Saturday, October 12, 2024

The Confessions of Edward Tatro.

Charles Butler, aged 25, owned a farm two miles north of Highgate Centre, Vermont, eleven miles from St. Albans. He lived there with his lovely 21-year-old wife Alice. Also in the household were Charles’s elderly father and Edward Tatro, a 20-year-old French-Canadian farmhand.

Charles had to go to Highgate Centre on June 6, 1876, and he asked Alice to join him. She declined, saying she felt ill and planned to go to bed. Charles’s father was away visiting friends that evening, so Tatro said he would stay and take care of Alice. Charles left home at about 7:00.

He returned at about 10:00 and put his horse in the barn. As he approached the house, he was surprised to see no lights. Charles entered the dark kitchen, and as he looked for a match, he stumbled over something lying on the floor. He was shocked to see what it was.

“He lighted the match, and there met his sight the lifeless remains of his lovely wife in a pool of blood, in the most mutilated condition,” said the St. Albans Daily Messenger, “her head beaten almost to a pumice, and her brains oozing out on to the floor.”

Charles saw an axe covered with blood, several bloody sticks of wood, a chair broken to pieces, and his rifle lying on the floor. A pair of pants lay near the stove, and Alice was naked from the waist down.

When he regained his composure, Charles started out looking for assistance. He heard voices approaching and saw Edward Tatro approaching with some of his neighbors. Tatro was crying and howling like a madman.

“Ed, what does all this mean?” said Charles.

“Oh,” responded Tatro, “poor Alice is dead; they have killed her; for God’s sake, save me!”

Tatro was not wearing pants; he wore just a tattered and blood-stained shirt. His bare legs were spattered with blood, as were his arms. Blood was visible in the cracks of his chapped hands. He told a wild story. He said he was upstairs and took his pants off to go to bed when Alice came running up, chased by a man. The man turned to Tatro and knocked him down twice then threw him down the stairs. Tatro got up and ran for help.

Charles was skeptical of the story and rode back to Highgate Centre to see the police. He returned with Constable O.E. Sheridan and Dr. O.S. Searle. The doctor confirmed that Alice had died from blows to the head. She also had bruises on her shoulders and defensive wounds on her hand. Dr. Searle turned his attention to Tatro and found some scratches on his neck. There was no evidence that he had sustained the level of beating that he claimed. All of the blood on him was Alice’s.

There were blood stains and signs of a struggle in the upstairs bedrooms of Tatro and he Butlers, as well as the kitchen. Tatro’s room was separated from the Butlers’ by a plaster partition. Investigators found a small hole dug through the plaster. They believed Tatro had used it to spy on Alice Butler.

The following day, an inquest was held at the scene of the crime. The coroner’s jury examined the premises and heard the facts, then concluded that the deceased was murdered by Edward Tatro. The severity and circumstances of the murder were compared to the murders of Josie Langmaid and Marietta Ball in New Hampshire and Vermont. The killer, Joseph Lapage, also French-Canadian, had been arrested the prior year.

The police arrested Tatro and took him to Highgate Centre to face a grand jury. By now, the whole community knew of the murder. Crowds gathered, and the officers succeeded in keeping order despite threats of lynching.

The authorities believed that Tatro attempted to sexually assault Alice Butler and murdered her to hide the evidence. Tatro took off his pants and then went into the downstairs bedroom where Alice was lying. He got into bed and tried to attack her. They found her drawers on the floor between the bed and the stand. She escaped and ran upstairs. In the struggle that followed, he pulled off her skirt. She ran downstairs, and he followed, knocking her down in the kitchen. He went to the shed to get the axe and finish her off.

Tatro stuck to his story, professing innocence to the murder. But, three days of intense questioning weakened his resolve. After a visit from his mother, Tatro made a full confession:

Mrs. Butler was lying on the bed in the room downstairs; went in there and sat down in a chair near the bed; I felt sick at my stomach, probably from the effect of some liquor I had previously drunk, and she got up and prepared me some saleratus (sodium bicarbonate) and water; I went upstairs after I took the saleratus and water; I went to my room and turned own the quilts to my bed but did not take off my pants; Mrs. Butler soon came upstairs and went to her room. I heard her when she came up, then I went in there and found her sitting on the side of the bed; we talked a few minutes, and I sat down by the side of her and then pulled her over back on the bed; she jumped up and ran out into the other room. She picked up a chair that was near the stove and threw it at me; I threw the chair back at her, and she threw it at me again. Then I took it and struck her and knocked her down. I broke the chair all to pieces there; I don't remember of hitting her but once. It was dark; I must have broken the chair upon the floor. She got up and went to the head of the stairs; there we had a hard tussle and both struggled along downstairs. In the dining room, she got up and ran out through the kitchen into the woodshed and got the axe. I stood by the kitchen stove. I told her to behave herself and I would. She threw the axe at me. I threw it back near the water pail where she stood; she threw it at me again; I left it where it fell; she ran down to the wood box and got a stick of wood and threw it at me; it hit the palm of my hand as I raised it to ward off the blow; then she struck me over the eye; I picked up the stick and struck her with it and knocked her down; I picked up the axe and went to her and struck her with it.  I went and got the gun, which was in the kitchen stairway, and laid it on the floor near the front door; I did that for a blind; the gun was not used at all; I then went out of the front door and ran over to Mr. Fortune's.

Under further questioning, Tatro said he had been drinking some that night. He did not remember when he took his pants off. His mother asked if any other person was connected with the horrid deed. Tatro said he did it alone.

While in the St. Albans jail awaiting trial, Tatro made another confession. He said he did not kill Mrs. Butler alone; he was at work with a young Frenchman (name withheld) who suggested putting Mrs. Butler out of the way when her husband was out to steal their money. The man was the first to attack her. Tatro struck her once, but the other man delivered the death blow with the axe.

On April 23, 1877, the case was brought to trial, and interest in the proceedings was so great that extra chairs had to be brought into the courtroom. The trial began before a standing room only crowd. Tatro’s attorneys moved for a change of venue because they did not believe he could get a fair trial in St. Albans. The motion was denied. They also moved to exclude Tatro’s first confession from testimony. This was denied as well.

Their defense now was insanity, brought on by delirium tremens, and they called witnesses to testify to Tatro’s excessive drinking. His brother Albert said that Edward drank liquor as often as he could get it, and his brother John said Edward had been drinking often since he was eight years old.

The trial lasted six days. At 1:00, April 28, the jury had dinner and began deliberations. At 2:15, they returned a verdict of guilty of first-degree murder. Tatro was sentenced to death but would first serve a two-year sentence at the State Prison in Windsor—twenty months of hard labor and the rest in solitary confinement. He would hang on the first Friday of April 1880.

As he was led away, Tatro said, “Well, by God, that settles my hash.”

That July, while still in the St. Albans jail, Tatro and three other convicts attempted to escape. They dug through the wooden floor of the cell and were removing masonry beneath it when discovered. They said they had first planned to knock down the Sheriff when he opened the cell door, but none were willing to take the lead.

After being transferred to State Prison, Tatro made another confession. Being left alone with Alice Butler that day, he resolved to “have connection” with her and went to her room upstairs. She resisted, and he knocked her down with a blow on the head from a chair. She promised to yield if he would let her go down the stairs. Suspecting that she meant to escape, he seized her, and they went struggling down. When she tried to run away, he knocked her down with a stick and finished her with an axe. Then, when she was writhing in her death struggle, he accomplished his fiendish purpose. “I started to do it,” he said, “and by God, I did it.”

As execution day approached, Tatro made a new confession. He said the death of Mrs. Butler was an outgrowth of an agreement with Mr. Butler. Tatro was to have certain undue privileges with Butler’s wife, to enable the husband to obtain grounds for divorce. This story only served to further decrease Tatro’s credibility.

The New York Post dubbed April 2, 1880, “Hangman’s Day.” Eight men in five different states were executed that day. One was Edward Tatro. He mounted the gallows at the State Prison and made a brief speech before the hanging. He confessed to the murder once more but, this time blamed the liquor that Charles Butler let him have. Butler taught him to drink and was his ruin. He laid the blame for the whole matter on Butler. At 2:37, the trap was sprung; fifteen minutes later, Tatro was pronounced dead.


Shources: 
“An Absurd Story by Tatro the Highgate Murderer,” Rutland Weekly Herald., September 14, 1876.
“Another Murder,” LEWISTON EVENING JOURNAL., June 3, 1876.
“Attempted Jail Escape,” Rutland Daily Globe., August 2, 1877.
“Brutal Murder in Vermont,” Evening Post, June 3, 1876.
“Confession of a Fiendish Murderer,” St. Johnsbury Caledonian., February 1, 1878.
“Edward Tatro,” St. Albans Daily Messenger, April 2, 1880.
“Edward Tatro,” New York Herald, April 3, 1880.
“Edward Tatro, Murderer of Mrs. Alice Butler at Highgate,” Illustrated Police News, February 8, 1879.
“Edward Tatro's Trial,” St. Albans SEMI-WEEKLY Advertiser, April 27, 1877.
“End of the Trial,” St. Albans Daily Messenger, April 28, 1877.
“The Highgate Murder,” Rutland Daily Globe., June 6, 1876.
“The Highgate Murder,” Rutland Daily Globe., June 8, 1876.
“Horrible Murder in Vermont,” Boston Daily Advertiser, June 5, 1876.
“Horrible Murder in Highgate,” St. Albans Daily Messenger, June 3, 1876.
“Tatro's Last Days,” St. Albans Daily Messenger, March 30, 1880.
“Trial Of Edward Tatro,” St. Albans Daily Messenger, April 23, 1877.

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