The Stull-Best Murder.

On the evening of Saturday, November 9, 1878, Mrs. Amy Best left her home to visit her grandchildren, just a short walk away from her home in Port Washington, Ohio. She never reached her destination. The next day, friends and family made a diligent search of the area and found the body of Mrs. Best at the edge of the woods, near a fence. Her neck was broken, and her skull was crushed. Bruises on her neck indicated that she had been strangled.

The prime suspect in Amy Best’s murder quickly became Mrs. Catherine Stull. Though Amy Best was a 60-year-old widowed grandmother, Mrs. Stull believed she had been having intimate relations with her husband, John Stull, for the past fifteen years. Because of her husband’s infidelity, Mrs. Stull “had endured discord at home and scandal abroad.” She had openly declared that if she ever caught them together, she would kill them both.

The coroner commenced an inquest, and Mrs. Stull was rigidly examined. She bore up well under questioning, and nothing could be elicited to justify arresting her. Later in the week, the people employed to wash the victim's clothing found a new piece of evidence. It was a note written in pencil in a large bold hand and was said to be a good imitation of the writing of John Stull:

November the 8.

Amy, tomoro night about seve oclock in the Evening at the old mans haystae on the ill i will be there Cas will be gon fro home. John Stull.

The coroner reopened the inquest on November 18. Mrs. Stull was recalled to the witness stand and she was shown the note. While she exhibited much uneasiness, she denied any knowledge of the note and was released again.

After leaving the courthouse, Mrs. Stull jumped into a canal in an unsuccessful attempt to drown herself. Passers-by had seen her enter the water and went to help, but Mrs. Stull came out of the water herself. She was in deep contrition and now spoke freely and rationally about a duty she owed to the public. She could keep the secret no longer, and she finally confessed to murdering Amy Best.

She had suspected the relationship between Best and her husband for years and was determined to catch them in the act. She followed her husband and saw him take a piece of paper from under a flat rock in the field. After reading it, he chewed it up and swallowed it. Mrs. Stull determined that they communicated by notes, and this was their “post office.” She wrote the decoy note, emulating her husband’s penmanship and writing style, and left it under the rock.

On the witness stand again, she said:

I wrote the note to Amy Best and signed the name of John Stull, and appointed the meeting at the old man's hay stacks. When I came to the stacks, I went around them. but found no one, but when I came around the stacks the second time, Mrs. Amy Best came right towards me and said, 'You old Kate Stull!' I had a chunk of a stick in my hand, and I struck at her as she ran at me. She then came down on her knees and grabbed the stick out of my hand, and struck my head with it.

I then gave her a push, and we both came down together on the ground; I then caught her by the neck with one hand and grabbed the stick with the other, for I thought she would kill me with it if she could, by the way she ran at me because she thought (as I suppose) that I had trapped her; if she ran away, nothing would have happened. I suppose I shook her pretty bad when I had her by the neck, but I did it to defend myself and my children; I then carried her to the fence at the place where the body was found.

The police took Mrs. Stull to jail. She was the mother of seven children, and she took the youngest, just three months old, with her to jail. Her husband’s relationship with the victim was well known, and the community had considerable sympathy for Mrs. Stull.

As the prosecution prepared their case, they expected to show that the victim was not guilty of any impropriety with John Stull but was a lady of the greatest respectability. The murder was the result of Mrs. Stull’s vicious and jealous disposition. The children of Amy Best felt the memory of their mother would be vindicated. However, the public still sympathized with Mrs. Stull, and the grand jury failed to indict her. Although there was no question that she killed Amy Best, she was never charged with the murder.

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Sources: 

“Crime,” Cincinnati Commercial, November 21, 1878.
“Found Murdered,” Cleveland Leader., November 14, 1878.
“The Mother's Crime,” Cleveland Leader., November 20, 1878.
“Mrs. John Stull and Her Victim,” Illustrated Police News, February 15, 1879.
“Mrs. Stull Released,” Chicago Daily Tribune., February 1, 1879.
“Murder Will Out,” Stark County Democrat., November 28, 1878.
“News Article,” Watertown Daily Times., February 1, 1879.
“A Strange Crime,” Cincinnati Daily Gazette, November 22, 1878.
“The Stull-Best Murder Case,” Cincinnati Commercial, December 8, 1878.