Did Lizzie Confess?

Providence Evening Bulletin, Feb. 15, 1897

In 1952, Edward Rowe Snow, a popular history writer, was approached by a man who claimed to have a copy of a signed confession by Lizzie Borden to the 1892 axe murder of her father and stepmother. According to the story, Lizzie was arrested for shoplifting from an art gallery in 1897. After a marathon negotiation between Lizzie and a group of men including a police detective and a reporter, Lizzie agreed to sign a typed confession to avoid incarceration.

Although the arrest was real, the confession story was quickly exposed as a hoax. But not before Snow published it as fact in his 1959 book, Piracy, Mutiny and Murder.

Read the full Story Here: Lizzie Borden's Confession

Ogden and Howard.

Washington Howard lived happily with his wife and two children in Charles County, Maryland until the start of the Civil War when he left to join the Confederate Army. After two years of service and several bloody battles, Howard had a change of heart. He resolved to desert the Confederates and join the Union cause. He crossed the Union lines and surrendered to the army who sent him to the Capital Prison in Washington.

There Howard met Zadoc Damrell, another Confederate deserter. After both men took an oath of allegiance to the United States the prison released them. The authorities told them that they must not be found south of the Susquehanna River, so the two men drifted north. In 1864, they found work in Gloucester County, New Jersey, and boarded at the home of Charles Ogden. That is when the trouble began for Washington Howard.

The French Monster.

 

In 1874, Joseph LaPage, a French-Canadian woodcutter, raped and murdered Marietta Ball, a young schoolteacher in St. Albans, Vermont. He was released for lack of evidence. A year later he struck again, raping and brutally murdering 17-year-old Josie Langmaid in Pembroke, New Hampshire. After two contentious trials, he was convicted of Josie Langmaid’s murder.

Read the full story here: Josie Langmaid-"The Murdered Maiden Student."

Mrs. Southern's Sad Case.

In 1876, Bob Southern was the most eligible bachelor in Pickens County, Georgia. He was tall and handsome, from a prominent family, but somewhat wild and reckless. He was seriously courting two young women—Kate Hambrick, slender and beautiful with dark eyes and luxuriant auburn hair, and Narcissa Cowan (nee Fowler), pretty, plump, and blonde. Kate was popular but strong-willed and impetuous. Narcissa was more reserved but a divorcee with a somewhat shady reputation. The women were bitter rivals for Bob Southern’s affections.

That autumn, Southern proposed to Kate Hambrick, and the two were married. They lived happily for several months until Bob began staying out late without explanations. Kate began hearing rumors that Bob was still meeting with Narcissa. They had been seen walking together in the woods several times since the wedding. The news made Kate intensely jealous.