Saturday, February 23, 2019

What Next?

This cartoon from the magazine Puck, March 31, 1880, comments on the growing trend of accused murderers on the lecture circuit.

On the bill are:

Mrs. Laura Fair
Laura Fair

Laura Fair was convicted of murdering California legislator Alexander Crittenden, but the verdict overturned on the grounds of insanity. Her trial became a cause celebre for women's rights activists.





Rev. Vosburgh
Rev. Vosburgh

New Jersey Baptist minister Rev. George Vosburgh was indicted in May 1878 for attempted murder of his wife by poison. He continued his ministry after acquital.







Birdie Bell
Washington Nathan

Birdie Bell was a New York actress and mistress of Washington Nathan, the prime suspect in the murder of his father Benjamin Nathan. In 1875, when she learned he was cheating with actress Alice Harrison she burst in on them at the Colman House hotel and shot Washington Nathan in the neck.






Rev. Glendenning
Rev. Glendenning


New Jersey Presbyterian minister Rev. John Gendenning seduced and abandoned his organist Mary Pomeroy. When she died in childbirth, in August 1874, her family tried unsucessfully to have Gendenning charged with murder.





Rev. Mr. Hayden
Rev. Hayden

In 1878, Connecticut Methodist minister, Rev. Herbert Hayden was accused of stabbing and poisoning Mary Stannard, a young housekeeper employed by his wife. Many  believed that he had seduced and impregnated her. He denied it all and was released after a hung jury.

Saturday, February 16, 2019

In Flagrante Delicto.

A little before 3 o’clock, the afternoon of September 9, 1886, a man rushed into the police station in Memphis, Tennessee and said, “I have just killed a man, and I want to give myself up.”

Captain Hackett took down the information and had the man locked up, then hurried to the address he had given to see for himself what had happened. In an upstairs room, he found a man lying on the floor, very nearly dead, bleeding from a gunshot wound to the chest. “I am to blame,” the man moaned. He died soon after.

Saturday, February 2, 2019

The Ruttinger Mystery.

Samuel Mortin, who was employed to keep watch over six coasting schooners laid up for the winter just below Tottenville, Staten Island, New York, found the body of a man lying in the mud, half floating, next to one of the vessels on March 11, 1891. The man's arms were crossed behind his back tied together at the wrists and above the elbows with heavy packing twine. Mortin secured the body and went to tell the police.