantly connected.

Stillison was the stepfather of Mrs. Mary Montfort, whose husband, Albert Montfort, kept a country store in the edge of the village. Montfort had some money, while Stillison was a shiftless fellow. Mrs. Montfort and her husband did not agree. Her brother Charles J. Reynolds, now in Sing Sing Prison, took sides with her against her husband. Affairs were approaching a domestic crisis when, one morning in August, 1882, Montfort was found murdered in his store.

Stillison was the discoverer of this crime. Montfort had been called from his bed, and when he opened the door he was struck in the head with an axe, knocked down and his head was chopped to pieces. Mrs. Montfort had gone away the day before.The store was robbed of about $300, as near as could be estimated.

Coroner Schirmer’s investigation led him to suspect Stillison and Reynolds, his stepson, and he placed Stillison under surveillance and arrested Reynolds. An axe was found in the bushes covered with hair and blood. Reynolds was locked up and the Coroner informed Stillison that he believed he was guilty. Reynolds had been indicted for burglary and pleaded guilty to the surprise of the prosecuting officer, and was sent to Sing Sing for seven years. Stillison then commenced a suit for $2,000 damages against Coroner Schirmer. The trial fully sustained the suspicion expressed by the Coroner, and the ease was thrown out of court. Since that time . Stillison has been moody and restive. The District-Attorney has been weighing the evidence and collecting such as he could with a view to lay the facts before the Grand Jury.

Death has now put an end to further proceedings, but there is a suspicion that Stillison's death was not due to natural causes and Coroner Purdy will hold an Inquest.

The World. New York, New York, November 18, 1885.

An Unfortunate Organization

2011-11-19T15:05:00.000-08:00

Phrenology, the theory that a person’s character is determined by the size and shape of his head, was quite popular in America during the 1850s. A phrenological analysis of Reuben Dunbar in 1851 found him to be excessive in Destructiveness, Combativeness, Aqusitiveness, Secretiveness and Firmness, while being deficient in Self-esteem and Philoprogenitiveness. He had “an unfortunate organization” in which his moral faculties were not sufficiently large to balance his animal propensities. While the phrenologist professed scientific objectivity in the analysis of Dunbar’s head, she may have been somewhat influenced the fact that, at the time, Reuben Dunbar was charged with murdering his two young stepbrothers to protect his inheritance.

Date: November 23, 1850

Location: Westerlo, New York

Victim: David and Stephen Lester

Cause of Death: Strangling and clubbing

Accused: Reuben Dunbar

Synopsis:

Reuben Dunbar was twenty-one years old in 1850. His wife was expecting their first child and Reuben was worried about his family’s financial security. Reuben’s mother owned some property that he had hoped would be his on her death, but Mrs. Dunbar, a widow, had remarried, and all of her property transferred to her new husband, David Lester. Lester was raising his two nephews, Stephen, age 8, and David, age 10—sons of his dead brother. The two boys would inherit the bulk of the property that Reuben Dunbar felt should go to him.

On November 23, 1850, David Lester traveled from his home in Westrlo, New York, to spend the day in the town of Stephensville. He left Reuben in charge of young Stephen and David. When David Lester returned from his trip the boys were missing. Reuben said the boys had wanted to pick butternuts or go fishing but he had advised against it, but he did not know where they were.

The following day they still had not returned and the men of Westrlo began a search of the surrounding woods. During the search, Reuben made some unusual statements. Before there was any talk of foul play he said:

“If they were men, people might think they had money, and had been murdered for money; but any one might know that they had no money, and what man under heaven would murder those innocent children?”

During the search, when one of the men said, "Boys, look in the trees as well as the on the ground and around the trees."

Rueben responded, "There is no use looking in the trees; such boys as them won't be found there."

David Lester was found dead, hanging by a rope from a tree limb. The body of his brother Stephen was found not far away. He had been clubbed to death.

Though there was no way to directly connect Ruben Dunbar to the deaths, his conflicting stories, suspicious behavior and known animosity towards is two brothers made him the prime suspect. Ruben Dunbar was arrested for the murders of David and Stephen Lester.

Trial: January 31, 1751

The trial of Reuben Dunbar lasted twelve days and was quite a sensation in the city of Albany, where it was held. Two indictments were filed against Reuben—he would be tried first for the murder of Stephen Lester, and the state was prepared to try him again for the murder of David should their first prosecution fail.

The defense stressed the circumstantial nature of the evidence against Dunbar and begged the jury to have sympathy for the prisoner’s wife and his mother. But District Attorney H. A. Hammond made a powerful plea for conviction, and spoke so eloquently that the text of his closing argument was published several times as an example of excellent legal oratory. The jury deliberated for two hours before returning a verdict of guilty. After the verdict was read, Reuben Dunbar made this statement in court:

All I have to say is that I am not guilty of the charge brought against me. I hope those who have testified against me will, when they return to their firesides, look over the testimony and see whether they have given my words, or words which they have made up themselves. I am about bidding a final farewell to all I hold dear on earth. I shall leave this world in conscious innocence, relying for mercy upon that Being whom I have long professed to serve. I hope, my dying friends, that you will look well to your situation, as this is the last opportunity I shall have to speak to you this side of the spirit world, I hope you will prepare to meet me where we are all hastening.

Verdict: Guilty of murder

Aftermath:

Reuben Dunbar continued to assert his innocence until shortly before his execution on January 31, 1851, at the Howard Street Jail in Albany, New York. At the last minute, when he could see there was no hope of executive clemency, Dunbar was persuaded by his spiritual advisor, the Reverend Dr. Beecher, of the Baptist Church, to confess to both murders.

Before he was even convicted, a pamphlet entitled Phrenological Character of Reuben Dunbar, With a Short Treatise on The Casuses and Prevention of Crime, by Mrs. Margaret Thompson was published in Albany. Mrs. Thompson explained Dunbar’s character flaws, based on the sizes of various regions of his head:

If the prisoner has committed the crime with which he is charged, his large Destructiveness, Combativeness, Acquisitiveness, Secretiveness and Firmness, with small Philoprogenitiveness, have been the cause. The size of these organs, as combined with other faculties, especially if perverted, indicate an unfortunate organization; one in which the animal propensities govern, because the moral faculties are not sufficiently large to balance and control them.

The Lester brothers are buried in the Wickham Farm Burial Ground in Dormansville, New York. They share a single tombstone.

Resources:

Websites:

Wickham Farm Burying Ground

Books:

Dunbar, Reuben A.. Life and confession of Reuben A. Dunbar, convicted and executed for the murder of Stephen V. and David L. Lester, (aged 8 and 10 years,) in Westerlo, Albany County, September 20, 1850. Second ed. Albany: Published by John D. Parsons. Weed, Parsons & Co., Printers., 1851.

Paddock, William Henry. History of the police service of Albany from 1609 to 1902 from ancient and modern authoritative records, illustrating and describing the economy, equipment and effectiveness of the police department of to-day, with reminiscences of the past, biographies and accounts of leading criminal cases and trials. Albany, N.Y.: Police Beneficiary Association of Albany, N.Y., 1902.

Sellers, Alvin V.. Classics of the bar. Baxley, Ga.: Classic Pub. Co., 1909.
The Columbian speaker: readings and recitations for young people, with handsome illustrations.. Chicago: W.B. Conkey, 1903.

Thompson, Margaret. PHRENOLOGICAL CHARACTER OF REUBEN DUNBAR, WITH A SHORT TRATISE ONTHE CAUSES AND PREVENTION OF CRIME. Albany: P. L. Gilbert Museum Building, 1851.

Murder by Candlelight

2011-11-12T07:16:00.000-08:00

Just three years after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, the first settlers put down roots in what would later become Essex County, Massachusetts. If the legends are true, that the Plymouth colonists lived in harmony with one another and at peace with the natives, the same cannot be said of Essex. From the earliest days, life in Essex County reads like an adventure book filled with Indian fighters, highwaymen, pirates and witches. My new book, Murder and Mayhem in Essex County, published by The History Press, tells the stories of these nefarious characters and relates the dark side of Massachusetts history, north of Boston.

Like Murder by Gaslight, Murder and Mayhem in Essex County abounds with murderous deeds and bad behavior, but the stories begin about 200 years earlier— murder by candlelight. The book covers the period between the first murder in the Puritan settlements of Essex County, and the first execution of an Essex murderer by electric chair; 1636 – 1900. While founded as a new world of Christian righteousness, and priding itself on civility and the rule of law, Essex County’s history is as bloody and barbaric as that of any part of America.

Here is just a sample of the stories in the book:

In 1637 William Schooler and John Williams were hanged together for Essex County crimes. Schooler raped and murdered a young woman and Williams broke jail and killed his cellmate.
In 1691, Elizabeth Emerson murdered her twin bastard infants; six years later her sister, Hannah Emerson Duston escaped Indian captivity by scalping ten of her captors.
Essex County had a long history of witchcraft that neither began nor ended in Salem.
The shores of Essex were plagued by piracy, including the terrorism of Rachel Wall, New England’s only female pirate.
In 1795, Pomp, an African slave, dispatched his cruel master with an axe blow to the head.
Highwayman Richard Crowninshield was hired to murder Captain Joseph White, by White’s two nephews, in 1830.
In 1885, a successful inventor shot his business partner in cold blood, then pled insanity.
An aspiring young singer was murdered by an obsessed ex-lover in 1894.
In 1900, a dismembered corpse was found, stuffed into three feed bags, floating in a pond.

Essex is one of the oldest counties in America. In the 277 years between the first settlement and the turn of the twentieth century, murder and mayhem were never far from the lives of its citizens. Establishing a new country in a harsh land sometimes calls for harsh measures, but we can take pride in the fact that, more often than not, justice prevailed.

For more information on Murder and Mayhem in Essex County, go to www.Murder-in-Essex.com. To purchase a copy at Amazon.com, click here: Murder and Mayhem in Essex County

Anyone interested in reviewing the book, please contact info@Murder-in-Essex.com.

Thomas A. Reese.

2011-11-05T13:51:00.000-07:00

Little Murders:

From Defenders and Offenders:

Thomas A. Reese.

In May, 1888, Thomas A. Reese shot and nearly killed his wife in Kokoma, Ind. He also shot and killed a man by the name of Charles Marx. He had only been married three weeks when the tragedy occurred. One afternoon he saw Marx meet his wife on the street, and accompany her to a spot just West of the City, where he had followed them, and unseen, watched, and at length fired upon them. Two shots struck the woman, wounding her, while Marx was killed.

Defenders and offenders. New York: D. Buchner & Co., 1888.

Haunting Homicides

2011-10-29T06:39:00.000-07:00

The nineteenth century was a golden age of spiritualism, so it’s not surprising that many murder stories from the 1800s have accompanying ghost stories.

In some cases the supernatural was an integral part of the story:

After her death, the spirit of Zona Heaster Shue appeared to her mother in a series of dreams. This prompted Mrs. Heaster to request the body be exhumed, revealing that her daughter had been murdered.
Peter DeGraff was attempting to communicate with the spirit of Ellen Smith at the time of his arrest for her murder.

Other times the ghost appeared very soon after the murder:

The ghost of Louise Luetgert haunted her husband, Adolph, in prison after he was arrested for killing her and dissolving her corpse in boiling potash. She haunted Adolph until his death, then she haunted his sausage factory.

Some nineteenth century murder sites continue to be haunted by killers and/or victims:

In the house where Andrew and Abby Borden were murdered—now a Fall River, Massachusetts, bed and breakfast—guests still report strange visions and weird sounds.
The Sprague Mansion in Cranston, Rhode Island, home of Amasa Sprague who was murdered in 1843, is allegedly haunted. It is uncertain whether the ghost is Amasa Sprague, or John Gordon, the man who was falsly accused of, and executed for, his murder.
Savin Rock in West Haven, Connecticut is haunted by the ghost of Jennie Cramer whose poisoned body was found there in 1881.
The body of Guilelma Sands was found in the Manhattan Well on January 2, 1800. Throughout the century people reported eerie sights and sounds coming from the well. Though the well is long gone, at the Manhattan Bistro, 129 Spring St., where the well once stood, Guilelma has been known to throw bottles off the shelf.

Sometimes the ghost stories seem to be anticlimactic addendums to otherwise interesting stories:

No one seems to care that the ghost of Helen Jewett still walks the streets of Manhattan or that Mary Rogers haunts the New Jersey side of the Hudson River, though both murders are unforgettable.
Then there is Lavinia Fisher. Since everything else about her legend is false, of course she has a ghost story. She still haunts the old jail in Charleston, South Carolina—her spirit, no doubt, disturbed by all of the false accusations of murder.

There must be dozens of other tales from the spirit world accompanying the homicides at Murder by Gaslight, but I will leave them to someone else. I prefer the world of flesh and blood.

The Poison Fiend

2011-10-15T16:15:00.000-07:00

When Horatio Sherman took sick after returning home from a week-long drunken spree, he said it was just one of his “old spells.” His wife Lydia agreed, and dosed him with brandy as usual. But Horatio’s doctor, who had treated his alcohol induced “spells” before, was suspicious this time. Horatio died two days later, and the doctor ordered a post-mortem examination which revealed the cause of death to be arsenic poisoning. When it was further learned that Lydia Sherman’s first two husbands, and seven of her children had all died of arsenic poisoning as well, she was called “The Arch Murderess of Connecticut,” “The Modern Borgia,” and “The Poison Fiend.”

Date: May 1864 – May 1871

Location: Danbury, Connecticut; New York, New York

Victims: Edward Struck, Martha Ann Struck, Edward Struck Jr., William Struck, George Whitfield Struck, Ann Eliza Struck, Dennis Hurlburt, Frank Sherman, Ada Sherman, Horatio Sherman

Cause of Death: Poisoning

Accused: Lydia Sherman

Synopsis:

Born Lydia Danbury in Burlington, New Jersey, in 1824, Lydia was orphaned at the age of nine months, and was raised by an uncle. There is nothing in Lydia’s childhood to predict her future murderous behavior. At sixteen she was working as a tailor in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and had joined the Methodist Church. At church she met Edward Struck, a widower with four children, and when Lydia was around twenty, she and Edward were married.

They lived happily in New York City and had six children of their own. Their lives changed when Edward Struck, who had been working as carriage blacksmith, took a job on the newly formed, New York metropolitan police force. Struck was called to a disturbance in a New York hotel, and arrived too late to prevent a murder. A rumor began to circulate that Struck had stayed away out of fear for his own life. An inquest was held Struck was dismissed from the police force.

Edward Struck became severely despondent after his dismissal, and was unable to hold a job. Eventually he stopped trying to work and was ashamed to even leave the house. He began to act suicidal, and his former boss, a police captain, advised Lydia to send him to a lunatic asylum. Another policeman, a sergeant who lived in the same building, concluded that Struck was out of his mind and would never recover. He advised Lydia to “out him out of the way,” and told her use arsenic, giving her instructions on where to buy it and how much to use.

After giving it some thought, Lydia bought some arsenic from a druggist and added a thimbleful to a portion of oatmeal gruel which she gave to her husband. That night Struck became violently ill. A doctor was called, who told Lydia that her husband had “softening of the brain” and would never recover. Struck died at eight o’clock the next morning.

While Struck’s death eased the some of the tension on Lydia, she still had financial problems. She did not believe she could adequately support her two youngest children, six-year-old Martha Ann, and four-year-old Edward, and decided “it would be better for them if they were out of the way.” Lydia began giving them each small amounts of arsenic. When they became sick, the doctor said they had gastric fever. After severe vomiting, both children died. “He was a beautiful boy,” Lydia said later about Edward, “and did not complain during his illness.”

Lydia now had four children in the house, and was working as a nurse and seamstress. Her fourteen year old son George was earning $2.50 a week as a painter. When George took sick with “painter’s colic” and could no longer work, Lydia feared he would become a burden. She mixed a little arsenic with his tea. The doctor said George died of painter’s colic.

The older children had moved out and now only Ann Eliza was living with Lydia. “Downhearted and much discouraged,” Lydia thought that if she could get rid of Ann Eliza, then she and her oldest daughter Lydia, could make a living together. When Ann Eliza came down with a fever that winter, Lydia added a little arsenic to her medicine. Ann Eliza died four days later.

That same winter, her oldest daughter died of natural causes, leaving Lydia all alone. After trying several other occupations, Lydia took a job as a housekeeper for an old woman in Stratford, Connecticut. Eight months later, she left this job for another housekeeping position with an old man named Dennis Hurlburt. Within a few days of her employment, Hurlburt proposed marriage and Lydia accepted.

Lydia was happy as Mrs. Hurlburt for about fourteen months, then Dennis Hurlburt took sick. Though it was later proven that Hurlburt died of arsenic poisoning, Lydia claimed in her confession that she was not responsible:

“I wish to say that I never gave Mr. Hurlburt anything to my knowledge that would cause any sickness whatever. There may have been arsenic in one of the papers I put together, but if there was I did not know it.”

In his will Dennis Hurlburt left Lydia the house and $10,000.

She was then approached by Horatio N. Sherman, a widower who was looking for someone to take care of his baby. He soon proposed to her. Though she did not agree right away, she was quite taken with Sherman, and agreed to help him out of debt. They eventually were married but things did not work out as she planned. Sherman turned out to be a hopeless alcoholic who could not be trusted with money.

Sherman’s mother-in-law was still living with them and taking care of the baby, Frank. One day Sherman remarked to Lydia that he wished Frank would die so the old woman would have no reason to stay. This made sense to Lydia, who put some arsenic in little Frankie’s milk. She also poisoned Sherman’s fourteen-year-old daughter Ada.

Horatio Sherman’s drinking increased. He did nothing to help his family and spent every cent Lydia gave him on liquor. Lydia finally convinced him to join a temperance society and Sherman took a sobriety pledge. He kept the pledge for several weeks, then sold the piano for $300 and went on a binge.

Sherman was sick when he returned home a week later. Lydia put arsenic in a bottle of brandy, and the more Sherman drank the sicker he got. When a doctor examined him Sherman said “It may be one of my old spells.” But Dr. Beardsley did not think the symptoms were consistent with alcohol related sickness, and suspected foul play.

Sherman died the next day and Dr. Beardsley performed a post-mortem examination. Dr. Beardsley’s suspicious were confirmed when Sherman’s stomach was chemically analyzed. Sherman had died of arsenic poisoning and Lydia was charged with his murder. The bodies of Frankie and Ada were exhumed and it was determined that they died of arsenic poisoning as well. Then Dennis Hurlburt was exhumed, and another count of murder was added against Lydia.

Trial: April 16, 1872

Lydia Sherman’s trial lasted eight days; it \was well attended and closely followed by newspapers throughout America. The stories often commented on how ordinary Mrs. Sherman looked. The prim and proper forty-eight year old defendant came to court wearing a black alpaca dress, black and white shawl, straw hat, and black kid gloves. She appeared calm and almost cheerful behind her thin lace veil.

The defense tried to convince the jury that Horatio Sherman had taken arsenic accidentally, or perhaps had committed suicide, despondent over his financial problems and the recent deaths of two of his children. But the evidence against Lydia was overwhelming. She was found guilty of second degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. If she had been a man (or been tried in a state other than Connecticut) she would likely have hanged.

Verdict: Guilty of second degreee murder.

Aftermath:

While awaiting sentencing, Lydia Sherman dictated her confessions in which she admitted to most of the murders she was accused of committing. The book became a bestseller.

There was also a song: “Lydia Sherman”

Lydia Sherman died in Wethersfield Prison in 1878.

Resources:

Websites:

Lydia Sherman

Books:

Jones, Ann. Women who kill. Britan: Holt, Rinehart, And Winston, 1980.

Lydia Sherman confession of the arch murderess of Connecticut : bloody deeds perpetrated with a cold heart, numerous poisonings, trial and conviction.. Philadelphia: T.R. Callender, 1873.

Schechter, Harold. Fatal: the poisonous life of a female serial killer. New York: Pocket Star Books, 2003.

Ballad Lyrics:

"Lydia Sherman"

Gravesites (from Findagrave)

Lydia Sherman

A Deed to Make Mankind Shudder.

2011-10-15T07:34:00.000-07:00

Little Murders

(From Bangor Daily Whig And Courier, Augusta, Maine, February 28, 1881)

A Deed to Make Mankind Shudder

A Young Man Kills His Mother.
By Striking her on the Head With A Hammer.

He First Freezes the Body,
Then Cuts it Into Pieces.
And Tries to Burn It.

The Unnatural Son is Arrested.

He Confessed All—No Motive Assigned for the Hellish Deed.

Augusta, Me., Feb. 27, One of the most atrocious murders ever recorded in the annals of crime, has occurred near Weeks’ Mills, China, a beautiful little village twelve miles from Augusta. For cold-blooded wickedness and apathetic indifference, the murder will rank alongside any criminal whose foul deeds have made mankind shudder. One week ago Saturday, a young man named Charles Merrill killed his mother in the barn near the house, by striking her on the head with a hammer. He concealed the body in the hay mow until ti wsa frozen and then cut it into pieces. Part of these he burned as well as possible in the stove and fire place, throwing the charred remains into the manure heap.

For several days his mother’s non-appearance elicited no comment; but suspicion began to point to point to the young Merrill as perpetrator of some foul deed. Saturday search was made and parts of the skull and body was found. Merrill was arrested to day. He confessed all. Upon being pressed and urged to make a clean breast of it he told the story of his crime amid sobs and frequent pauses. He said that on Saturday afternoon on which the deed was committed he returned from the “Mills” with his mother, about dusk. He went into the barn to put up his horse. While there his mother came out to get the sleigh robes. He deliberately crept up behind her and struck her on the head with a hammer. The first blow did not kill her. She had strength enough to gasp: “Did you strike me, Charlie?” He then struck the fearful blow with a hammer which crushed in the skull. She said no more, but fell upon the floor dead.

The murderer hid the body in the hay letting it remain until the next morning, when it was frozen, rigid in death. The young fiend with a coolness almost without precedent, took an axe and chopped the body into pieces. The arms and legs he burned as well as possible, hiding them afterwards in the dung-heap. He wrapped the body up as well as he could and put it under his potatoes Monday, when he started for Augusta, disposing of it in Barton’s woods, between the two places, by burying in the snow by the side of a stump. No motive was assigned for his hellish deed. On being taken to Augusta to-day he pointed out to the officers the spot where the mutilated trunk could be found. They dug in the snow with a shovel while Merrill looked carelessly on until they found the body with head, arms and legs severed from it—a ghastly, horrid trunk of a large woman. Merrill is now in jail and will have his preliminary examination to-morrow morning.

Bangor Daily Whig And Courier, Augusta, Maine, February 28, 1881

Guest Blogger: Anthony Vaver of Early American Crime

2011-10-08T05:16:00.000-07:00

Murder by Gaslight is pleased to welcome guest blogger Anthony Vaver of Early American Crime, a blog that documents murder, thievery and other criminal behavior in America’s colonial period. Anthony is the author of the new book Bound with an Iron Chain, which tells the fascinating story of America’s forgotten settlers: the fifty thousand convicts transported from England into servitude in the colonies. The book is available at Amazon.

Today, Anthony will be sharing with us the story of Charles O’Donnel, a particularly vile murderer whose narrative bridges the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Charles O’Donnel: His Life and Confession

By Anthony Vaver

On the side of a road in the middle of nowhere Mrs. Shokey begged for her life with “many bitter cries and tears,” but Charles O’Donnel remained unmoved. The unexpected meeting of the two neighbors presented O’Donnel with the opportunity to follow through on his previous threat: that he would kill Shokey if his daughter’s illness did not improve.

A few weeks earlier Shokey had stopped by to see the O’Donnel family and their seven-month old daughter, but the visit did not go well. While Shokey held O’Donnel’s daughter in her arms, she began “blessing it in her own name.” O’Donnel snatched the baby away in fear that she was using witchcraft on his daughter, and the neighbor stormed off in anger. The following day the girl became sick, and O’Donnel suspected that it was because she was under the power of an evil eye. He went to Shokey and demanded that she return to his house and heal his daughter, but she refused. The two exchanged threats, and O’Donnel returned home to find his baby in even worse condition.

O’Donnel does not say in his Life and Confession (1798) if his daughter survived her illness. But now, at the side of the road, he told Shokey to make her peace with God, and she began praying in German, her native tongue. When she finished her prayers, she made no resistance as O’Donnel tied one end of Shokey’s silk handkerchief around her neck and then tied the other end of it to a pulled-down branch of a locust tree. Even though Shokey continued to beg for her life, O’Donnel let the branch go, and she strangled to death.

After Shokey’s body was discovered, suspicion fell on her husband, since the two had had a bad marriage and he had made threats to kill her in the past. When O’Donnel heard that an innocent man could be found guilty of his crime, he suddenly felt remorse. But there was not enough evidence to convict Shokey’s husband, so the case was dismissed, and the murder went unsolved for as long as O’Donnel kept the secret of it to himself.

Eighteenth-Century Crime Stories

Even though O’Donnel’s Life and Confession was published close to the turn of the nineteenth century, it falls squarely in the tradition of eighteenth-century crime writing. His story is written in the first person, despite the fact that O’Donnel was illiterate and did not keep a journal. So how did he write it? Just as many condemned criminals did in the eighteenth century, O’Donnel dictated his life story while he was held in prison to a visiting minister, who later published it, perhaps with added religious overtones.

Stories of murder have provided compelling reading for ages, but the way they have been told has changed over time. Because most murders involve people who are related to or know one another, they provide plenty of opportunities for exploring psychological motives and domestic relationships--two major preoccupations of the nineteenth-century. In an attempt to understand how someone could carry out such a heinous crime, nineteenth-century crime writers scrutinized the childhood or the domestic situation of murderers, and this kind of analysis generally continues in crime writing today.

Crime writers in the eighteenth century, on the other hand, generally saw religious forces, or the lack thereof, as the prime mover behind acts of murder or other crimes. Crime was often the result of temptation by the devil or of the criminal neglecting the Sabbath, committing blasphemy, and then falling in with bad company; it was not the product of a scarred childhood or a failed domestic situation. The “Life and Confession” of a criminal might mention whether or not the parents raised the condemned with a proper fear of God. They might also note the family’s economic status or if the parents bothered to educate their children. But such brief descriptions were usually the extent of any exploration of the criminal’s childhood background or psychological development.

O’Donnel’s story offers plenty of domestic drama that any nineteenth-century crime writer would have loved to analyze, but such episodes in his Life and Confession merely move the story forward and are not meant to provide insight into the mind of a killer.

Life

O’Donnel was born in Ireland to parents “in good circumstances,” but he ran away at the age of 16 after he developed a desire to travel to America. He met Captain Mitchell in Londonderry and offered to become an indentured servant for four years in exchange for passage across the Atlantic. Mitchell asked if O’Donnel’s parents were still living, since it was illegal to transport minors to America without their permission. O’Donnel lied and said that they were both dead, so Mitchell agreed to the arrangement.

After landing in Newcastle, Delaware, O’Donnel was sent to Philadelphia and sold to James Graham from Chester County in Pennsylvania. Graham turned out to be an abusive master, so O’Donnel complained to a magistrate, who let him serve out the rest of his term under a new master, William Erwin. “This good man,” O’Donnel said, “let the fear of God before me, and taught me how to do his will; but, O wretched and unhappy youth! I rejected all his loving admonitions, and the counsel of God, to the ruin of my own soul; and ran with the giddy multitude to do evil.”
\
Erwin later traveled to Ireland and returned with the news that the lie his new servant had told about the death of his parents almost ruined Captain Mitchell when his living father learned what had happened.

O’Donnel got married at the age of 26, and he and his wife bore the daughter who was involved in the incident with Mrs. Shokey soon afterward. Shortly after committing the murderous deed, O’Donnel teamed up with Shokey’s two sons in a counterfeiting scheme, where the brothers printed fake money and O’Donnel and several other confederates circulated it. He then became involved with a horse thief.
O’Donnel built a successful business transporting goods over the mountains of Pennsylvania, but he “lived in great habits of riot and drunkenness; cursing, swearing, and blaspheming God, and his most holy Word.” He would often travel to Morgantown, where he would “lie drunk for several days together.” Not surprisingly, his family life started to deteriorate.

Confession

In 1796, O’Donnel had a dispute with his wife. The fight lasted several days and culminated in O’Donnel striking her on the head with a water pail. As a result, she left him and took all of their children with her except for their youngest son, William.

Several days later, O’Donnel learned that his plantation was on fire, so he ordered William to continue clearing the ground around his house and left to put out the blaze. But when he returned home after a few days, he discovered that the field had not been cleared and that William was gone.

O’Donnel found William and asked him why he had not performed the work he had asked him to do. William responded with “very ill language,” so O’Donnel threatened to punish him for his disobedience. William countered that if he did, he would get his older brother and brother-in-law to put him “in the dungeon again,” which was no idle threat since his oldest son had severely beaten O’Donnel not long ago. O’Donnel then attempted to whip his son, but William threw an ax at him and ran off cursing.

Eventually, William returned home, but he unnerved O’Donnel because from then on he slept with the ax next to him at night. It was at this time, O’Donnel says, that “the Devil, that adversary of God and man, entered in to heighten my cruelty, and aggravating crimes, and put it into my heart to commit that horrid deed, far surpassing my former crimes; even to murder my own son William, whom I had begotten, and raised to the age of fifteen.”

O’Donnel prepared to carry out his deed by hanging a rope above the bed where William slept. At around four o’clock in the morning, he crept over to where William was sleeping, slipped the rope around his son’s neck, and made a sudden pull. Surprised, his son leapt off the bed and on to the floor.

“William,” O’Donnel said, “I am determined to put you to death.”

William cried, “Daddy, for the Lord’s sake do not kill me.”

“You have been disobedient, and I am resolved to take your life,” O’Donnel said.

“Daddy, I will be obedient, and work for you as long as I live.” William then added that if he spared his life, he would persuade his mother to return home. But O’Donnel refused the offer.

O’Donnel allowed William to pray on his knees for about twenty minutes. When William finished and rose to get up, O’Donnel jerked the rope, and the boy fell on the floor. O’Donnel placed his knees against William’s shoulders, circled the rope around the bedpost for leverage, and then held the rope for ten minutes until his son was dead.

O’Donnel hid the body under a heap of stones near his house. He found it difficult to work with the murder on his mind, so he persuaded his wife to accompany him to a social gathering, where he proceeded to get drunk. On his way home, he passed out on the side of the road, where one of his sons found him and carried him back to his house.

O’Donnel tried to cover up his son’s disappearance by claiming that the boy ran away, but when William failed to show up after a few days, suspicion began to fall on O’Donnel. O’Donnel continued to deny any knowledge of what had happened to William, but five days after he committed the murder, O’Donnel was brought to the stone heap, and the body of his son was uncovered before him. O’Donnel immediately confessed to the crime, and he was taken to Morgantown, where he was put in jail and tied down with heavy chains.

O’Donnel was found guilty of the willful murder of his son and sentenced to death. While he was held in prison awaiting his execution, he met with Rev. Simon Cochrun and told him his life story. At O’Donnel’s request, Cochrun published the prisoner’s Life and Confession, which was printed and sold after his execution took place on June 19, 1797. In it, he finally put an end to the mystery of what had happened to Mrs. Shokey by confessing to carrying out her murder 27 years ago.

Sources

O’Donnel, Charles. The Life and Confession of Charles O’Donnel. Lancaster, [PA], W. & R. Dickson, 1798. Database: America’s Historical Imprints, Readex/Newsbank.

Roth, Randolph. American Homicide. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2009.

Barclay Peakes

2011-10-01T09:00:00.000-07:00

Little Murders:

From Defenders and Offenders:

Barclay Peakes.

A young and beautiful girl was shot in the head by an assassin, within a short distance of Mount Holly, N. J., in the spring of 1887. The girl’s name was Mary C. Anderson, who was living with a relative on a farm at Newbold’s Corner. She and Barclay Peakes were very much together, and on the evening of the crime she left her house to meet Peakes. She was afterwards found by the roadside and Peakes’ revolver by her side. Cause, jealousy.

Defenders and offenders. New York: D. Buchner & Co., 1888.

Becker Tells All

2011-09-24T09:00:00.000-07:00

Little Murders

(from The Renwick Times, Renwick Iowa, March 3, 1899.)

BECKER TELLS ALL.

Kills His Wife with a Hatchet and Burns Her Body.

August A. Becker, the Chicago wife murderer made a second confession to the police Tuesday night. In a detailed statement to Inspector Hant he told of a crime so revolting that for some time even the police officials refused to believe it.

In the presence of Chief of Police Kipley, Inspector Hant, Captain Lavin and Assistant State’s Attorney Pearson the burly sausage maker broke down and said he had killed his wife by striking her on the head with a hatchet in the kitchen of his home. He then cut the body to pieces and boiled it in a large kettle. After watching the disintegration of the remains for several hours, and when nothing remained that resembled a human body, Becker says he took what remained and burned it in a red-hot stove, the fire having been prepared by him. The bones which would not burn, he buried on the prairie near his house.

Becker asserts the crime was not premeditated, but that he quarreled with his wife, and in the heat of passion he struck her on the head with the hatchet. Only one blow was needed to cause the death and after that had been struck the sausage maker says he thought of the way to dispose of the remains of his wife in order to destroy all chance of detection.

August A. Becker killed his wife Jan. 27, but was not arrested for the murder until after he had married a 17-year-old girl named Ida Sutterlin. When Becker brought his wife home it caused gossip which reached the ears of the police, and finally led to Becker’s arrest. At first Becker denied having killed his wife, stating that she had left him and gone to Milwaukee. Under pressure he finally made a false confession in which he said that he had pushed his wife into the lake at the foot of the Randolph Street pier. This was not believed, and until Tuesday night the true story of how Becker killed his wife was not known.

The Renwick Times, Renwick Iowa, March 3, 1899.

The Indiana Hero

2011-09-17T05:28:00.000-07:00

In 1819, when the State of Indiana was still frontier country, Amasa Fuller, a prominent and popular citizen of Lawrenceburg, was courting a young lady of that town. While Fuller was away on business, the young lady’s heart was stolen by a younger man, named Palmer Warren. Fuller returned to find that his true love had agreed to marry her new suitor. When Warren refused to fight a duel with Fuller, Fuller shot him in cold blood. But Amasa Fuller was so popular in Lawrenceburg that, when a ballad was written about the murder, the young lady was cast as the villain, and Fuller was “The Indiana Hero.”

Date: January 10, 1820

Location: Lawrenceburg, Indiana

Victim: Palmer Warren

Cause of Death: Gunshot

Accused: Amasa Fuller

Recording:

"The Indiana Hero" - Anna Underhill

Synopsis:

The young lady’s name has, apparently, been lost to history, but attorney Oliver Hampton Smith, who knew all three when he was a student in Lawrenceburg, described her as “a young, though not handsome girl, with a broad English accent.” In spite of her unattractiveness, Amasa Fuller was deeply in love with the girl. They were engaged to be married and had set their wedding date for January 10, 1820.

In November 1819, Fuller traveled to Brookville, Indiana, on business. While he was away, Palmer Warren began calling on the young lady. Warren was also well respected in Lawrenceburg, but was several years younger than Fuller. Within a month, Warren proposed marriage and, though already engaged to Fulller, young lady accepted. The middle of December, Amasa Fuller received a letter from the girl in which she renounced all feelings for him and enclosed the ring he had given her. The letter was signed by the young lady, but was written in Warren’s handwriting.

The letter left Fuller in a state of gloom and melancholy. On Friday, January 7, he left Brookville for Lawrenceburg on foot. He arrived that evening and took a room at Coburn’s Hotel, which happened to be next door to the residence of his true love, and in the same building as the office of Palmer Warren. Fuller met Warren several times in the house and attempted to pick fights, which Warren declined each time.

Indiana, 1820

On January 8, Fuller borrowed a pair of pistols, telling the owner he planned to do some target shooting for amusement. He asked his friend, a Mr. Hitchcock, the best way to load a pistol, and the surest way to kill. Fuller loaded the pistols with powder and four slugs each. Hitchcock said he hoped fuller had no evil designs, to which Fuller responded, “I have not, but I will show you some fun.”

On Monday, January 10 –the day he had hoped to be married—Fuller borrowed a greatcoat with pockets big enough to hold the pistols. He went outside, and when Warren opened his office door, Fuller followed him into the office. Within a minute, a witness, Mr. Farrar, heard a pistol report from Warren’s office. He tried to open the door, but could not because Warren’s body, lying crosswise, was blocking the door. He pushed open the door to find Fuller standing next to the body in a room filled with smoke and the smell of powder. Warren, not yet dead, was on the floor, struggling in his last agonies.

Farrar grabbed Fuller and exclaimed, “Good Heavens! Fuller, is it possible you have done this?”
Fuller replied, “I am a man, and I have acted the part of a man! I have been ridding the earth of a vile reptile! I glory in the deed!”

On the floor, next to two pistols—one discharged, one still loaded—was a note saying, in effect, that Warren, in the presence of the Almighty God, swore to renounce all pretensions to the young lady, and acknowledged himself to be a base liar and a scoundrel. After his arrest, Fuller said he had written the note and presented it to Warren to sign. When Warren refused, Fuller offered him a pistol, bidding him to defend himself like a man. When Warren refused this as well, Fuller shot him, point blank, through the heart.

Trial: July 7, 1845

Judge Eggleston

The trial was heard by Judge Miles C. Eggleston during his first term on the Dearborn Circuit Court. Judge Eggleston would be a Circuit Court judge for the next twenty-four years. Amasa Fuller was represented by an army of six attorneys. The defense made several motions for postponing the trial, among other reasons, because popular prejudice against Fuller would prevent a fair trial. While the court did have difficulty empaneling an impartial jury, the populace seemed more polarized than universally against Fuller.

With little else to offer in their client’s defense, Fuller’s attorneys advised him to plead insanity. While there was much evidence that Fuller was more gloomy and melancholy than usual, as if something disturbed his mind, there was no evidence of insanity. The jury deliberated for two hours, then returned a verdict of guilty.

Verdict: Guilty of murder in the first degree

Aftermath:

Judge Eggleston sentenced Amasa Fuller to be hanged on March 31, but the date was postponed so the case could be appealed to the Indiana Supreme Court. The verdict was upheld by the Supreme Court, but by this time popular sentiment had turned in Fuller’s favor. The people of Dearborn County, almost unanimously, signed a petition to the Governor for the pardon of Fuller. Fuller was so sure that he would receive a pardon that, when an opportunity arose to escape jail, Fuller did not leave. He did not receive the pardon, and on August 14, 1820, in front of a crowd of thousands, Amasa Fuller was hanged.

Not long after the execution a ballad began to circulate which compared Fuller to Samson and elevated him to “The Indiana Hero.” In the song, Fuller goes to the gallows with great dignity:

When the morning came that brave Fuller was to die,
He smiled and bid the world adieu.
Like an angel he did stand, for he was a handsome man;
On his breast he wore a ribbon of blue.

And his fickle mistress is chastised:

Of all the ancient history that I can understsnd,
Which we're bound by the scripture to believe,
Bad women are essentially the downfall of man,
As Adam was beguiled by Eve.

Resources:

Books:

Smith, Oliver H. Early Indiana trials: and sketches. New York: Moore, Wilstach, Keys, 1858.

Wheeler, Jacob D.. Reports of criminal law cases, with notes and references containing also a view of the criminal laws of the United States. New-York: Gould and Banks ;, 1825.

Recording:
"The Indiana Hero" - Anna Underhill
CD: Fine Times at Our House: Traditional Music of Indiana: Ballads, Fiddle Tunes, Songs - Smithsonian Folkways, FW03809

Ballad Lyrics (from Mudcat Cafe)

"Fuller and Warren (aka The Indiana Hero)"

Guest Blogger: ExecutedToday

2011-09-10T05:48:00.000-07:00

I always like to start the morning with a visit to ExecutedToday.com to see who was launched into eternity on this day in history. Then, no matter how bad the day gets, I can take comfort in knowing that at least I’m not that guy.

Murder by Gaslight is pleased to welcome as guest blogger, the Headsman of ExecutedToday. He will be sharing the story behind the 1858 execution of Marion Ira Stout, a particularly inept and unlucky murderer from Rochester, New York:

1858: Marion Ira Stout, for loving his sister

Originally posted October 22nd, 2008 by Headsman

It’s the sesquicentennial of a then-sensational, now-forgotten hanging in Rochester, N.Y.

At dawn on December 20, 1857, the city had awoken to the discovery of a mangled corpse by the Genesee River’s High Falls … and more than enough evidence to have the corpse’s killers in hand by tea time.

Marion Ira Stout — he just went by Ira — had made a dog’s breakfast of the job, according to History of Rochester and Monroe County New York from the Earliest Historic Times to the Beginning of 1907.

[W]hen they got near the edge of the bank, Ira struck his victim a sudden blow with an iron mallet, smashing the skull and producing death instantly. Stout then threw the body over the precipice, supposing that it would fall into the river and be swept into the lake before sunrise, but instead of that it landed on a projecting ledge thirty feet below the upper level. Perceiving that there had been some failure in the matter, Ira started to go down a narrow path that led sideways along the cliff, but in the darkness he missed his footing and fell headlong, breaking his left arm in the descent and landing beside the corpse. Summoning all his remaining strength he was just able to push the body over the bank, when he sank in a dead faint. On recovering from which in a few minutes, he called to his sister, who was still above, to come and help him. When she started to do so, the bushes to which she clung gave way; she stumbled, broke her left wrist, and fell beside her prostrate brother. But it would not do to remain there, wretched as was their plight. So, after searching in vain for Ira’s spectacles, which they had to leave behind them, but taking with them the fatal mallet, they scrambled slowly and painfully up the bank and made their way laboriously to their home on Monroe Street.

In lieu of a last statement, Stout referred his audience to this writing, which was published posthumously. Courtesy of the New York State Historical Association Library, Cooperstown, N.Y.

Sure enough, the glasses were waiting near the victim for the cops to find come daylight.

How did Ira, his sister, and the late Charles Littles — the sister’s husband — find themselves in this macabre dance?
That’s the murky bit, though it’s fair to say there was some negative energy in the family.

Littles was a violent, jealous, philandering drunk. His wife Sarah seems like the classic abused spouse. Ira was an ex-con who seemingly had his life back together. Oh, and Ira and Sarah were sleeping together — professedly true in the literal sense (they were observed to sleep in bed together in their underthings), and possibly true in the Biblical sense.

Now, where in this tangled knot of incestuous desire, domestic violence, protectiveness, jealousy and intrigue lies the motive is less than self-evident, but Ira and Sarah most definitely schemed to lure Charles to his demise. (Charles was found with a club which he’d brought to clobber a lover of Sarah that he’d been told would make a rendezvous.)

Still, the condemned charmer garnered sympathy for having saved his sister from an abusive marriage; Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass rallied to his defense, and a female admirer smuggled him poison to cheat the hangman … which said admirer managed to end up ingesting herself, and barely survived.

Death got all ten-thumbed around Ira Stout, it seems. His hanging was no different.

The New York Times‘ archive has free access to the report of Stout’s execution, interestingly detailing the upward-jerking “sudden suspension” hanging apparatus in use for the job:

The gallows is the same which has always been in use in the jail — the rope, a hempen cord, alone being new. A weight of 186 pounds rests upon a swing door set in the garret floor of the jail. From this weight, the rope runs over two pulleys above, and the end of it drops through two doors, and nearly to the main floor of the jail. The weight falls about eight feet, jerking the slack end that distance. The halter attached to the main rope is a long distance below the main enginery of death, and the latter is not seen by the spectators or prisoner. The Sheriff stood at the foot of the stairs, some forty feet from the prisoner, and by a small cord pulled the latch which let the fatal weight fall.

But since this is Ira Stout, you know it didn’t come off without a hitch.

The death of the ill-fated man was not as sudden as could be desired. His struggles for eight or ten minutes were severe, and caused the spectators to turn away in disgust.
His neck was probably not dislocated, and he died by a slow process of strangulation. Doctors Hall, Avery, James and Miller stood near, and in eight minutes after the drop fell they said his pulse was as full as in life.

Sort of puts a grim twist on Stout’s own (fairly self-pitying) letters to the papers, in one of which he remarked, “I do not wish to show a cowardly tenacity for life, but I consider it my right and duty to live as long as I can.”
According to a feature story in the newsletter of Mount Hope Cemetery where Ira Stout takes his eternal rest, he might have tried to hang on quite a bit longer.

A rumor was current last night at a late hour that Stout was not dead, and that efforts were being made to resuscitate him by the use of galvanic batteries and other means sometimes employed for the restoration of persons supposed to be dead. How much truth there is in the rumors thus made we cannot say, as we have not taken pains to inquire at the house of Mrs. Stout.

No surprise, that didn’t work either.

The Boston Barrel Tragedy

2011-09-03T05:44:00.000-07:00

1872 was an eventful year for Boston, Massachusetts. That year the city hosted the World’s Peace Jubilee and International Musical Festival, lasting 18 days and drawing thousands of visitors. The Boston Red Stockings won the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players Championship. The Great Boston Fire devastated 65 acres of downtown real estate. And the dismembered body of Abijah Ellis was found stuffed inside two barrels, floating in the Charles River.

Date: November 5, 1872

Location: Boston, Massachusetts

Victim: Abijah Ellis

Cause of Death: Blows from an axe

Accused: Leavitt Alley

Synopsis:
The afternoon of Wednesday, November 6, 1872, two barrels were seen floating in the Charles River near the gas-works in Cambridge. Some employees of the gas-works pulled them ashore, opened them, and were horrified at what they found. In one barrel, packed with wood shavings and horse manure, was a man’s headless, limbless torso. In the other, similarly packed, were his arms, legs and head. The police and coroner were called; they determined that the man had been killed by three or four blows to the head from an axe. On close examination of the contents of the barrels, they found among the wood shavings, a piece of brown paper, upon which was written, “P. Schouller, No. 1049, Washington Street.”

Washington Street

Boston police went to the Washington Street address where Mr. Schouller manufactured billiard and bagatelle tables. There they learned that Levitt Alley, who ran a delivery business, was in the habit of taking wood savings from the factory for use in his stable. The previous Monday, Mr. Alley had taken three barrels of shavings to his stable on Hunneman Street.

Some time between midnight and one a.m., Boston Police Chief, Edward Savage went, with officers Skelton and Dearborn, to the home of Leavitt Alley. Alley went with them to the stable where Alley kept four horses. They saw the wood shavings and piles of manure, but found nothing unusual that night. The following day, the police took Alley to Cambridge to look at the body and the barrels. Alley said that he recognized one of the barrels and that it had been in his stable; the other he was not sure about.

The body had been identified as that of Abijah Ellis, an elderly Boston real estate broker. Alley had purchased a house from Ellis and had fallen behind in his payments. He said he was with Ellis on the previous Saturday and made a small payment on his account. Alley promised to meet him on Tuesday and pay some more, but Alley said they did not meet that day. The stable was searched in the daylight and under the manure, and the police found blood spatters on the floor boards. Blood stains were also found on Alleys clothing. That Saturday, Leavitt Alley was arrested for the murder of Abijah Ellis.

Trials: February 3, 1873

Leavitt Alley’s trial was delayed by the Great Boston Fire, which started the night of his arrest and raged for twelve hours, destroying 776 buildings in Boston’s downtown and financial district. From his jail cell, Alley was heard to lament the business he lost by being imprisoned during the fire, “I should have such a mighty good chance to clear half a thousand dollars, if I only had my team.”

When the trial began, Massachusetts Attorney-General, Charles R. Train, presented the government’s case. The prosecution contended that Leavitt Alley had murdered Abijah Ellis on the night of November 5, during an argument about money Alley owed Ellis. Ellis was known to carry large sums of money with which the prosecution contended was stolen by Alley. They would endeavor to prove that Alley had dismembered the body in his stable and packed it in barrels. The following morning he pushed the barrels down the sluiceway of the Mill-dam, into the Charles River.

The prosecution called witnesses who had seen an express wagon near the Mill-dam in Boston, carrying two barrels covered with a piece of old carpet. One man recognized Alley as the driver; others said the wagon was pulled by a very sick horse. An epidemic of horse distemper was spreading through Boston in 1872—it was known that one of Alley’s horses had the disease.

Ellen Kelley, who lived near the stable, testified that on Tuesday night she heard voices coming from the stable. It was a loud argument, but she could not make out the words until someone shouted “God damn you.” A number of witnesses said that on November 6, Alley had paid them money he owed; one man saw him pull bills for a large roll in his pocket.

Regarding the blood stains in the stable and on Alley’s clothing, Alley claimed that a veterinarian had been bleeding one on his horses, treating it for distemper. The blood stains were horse blood, not human. In 1872 it was impossible to prove, with certainty, that a blood stain was human blood, however, in the universities and hospitals of Boston and Cambridge were several experts who did a microscopic analysis of the stains and contended that the blood was human, not horse. It was determined by the size of the corpuscles—according to the testimony, a human corpuscle is 1/3200 in. and a horse corpuscle is 1/4200 in.

Lewis Stackpole Dabney

Leavitt Alley’s defense attorneys, Lewis S. Dabney, and Gustav A. Somerby, challenged the circumstantial evidence against their client. Some of the witnesses who saw Alley the morning of the 6th gave contradictory testimony. One witness saw him at the Mill-dam at half-past eight, another saw him between seven and eight, on Charles Street, driving the other way. They could not both be right.
Several witnesses had seen the barrels floating near the Mill-dam at various times during the day. If they had all seen the same barrels, the barrels would have had to travel faster than could be accounted for by the tidal flow of the river to be found at the Cambridge gas-works when they were.

The attorneys questioned the motive, saying Ellis’s death would not end their client’s debt on the house. They also attempted to prove that Alley’s financial position was healthy and he did not need to kill for money.

They also pointed out that the blood analysis had been done on dried blood. In order to measure the corpuscles, the blood had to be re-hydrated. The resulting size of the corpuscles would depend on the quantity and nature of the solution used. The measurement could not be accurate.
The trial lasted for nine days. The jury retired to deliberate shortly before 6 o’clock, the evening of February 12, 1873. Shortly before 10 p.m. they returned with a verdict: not guilty.

Verdict: Not guilty

Aftermath:

The prosecution of the case had been lack-luster. There were too many gaps, too many suppositions and leaps of faith. They were unable to present an unbroken chain of evidence against Alley.

Many years later, Ira Nay, a juror in the case, told the Boston Globe that Attorney-General Train had appeared logy, and that the jury referred to him as the “mud-turtle.” Nay said that he and several other jurymen believed that Alley was guilty, but that the Commonwealth had not proven it, so they voted to acquit.

Leavitt Alley died two years after the trial at the age of fifty-nine. It has never been determined who killed Abijah Ellis.

Resources:

Books:

Alley, Leavitt, and Franklin Fiske Heard. Report of the trial of Leavitt Alley indicted for the murder of Abijah Ellis, in the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. Boston: Little, Brown, 1875.

Newspapers:

The Boston Daily Globe, July 25, 1876
The Boston Daily Globe, May 16, 1892
The Boston Sunday Globe, January 29, 1905

Websites:

The Boston Fire

Is Holmes Hatch?

2011-08-27T08:07:00.000-07:00

Herman Webster Mudgett, alias Dr. H. H. Holmes, confessed to killing 27 men, women, and children, but lawmen estimated that his actual total was as high as 230 murders. This is not enough for some people; there appears to be a movement afoot, to pin every unsolved murder of the 19th century on Dr. Holmes. Some amateur detectives are now attempting to “prove” that H. H. Holmes was also Jack the Ripper, though there is no evidence that Holmes ever left North America, and the modus operandi of the two men could not be more different (the ripper killed with a quick slash to the throat; Holmes preferred slow torture from a distance). It is also rumored that someone is trying to connect Holmes to the murder of Lizzie Borden’s parents.

Apparently, accusing Holmes of murders he did not commit, is not a new phenomenon. This article from The Fort Wayne Journal, September 1, 1895, tells of a theory from Colorado, that Clark W. Hatch, who murdered his uncle there, was actually H. H. Holmes. The theory was effectively refuted by Yankee common sense.

IS HOLMES HATCH?
COLORADO PEOPLE HAVE WORKED OUT A STORY
THEY THINK MULTI-MURDERER HOLMES AND THE MYSTERIOUS HATCH ARE ONE AND THE SAME MAN – A HISTORY OF HATCH AND HIS CRIMES

Boston, Aug. 31— A dispatch from Colorado Springs states that it is the belief there that the Hatch who has been mentioned in connection with the Holmes murders is Holmes himself and that he is the Clark W. Hatch, Boston, who tried at Breckinridge, Colo., in April 1890, for the murder of his uncle. Hatch was the New England agent of the Travelers’ Insurance company of Hartford, with his office in this city. While in Colorado in 1890, his uncle, who lived several miles outside of Breckinridge, was shot dead by some unknown party.

Hatch was arrested and after a preliminary trial was discharged. He returned to Boston and the grand jury in Colorado indicted him for murder. He was arrested and sent out there again, was tried and acquitted. He started for Boston again and when at Worcester, Detective O’Day, of the Worcester police department, arrested him on a charge of passing a forged check on a bank in Worcester. He was tried in Worcester and acquitted. The verdict was a surprise I the insurance company, which had counted upon a conviction. The company had, during Hatch’s absence in Colorado, made an investigation of his affairs and found they were in a fearful state. How much the company lost, it was impossible to say. The figures have never been known, and, in fact, cannot even be discovered by the company’s accountant.

Upon his discharge in Worcester, the insurance people, to keep him in custody until they could perfect another criminal charge against him, initiated a civil suit to recover $25,000. He was arrested as he was leaving the court. Hatch’s attorney hurried before the court and got a writ of habeas corpus and the arrested declared illegal. All this time the agents of the company in Boston had been busy getting out a warrant charging Hatch with forgery here. The warrant was placed in the hands of Police Inspector Dugan, who took the train for Worcester, but arrived some time after Hatch had been discharged. The next heard of Hatch was at St. Johns, N. B. a few days later. He was seen at the depot there by a fellow employee of the Travellers’ Insurance company. Hatch disappeared. He was not seen since, though it has been rumored now and then that he is in the Argentine republic. It is alleged that he went to various agents in his own district and got insured. Of course all the papers would pass through his hands and with power to accept or reject he could pass all applications he chose. In a reasonable time claim was made to the agent, the necessary papers being apparently satisfactorily fixed by those making the claim and being transmitted to Hatch by the agent, were allowed. The chances of detection were slight indeed. But finally he was suspected and the thing came out after a most thorough investigation.

Hatch and Holmes, while both were insurance swindlers, are different men. Hatch was more than six feet tall and heavily built, while Holmes is a very much smaller man.

The Fort Wayne Journal, September 1, 1895

The Sheriff’s Mistress

2011-08-20T06:09:00.000-07:00

In the summer of 1827, George Swearingen was a hardworking, upstanding, young family man. He and his lovely wife, Mary, had a new baby daughter. Working as clerk and deputy to his uncle, the sheriff of Washington County, Maryland, George was being groomed to take his uncle’s job. Everything was going George Swearingen’s way; then he met Rachel Cunningham. In September the following year, George and Rachel were fugitives, running from the charge of murdering Mary Swearingen.

Date: September 8, 1828

Location: Hagerstown, Maryland

Victim: Mary Scot Swearingen

Cause of Death: Knocked off a horse

Accused: George Swearingen

Synopsis:

George Swearingen had always been a hard working public servant. At age sixteen, his father got him a position of clerk for the county of Washington, Maryland. Less than two years later, he left the job, on doctor’s orders, having developed a pulmonary condition due to overwork.

In 1821, when George was twenty-one years old, he went to live with his uncle, John V. Swearingen, the sheriff of Washington County. He worked as a clerk in the sheriff’s office while he studied law. In 1823, James Scott, a distant relative of the Swearingens, brought his daughter Mary from Cumberland to Hagerstown to attend school. She boarded at John Swearingen’s house while George was living there as well. The Scotts were a wealthy and prominent family, and at the urging of his relatives George began courting Mary. They were soon married and in 1825 moved into a house of their own.

George Swearingen finished his studies and became licensed to practice law in Maryland, but decided instead to run for the office of Sheriff. While Swearingen was preparing his campaign, his wife Mary preparing to give birth to their first child. Due to complications with the pregnancy, Mary went to stay at her parent’s house in Cumberland. Mary was away from her marital duties for at least six months and George had to find other ways to meet his needs. In his words, “I occasionally visited those houses of libertinism and chambering, which, Solomon declares to be ‘the way to hell leading down to the chambers of death.’”

He also needed washing and mending done, so he went to see Rachel Cunningham, a laundress who was also well-known as a prostitute. Rachel Cunningham had a long history as a fallen woman. She was born in Philadelphia to a wealthy physician and spent her childhood at boarding school. Rachel’s mother died when she was nine years old, and her father died when she was fourteen. After burying her father, there was very little money left so she went to live with her aunt and uncle, the Wallingdons, in Bedford, Pennsylvania.

Bedford was a resort town, and the Wallingdons would rent out rooms during the summer season. Rachel was a beautiful and well-formed teenager and in Bedford, a “summer resort of profligacy and pollution,” the men took notice. Mrs. Wallingdon soon found that with Rachel in the house, she could fill her rooms at double the rate. Rachel, as well, was quick to learn that she could trade her favors for jewelry and other lavish gifts.

One boarder in particular was infatuated with Rachel Cunningham. Orlando Haverley, a wealthy young gentleman of color, fell in love with Rachel and had to possess her. Throughout the summer they found opportunities be together. At the end of the season, after Mr. Haverley had checked out, he returned and at a prearranged time, Rachel climbed out her bedroom window and went into Haverley’s waiting carriage.

Though they did not marry, Rachel lived as Haverley’s wife and he indulged her every whim. Then one night he caught her in an amorous embrace with another young man, a Mr. G—. As a result, the two men fought a duel. Orlando Haverley was killed, and Rachel went to live with the victor.

Mr. G— took her to Annapolis and, against the wishes of his family, he made her mistress of the household. When his two sisters objected, he removed them from the house. As Haverley had, Mr. G— gave Rachel everything she craved. But after he refused to let her fire a servant, she tried to poison him. This broke her amorous spell over Mr. G—, and he sent her away.

Rachel then traveled throughout the eastern seaboard, living off her beauty. Then she returned to Pennsylvania, first as a mistress to a wealthy merchant in Franklin County, then to a judge in Philadelphia. Eventually she left him and moved to Hagerstown, Maryland.

Rachel Cunningham had gone from a courtesan to the rich and handsome, to a common prostitute who took in laundry. According to one author, in Hagerstown, Rachel was “an ignorant, vulgar prostitute of the lowest grade, with no other attraction than a very moderate share of personal beauty.” But it was enough for George Swearingen, who fell madly in love with Rachel and began going to her for more than washing and mending.

George took Rachel to a Methodist camp meeting, and on the way back, he ran the buggy into a stump, wrecking the vehicle and injuring Miss Cunningham. The affair became public knowledge in the middle of his campaign for sheriff. His political associates advised George to distance himself from Rachel but he would not. George Swearingen was a popular candidate, and in spite of the scandal he won the three way race for sheriff. Rachel was also affected by the publicity; her landlord threw her out. George Swearingen set her up in a house of her own, and visited often.

George’s love for Rachel became an obsession. He saw a poem in a newspaper, and erasing the original name and substituting “Rachel” he cut it out and sent it to her:

To Rachel.

I’ve seen the darkened, waving cloud
Curl o’er the sky at night:
And still, beneath the mantle proud
The stars are dazzleing Bright.
Still I can see that lovely eye
Though hid beneath the mantled sky.

Still I can view the smiling beam
That glows upon the cheek;
Those chidings which so fearful seem,
In sweetest friendship speak.
They tell that thou hast still a heart
That can the sweetest charm impart.

Rachel, I swear no power above
Would make my toungue deceive,
Or make my heart forget to love,
Couldst thou my vows believe;
No power but thine can rule my heart,
Qnd from thy charms I ne’er can part.

Ask of the angels in the sky
If I can change my love;
The cherubs would in joy reply,
“His friendship cannot rove;
Believe his vows—thou ne’er shalt sigh,
Nor tears fall from thine angle eye.”

Rachel, I love but thee alone;
I cannot view another’s charms;
That love which I can call my own
Is that which fond affection warms.
Then Lady, smile again in peace,
And let thy doubts and chidings cease.

George.

During all of this, Mrs. Mary Swearingen was in Cumberland with her parents, at least as often as she was home with her husband. In September 1828, George rode to Cumberland to bring his wife back home. They were both on horseback, travelling back to Hagerstown. On September 8, a drover herding cattle from Hagerstown found Swearingen sitting beside the body of his dead wife. She had fallen off her horse and died, Swearingen said, there was nothing he could do.

The body was taken to Cresaptown, and a coroner’s inquest was held. The jury viewed the body and examined the horse. The knees of the horse were cut, as if by a fall. They concluded that Mary Swearingen “came to her death by an act of Providence.”

The body was buried, but Charity Johnson, one of the women who had prepared it spread suspicion that that Mary had not died in a fall from a horse. She had bruises on her throat, and other bruises that suggested she was violently raped. Charity Johsnon wanted the body disinterred and examined again. George Swearingen refused, saying he did not want his wife publically exposed, but Mary’s mother, now believed that her daughter had been killed by Rachel Cunningham, agreed to the exhumation.

On this news, George and Rachel both fled Maryland; first travelling to together, then separating, planning to meet in New Orleans. Rachel, travelling by steamboat, probably passed George who, travelling under the name Martin, was floating down the Mississippi in a flatboat.

George Swearingen made it to New Orleans, but was apprehended after leaving the flatboat. He was taken back to Baltimore in the brig Arctic, then conveyed to Allegheny County for trial.

Trials: September 1829

At the trial, all of the dirty laundry came out. The prosecution alleged that George Swearingen had tried to murder his wife twice before her actual death. First in a buggy accident on the side of a mountain, and second, the day before the murder he allegedly tried to drown her while fording a river. The first was probably a legitimate accident—Swearingen was a notoriously bad driver; the second, with no witnesses, was probably pure fiction.

Swearingen’s defense attorney, John L. M’Mahon explained that Mary had suffered from “leuco phlegmatic temperament” which made her liable to spontaneous uterine hemorrhaging. Her doctor had advised her to refrain from sex—explaining why George strayed in the first place. The condition also explained why she appeared to have been raped before death. For good measure, he speculated that Charity Johnson had attacked the body with a broomstick to implicate Swearingen as a rapist.

The jury found George Swearingen guilty of murdering his wife.

Verdict: Guilty of murder

Aftermath:

Before he was executed, George Swearingen confessed to killing his wife Mary. Though he denied much of was said against him in court, he admitted that he had knocked her off of the horse. Mary had wanted to stop at the Tevis farm, a property that they owned, but George refused, knowing that, at the time, Rachel was staying there. When Mary persisted, it angered him and George rode along side, then punched her in the temple, knocking her off the horse and down a hill where she hit her head on a rock and was killed.

On the gallows, George Swearingen sang a psalm and told the crowd that he wished to have it understood that he died in peace with God and all the world. He had no doubt and no fears that he repentance would be accepted.

It is not known for sure what happened to Rachel Cunningham, but a book on her life, published not long after the murder, says that she was tried as well, and hanged for murder.

Resources:

Books:

Halttunen, Karen. Murder most foul: the killer and the American Gothic imagination. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998.

Hamblin, P. R.. United States Criminal History; Being a True Account of the Most Horrid Murders, Piracies, High-Way Roberies, &c. Togeher with the Lives, Trials, Confessions and Exeuciotns of the Criminals. Philadelphia, Pa.?: C.W. Alexander?, 1871.

The Intrigues, Amours, & Advenures, of Rachel Cunningham, Called from her Crimes, the American Milwood. London.: Edward Duncombe, c1830.

Swearingen, George, and N. B. Little. The life and confession of George Swearingen who was executed at Cumberland, Allegany County, Md., on the 2d day of October 1829, for the murder of his wife. Hagers-Town [i.e. Hagerstown, Md.: William D. Bell, 1829.

Edward Hovey

2011-08-13T08:24:00.000-07:00

Little Murders:

From Defenders and Offenders:

Edward Hovey.

Edward Hovey was hanged in New York City on October 19, 1883, for the murder of his sister-in-law. The murder was unprovoked and he deserved his doom. He called at his sister-in-law’s house and after quarreling with her, shot her down in cold blood. He was so completely broken down before his execution, that he had to be dosed with whiskey, while a morphine injection was also given him.

Defenders and offenders. New York: D. Buchner & Co., 1888.

The Great Trunk Mystery

2011-08-06T06:32:00.000-07:00

The afternoon of August 26, 1871 a porter at the Hudson River Railroad Depot in Manhattan, noticed a disgusting odor emanating from a trunk bound for Chicago. He notified the baggage master, who ordered his men to open the trunk and find the source of the smell. They lifted the lid, removed a blanket, and found the body of a pretty, young woman, with golden hair, jammed into the trunk, naked, in a fetal position. The trunk had no address, and no one knew who had left it. The police seemed powerless to solve the “Great Trunk Mystery”

Date: August 23, 1871

Location: New York, New York

Victim: Alice A. Bowlsby

Cause of Death: Botched abortion

Accused: Jacob Rosenzweig

Synopsis:

The first clue came from a 12-year-old boy named Alexander Potts—known to his friends as Paddy—who sold newspapers and candy at the depot, and sometimes carried light baggage. Paddy remembered a woman in a calico dress who wanted to check in her trunk but was unaware that she would first need to buy a ticket. He showed her to the ticket window and watched as she purchased a ticket to Chicago. The trunk arrived in a separate wagon and he helped move it to the freight office. Though only two and a half feet long, the trunk was extremely heavy.

Paddy remembered that the cart that had delivered the trunk had the name Tripp on the side. This sent police fanatically searching for a deliveryman named Tripp. At 1:00 AM they tracked down a truckman named Trapp and took him to the Central Office, but Paddy Potts said he was not the man. It was not the only mistake the police made; the train left several hours after the body was discovered, and someone used the ticket to travel at least as far as Albany. The police had time to intercept the passenger, but instead her identity remained a mystery.

The body was taken to the “dead-room” at Bellevue Hospital. When removed from the trunk the body remained in the fetal position due to rigor mortis. It would have been impossible to bend the body into this shape after rigor mortis set in, leading the coroners to the shocking belief that she was put into the trunk while still alive. During the post mortem examination it was discovered that the woman had been pregnant and had died due to infection from metroperitonitis. She had apparently died from a botched abortion.

Jacob Rosenzweig

Two days after the body was found, a truckman named William Pickett came into the Eighteenth Precinct police station at 22nd Street, near 1st Avenue, and said he had read the newspaper and believed that he was the man who had delivered the trunk. This time Paddy concurred. Pickett said that a woman had hired him pick up a trunk at an address on 2nd Avenue and deliver it to the depot. From the description Pickett gave of the people he met there, Police Sergeant Rooney knew immediately it was the home of Jacob Rosenzweig.

Though he would sometimes say he was Russian, Rosenzweig was a Pole, whose voice had “a twang of the German Jew," and Rosenzweig was a well-known abortionist. He had previously kept a beer saloon but found abortion much more lucrative. At one time Jacob Rosenzweig had as many as five abortion offices throughout New York. In 1871 he lived with his family on 2nd Avenue and kept an office on 5th Avenue below Amity Street, where he practiced medicine under the name Dr. Ascher.

At the time, abortion was legal in New York up until “quickening”—the point in time when the fetus starts to move. But even then, the abortion law was seldom enforced and the city had dozens of abortionists who advertised publicly. Rosensweig, alias Ascher, ran the following ad in the New York Herald:

Ladies in trouble guaranteed immediate relief, sure and safe; no fees required until perfectly satisfied; elegant rooms and nursing provided. Dr. Ascher, Amity Place.

Though he denied any knowledge of the dead girl, the trunk or abortion, Jacob Rosenzweig was arrested for murder.

The body was still unidentified, and though it was deteriorating fast, it was put on public display in hopes that someone would identify the young woman. Hundreds of people, masking their noses with cloth saturated with carbolic acid to hide the smell, gawked at the body, and though there were several false identifications, most just came to view it out of morbid curiosity.

Rosenzweig Arrested

The arrest of Jacob Rosensweig brought some information leading police a little closer to identification. Earlier in the summer, the New York Times had run and expose on abortion entitled “The Evil of the Age.” An undercover reporter, accompanied by a female assistant, visited a number of abortionists, ostensibly shopping for an abortion, to learn the workings of the trade. The reporter remembered seeing a petite blonde woman when he visited Rosenzweig. He viewed the body and swore it was the same girl.

The real break came from a physician named Dr. Theodore G. Kinne from Paterson, New Jersey. Kinne viewed the body once and thought he knew who she was. He returned a second time with a dentist, Dr. Joseph Parker, who worked in the same office. Kinne recognized the woman as patient of his named Alice A. Bowlsby; what made him so certain was a distinctive vaccination scar she had under her left elbow. Dr. Parker agreed, recognizing two fillings, an extracted tooth, and a scar from an ulcerated tooth, all of which he had been his work.

The police searched Rosenzweig’s house again, and this time found a handkerchief in the laundry, which, when viewed under a magnifying glass had the letters “A. A. Bowlsby.” But Rosenzweig was still proclaiming innocence.

When the news hit Paterson, New Jersey, Alice Bowlsby’s widowed mother was devastated. She had been worried because Alice had been missing for a week. The sorrow, tinged with the shame of the circumstance, was almost too much to bear. But the person who suffered the most was Alice’s seducer, Walter F. Conklin. He was the son of Paterson Alderman Conklin who owned Dale’s Silk Mill. Walter Worked as a clerk in the silk mill and on the day he heard the news, while the rest of the clerks were at lunch, Walter went into the room were the silks were stored, and shot himself in the head. He left behind this note:

I have had a morbid idea of the worthlessness of life, and now to be obliged to testify in this affair and cause unpleasantness to my family is more than life is worth. Good by, dear father, mother, brother and sister. Walt

Trials: October 1871

The evidence against Jacob Rosenzweig—now nicknamed “The Fiend of Second Avenue”— seemed overwhelming. The trunk with the dead body had been traced from Rowenzweig’s house to the train depot; Rosenzweig was a known abortionist, and the girl had died from an abortion; the body was identified as Alice Bowlsby, and a handkerchief with the name “A. A. Bowlsby” was found in Rosenzweig’s house.

But Rosenzweig had hired attorney William Howe of the law firm Howe and Hummel, notorious for successfully defending some of the worst criminals in New York. Using what the New York Sun called “a medical quibble here, a legal quibble there,” Howe picked away at every link in the chain of circumstantial evidence. There was no proof that Alice was ever at Rosenzweig’s house; Howe found an Anne Bowlsby in Brooklyn who claimed she had known the Rosenzweig’s for years and had left behind the handkerchief. Alice’s mother hadn’t identified the body she left it to “a hired dentist, and a hireling physician.” And couldn’t Walter Conklin have murdered Alice and sent the trunk to New York?

The jury was not swayed; they found Rosenzweig guilty of second degree murder—the highest charge available for death by abortion. The judge gave him the maximum sentence, seven years hard labor at Sing Sing prison.

Verdict: Guilty, Second degree murder

Aftermath:

Though Rosenzweig would bad mouth his attorney for not winning an acquittal, Howe did get Rosenzweig out of prison fairly quickly. He appealed the case on the grounds that the prosecution introduced evidence from a Nellie Willis, who had received an abortion from Rosenzweig. This testimony unfairly brought a second charge against the defendant. The appeals court agreed and Rosenzweig was scheduled for a new trial in November 1872.

However, in April 1872, New York enacted a new law outlawing all abortion. Since the death occurred before 1872, Rosenzweig could not be tried under the new law, but since the new law repealed the old law, he could not be tried under the old law either. With no law to try him under, the court reluctantly released Jacob Rosenzweig. He was in prison less than a year.

Resources:

Books:

Alexander, Charles Wesley. New and additional details of the horrible New York trunk murder .. . Philadelphia, Pa.?: C.W. Alexander?, 1871.

Murphy, Cait. Scoundrels in Law: The Trials of Howe and Hummel, Lawyers to the Gangsters, Cops, Starlets, and Rakes Who Made the Gilded Age. New York, N.Y.: Smithsonian Books, 2010.

The Great "Trunk Mystery" of New York City murder of the beautiful Miss Alice A. Bowlsby, of Patterson, N.J., her body placed in a trunk and labelled for Chicago. Many strange incidents made public.. Philadelphia, Pa.: Barclay, 1871.

Murder Most Foul

2011-07-30T05:07:00.000-07:00

Little Murders

Well, it had to come out eventually. I try to avoid clichés like “murder most foul” but here it is in the Adams Sentinel, February 7, 1842. But it was a particularly foul murder; James E. Lanier not only killed his two little sons, their mother, and their grandmother, but enlisted his father’s slaves to help him do it.

"Murder Most Foul – By a statement in the Danville Reporter, we learn the following particulars of murder more horrible than any we have yet chronicled:

From the verdict of the Coroner’s jury, it appears that on the night of Wednesday, the 22d of December, one James E. Lanier, living near White Oak Mountain, in the county of Pinsylvania, Va. Accompanied by three negro men belonging to his father, whom he had procured to aid him in his murderous design, proceeded to the residence of his victims and murdered four persons, to wit—Betsy Fleeman, Eliza Fleeman, her daughter, and two small boys, children of said Eliza. Two of the murdred person were deliberately beheaded—one of the other two the brains were beaten out with an axe. The two boys slain were sons of the murderer. After dispatching the victims, Lanier piled their dead bodies in the middle of the floor, covered them with straw, and set fire to it and the house.

One of the boys killed, about four years of age, terrified at the death of his mother and grand mother, clasped the murderous father by the knee, and begged him to spare his life, but the words of his request were scarcely uttered, before his head was severed form his body by a single blow."

Adams Sentinel, Gettysburg, PA, February 7, 1842

Fillipe Guestoni

2011-07-23T07:10:00.000-07:00

Little Murders:

From Defenders and Offenders:

Fillipe Guestoni.

On the morning of June 11, 1888, several pistol shots were heard in the apartments of Mr. & Mrs. Mari in New York. It appeared that Fillipe Guestoni, who had formerly been a partner of Mari, had become infatuated with Mrs. Mari and was violently jealous of her husband, whom he wished her to abandon. He had had many violent scenes with her and had been warned by the husband to cease his visits. On the above morning, he broke into her apartments while she lay in bed, shot her three times and then sent a bullet crashing into his own brain.

Defenders and offenders. New York: D. Buchner & Co., 1888.

Guest Blogger: Cheri Farnsworth

2011-07-16T06:15:00.000-07:00

Murder by Gaslight is pleased to welcome guest blogger Cheri Farnsworth. Cheri has been a longtime friend of Murder by Gaslight; last year we reviewed her book Murder and Mayhem in St. Lawrence County and today she will be sharing a story from her latest book.

Following is a chapter from Cheri Farnsworth’s Murder & Mayhem in Jefferson County (History Press 2011). The book is a compilation of ten of the most sensational, historical murder cases from that Northern New York region. You may purchase the book online at amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com or directly from the publisher at www.historypress.net. For more information about Farnsworth’s other titles, like Alphabet Killer, Adirondack Enigma, and The Big Book of New York Ghost Stories (history as you’ve never seen it), visit www.cherifarnsworth.com.

The “Watertown Trunk Murder” – Hounsfield, 1908

Jammed within the narrow confines of a trunk, with her head mashed to jelly, one ear gone and her body mutilated until recognition was almost impossible, the body of Mrs. Sarah Brennan, wife of Patrick Brennan, of Brownville, was found Monday afternoon in a back kitchen at the home of Mr. and Mrs. James Farmer of that village. ~ Watertown Re-Union, 29 Apr. 1908

In October of 1907, Mary Farmer hatched an elaborate plan to criminally acquire the property of her neighbors so that her young babe, Peter, would one day have something of value that she believed she and James Farmer could never provide otherwise. (Heaven forbid that they should have to work for their material possessions like the rest of us.) The fact that a cold-blooded murder might become necessary for her to meet her objective was but a trivial detail the soon-to-be murderess would worry about when the time came. That time was the morning of April 23 when Sarah Brennan paid a visit to Mary Farmer. Neighbors heard the women arguing, and it was the last anyone ever heard from, or saw, Mrs. Brennan alive. One can only surmise that the victim had finally learned of the plot to steal her house and home right out from under them. For that, she had to be silenced…now.

While some later said that 24-year-old Mary “had never fully recovered her mentality” after the birth of her only child, countless others testified that her bizarre behavior spanned years, culminating in the singular unspeakable act—when she raised the hatchet over the skull of Sarah Brennan—that sealed her fate. Though there was never any doubt about Mary Farmer’s guilt, her mental state at the time of the gruesome murder would ultimately determine whether the young mother should live or became the second woman sent to the electric chair in New York State. Hence, much time at the inquest and later trials would be devoted to determining if Mary Farmer was sane when she slaughtered her so-called friend and neighbor. And even more time would be spent determining what role, if any, her husband had played in the whole affair.

It began when Mary Farmer forged a deed to the Brennan residence that was recorded in the county clerk’s office. Somehow, she had managed to steal the deed from the Brennan house on one of her many visits to call on Sarah Brennan. The property, located on Paddy Hill on the Hounsfield side of the river in Brownville, was adjacent to the Farmer property, and Mary visited Sarah often. Although the Brennans were not wealthy, by any standards, they enjoyed life’s simple pleasures and seemed content. For Mary Farmer, living right next door must have become increasingly difficult to swallow, because she was reminded daily of what others had that she wanted. The Farmers had lost the previous home they owned near Ontario Mill when they were unable to make payments, and Mr. Farmer had not held a job for some time. Thus, with a false sense of entitlement, Mary Farmer made a conscious decision to turn her growing irritation into an opportunity for herself and her family. On October 31, 1907, she went before Attorney Francis Burns at the Jefferson County clerk’s office impersonating Sarah Brennan. There, she transferred the deed to the Brennan home to the Farmers for the sum of $2,100 (roughly $50,000 in today’s dollar) and forged 55-year-old Sarah Brennan’s signature. This first step accomplished, Mary Farmer foolishly started telling locals that she had purchased the property from the Brennans; and, while the Brennans heard occasional rumors in the village that they had sold their property, they denied them and couldn’t imagine how they had started. On January 7, 1908, the Farmers deeded the property they had acquired illegally over to their son, who was then ten months old; and they transferred the insurance on the house from the Brennans to themselves. The plan was nearly complete. All that was left was to remove the oblivious couple from the premises; but for reasons unknown, Sarah Farmer waited four months to complete her plan. Some speculated that the delay was due to “timidity to commit the deed and the presence of relatives.”

Thursday, April 23, started out like a normal day for the Brennans, other than the fact that Sarah had dressed in black in memory of a daughter who had died some time before. But she was fine when she paid a visit to the Brennans’ home that morning. Pat Brennan went to work at the mill where he ran a boiler. Neither could have ever imagined the events that were about to transpire when they set out in their respective ways that day. According to the Watertown Re-Union of April 29, 1908, Mr. Brennan came home to find the door locked and the key missing from its agreed-upon hiding spot:

All was happy when Mrs. Brennan left him for his work at the C. R. Remington mill that morning. When he returned that afternoon, he found the front door locked. He felt behind the blind for the key; and, not finding it, went to the barn, which was also locked. With a hammer, he pulled the hasp, secured a ladder and entered a window. He thought that perhaps his wife was out calling, but wondered that she failed to leave the key.

Ten minutes later, Brennan was at work tearing down the stormhouse. He had almost finished when Farmer, who had not been working for some time past, came to the fence.
“Don’t you know that I own that place now,” said Farmer. Brennan turned in amazement and replied that he did not. “Yes, the place is mine, all right [sic],” continued Farmer. “I bought it last October, and you can see the deed at the county clerk’s office. I paid $2,100 for it.”

“That’s funny,” commented Brennan. “My wife never said anything about it, and you neither have said anything about it all these months.” Farmer replied that he didn’t think there was need of it, inasmuch as Mrs. Brennan had been paying him $2 a week rent for it, but that now he had decided that he would move in and enjoy his own.

Over the next few, surreal days, Brennan could not get a straight answer from the Farmers on the whereabouts of his wife, which made him wonder if they were somehow involved in her disappearance. The day after she went missing, the Farmers went to Watertown to obtain the following notice from Field & Swan to be served on Brennan, telling him to vacate his property and informing him that they had a bill of sale for all the personal property in the house.

To Patrick Brennan:

Dear Sir—Take notice, that by virtue of a deed dated October 31, 1907, and recorded in the Jefferson county clerk’s office November 9, 1907, in the book of deeds 325, page 93, your wife, Sarah Brennan, sold and conveyed to me, the undersigned, the house and premises in the town of Hounsfield, Jefferson county, N.Y., near the village of Brownville, in which you and she then resided and have since resided; and that I thereupon became and now am the owner of said property; and that your wife has recently delivered to me the keys and possession of said house and property; that I am now in the sole and exclusive possession thereof and of all the household furniture and personal property in the house, which was sold to me by her by bill of sale and delivered to me, for which personal property I paid her, and I am now in possession thereof, in said house.

That I hereby notify and require you to stay away, remain away, and keep out of this house and off said premises from now on, except to come to said house and get and take away your wearing apparel and personal belongings, which I hereby require that you do before April 27, 1908, and in case of your failure so to remove your wearing apparel and personal belongings, I will leave them with Daniel Woodard at his residence in said town, subject to your order, and I hereby forbid you to come on said premises as and for the purpose stated above.

Dated April 24, 1908
(Signed) JAMES D. FARMER
FIELD & SWAN, Attorneys for J. D. Farmer

Not only would he soon learn that they had killed his wife; but they booted him out of his own house and stole all of his material belongings, except his clothing. This went beyond coldblooded. But the property was the least of Brennan’s concerns at the moment. All he really wanted to know was what happened to his wife. The Re-Union said:

Worried almost to desperation, Brennan came that night to the home of James Rattray in Griffin Street, this city, and anxiously inquired if anything had been seen of his wife. It is alleged that the Farmers had told Brennan many stories of his wife’s absence, saying first that she had been selling her property and buying expensive clothing and had left for Duluth. Later, it is alleged, they said that she had gone to Watertown and said she wanted her goods sent to Rattray’s.

Every story was followed by the anxious husband. No one had seen her leave at the station, no trace of her was obtainable at Rattray’s. She had an appointment at Dr. Huntington’s for dental work and this she had failed to keep. Brennan investigated and found all her clothing in the closets.

Two days after being kicked out of his home and told that his wife had left him, Brennan consulted Attorney Floyd Carlisle. The lawyer soon discovered that a woman resembling Mrs. Farmer was the one who had transferred the property at Attorney Burns’ office, not Mrs. Brennan. Things were beginning to look very suspicious for the Farmers. Nevertheless, the scheming couple proceeded unashamedly to take full possession of the Brennan property, even as an investigation into their dealings was about to commence, unbeknownst to them. Enter….the trunk, which was among the effects carried from the Farmer house to the Brennan residence. That trunk represented everything—Mrs. Farmer’s guilt; Mrs. Brennan’s untimely demise; Mr. Farmer’s innocence; and Mr. Brennan’s worst fear.

After learning from Attorney Carlisle that something wasn’t right in the handling of the real estate transactions, Pat Brennan alerted District Attorney Pitcher; and, on Monday, four days after the nightmare had begun, Sheriff Bellinger and his assistants were dispatched to the Brennan residence to question Mary Farmer. At first, Mrs. Farmer denied any knowledge of her neighbor’s disappearance; although, she did turn pale at the start of the questioning. Bellinger then proceeded to search the home. He wasn’t leaving without some answers. According to the Re-Union, it wasn’t long before he had them.

In the back kitchen, the sheriff found the trunk. An odor came from it, and the sheriff suspected that the body was within. When asked for the keys, the Farmers claimed to have lost them, and with a hammer, the lock was forced. A horrible sight met the officer’s eyes—a battered countenance, blood and hair intermingling, the body forced and jammed until it filled the space, skirts partly covering the limbs. When the discovery was made, Brennan and Farmer sat together. “My God, did you do this?” moaned Brennan. “As God is my witness, I did not,” replied Farmer.

A moment’s consultation and Mrs. Farmer was given a chance to look upon the ghastly spectacle. It was too much, and a moment more a confession was had from her. She said that she had felled the woman with the axe and then washed the instrument and the blood spots from the floor. Later she claimed that, as Mrs. Brennan stepped to the parlor window, Farmer stepped behind her and drove the ax against her head with the exclamation, “There, damn you, I have done with you.”

Beneath a mattress, a blood-stained coat that appeared to have been recently washed was found; and, although the floor had been freshly washed, the blotches from blood stains were still apparent. In the trunk with the body was found a button from a man’s coat, a comb, and a torn pocket. The murder weapon, an axe, was found several days later tucked well-hidden from view in a nook in the barn. The body was examined by Coroner Charles E. Pierce, along with several physicians, and they found that the left ear had been hacked off, there were three defense wounds on the left wrist, both lips had been cut straight through, and a long gash was made on the forehead over both eyes where the axe had broken through the skull. The left jaw had been broken, and it appeared that the victim had been struck from the side first and then “blows had been rained upon the face to finish the job,” according to an article called “Cruel Murder” in the Watertown Re-Union of April 29, 1908. This finding contradicted Mrs. Farmer’s version of having snuck up behind the woman and struck her with the axe.

After the initial shock of being found out wore off and a smidgeon of reasoning (disturbed as it was) returned, Mrs. Farmer attempted to lay blame for the murder on her husband. Then, she quickly recanted that version and again admitted that it was she who was responsible. Nevertheless, both husband and wife were taken to the county jail as suspects in the murder of Sarah Brennan. Mr. Farmer, perhaps still absorbing the shock of the grim discovery and the ramifications of such, wisely said nothing on the way to the county jail. However, Mrs. Farmer, baby at her breast, smiled when asked by the deputy if her dreams were disturbed, sleeping in the same house as a corpse. She replied smugly that her dreams were no worse than usual—proof of a mind with no conscience…and an impending insanity defense. On Friday, May 1, warrants were issued for the arrest of James and Mary Farmer.

A disheveled, weary James Farmer arrived at the arraignment in shackles, led by Undersheriff Charles Hosmer; and Mary Farmer, wearing a blue skirt, heavy plush coat, and a shawl over her head, was accompanied into the courtroom by Sheriff Ezra D. Bellinger. The Re-Union said, “As far as expression goes, she was as immobile as a statue and looked straight ahead, never shifting her glance. During the time she sat there, not a muscle moved, and she was motionless. Her face was neither flushed nor pale, but it was easily seen that a terrific struggle was going on in her mind.” After the charges of murder were read to them by City Judge Reeves, Brayton A. Field entered a plea of not guilty for Mr. Farmer. Attorney E. Robert Wilcox was assigned to Mrs. Farmer, and the date for examinations of the couple was set for May 6, with Mr. Farmer being questioned first at 9 a.m. and Mrs. Farmer at 2 p.m. As a result of the damning evidence produced at that examination, the couple was brought before the Grand Jury and indicted on charges of first-degree murder. It was initially thought that perhaps James Farmer was unaware of his wife’s plan, especially after she accepted full blame, but evidence produced during the May 6 examination raised considerable doubt that could not be ignored. According to the Re-Union:

Damaging evidence implicating James Farmer more strongly as being at least an accessory to the deed developed at Wednesday morning’s examination of Farmer before Judge Reeves, when the district attorney produced in court and read the paper signed by Farmer which…became a notice to dispossess Patrick Brennan of the home in which he and his wife had resided for many years, and which even that day sheltered [a] mutilated body…The dispossession notice, signed the day after the murder had been committed, states that Farmer bought the property, had the keys, and warned Brennan to get off and stay away from the home of which forgery had robbed him and which cost the life of his wife.

Farmer had to be aware of his wife’s plot. He enforced it by having the notice drawn up and asking Constable Sherman to serve it upon Brennan at once! He had bragged to others about having bought the property long before that fateful day. But had Mary Farmer convinced him that she had truly bought the property with money she had saved from what little he made and turned over to her? Had she convinced him that Sarah Brennan was aware of the property transaction and had left town? Did she leave out the part where the brutally murdered the poor woman in cold blood? James Farmer seemed genuine enough when he asked Brennan, three days after the murder, if he had heard anything on where his wife went. And when the trunk containing the body was found by the sheriff, it was James Farmer who had suggested breaking the lock to open it when the key couldn’t be found. Would a guilty man who knew what the trunk held have made such a recommendation? Was he truly unaware that his own wife had murdered Sarah Brennan? Perhaps his only role was enforcing the property transaction to take possession of what he believed was rightfully his. Perhaps he had no knowledge whatsoever of the full-scope of the crime. He would have his day in court; but first Mary Farmer, the mastermind of one of Jefferson County’s most shocking murders, had to be dealt with.

Mary Farmer’s sister-in-law, Mrs. Michael Doran, had a hunch something wasn’t right from the time she arrived at the Farmer residence at the behest of her brother, James, to pick up a deed that he asked her to take to Watertown to have recorded. Mary came to the door and handed her the deed, and Mrs. Doran took one look at it and recognized the signature as that of Mary Farmer, not Sarah Brennan. She asked Mary how much she had paid for the property and was told $1,200. “The woman must have been crazy [to ask for so little],” said Mrs. Doran, according to the Watertown Re-Union of May 9, 1908. “Crazy or not, I have the property,” was Mary Farmer’s response. Mrs. Doran also told the court that Mrs. Farmer appeared at her home on the day of the murder, around 2 p.m., to speak with James, who was helping out there that day. Doran testified that Mary Farmer handed her husband a bunch of keys and said, “There are your keys. Go and see Patsy Brennan and tell him his wife has gone and he has no home.” She said her brother’s obvious apprehension over his wife’s demand was very upsetting to her.

Many individuals living nearby testified as to the comings and goings of Mary Farmer and Sarah Brennan on the day of the murder. All agreed that they had seen Mrs. Brennan enter the Farmer home around nine-ish that morning but never saw her leave; although, they did see Mary Farmer buzzing around all day. Mrs. Charles Baker, for example, swore that she saw Mrs. Farmer “running back and forth from her house to the Brennan’s a dozen times,” beginning around 9:20 a.m. Nothing, however, was more incriminating than the testimony of a young girl named Edith Blake and that of Philip Smith, a man who helped carry the trunk from one house to the next. The Watertown Re-Union best summed up Edith’s testimony in its June 17, 1908 paper:

Little 12-year-old Edith Blake told how she had gone to the Farmers’ and cared for the baby Thursday. The girl’s answers were clear and concise, sticking to the same in spite of any cross-examination. The witness told how Farmer swore and took some keys from his pocket and passed them to his wife, saying he did not want them. Witness said Mrs. Farmer said, “To hell. You won’t get a d--- [sic] cent of money.” The testimony gave the impression that the Farmers quarreled at the noon hour.

The girl told how Mrs. Farmer had gone to Doran’s and returned, getting some paper from a drawer and again returning to Doran’s, where her husband was at work. Once at home again, Mrs. Farmer told the witness to tend the baby while she cleaned the back room, taking some clothes from the bedroom. The witness said that Mrs. Farmer had sent her to a store for some camphorated oil.

It developed during the questioning that Mrs. Farmer was very careful to shut the door to the room which she was cleaning, so that witness was unable to see what was going on. The cross-examination tended to show that about the noon hour, Mr. and Mrs. Farmer had many talks, occasionally going into one of the rooms and closing the door, leaving the child minding the baby.

Philip Smith’s testimony regarding the black trunk sealed the deal. The Re-Union said the that Smith, who lived one house to the east of the Brennan house, agreed to help the Farmers move their belongings into the Brennan house on the morning of April 25.

Witness told of getting a clothesline to tie the trunk, at the request of Mrs. Farmer, and with her assistance of tying the trunk around twice with the rope, and…tying the trunk around the third time. Witness also testified to getting a gallon jug replenished with ale three times while the moving was going on, the defendant furnishing the money for the beverage. All partook of the ale, but witness could not say that defendant drank any. [Author’s note: The old get-‘em-drunk-until-they’re-oblivious-trick.] The defendant told the witness that she would ask Mr. Tierney to help him carry the trunk, because her husband and Mr. Callahan were drunk, and there was something in the trunk she wanted to be very careful with.

The trunk was heavy enough to require two men to carry it, and while it was being moved from one house to the other, the defendant followed close after it. No discoloration was noticed under the trunk, and a smaller one was placed on its top…It also developed that Mrs. Farmer was in the Barton house [the Farmer’s rented property] most of the time before the trunk was moved, but after it was moved, she spent most of her time in the Brennan house.

In other words, Mary Farmer didn’t take her eyes off the trunk and made sure that it wasn’t unduly disturbed for fear of someone opening it. William Tierney corroborated Smith’s testimony “of how the trunk was carried and followed in close succession by Mrs. Farmer.” Tierney said Mary Farmer told him there was something breakable in the trunk and to be careful while carrying it. The testimony affected the jury as much as seeing a photograph of Sarah Brennan’s post-mortem head which was brought in as evidence. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that the signatures of Sarah Brennan had been forged on the deed and bill of sale, for the real Sarah Brennan was not the woman who had gone before the attorney and notary public the year before; and there was now no doubt that Mary Farmer was well aware of the contents of the black trunk—contents that Mr. Farmer seemed oblivious of when he suggested that the authorities break the trunk open. Mary Farmer was thus found guilty of murdering Sarah Brennan and sentenced to die at Auburn the first week of August.

With that, Patrick Brennan commenced legal action to have the forged deeds declared null and void, so he could regain possession of his property. The Farmers’ infant son was put in the care of John Conboy, a member of the Farmer family; and ultimately, he was sent to the Ogdensburg orphanage in St. Lawrence County. The trial of James Farmer, who had been in the Jefferson County lockup since April, was the next item on the agenda. Six months of incarceration-induced sobriety had done much to improve his appearance. The Watertown Herald said, “In court, dressed neatly and soberly, clean and sober, and much lighter in weight after six months imprisonment,” he looked nothing like the man dressed in working clothes the day of his arrest. But as ‘clean’ as he now appeared, there was nothing clean about the crime for which he was being tried. District Attorney Pitcher said, “Never in the history of Jefferson County has there been a crime which could measure to this in cold deliberation and in a cruel and relentless pursuit of a criminal purpose.” Still, the defense insisted that their client knew nothing of the murder until the trunk was opened, and the sheriff said, “I have found her.”

Patrick Brennan testified at James Farmer’s trial, much as he had at the trial of Mary Farmer, repeating as he had so many times the story of how he came home from work to find his wife missing, of the surreal experience of being kicked out of his own house by his neighbor who claimed he had bought it, and of the search and discovery of his wife’s body in the trunk. Alice Doran, Farmer’s sister, again testified that she was asked by Mary Farmer to take the deed to Watertown and have it recorded. After calling the office where attorney Francis P. Burns had drawn and executed the deed for someone proclaiming to be Sarah Brennan, Mrs. Doran became very concerned that something shady was going on. She said she asked her brother several times if he had ever spoken to Sarah Brennan about transferring the deed, and he admitted he hadn’t—he had only spoken to Patrick about it when he evicted the man from his own property. Many of the witnesses called to the stand in Mary Farmer’s trial returned to the stand in the James Farmer murder trial. And when all was said and done, when attorneys for the people and attorneys for the defendant had pulled out all the stops and put the best spin they possibly could on the now-familiar testimony, the jury reached a verdict of guilty. Then, just as Justice DeAngelis was about to pronounce the sentence, a motion for a new trial was made, when Attorney Kellogg announced his belief that a sermon preached at the All Souls Church the previous Sunday had prejudiced some members of the jury who were in attendance at that mass. The pastor was brought in and asked to read the entire text of his sermon to see if it was, in fact, something that might sway the jury; but the judge saw nothing in it that he thought should delay his pronouncement of sentencing. Thus, a full year after the deed that started the whole mess was forged, James Farmer was sentenced to die in the electric chair, like his wife, between eight weeks and four months of the date of his conviction.

While Farmer’s defense attorneys set to work on his appeal, Farmer was placed in a cell in death row at Auburn Prison. Mary Farmer was nearby, in the Auburn women’s prison, her execution having been temporarily stayed by a futile appeal. The couple was permitted to see each other twice, briefly, before Mary Farmer’s execution on March 31, 1909; but they were not allowed to touch or to speak in private. And James Farmer was moved to another part of the prison on execution day to spare him from hearing his wife being led to the execution chamber. She would only be accompanied by Father Hickey, her spiritual advisor who had prayed with her in the days leading up to this final one, and the two female attendants who had remained constantly at her side since she first arrived at Auburn. The Watertown Re-Union of March 31, 1909, said, “…the Farmer woman walked unfalteringly to the death chair. Her eyes were half closed, and she saw nothing of the death chair and rows of witnesses. In her hands, she clasped a crucifix, and as she was being strapped in the chair, Father Hickey stood at her side and offered prayers for the dying.” The prison physician acknowledged that Farmer was dead with the first shock, but to quell the residual muscle tremors quickly, two more contacts were made—each with 1,840 volts of electricity shooting through her body. After the physicians pronounced her dead, her body was removed for autopsy and then, as directed by her husband, it was laid to rest in St. Joseph’s Cemetery near Watertown.

Previously, Father Hickey had said, “Mrs. Farmer will die a good Catholic and will go to her death bravely. It may be, though I cannot say positively, that some statement may be made by Mrs. Farmer to the public. If so it will not be given out until after the execution.” The time had now come to release the statement Mrs. Farmer wrote and addressed to Father Hickey the Sunday before. It was in response to telling her that, if she could truthfully exonerate her husband, she should before it was too late. This, she had done, and she signed her hand-written statement before a notary on March 28. It said:

To Rev. J. J. Hickey:

My husband, James D. Farmer, never had any hand in Sarah Brennan’s death, nor never knew anything about it till the trunk was opened. I never told him anything what had happened. I feel he has been terribly wronged. James D. Farmer was not at home the day the affair happened, neither did James D. Farmer ever put a hand on Sarah Brennan after her death. Again, I wish to say as strongly as I can that my husband, James D. Farmer, is entirely innocent of the death of Sarah Brennan, that he knowingly had no part in any plans that led to it and that he knew nothing whatever about it.

(Signed) MARY H. FARMER.
Subscribed and sworn to before me this 28th day of March, 1909.
B. F. WINEGAR
Notary Public, Cayuga County.

James Farmer’s second trial began on February 22, 1910. The same witnesses who had been called for Mary Farmer’s trial and James Farmer’s first trial were brought in again. And the same attorneys who had represented him at his first trial would represent him at the second, along with E. R. Wilcox, who had defended Farmer’s wife. District Attorney Fred B. Pitcher, assisted by Floyd S. Carlisle, tried the case for the people. As the Watertown Herald said, “The evidence was about the same as in his first trial. The prosecution tried to show his presence in the house at the time the killing took place and tried to s how that he knew of it then or immediately afterwards. The defense offered evidence to show that he was not at the house at the time, and that his actions afterwards showed a man free from any guilty knowledge.” (That evidence included his suggestion that the sheriff should break the trunk open when the keys couldn’t be found.) With the first vote of the jury at 7:15 p.m., all twelve men voted, “Not guilty.” Farmer would leave the courthouse that day a free man. The Herald said:

Shortly after 9 o’clock, Judge Emerson put in an appearance. The jury filed in a moment later. The courtroom was in absolute silence, but no sooner had the foreman uttered the words, “not guilty,” than the courtroom resounded with hand clapping. One woman jumped up and shouted, “Good, good, good.” Judge Emerson rapped loudly for order, commanding the court attendants to bring anyone forward that had been seen taking part in the demonstration. As the jurymen left the enclosure, Farmer shook hands and thanked each. Later on, men and women pressed forward and shook Farmer’s hand. Farmer was visibly affected by his good fortune.

Duel Day

2011-07-12T09:06:00.000-07:00

From the Bowery Boys:

Happy Duel Day 2011: When Vice Presidents attack!

207 years ago today, Aaron Burr shot Alexander Hamilton in a duel. Though the two men obviously did not like each other much, they made a pretty good legal team. In 1800, just four years before the duel, they worked together to win an acquittal for Levi Weeks for the murder of Gulielma Sands - The Manhattan Well Mystery.

Bill the Ripper

2011-07-09T07:16:00.000-07:00

No wonder we never found Jack the Ripper, we should have been looking for Bill; or so says the Boston Daily Globe, on July 20, 1889.

The one enduring fact of the Whitechapel murders in London in 1888 is that “Ripper” in the headline sells newspapers. The name “Jack the Ripper” comes from the signature on several letters sent to the London police, allegedly from the killer. In fact, most knowledgeable investigators believe these letters are frauds and the killer never identified himself. In the great tradition of British journalistic ethics, a reporter sent the forged letters, signed “Jack the Ripper,” for the sake of the story. It was a media gamble that has been paying off for more than a hundred years.

On both sides of the Atlantic, in the years following the Whitechapel murders, any unsolved murder of a woman, by slashing, was tied, or at least compared, to Jack the Ripper. Most notably, in 1891 the New York City press nearly sent the city into a frenzy by speculating that the murder of Carrie Brown was the work of London’s Jack the Ripper. This incredibly unlikely story was revived in the very popular Discovery Channel documentary, “Jack the Ripper in America.”

The Globe story—one short paragraph—states that a man named William Brodie was arrested and confessed to the London police. Brodie is not mentioned today as a Jack the Ripper suspect. If anyone has more information, please let me know.

Ebenezer Stanyard

2011-07-02T06:40:00.000-07:00

Little Murders:

From Defenders and Offenders:

Ebenezer Stanyard.

Ebenezer Stanyard was hung at Youngstown, Ohio, for the murder of a woman by the name of Alice Hancox. The cause of the murder was very much shrouded in mystery, but the proof of his guilt was overwhelming. The affair created quite a sensation in Youngstown, and on the day of his execution the excitement was still greater.

Defenders and offenders. New York: D. Buchner & Co., 1888.

The Exoneration of John Gordon

2011-07-01T09:00:00.000-07:00

Update 6/29/2011
On June 29, 2011, Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee signed an official proclamation granting a full pardon to John Gordon, who was executed in 1845 for the murder of Amasa Sprague. Details here:

Justice delayed no longer justice denied after pardon

Update 6/23/2011
The motion to pardon John Gordon for the murder of Amasa Sprague has passed the Rhode Island Senate 33-3. It's now up to the governor. Read about it here:

Measure pardoning Irish immigrant John Gordon in 19th-century murder goes to R.I. governor

2/28/2011
A motion has been submitted to the Judiciary Committee of the Rhode Island House requesting the pardon/exoneration of John Gordon for the murder of Amasa Sprague—a crime he, almost certainly, did not commit. The progress of this motion can be followed here: The Exoneration of John Gordon. The site also includes detailed information on the original trial and the people involved in the case. We wish them the best of luck with the motion.

An Ungrateful Fiend

2011-06-25T05:59:00.000-07:00

Little Murders

(From Titusville Mornign Herald, Titusville, PA, February 11, 1873)

AN UNGRATEFUL FIEND

He Asks for Bread, and then Murders the Man who was Willing to Minister to His Wants.

The murder of Mr. John Flanders at his residence, near Brocton, on Saturday morning last, brief mention of which was made in our yesterday’s columns, proves to have been one of the most cold-blooded and diabolical deeds of villainy which has ever blackened the pages of modern history. The circumstances of the case are briefly told. About half-past eight o’clock on the morning of last Saturday a man called at the residence of Mrs. Anderson, who resides in a small brown house on the Lake Shore road one mile north of the village of Brocton, and a few rods east of Slippery Rock Creek, and

ASKED FOR SOME BREAKFAST.

Mrs. Anderson told the stranger that breakfast was over, but if he went to the house of Mr. John Flanders, on the other side of the creek, he would probably get what he wanted. Mrs. Anderson noticed that the stranger had a sliver ring on his finger. She also observed his general appearance, and she watched him cross the railroad bridge and go towards Mr. Flanders’ house. After this stranger made his appearance at the house of Mr. Flanders and asked for something to eat. Mrs. Flanders did not see the man, but heard him in the rear part of the house conversing with her husband. She told her husband to take the man into the wood-shed and ask him

TO SPLIT SOME WOOD,

as she did not believe in furnishing able-bodied paupers with meals if they were unwilling to work. Mr. Flanders went out with the stranger to the wood-shed, and in a few moments afterwards a sound as of

SOMEONE FALLING WAS HEARD,

and Miss Lucinda Jones the sister of Mrs. Flanders, opened the door and found the old man

WITH HIS HEAD CUT OPEN,

and the blood and brains protruding from the wounds, but the stranger had fled. The two ladies assisted the aged gentleman into the front room and sent for Drs. Dean and Rogers. Upon examination, the two wounds were discovered—one on the forehead, apparently afflicted with the sharp edge of an axe, and the other on the top of the head, where the skull was broken in which bore every indication of having been inflicted with the back of the axe. The physicians dressed the wounds and did everything in their power for the sufferer, but he died at two o’clock in the afternoon. The axe was found with blood spots on it, and clotted hair which adhered to the steel.

THE TERRIBLE NEWS SPREAD RAPIDLY,

and the surrounding farmers and villagers of Brocton scoured the country far and near in search of the murderer. A party of forty mounted men went out towards Westfield, where they got trace of a man answering the description of the murderer. Mr. N.S. La Dro stated that he had passed him twice on the road going to and coming from Westfield but he had not heard of the murder The party were soon on the right trail, and finally, about four o’clock,

THE MURDERER WAS OVERTAKEN,

two miles west of Westfield and was conveyed back to Brockton. He could give no rational account of himself and pretended to be unable to speak English. He gave his name as Philip Hemsteter, and acknowledged that he had passed through Brocton that morning. He was placed in charge of Constables Arnold and Osher, handcuffed and taken to the Brocton Hotel to await the investigation by the Coroner’s jury. When captured he had no ring on his finger, but a silver ring, similar to the one observed by Mrs. Anderson was found upon his person. That lady also identified he prisoner as being the same individual who had called at her house in the morning. Her little daughter, eleven years of age remembered seeing the man, observed the ring on his finger.

On Saturday night the excitement in Brocton had reached fever heat, and if there had not been a link wanting in the chain of direct evidence, namely that of an actual eye witness to the murder, the prisoner would undoubtedly have been lynched on the spot. A better feeling however prevailed, and it was thought more prudent to await the investigation of the Coroner’s jury. No further developments were made during Saturday, and yesterday morning Coroner John Furman empaneled the following jury:

Daniel Skinner, S. F. Bell, John G. White, David T. Taylor, C. W. Burton, E. C. Dewson, G. W. Thompson, J. A. H. Skinner, W. S. Cross, O. Brainerd, H. B. Crandall.

After viewing the remains the jury returned to the village school house, and Mrs. Fenders, Miss Jones, Mrs. Anderson and the physicians were examined, all of whom testified in accordance with the facts as tated above, and aobut 12 o’clock the jruy returned a verdict to the effect that John Fenders came to his death from blows of an axe in the hands of Phillip Hemsteter on the morning of the 8th of February, 1873. The prisoner was then taken back to the hotel where the Titusville reporters, who had just arrived, were seated at dinner. He was brought to the table handcuffed, but his keepers removed the handcuffs to give him an opportunity to eat. In appearance he is a thick set, medium-sized man, with light hair, blue eyes, long nose, and a very peculiarly shaped head. The expression of his face is anything but pleasing , and the reporters impressed with the idea that they had seen the face in Titusville somewhere, but could not place him. A photograph was taken of the prisoner after dinner, which will be sent to Chief of Police Ronse to-day . He appeared to understand English perfectly, and went at his dinner with an evident relish. In the afternoon he was arraigned before Justice Edward Elmore on the charge of murder, and was committed to jail at Mayville to await his trial.

Mr. John Flanders was one of the oldest and most respected farmers in that section of country. He was sixty-six years of age and leaves two sons and two daughters, all married. He owned the house and surrounding property on which he lived, and although not wealthy, was well off. His remains will be taken to Westfield to-morrow for interment.

Titusville Mornign Herald, Titusville, PA, February 11, 1873

The Grizzly Bear Tragedy

2011-06-20T09:34:00.000-07:00

It's Bloody Murder Monday at YesterYear Once More. The story of a stabbing at the Grizzly Bear saloon, on the San Francisco Waterfront, in June 1893: Brutal Murder on the Water Front

Hong Di

2011-06-18T08:14:00.000-07:00

Little Murders:

From Defenders and Offenders:

Hong Di.

This Chinese murderer deliberately attempted to murder a whole family, and succeeded in killing one person. He was employed as a cook by a wealthy ranchman of St. Johns, Cal. While the wife, two daughters and a friend were seated at the supper table, the Chinaman entered from behind with a Winchester rifle in hand, and without a word, commenced firing upon the party, killing the wife instantly and wounding the friend. The daughters escaped injury. The motive for the crime is unknown.

Defenders and offenders. New York: D. Buchner & Co., 1888.

The Trial & Conviction of Richard Johnson

2011-06-11T06:25:00.000-07:00

Little Murders

This one has the potential to become a big murder and I will dig deeper when time allows. But for now all I have is the front page of an 1828 murder pamphlet and a brief summary of the crime.

Uncorrected text from the pamphlet:

“A correct copy of the trial & conviction of Richard Johnson for the murder of Ursula Newman, on the 20th Nov. 1828, by shooting her with a pistol loaded with buck shot or slugs, nine of which entered her body; together with the charge of the court, and the confession of the prisoner of his entention to have added suicide to the horrid and appalling murder for which he is to suffer an ignomenious death, and his letter to a friend in Philadelphia previous to his conviction. New-York, printed and sold wholesale and retail, by Christian Brown, No. 211 Water-street, N. York”

Summary of the crime from The Annals of Murder:

“Johnson had been living with Mrs. Newman for several years. He had urged her to marry him, and, although she had had a child by him, she refused to wed him, nor would she even acknowledge that the child was his. Apparently distracted by this and business worries, Johnson shot and killed her. He was hanged on Blackwell’s (now Welfare) Island at the same time as Catherine Cashier.”

McDade, Thomas M.. The Annals of Murder: A Bibliography of Books and Pamphlets on American Murders From Colonial Times to 1900. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1961.

Terrible Tragedy in New Jersey

2011-06-04T08:18:00.000-07:00

Little Murders

Murder of a Husband and Wife.—We learn from the Patterson (N. J.) Guardian, extra, that that community has been thrown into great excitement in consequence of the murder, on Monday week of two persons, residing three miles from Paterson. The victims are John S. Van Winkle and his wife, an aged couple, and long residents of the county. The atrocious deed was accomplished, as there appears no doubt, by one John Johnson, a laboring farmer. The Guardian says:

The murderer, some two or three years since worked for his victim as a farmer, and who at the time was employed by some of his neighbors in the same capacity. It would seem that Johnson effected an entrance into the house though an upper window by means of a ladder, and descending to the bed room of his victims below, accomplishing his murderous purpose by first attacking the wife, who slept in front , the husband, and again the wife.

The second attack appears to have immediately deprived the wife of life; the husband is still living, but his death is momentarily expected by attending physicians, such is the extent of his wound. The chief instrument used appears to have been a knife, though the husband bears marks of a hatchet. Each received several stabs in different parts of the body, including the abdomen, and the sight which the bodies presented when discovered was a most harrowing one, the bowels of the husband especially, protruding and lying by his side. The floor and bed were saturated with blood as may be supposed from the nature and number of the wounds.

A boy only slept in the same dwelling. Aroused by the noise in the room below, and ascertaining on descending and softly opening the door, the butchery going on within silently left the house and alarmed the neighbors, but the bloody murderer made his escape before they arrived. The fresh snow, however, enabled his pursuers to track him, who soon succeeded in finding and arresting him. He had in his possession some of the clothes of Mr. V. W., and bore about him unmistakable marks of guilt. He is now in our jail.

His object was doubtless money, (which however, he seems not to have obtained.) as Mr. V. W. is known to possess great wealth, probably amounting to $100,000, though a plain and unostentatious farmer. It is gratifying that the inhuman wretch has been arrested, but the punishment which is sure to await him cannot atone for the deed itself. It cannot restore the harmless wife to life, nor save the husband from a speedy death. It is proper to say that Johnson has borne a good character when sober, but when drunk he is little better than a madman as we are informed by those who have long known him.

The Republican Compiler, Gettysburg, PA, January 28, 1850

Van B. Baker

2011-05-28T08:06:00.000-07:00

Little Murders:

From Defenders and Offenders:

Van B. Baker.

Mrs. McWha and her daughter, Mrs. Eliza Baker, lived at Holliday Cove, W. Va. At about half-past three on a Monday afternoon, two female friends called upon hem. They rang the door-bell; it not being answered, one of the women went around to the back door and pushed it in, but it was immediately slammed in her face and bolted. The blinds were all down. The next day, not receiving any replies to repeated calls at the house, it was broken into and the two women vere found murdered. They had been stabbed, then washed and put to bed in their night clothes. Trunks were broken open and rifled. Baker was arrested for the crime.

Defenders and offenders. New York: D. Buchner & Co., 1888.

Another Unsolved Axe Murder

2011-05-24T09:18:00.000-07:00

From Lizzie Borden: Warps & Wefts:
Another Unsolved Axe Murder

The Thayer Brothers

2011-05-21T12:39:00.000-07:00

The year 1825 was a momentous one for Buffalo, New York. The Erie Canal opened, connecting Lake Erie to the Hudson River, a celebration honoring the Marquis de Lafayette, hero of the American Revolution was held in Buffalo, and the city held its first and only public hanging. At least 20,000 witnesses gathered in Niagara Square to watch thee brothers—Nelson, Israel, and Isaac Thayer—hang from the same gallows.

Date: December 15, 1824

Location: Boston, New York

Victim: John Love

Cause of Death: Gunshot

Accused: Nelson, Israel, and Isaac Thayer

Synopsis:

The Thayer brothers had a bad reputation in Buffalo even before they were accused of murder. They would haul lumber from their farms in Boston, New York—south of Buffalo—in a wagon pulled by two oxen, one named God Almighty and the other, Jesus Christ. The Thayers were profane and violent, heading straight for the tavern once their business was transacted.

In Boston they owned a large amount of farm land. Nelson and Israel Jr. were married and lived in separate houses; Isaac lived with his father, Israel Sr. The land was good and they raised enough to support themselves, but they were known to be “indolent and dissipated,” neglecting farm work for shooting matches and the tavern. They soon found themselves in debt to their neighbors to the extent that they were being threatened with law suits and imprisonment.

In October 1824 a man named John Love came to Boston and rented a room from Nelson Thayer. Love was a money lender, who would buy grain futures from the local farmers. He would loan them money using the promise of bushels of wheat as collateral; after the harvest the farmer would repay the debt or Love would take delivery of the wheat. Before long the Thayers were so deeply in debt to Love that they were in danger of losing their property.

The Thayer brothers decided that their only hope was to murder John Love and they planned the crime for weeks. On December 15, 1824, Israel Jr. was planning to butcher his hogs. He sent his wife and a boy who was living at his house to visit a neighbor and on some pretext invited John Love to spend the night. Love was sitting by the fire talking with Nelson when Isaac came to the window and from outside shot Love in the head with a rifle. The shot did not kill him so Nelson finished him off with several blows from a meat axe.

Nelson and Israel dragged the body outside and hid it by the house while they finished cutting up the hogs. They brought some meat from the butchered hogs into the house and laid it on the chair where Love had been sitting—this would explain blood stains on the chair. Isaac left and Nelson and Israel took the body to a brook in a ravine in the woods about 30 rods form Israel’s house. They had intended to dig a deep grave but struck rock very soon, so they just covered the body over with dirt.
The brothers immediately took possession of Love’s cash and the disposed of the notes Love had on them. Then they tried to collect the debts Love had on others. Finding that they would need power of attorney to collect the debts, they forged this and claimed that Love had gone to Canada leaving them in charge of his business.

By February the people had become suspicious of the Thayers’ story and began a search for John Love’s body. It was not hard to find; Love’s grave had been so shallow that his toes were sticking out of the ground and visible from a footpath nearby. On February 23, 1825 the body was spotted by F. T. Jones; it was dug up and taken to the schoolhouse where a coroner’s inquest was held. The body was positively identified as John Love, and two doctors determined that he had been shot in the head and struck several times with an axe. The three Thayer brothers and their father, Israel Thayer Sr. were arrested for murder and taken to jail in Buffalo.

Trial: April 21, 1825, April 23, 1825

Charges were dropped against Israel Sr. and two trials were held for the brothers. Isaac and Israel Jr. were tried together first, then Nelson was tried.

The case against Isaac and Israel was circumstantial but compelling. Witnesses saw Love with the Thayer’s on December 15, the day the hogs were slaughtered, but did not see him any time after. Several neighbors recalled hearing a gunshot on the night of December 15. The body was buried near Israel’s house and the brothers had attempted to profit by Love’s absence.

Israel and Isaac’s defense team, led by Thomas C. Love (no relation to the deceased) attempted to challenge the facts and the conclusions drawn by them, cautioning the jury against convicting innocent men on circumstantial evidence. But the jury was not swayed by Love and after deliberating half an hour, returned a verdict of guilty.

Nelson’s trial was held on April 23 and was essentially the same as his brothers’. At 11:00 that night, after deliberating for only a few minutes returned a guilty verdict.

All three Thayer brothers were sentenced to hang.

Verdict: Guilty

Aftermath:

Before their hanging the Thayers made a full confession, confirming the presumptions made by the prosecution. When asked why they did it Nelson explained that through small loans at high interest Love had obtained nearly all of their property. With the threat of debtors’ prison hanging over them they decided murder was the only solution. Nelson added:

“I thought I might as well run the risk of being hung as to lose my property and go to prison too”

The Eire Canal would soon make Buffalo a large industrial and shipping center, but in 1825 Buffalo was a village with a population of just 2,000 people. Though Buffalo itself was small, the execution of the Thayer brothers in Niagara Square in the center of town drew a crowd of 20,000 – 30,000 witnesses. The Thayers were led into the square wearing white caps and shrouds, preceded by a cart carrying three coffins. As they walked, surrounded by soldiers, a band played a slow and plaintive air. At 2:00 PM on June 17, 1825 Israel, Isaac, and Nelson Thayer were “launched into eternity” together, hanging from the same gallows.

Resources:

Books & Magazines:

Lawson, John Davison. American state trials; a collection of the important and interesting criminal trials which have taken place in the United States from the beginning of our government to the present day.. St. Louis: Thomas Law Books, 1914.

Severance, Frank H. Publications of the Buffalo Historical Society. Buffalo, N.Y.: Buffalo Historical Society, 1907.

Cutrona, Sue , and Amy Vilz. "Hanging of the Thayer Brothers - 1825 Featured at Downtown Library." The Buffalo Downtoner May 2010: 5.

Poem:
The Mournful and Pathetic Ballad on the Murder of John Love

The Confession of Manuel P. Garcia

2011-05-14T11:34:00.000-07:00

In January 2011, I posted a story on the 1821 murder of Peter Lagaordette by Manual Phillip Garcia from the Torch Light and Public Advertiser, Hagerstown, Maryland. At the time I doubted that I could find any additional information, but I have since found a picture and summary of a pamphlet on the murder printed and sold in 1821. Here is the summary from The Annals of Murder by Thomas M. McDade:

In an empty house in Portsmouth, Virginia, the police found the butchered body, the head, hands and feet partially burned in the fireplace. In an early use of laundry marks, the initials “P.L.” and “M.P.G” helped identify the people involved. Lagoardette had been courting a girl in Baltimore; Castillano was himself interested in her. The three men all were criminal characters.

The Torch Light and Public Advertiser reported that the indictment and witnesses at Garcia’s trial were the same as those against Garcia’s accomplice, Demar Joseph Garcia Castilano. Very little information was given about the crime or the trial except that the jury returned the verdict after deliberating only six minutes. While the trial story gave no particulars, it was followed by a refutation of Manuel P. Garcia’s confession, which nicely summarizes the crime:

Torch Light and Public Advertiser, Hagerstown, Maryland, April 24, 1821

The confession of Manuel P. Garcia, alluded to in a former number of our paper, there is reason to believe, is a perversion of the truth as regards the most material part of its details, made in the hope of evading the hand of justice. It states in substance that he (Manuel) while asleep about 9 o’clock in the morning, was startled by a noise, and raising his head from under the covering, saw Castilano holding Lagaudette down by the throat
with one hand and holding a knife in the other; that he (Manuel) immediately started up, caught hold on Castilano and besought him not to kill Lagaudette, but C. caught his thumb in his teeth and bit it—at the same time threatening to stab Manuel if he interfered. That C. then cut Lagudetette’s throat, took off the head and threw it behind the fire. The innocent, timid Manuel, horror struck at the deed, ran down stairs to make his escape—but was pursued by Castilano and brought back, with a threat of instant death if he repeated the attempt. – That some time afterwards C. began to cut off the limbs, fiercely demanding of him, Manuel, why he did not assist? Who replied, he could not, it was too horrible!—It may be admitted that the murder & butchery was perpetrated in the manner here described, but not by Castilano alone; Manuel undoubtedly was an accomplice, if not the principal in the crime; he is deemed the worst of the two. – He states that he arrived in this country 12 months ago from Porto-Rico, in the schr. Zeno, at Philadelphia. Castilano, according to his own account, has been ten years in the United States, & lived some time in Savannah, where he married.

I am hopeful that with a little more research I will be able to post a full account of this murder.

McDade, Thomas M.. The Annals of Murder: A Bibliography of Books and Pamphlets on American Murders From Colonial Times to 1900. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1961.

Torch Light and Public Advertiser, Hagerstown, Maryland, April 24, 1821

Guest Blogger: Elizabeth Kerri Mahon of Scandalous Women

2011-05-07T06:37:00.000-07:00

Murder by Gaslight is pleased to welcome guest blogger Elizabeth Kerri Mahon of Scandalous Women She will be sharing the story of Mary Ellen Pleasant, one of several dozen brazen ladies— famous and infamous—profiled in her fascinating new book Scandalous Women: The Lives and Loves of History's Most Notorious Women

Mary Ellen Pleasant and the ‘House of Mystery’

Mary Ellen Pleasant’s (1814-1904) is one of the most enigmatic women of the 19th century American West and that’s exactly the way she wanted it. During her long life, she was an entrepreneur, abolitionist, Mother of the Civil Rights Movement in California, confidante of the rich and crazy, but was she also a murderer? What actually happened that rainy night in October 1892 at 1661 Octavia Street when Thomas Bell died? Did he fall, did he jump or was pushed down stair? A coroner’s inquest ruled that his death was accidental, and he was buried in a grave in a plot owned by Mary Ellen. At the time of Bell’s death, neither his widow, nor his children, nor the San Francisco police raised questions about foul play. So how did the myth begin that Mary Ellen Pleasant was somehow responsible for his death?

Thomas Bell was a multimillionaire, a co-founder of the First Bank of California, nicknamed the Quicksilver King of the West. Mary Ellen had met Thomas Bell soon after her lawsuit against the cable car companies in San Francisco sometime in the late 1860’s. No one knows exactly how they met or what the exact nature of their business partnership. The exact nature of Mary Ellen’s relationship to Bell has never been established, was it sexual or just financial or both? There is no doubt that Thomas Bell considered Mary Ellen to be the best businessman he’d ever met. One of the rumors surrounding Mary Ellen was that she provided some of the seed money for Bell’s success. Bell was a bachelor when they met, and Pleasant introduced him to Teresa Percy, who was one of her protégée’s, who he married. A few months after the couple married in 1879, they moved in a 30-room mansion at 1661 Octavia Street that had been designed by Mary Ellen. The mansion built and decorated according to her specifications, was worth one hundred thousand dollars, one of the largest black-owned residences in the nation.

The Bell mansion, or in truth, the Pleasant mansion was a strange place. People were under the impression that Pleasant was the housekeeper, which she did nothing to correct but things were clearly different behind closed doors. Thomas and Teresa Bell lived separate lives, with Mary Ellen Pleasant acting as a mediator between the two. All money matters between the couple were handled by Mary Ellen; she bought all the groceries and hired and fired the servants as well. Mary Ellen also controlled where Teresa Bell went. In fact she controlled all aspects of Teresa Bell’s life, including choosing her clothes and friends.

Mary Ellen didn’t care what people thought of her. As she told a judge, “Mr. Bell knows what I was there for, and I knew what I was there for.” If that wasn’t clear to people, then they could go hang! White San Franciscans decided to fill in the gaps with their own mythology. The gossip around town was that Mary Ellen Pleasant dominated by the Bells by using voodoo, that her power stemmed from blackmail, and that she trafficked in prostitution and selling babies on the side. Well they would soon have something else to talk about.

On October 15, 1892, at half-past ten in the evening, the servants at the Bell mansion heard the cries of 72 year old Thomas Bell, and a dull thud as his body fell over the stair railing twenty feet to the basement. Only Mary Ellen and Fred Bell, the Bell’s eldest son were at home. Teresa Bell was at the ranch house in Sonoma that Mary Ellen later claimed to own. Fred Bell ran for the nearest doctor, a Dr. Murphy while Mary Ellen went for pillows and blankets. Another doctor, Dr. Kearney who had been treating Bell was also summoned but it was too late. Thomas Bell never regained consciousness and died at 1:30 p.m. the next afternoon. At the inquest, Mary Ellen stated that Thomas Bell had been ill for about two months, and then when he woke up in the night, he must have gotten disoriented and fallen down the stairs. The coroner’s verdict was that the death was accidental but that didn’t stop the whispers in San Francisco society.

It wasn’t until years later when Teresa Bell was in a bitter fight with Pleasant over the disposition of the Bell property that she began to tell people that Pleasant pushed Thomas Bell to his death. She wrote in her diary that Thomas Bell had actually died a ½ hour after his fall, after Mary Ellen instead of helping him, used her finger to probe the wound, ‘pulling the protruding brains from a hole in the top of his head.”

Teresa Bell’s children later had her declared incompetent after she claimed that she could fly and that she light gaslights with a wave of her hand. They also supported Mary Ellen’s claims that every last dime including the jewelry belonged not to Teresa Bell but to her. But the damage was done. There were plenty of people willing to believe that a black woman could be a successful by blackmail, murder, and witchcraft. Mary Ellen Pleasant breathed her last on January 11, 1904 taking her secrets with her to the grave. She was eighty-nine years old. Legend has it that Mary Ellen was once offered a small fortunate to spill the beans about San Francisco society. She regarded the man with disdain and told him, “I have never needed money bad enough to betray anyone.” Biographer Sam Davis wrote in 1902 that Pleasant knew, “the history of San Francisco’s people better than any other living person. In her breast are locked the secrets of hundreds of leading families.”

In 1953, Helen Holdredge, who had inherited Teresa Bell’s diaries, wrote the best-selling biography ‘Mammy Pleasant’. Holdredge devoted 37 pages to Mary Ellen’s achievements up to 1875 and 250 pages to the scandalous newspaper accounts of the 1880s including Bell’s death. She did not index the book nor did she do citations in the text. In her biography she weaves a sinister tale, claiming that on the night that Bell died, Pleasant prepared a cup of mulled wine for him, implying that Bell might have been poisoned. On her way upstairs, she told one of the maids to lock up the house for the night. This was unusual since Mary Ellen was known for making sure that every blind was shut and the doors were locked. When Bell’s body was found later, Holdredge repeated the story that Mary Ellen was seen pulling out Bell’s brains, the red shawl that Pleasant often wore lying on the balustrade. Holdredge added further to the myth by implicating Pleasant in at least 4 other murders, at least two attempts on the life of Frederick Bell, Thomas Bell’s son.

Mary Ellen hit a lot of the hot buttons in post-Civil War California. Not only was she a woman who had amassed a certain amount of money and property but many powerful white men had confided their secrets to her, giving her access to their secrets. She stepped out of the role that society assigned her, that of domestic servant. People who knew her described her as a formidable and terrifying presence. Recent biographers have done much to restore Pleasant’s reputation as a businesswoman and activist, but there will always be a mystery about what happened that night at 1661 Octavia Street.

The Graham Tragedy

2011-04-30T12:32:00.000-07:00

Evangelist, temperance leader, author and publisher Emma Molloy opened her home to the lost and lonely the way others took in stray cats. She had an adopted daughter and two foster daughters and she found a job on her newspaper for George Graham an ex-convict she had met while preaching at a prison. But when George Graham and Emma Molloy’s foster daughter, Cora Lee, decided to marry, the result would be a murder, a lynching, and scandal for the entire family.

Date: September 30, 1885

Location: Brookline, Missouri

Victim: Sarah H. Graham

Cause of Death: Gunshot

Accused: Geroge E. Graham

Synopsis:

In the winter of 1884-85 Emma Malloy, a nationally known leader of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, held a series of temperance revivals in the town of Springfield, Missouri, accompanied by her foster daughter, 23-year-old Cora Lee. Before the revivals were over, they were joined by George E. Graham, who had worked on The Morning and Day of Reform, a temperance newspaper Mrs. Molloy published in Washington, Kansas. Though he was twelve years her senior, Graham began courting Cora Lee.

Emma Malloy had met George Graham when she held a revival meeting at the Indiana prison where Graham was serving time for forgery. It was George Graham’s second prison term. In 1871 Graham married Sarah Gorham in Fort Wayne, Indiana and they had two sons. Two years later Graham was sentenced to five years in prison for horse theft. When Graham was convicted, Sarah divorced him, but on his release in 1878 they remarried. The following year he was sentenced to prison for forgery and this time, against the advice of her family, Sarah did not divorce him.

When Graham was released the second time, he sought out Emma Malloy who gave him a job on her newspaper in Laporte, Indiana. Graham followed Mrs. Malloy as she moved her operations to Illinois, then to Kansas. In 1885, after the Springfield revivals, she moved again, buying a farm near Brookline, Missouri, about five miles west of Springfield. In July of that year, unaware that Graham was still married to Sarah, Cora Lee married George Graham.

Mrs. Malloy sent for the rest of her children—another foster daughter, an adopted daughter, and her natural son—and George instructed Sarah, still in Fort Wayne, to bring his sons to St. Louis where he would where he would pick them up and take them to live in Brookline. Emma Malloy was away on another series of revivals when Graham went to St. Louis to pick up his boys. Sarah arrived in St. Louis on schedule, but instead of dropping off the boys she insisted on accompanying them to Springfield. Graham left his sons with friends in Springfield and took Sarah to the farm in Brookline.

When he got her to the farm, Graham shot Sarah in the chest and dropped her body down an old well. He later told his 13-year-old son, Charlie, that he had left Sarah in Springfield, but if anyone asked he was to say she stayed in St. Louis. Graham moved his two sons to the farm to live with the rest of Mrs. Molloy’s family.

Around Christmas 1885, Sarah’s family began inquiring as to her whereabouts. Green County constables visited George Graham to ask about Sarah. He told them he had last seen her in St. Louis, but he knew he was in trouble. He tried to cash some forged checks to finance a trip away, but the fraud was discovered before he could leave. Emma Malloy made restitution with the bank and told Constable O’Neil that she believed Sarah Graham was working at a house of ill repute in St. Louis. Thinking the matter settled, Mrs. Molloy went to Peoria, Illinois for another revival.

The following January, T. L. Breese, Sarah Graham’s brother-in-law, arrived in Springfield to look for her. Finding George Graham married to Cora Lee, Breese preferred a charge of bigamy against him. Graham was arrested for bigamy on January 29, and incarcerated in the Green County jail.

Suspecting foul play, Breese, Constable O’Neil, and another Springfield man tried to search the farm but were turned away by Cora Lee. The citizens of Brookline, however, persisted in their attempts to search the farm and on February 25, they found the naked and partially decomposed body of Sarah Graham, shot through the chest, at the bottom of an abandoned well on the farm.

Emma Molloy and Cora Lee were both arrested in connection with the murder—Emma as accessory after the fact and Cora as accessory before the fact. They were held in Polk County jail in Bolivar. George Graham, still in Green County jail, was charged with murder.

Preliminary Hearing: March 12, 1886

There was a standing-room-only crowd at the Green County courthouse to witness the preliminary hearing of the two women. The prosecution, intent on proving they were both capable and willing accessories to murder, introduced scandalous evidence against them. The most damaging testimony came from George Graham’s son Charlie, who said that on several occasions he had seen his father, Emma Molloy, and Cora Lee in the same bed together. Interviewed in jail, George Graham admitted that he had been intimate with both Emma and Cora for more than three years. Both Emma Molloy and Cora Lee were indicted; Emma was released on $5,000 bail, Cora was held without bail.

Aftermath:

As of April 27, 1885 George Graham had still not been indicted—his lawyers were seeking a writ of habeas corpus—and a group of Springfield men had grown tired of waiting. Around 2:00 AM, between 100 and 150 armed and masked men arrived on horseback at the courthouse. They barged into the jail, and, keeping the sheriff and his men under guard, they took George Graham from his cell. They put him in a wagon with a noose around his neck and drove him to Grant Beach Park. With the wagon under a scrub oak, they made him stand up as they tied the rope to an overhanging limb. The men asked Graham if he had any last words. He said he loved his children and that Emma and Cora were completely innocent. The mob then drove the wagon out from under him and left George Graham hanging from the oak tree. It took him twenty-one minutes to die.

The mob was gone at 5:00 AM when the sheriff arrived to cut him down. Pinned to his back was a note signed by “the three hundred” claiming their right to:

“remove from our midst the worst criminal who had ever infested our country”

it also warned that anyone who tried to

“discover the actors in this tragedy will surely and speedily dispatched to hell, where all things are revealed to the curious.”

On May 10, Emma Molloy issued a public statement declaring her innocence, saying her only fault had been trusting George Graham too much. The slanderous accusations against her, she said, had been motivated by her status as a temperance lecturer:

“There are no two classes of people whom the world…so readily believe a scandal about as a minister of the gospel and a woman, but when the two characters are combined, and a scandal can be concocted sufficiently ingenious for the public to swallow, however nauseating and polluting it may be, it is devoured with an ecstasy of delight.”

There were several more trials involving Emma Molloy and Cora Lee, but by January 1888 both were acquitted of the murder of Sarah Graham. Mrs. Molloy moved her operations to the West Coast and was able to overcome the taint of scandal and reestablish herself as a temperance leader before her death in 1909.

Sarah Graham was buried in Maple Park Cemetery, on March 13, 1886, at the expense of the people of Springfield, Missouri. The grave did not have a headstone until 2004 when, Clifford W. Gorham, a distant relative of Sarah's, provided one.

Resources:

"Thank you" to Tammi Thiele of Escape to the Silent Cities for bringing this case to my attention.

Websites:

Sarah H Graham

A Strange Story of Crime - The New York Times, April 3, 1887

Books:

Wood, Larry. Ozarks Gunfights and Other Notorious Incidents. Gretna, La.: Pelican Pub. Co., 2010.

The Druse Butchery

2011-04-23T06:50:00.000-07:00

December 1884, William Druse of Herkimer County, New York, was brutally murdered, dismembered, and burned; his ashes and bones dumped in a swamp. Evidence strongly pointed to his wife Mrs. Roxalana Druze murdering William; finally breaking after twenty years of physical abuse. She was sentenced to die and her hanging was protested many who opposed hanging women. Women’s rights groups called the trial unfair because Roxy did not have the same rights as her jury. More to the point though, there is a good chance she was not guilty of a hanging offense

Date: December 18, 1884

Location: Little Falls, New York

Victim: William Druse

Cause of Death: Shooting, Blows from an axe

Accused: Roxalana Druse

Synopsis:
On December 18, 1884 neighbors of William Druse, near the village of Little Falls, in Herkimer County New York, found his door locked and windows covered with newspaper. There was no response when they knocked but a dense, black, foul smelling smoke issued from the chimney. Druse lived in the dingy yellow farmhouse with his wife Roxalana (known as Roxy), his 19-year-old daughter, Mary, his 10-year-old son George, and his 14-year-old nephew Frank Gates. William Druse, aged 60, was eighteen years older than his wife, and considered by neighbors to be lazy, ill-tempered and abusive. Their fear at first was that William had murdered his family and fled.

Soon after, Mrs. Druse and the children were seen alive and when asked about her husband, she said he had gone to New York City. But the unusual circumstances, especially the offensive smoke, prompted neighbors to suspect that William Druse had been the victim of foul play. Rumors began to spread which led to an official inquiry and Herkimer district attorney A. B. Steele arrested Frank Gates. Under severe questioning Gates admitted the he had participated in the murder of William Druse and implicated the rest of the family as well. The next day Roxy Druse, Mary Druse and George Druse were arrested for murder.

Frank Gates told a horrifying story of his uncle’s murder. Mr. and Mrs. Druse had been arguing during breakfast over a grocery bill. She sent the two boys out of the out of the room then came up behind William Druse and fired a revolver into the back of his neck. Mary had a rope around her father’s neck and pulled him to the floor and her mother fired two more shots. Druse was still alive and she was having trouble with the pistol. She called Frank back into the room and ordered him, under penalty of death, to finish the deed. Frank emptied the pistol into his uncle, but he still was not dead. Mrs. Druse then took an axe and struck her husband on the head while he exclaimed:

“Oh, Roxy, don’t!”

A second axe blow to the head killed William Druse. Roxy then used the axe to sever the head from the body and threw the head into the kitchen stove.

Mrs. Druse sent Frank and George out to get a sharper axe. They returned with the axe then went into another room to play checkers while Mrs. Druse, using the axe, a razor, a jack knife, a board and a chopping block, dismembered the body and chopped it into little piece which she burned in the stove. She had Frank saw the handle off of the axe and burned that. The next day, she and Frank took the ashes to Ball’s swamp about half a mile from the house.

Using Frank Gates’s confession, the coroner was able to find the axe head and the charred remains in the swamp. Being late December, the remains were frozen together into a solid mass. It consisted of 18 to 20 small pieces of bone, one to two inches long, two knee caps, and the upper end of the left tibia. It was enough for the coroner to determine the remains were human.

At the inquest, held on January 17, neighbors testified to the black smoke from the Druse’s chimney on December 18, and some testified that Mr. and Mrs. Druse frequently quarreled. Frank Gates told the same story as he had when arrested. Ten-year-old George Druse told a similar story of the murder but claimed his uncle Charley Gates, Frank’s father, was there as well and had handed his mother the revolver.

Mrs. Druse was called to testify but said she did not wish to make any statements. Afterwards she declared that Charles Gates had been present when her husband died. She had also said this at the time of her arrest, claiming the Charles had fired several shots from his own revolver. She claimed they would find two different types of bullets in the body; however, any bullets in the body would have been destroyed by the fire.

The coroner’s jury charged Roxalana Druse with murdering her husband by shooting and striking him with an axe. Mary Druse, George Druse, and Frank Gates were charged with giving comfort, aid and abet to Raxalana in committing felony and murder. They were taken to jail in the county seat of Herkimer in a close-covered sleigh.

William and Roxalana Druse had been married for twenty years, and during that time William had kept his wife isolated in the farmhouse, subjecting her to continuous verbal and physical abuse. It was common knowledge that they had not slept in the same room for ten years. William, George, and Frank – who worked on the farm in exchange for room and board—slept upstairs. Roxy and Mary slept downstairs in the parlor. Roxy said the only time her husband had been a decent man was on their wedding day. On her trip to prison she declared that whether she was sentenced to life in prison or hanging, at least she would never live with William Druse again. Her first night in jail she commented:

“Well, I hope I may be able to procure to-night what I have not had before in two years, a good night’s rest.”

Trial: September 24, 1885

The trial of Roxalana Druse lasted two week and consisted of the same testimony as the inquest and some blood stained floorboards extracted from the house. Mrs. Druse did not testify but her attorneys tried to claim that she had acted in self-defense, citing years of threats and abuse. In the end, the prosecution’s case, especially the testimony of Frank Gates, was too strong. Roxy Druse was found guilty of murder and sentenced to hang.

Verdict: Guilty of first degree murder

Aftermath:
After a lengthy appeals process Roxalana Druse was sentenced to hang on February 28, 1887. The case aroused much public opinion both for and against her execution. One man offered to go to the gallows himself, in place of Mrs. Druse, another offered $10 if he could act as executioner. Souvenir hunters tried to get items of her clothing—shoes, buttons, hairpins, shoestrings.

Women’s rights groups were strongly opposed to her hanging, saying an all-male jury did not constitute a jury of her peers. Also, since she did not have the right to vote, her status in society was the same as a minor’s and as such she should not be put to death.

But in spite of many petitions for clemency, Governor Hill remained unmoved and would not change the sentence.

On February 28, Mrs. Druse was hanged in Herkimer in front of twenty-five witnesses, though hundreds stood in the cold outside the prison. The hanging used the "modern" method where, rather than falling through a trapdoor, the condemned person is jerked upwards when a counterweight—in this case, 213 pounds— was dropped. Though she was jerked four feet into the air, her neck was not broken and it took her fifteen minutes to die of strangulation. Roxalana Druse was the last woman hanged in New York State, and her botched execution was instrumental in replacing the gallows with the “more humane” electric chair.

The day before her execution Roxalana Druse made a confession to her spiritual advisor, Dr. Powell, in which she declared that her brother Charles Gates instigated her to commit the murder and provided her with the revolver. She said the she had fired the first shot, but Gates fired the next three from the window and that Gates took the body and burned it.

Mary was sentenced to life in prison, but was pardoned after ten years. She claimed that her mother had never told the whole story.

A book entitled An Innocent Woman Hanged was published some time after the hanging—author and publication date uncertain—which quotes Mary as blaming the entire murder on her uncle Charles Gates. Roxalana Druse had gone to the gallows innocent, to protect her brother.

Resources:

Websites:

William Druse: Murdered, Chopped Up, Burned, Thrown in a Swamp
Roxalana Druse: The Forgotten Central New York Murder Case

Books:

Tippetts, William Henry. Herkimer County murders: This book contains an accurate account of the capital crimes committed in the County of Herkimer, from the year 1783 up to the ... Druse butchery, and the Middleville tragedy. Herkimer, N.Y.: H.P. Witherstine & Co., Steam Book and Job Printers, 1885.

Mrs. Druse's case and Maggie Houghtaling An innocent woman hanged. The truth revealed at last. A startling confession. Dying innocent to save those she loved. Philadelphia: Old Franklin publishing house.

Hill, David Bennett. Public Papers of David B. Hill, Governor. 1885-[1891]. Albany: The Argus company, printers, 1886.

"Handsome Harry" Carlton

2011-04-16T05:40:00.000-07:00

Little Murders:

From Defenders and Offenders:

Henry Carlton.

On the morning of Oct. 29, 1888 Policeman James Brennan was shot dead in New York City by the above named individual, who also went by the nick-name of Handsome Harry. He and a companion met a waiter in a saloon on Third Ave. The waiter was under the influence of liquor. When leaving the saloon. Handsome Harry followed him and when in a secluded spot in a side street, attempted to rob him. His call brought the Policeman to his assistance, and in his attempt to arrest the rascal, he was shot dead. Carlton enjoyed a bad reputation as a crook and desperate character.

Defenders and offenders. New York: D. Buchner & Co., 1888.

Murder in the Vale of Tempe

2011-04-10T05:19:00.000-07:00

George Abbott was a young child when he began his career as a thief and by his thirtieth birthday he had spent a third of his life in jail. When he left prison he changed his name and tried to change his evil ways, traveling and taking honest employment. While working as a farmhand in Hanover, New Hampshire he fell in love with the farmer’s daughter, Christie Warden. When Christie did not return his love Abbot went back to his old ways and took it at gunpoint in the shady hollow known as the Vale of Tempe.

Date: July 17, 1891

Location: Hanover, New Hampshire

Victim: Christie Warden

Cause of Death: Gunshot

Accused: Frank Almy (George Abbot)

Synopsis:

George Abbott came from a prosperous New England family. His grandfather, Eliphalet, the owner of Abbott’s Mills, dominated the town of North Thetford, Vermont. His father, Harris Abbott owned a small business in Salem, Massachusetts. George Abbott’s mother died three days after his birth in 1857 and he was adopted by his uncle and aunt, Israel and Mary Abbot. In 1867 they moved from Salem to the family estate in North Thetford.

Young George was handsome and intelligent and did well in school, but had a habit of taking things that did not belong to him. He was an avid reader but his taste in literature tended toward dime novels, which some said “…only served to stimulate his evil intentions.”

He was soon stealing jewelry, tools and farm implements from his neighbors and stashing the loot in a cave overlooking the Connecticut River. At age 14 he stole a stove from the house of Daniel P. Prescott. The theft was traced to George but his family’s considerable influence allowed the matter to be settled out of court. Some time later George Abbot saw Prescott out walking his dog and without a word pulled out a revolver and shot Prescott’s dog, then pointed the gun at Prescott saying:

“Stop where you are or I’ll treat you just as I did the dog.”

Prescott did not report the incident.

In the early 1870s Abbott teamed up with one of his uncle’s employees, Peter Duplissy, to commit a series of house burglaries in the Connecticut River Valley between Barnet, Vermont and Lyme, New Hampshire. He was eventually caught holding a pocketbook containing a number of stolen watches, two revolvers, a dirk, a bottle of chloroform, a bottle of strychnine and a bottle of arsenic. On his person he was carrying another revolver and another dirk. This time his family could not help him and George Abbot was sentenced to four years in the New Hampshire State Prison. His father Harris Abbot was so ashamed that he hanged himself in his barn.

When he left prison, Abbot expressed a desire to go straight, but he soon took up where he left off, with a new gang of thieves, burglarizing homes in the Connecticut River Valley and hiding the swag in a cave. His cave was discovered and after a gunfight in which Abbott reportedly received at least twenty gunshot wounds he was arrested and sentenced to fifteen years in Windsor Prison.

Abbott was a model prisoner but he had no intention of serving his full term. Over the course of seven years he accumulated pieces of string and cord and sections of iron pipe which he managed to fashion into a crude rope ladder. On September 30, 1887 Abbott used the ladder to make his escape.

Abbott drifted through the south, working as a ranch hand in Texas, an oysterman in Baltimore, an engineer in Savannah, and a riveter in Edgemoor, Delaware. He changed his name to Frank Almy, the name by which he would be known for the rest of his life.

In July 1890 Abbott/Almy drifted back to New England and got a job at the farm of Andrew H. Warden in Hanover, New Hampshire. After a week’s trial, Warden hired him through the following March. Andrew and Louisa had two sons and five daughters—the two oldest daughters had already left home. 15-year-old Fanny Warden took an instant dislike to the new farm hand, but Frank Almy did much better with 28-year-old Christie.

Christie Warden was attractive, intelligent and vivacious, described as a “medium-blonde type” with a “fine rounded form and discrete manners.” She was secretary of the Grafton Star Grange and worked part time as a secretary for Professor Charles H. Pettee of the State Agricultural College in Hanover. Christie and Frank Almy began a courtship of sorts; they went on sleigh rides, attended church together, and exchanged Christmas presents. They had sessions of reading aloud to each other from Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s The Last Days of Pompeii.

But Christie was bothered by Almy’s refusal to talk about his past. That, together with his violent temper and other habits and actions made her view him as someone in need of reform—a task which she did not wish to undertake. Frank Almy had become infatuated with Christie but she did not return his affections. In early 1891, when she was away in Manchester at a shorthand class Christie wrote him of her fellings:

“…but to be honest with you and true to myself, I think you should know how I feel toward you. You already know, for I have told you, the sort of man I wish to love…You have set yourself in defiance to God and man. I believe you have suffered the misery that must follow. You surely would not wish me, who you love, to share that misery…I would never think of marrying a man to reform him. The reformation must come first.”

But she left the door open just wide enough to give him hope:

“Frank, I shall test the strength of your love. Can you open your heart to all good influences, practice rigid self-control and wait patiently? If it ever so, I believe you must win in the end, for you have many fine qualities that I admire, and I cannot help liking you for all your faults.”

His hopes were dashed, however in March 1891 when Andrew Warden did not renew Frank Almy’s contract. Christie’s brother Johnny reported that Almy wept when he said goodbye to the family.

Almy went back to Massachusetts for two months. While there he showed his landlady a photograph of the girl he loved, Christie Warden, saying:

“If I don’t have her, then no other fellow will either.”

In June 1891Frank Almy took a train back to New Hampshire and late one night he went to the Warden farm. Behind the house they had three interconnected barns filled from wall to wall with hay. He went inside one and dug out a space to sleep, next to a wall with knothole through which he could see the yard. He had brought with him some presents for Christie, a copy of Rudyard Kipling’s The Light that Failed, and two revolvers.

He waited there for an opportunity to talk with Christie alone, but that opportunity never came. At night he would go out and steal eggs, milk, fruit and canned goods from neighboring farms. One night he broke into the Warden’s house trying to find Christie but she was not there. After learning that she was staying at Professor Pettee’s house he broke in there but found, instead, another house guest, Miss Amelia Thompson. He grabbed her by the throat and threatened to kill her if she told of his visit.

On July 17 Almy learned that Christie would be going to a grange meeting so he went out to meet her coming home. Around 9:15 that evening Almy saw Christie, Fannie, and Louisa Warden with their friend Louisa Goodell walking down Lyme Road near a spot known locally as the Vale of Tempe. Almy jumped into the road brandishing a .44 caliber revolver. He was now wearing a full beard and was not instantly recognized by the women. He said:

“You know me Mrs. Warden. I am Frank Almy. I only want to talk to Christie. The rest of you run along. You go and I won’t hurt you. If you interfere with me I will shoot you like dogs.”

Then he grabbed Christie by the arm and said:

“Christie, I have come a thousand miles to see you.”

Fannie grabbed Christie’s other arm and tried to pull her back. Almy dragged both of them toward the fence by the road until Fannie stumbled and had to let go. He dragged Christie through the fence to a meadow near a brook. Fannie picked herself up and followed after. She heard her sister shout:

“Oh Fannie, come and help me. He is tearing my clothes all off!”

As Fannie approached Almy fired three shots at her but all missed. Fannie ran back to get help. She returned with Emmitt Marshal a local farmer, arriving in time to hear two more gunshots then see Almy dart in to the brush. They found Christie lying dead, shot pointblank in the head. It would be impossible to tell whether he raped her because the second shot went through her vagina.

A large scale manhunt was undertaken to find Almy and a $5000 reward was offered for his capture. Almy was spotted in locations throughout New England. However, he had not fled the scene, Almy want back to his hole in the hay in Warden’s barn. He lived there for more than a month until one day Louisa Warden found a hole in the barn concealed by a piece of wood. Inside were a jelly jar, empty beer bottles and empty tin cans. She told the sheriff what she has found then on August 19 he and another man staked out the barn. Around 2 AM they saw a barefoot man in tattered clothing enter the barn.

Frank Almy's Capture

The following day, hundreds of Hanover residents flocked to the Warden farm to help with the capture. The Lebanon Free Press described them as the “curious, the do-nothings, and the fault finders.” They attacked the hay with pitchforks trying to find Almy and eventually they succeeded. Almy started shooting at them. Everyone backed off and for two hours negotiated with Almy trying to get him to surrender. Finally a group of men rushed the barn and captured him dragging him to a waiting wagon. There were calls to lynch Almy, but cooler heads prevailed. Since Hanover lacked a secure jail he was taken to the Wheelock House Hotel.

Almy in the Wheelock House Hotel

Over a thousand angry people gathered around the hotel and there were fears that a lynching would occur after all. But the crowd was placated when they were given the opportunity to view the prisoner. That day 1,500 people filed past the room where Almy was being held just to get a glimpse of him.

Trial: November 16, 1891

Almy pleaded guilty and opted to take his case to a panel of two judges who would determine whether the charge would be first degree murder or second degree murder—whether or not it was a hanging offense. Since his capture, Almy had been identified by a number of people, including the warden of Windsor Prison as George Abbott. Almy vigorously denied this. Not wanting to muddy the waters, the judges refused to allow any testimony relating to George Abbott and tried the prisoner as Frank Almy.

The most powerful testimony came from Louisa and Fannie Warden describing what happened at the Vale of Tempe that night. The two doctors who had performed the post mortem examination concurred that there was no way the shot to the head had been accidental—as Almy now claimed—and the second shot had been fired after he knew Christie was dead.

Frank Almy spoke for several hours in his own defense. He spoke of his undying love for Christie and claimed that she had agreed to marry him. Unfair treatment of him by the Warden family had been the cause of the trouble. He said:

“…had Mrs. Warden only spoken one pleasant word to me I should not be here today.”

The judges ruled the charge was first degree murder and Almy was sentenced to hang on December 1892. Due to some technical problems with the trial, such as the fact that Almy was not present for the sentencing, the case had to be retried. The outcome was the same in the second trial in April 1892 and the verdict was upheld by the New Hampshire Supreme Court in July 1892.

Verdict: Guilty of first degree murder.

Aftermath:
On May 16 1893, Frank Almy was hanged in front of an invitation-only crowd of 150 people. He is buried in the prison’s potter’s field in Blossom Hill Cemetery.

Christie Warden is buried in Dartmouth Cemetery.

Several months after the murder a reporter visited the Vale of Tempe and found that every leaf and twig within reach had been taken by souvenir hunters. Today the murder site is part of a golf course.

Resources:

Websites:

The Christie Warden Murder
.
Books:

Bellamy, John Stark. Vintage Vermont Villainies: True Tales of Murder & Mystery from the 19th and 20th Centuries. Woodstock, Vt.: Countryman Press, 2007.

Holbrook, Stewart Hall. Murder Out Yonder: An Informal Study of Certain Classic Crimes in Back-Country America. New York: Macmillan Co., 1941.

Life, Trial, and Confession of Frank C. Almy. Laconia, N.H.: J.J. Lane, 1891.

The Meeks Family Murder

2011-04-02T13:02:00.000-07:00

Nellie Meeks

The morning of May 11, 1894, 6-year-old Nellie Meeks knocked on the door of Mrs. John Carter in Linn County, Missouri. Mrs. Carter was shocked by the little girl’s appearance; her clothes were torn, her face was covered with dirt and blood and she had a deep gash in her forehead. Her speech was barely coherent as she told Mrs. Carter that her parents and younger sisters had been murdered the night before. She had managed to escape because the killers thought she was dead. When her story was verified it became one of the most sensational crimes in Missouri history.

Date: May 10, 1894

Location: Linn County, Missouri,

Victim: Gus Meeks, Delora Meeks, Hattie Meeks and Mary Meeks

Cause of Death: Shooting, Beating

Accused: George and William Taylor

Synopsis:

Mrs. Carter did not have a man in the house so she sent her 9-year-old son Jimmy to investigate. Jimmy could not find the bodies so Nellie led him back to a haystack, under which was a shallow grave containing the bodies of Nellie’s father, Gus Meeks, her mother, Delora, her 4-year-old sister Hattie, and her 18-month-old sister Mary. Mrs. Meeks had been pregnant and miscarried at the time of her death. The fetus was also in the grave. Though some later accounts say the Meeks were murdered with an axe, the adults and Hattie had been shot to death; Mary and Nellie were beaten with a rock.

Meeks Family

When they returned home, Mrs. Carter sent Jimmy out to notify the neighbors of the murder. On the way he ran into George Taylor harrowing his corn field and told him about the bodies under the haystack. Taylor took Jimmy to his house and told him to wait outside while he hitched his horses and they would go and take a look. Jimmy waited but George Taylor never returned. What Jimmy did not know at the time was that George Taylor and his brother William would be the prime suspects in the murder.

While Nellie was being examined by a doctor she explained what happened:

“When we were going up the hill, the man without whiskers said his feet were cold and got out and walked along the side of the wagon and shot Papa, and Papa jumped out and started to run, then Mama screamed and started to jump when they shot Mama and sister. Then they hit me in the head, and I went to sleep."

When she was thrown out of the wagon she regained consciousness and heard the men trying to set the haystack on fire.

"When the man put me in the straw the one with the whiskers kicked me on the back and said, 'they are all dead now, the damn villain sons of bitches.’ They covered me up and I could not breathe good. I heard them say it would not burn as it would not catch"

The George and William Taylor were among the most wealthy and prominent citizens in northeastern Missouri. William was a graduate of the Missouri University School of Law, had served in the Missouri General Assembly and also worked for the People’s Exchange Bank in Browning, Missouri. But by the early 1890s it became clear that the Taylors had not acquired their wealth through honest labor. They were charged with forgery and larceny for writing false bank drafts. They were also indicted for arson and cattle rustling.

Gus Meeks, a tenant farmer on land owned by the Taylors, was implicated in one of their cattle rustling cases. Meeks was indicted, pled guilty and was sent to the penitentiary. About a month before the murder, Meeks was pardoned by the governor in exchange for promising to testify against the Taylor brothers.

Gus and Delora Meeks

The Taylors were anxious to get rid of Meeks and offered him $1000 if he would leave the area. But when they came to pick him up, the night of May 10, 1894, Mrs. Meeks would not allow him to leave alone. Fearing for her husband’s life, she insisted that the whole family leave with the Taylors. She did not believe the Taylors capable of murdering them all.

Nellie Meeks told her story at the coroner’s inquest and indictments were issued for William P. Taylor and George E. Taylor for the murder of the Meeks family.

In June 1894, the Taylors were arrested in Batesville, Arkansas and taken back to Missouri. Though they offered a bond of $50,000 each, bail was refused.

Trial: March 18, 1895, July 1895

The case was tried in Carollton, MO. As the prisoners were being transported there, the train had to be diverted to St. Joe because the sheriff got word of a lynch mob—250 heavily armed men, faces covered with handkerchiefs—waiting for them in Brookfield.

At the trial a number of witnesses testified to hearing the Taylors threaten Gus Meeks, and Meeks’s mother, who lived with the family, told of her fears that the Taylors would murder her son. Others testified to hearing gunshots and seeing the Taylors’ wagon that night. Though the evidence was circumstantial, there was little doubt as to the defendants’ guilt. However, after two days of deliberation the jury reported that they were hopelessly deadlocked at 7 to 5 for conviction. One juror and an alternate later reported that they had been offered $750 to vote for acquittal.

The second trial began in July 1895. This time the prosecution decided to charge the Taylor brothers with just one count of first degree murder. While it was clear that the murder of Gus Meeks was premeditated, it would be more difficult to prove premeditation in the murders of Mrs. Meeks and the children.

During the trials, Nellie Meeks was the ward of Prosecuting Attorney Pierce and his wife. Though she did not testify in either trial, Nellie did attend the trials and during the proceedings would occasionally climb onto Prosecutor Pierce’s lap.

The case was given to the jury on August 2, 1895. This time they reached a verdict of guilty in an hour and a half.

Verdict: Hung jury, Guilty of first degree murder

Aftermath:

The Taylors appealed to the Missouri Supreme Court but the verdict was upheld. George and William Taylor were sentenced to hang on April 30, 1896.

On April 11, 1896, the Taylor brothers broke out of the Carollton jail. They knocked a bar out of their cell, went to the roof of the jail and used a 50 foot hose to climb down. William was quickly captured and taken to Kansas City for safe keeping until the hanging. George Taylor was never captured.

William Taylor's Hanging

William Taylor was hanged at 11:00 AM on Thursday, April 30, 1896 before a crowd of hundreds. He left behind this written statement:

"To the public: I have only this additional statement to make. I ought not to suffer as I am compelled to do. Prejudice and perjury convicted me. By this conviction, my wife is left a lonely widow, my babies are made orphans in a cruel world, my brothers mourn and friends weep. You hasten my gray-haired mother and father to the grave. The mobs and that element have haunted me to the grave. I had hoped to live at least till the good people realize the injustice done me, but it cannot be so. I feel prepared to meet my God and now wing my way to the great unknown, where I believe everyone is properly judged. I hope my friends will meet me all in heaven. I believe I am going there. Goodbye all." W.P. Taylor

The Meeks family members are buried in a single grave in the Bute Cemetery five miles SE of Owasco. There are separate markers for Hattie and Mamie.

Between the two trials, according the Quincy Daily Herald, little Nellie Meeks appeared for a week, telling her story at the Eden museum in St. Joe. She was well received, drawing large crowds.

Nellie was raised by her maternal grandmother. She married Albert Spray and in 1910 died due to complications in the birth of her daughter Hattie. All her life she had a deep scar—a “dint” it was called—in her forehead.

Resources:

Websites:

Meeks Murder as reported May 18, 1894
The Meeks Murders
Meeks Murder Summary

Books:

Conard, Howard Louis. Encyclopedia of the history of Missouri, a compendium of history and biography for ready reference. New York: The Southern History Company, 1901.

Murder of the Meeks family, or, Crimes of the Taylor brothers the full and authentic story of the midnight massacre, by Bill and George Taylor, of the Meeks family, father, mother and three little children ... the gruesome story of little Nellie Meeks, s. Kansas City, Mo.: Ryan Walker, 1896

Ballad Lyrics (from Mudcat Cafe)

"Midnight Murder of the Meeks Family"
"Meeks Family Murder"

Shocking Tragedy in Gratiot County

2011-03-26T06:42:00.000-07:00

Little Murders

Shocking Tragedy in Gratiot County
Democratic Expounder, Marshall, MI, March 28, 1861

One of the most frightful and inhuman transactions which it has ever been our lot to record was enacted last week in the village of Ithaca, Gratiot county about twenty miles north of this place. The result of the horrible transaction—which was the murder of three persons, a man, aged about forty-five and two girls of about seventeen years—was discovered on Friday of last week, and in consequence of which that village was thrown into the highest state of excitement.

The circumstances attending this heart-rending transaction, as we have learned from persons who reside in that vicinity, are as follows: The murdered man, whose name was Thaddeus Green, moved into that vicinity about five years ago, where he resided sometime, and then removed to Ohio. Subsequently, however, he returned, and has since that time been keeping house at that place with his daughter, his wife, during this time, for reasons which we failed to learn, having left him. On Sunday, the 9th, the daughter of a Mr. Taylor, who resided about five miles distant, went to Green’s house to spend a day or two with the daughter, but, not returning as she had intended, the family very naturally became somewhat uneasy about her, when Mr. Taylor started off to learn the cause of her delay. Upon arriving at the Green’s house, he knocked at the door but no response was made. He then attempted to open it, but found it fastened, and upon looking into the window discovered a pair of boots standing at the side of the bed, as well as other things which excited his suspicion that all was not right. Upon inquiring of neighbors he learned that nothing had been seen of the family since the previous Sunday, and as everything had remained quiet about the house, it was supposed they were absent from the home. This aroused his suspicions still more, and he, in company with three or four others, immediately proceeded to the house, and broke in the door.

Upon entering the room such as sight there presented itself to their view as would make one’s blood run cold to look upon. There upon the bed lay lifeless forms of the two girls, murdered by blows upon the head from a hatchet which was found near by. And upon further search being made, another equally horrid sight arrested their attention. There upon another bed lay the lifeless body of the man with his throat cut from ear to ear, evidently by his own hand, as the knife with which the act had been committed was sticking in the floor at the opposite side of the room as though it had been thrown from the bedside.

It is supposed that the man, Green, first murdered the two girls, then preferring death to the penalty of the law, put the knife to his own throat , thus ending a miserable existence. This belief is strengthened by the fact that house was securely fastened from the inside and nothing could be found indicating that any person or persons had left the house after the act was committed. Our informant states that Green was a man of limited circumstances and possessed of rather a shiftless disposition, but otherwise he was of ordinary good character.

Democratic Expounder, Marshall, MI, March 28, 1861