John J. Delaney

Little Murders:

From Defenders and Offenders:

John J. Delaney.

"John J. Delaney is only 17 years of age and is a self-confessed murderer. On June 3d, 1887, Mary Jane Cox was found dead in the kitchen of the house where she worked in Brooklyn, and in the pocket of her dress was found a bottle one-third filled with a preparation of arsenic. Delaney afterwards confessed that he had purchased the poison and given it to Mary, with the intention of getting rid of her, and telling her it was a harmless preparation which would do her good."

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

Murder at Bloomingdale.

Harvey Keith

While boating on Max Lake in Bloomingdale, Michigan in August 1885, Frank Lackey and his companions saw what they thought was a dead sheep floating in the water. Closer inspection revealed that it was the body of a man, wearing only a white shirt and a pair of socks. The body was soon identified as Harvey Keith who had been missing for several days. With no signs of violence on the head or upper body, the death would probably have been ruled a suicide except that the man’s genitals had been cut off.

A Modern Macbeth Murder Case.

Little Murders

(From New York Tribune, March 26, 1877)

 

A Modern Macbeth Murder Case.

 

An old man named Thomas J. Poyntz, living at Bay Shore, was found dead in a bed at the house of Nathaniel Evans, near Thompson’s Station on the Long Island Railroad, Jan. 29, with a deep wound in the left side, apparently inflicted with a carpenter’s gouge. Evans was a cabinetmaker and upholsterer, and apt to be in possession of such a tool. This, with other circumstances, excited strong suspicion against him. After an investigation by Coroner Preston of Amityville, in which it was shown that Evans and Poyntz—possibly Kennedy and others—had been carousing on the day previous. Evans was held for the murder, although there was doubt of his guilt, and there seemed to be a probability that the Grand Jury would refuse to find an indictment against him. There has been a suspicion, strengthened by the actions of the woman herself, that Evans’s wife knew more about Poynitz’s death than Evans himself—who, according to the evidence at the inquest, was very drunk on the night of the occurrence, and probably incapable of committing the deed. The Grand Jury, which has just adjourned, indicted both husband and wife for murder in the first degree. The impression is strong that though Evans may have a guilty knowledge of the crime, his wife is the principal criminal. They are both now in the County Jail at Riverhead awaiting trial at the next term of the Oyer and Terminer, which will be held in April. This is the first indictment for murder in the first degree found by a Suffolk County Grand Jury since Nichols Behan for the Wickham murder 22 years ago.

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"A Modern Macbeth Murder Case." New York Tribune 26 Mar 1877: 8.

Cain and Abel.

Hiram Sawtell

Like the Biblical brothers Cain and Abel, the Sawtell brothers of Boston took divergent paths through life. While Hiram settled down and raised a family, supported by his successful fruit business, Isaac was doing time in Charlestown prison. And as with the Bible’s first murderer, Isaac’s jealousy of his brother became unbearable. Upon his release from prison, he lured Hiram from his family and killed him in cold blood.