Saturday, October 19, 2024

Poisoning Mania.

 

Elizabeth Wharton, in custody, en route to trial in Annapolis.

In June 1871, General William Scott Ketchum became ill while a houseguest of Mrs. Elizabeth G. Wharton, a pillar of Baltimore society. As the general lay dying, a second houseguest, Eugene Van Ness, became violently ill. When General Ketchum died, the police determined that he had been poisoned and they arrested Elizabeth Wharton before she could leave on a planned trip to Europe. Her motive, they believed, was to avoid paying a debt she owed Ketchum, but when four other members of her household died mysteriously, she was accused of having “poisoning mania.” Her attorneys asserted that she could not get a fair trial in Baltimore, so she was tried for murder in Annapolis. 

Read the Full Story Here: A Baltimore Borgia.

0 comments :

Post a Comment