The Merrihew Murder.

Charles B. Merrihew became violently ill in May 1879, at his home in Lowville, New York, and was being nursed by his wife, Harriet. They sent for his physician, Dr. Turner, and while waiting for his arrival, Harriet confessed to Charles that she had been poisoning him. Though she refused to repeat her confession to Dr. Thomas, he quickly confirmed that Charles had taken poison. He was able to induce vomiting and save Charles's life. 

The marriage was not a happy one. It was alleged that Charles was having an adulterous relationship with Maria Sheldon. Harriet also had a lover outside of her marriage.

The poisoning incident raised questions about the death of Charles’s brother David two months earlier. David, who was living with Charles and Harriet, suddenly became violently ill and died in their house. At the time, congestion of the lungs was given as the cause of death. After the attempted poisoning of Charles, the authorities exhumed David’s body and performed a thorough post-mortem examination. Doctors determined that David had died of arsenic poisoning. After a coroner’s inquest, Harriet Merrihew was charged with the murder of David Merrihew. She was arrested and taken to jail in Lowville.

While in custody, Harriet broke down and confessed to the murder. She moaned over the crime and said that she richly deserved punishment. She implicated another person, believed to be her paramour, who purchased the poison and gave it to her. 

The police initially withheld the name of Harriet’s paramour from the press, but he was soon revealed to be her husband’s 18-year-old cousin, Charles A. Merrihew, known as “Little Charley.” Harriet, in her mid-twenties, loved Little Charley because he was younger and better looking than her husband. She said she was engaged to marry Little Charley if her husband should die but that he had nothing to do with her husband’s poisoning or the poisoning of David Merrihew.  

She said Winthrop Merrihew, another of her husband’s cousins, who had recently been released from prison for burglary, put her up to the poisoning and provided her with the poison.  Winthrop also wanted to marry her and wanted to kill her husband and his brother so they would not stand in his way. Harriet feared and hated Winthrop and was afraid to disobey him.

The sheriff of Lewis County arrested both Charles A. Merrihew and Winthrop Merrihew for David’s murder. He found strychnine in Winthrop’s trunk.

Harriet Merrihew’s trial for the murder of David Merrihew began on August 25, 1880. The testimony focused on the circumstances of David’s death and Harriet’s actions at the time, as well as her more recent confessions. The post-mortem physician testified that he believed David was poisoned, though no poison was found in his stomach. Harriet was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in Sing Sing prison. Winthrop Merrihew, who had been indicted as an accessory, was discharged.

Lewis County Sheriff House took Harriet to Sing Sing prison, 270 miles away. When they arrived, prison authorities told the Sheriff that the women’s prison had closed three years earlier and they were not taking any new female inmates. He brought her back to Lowville for resentencing. 

Harriet’s lawyer asserted that since she had been sentenced to Sing Sing prison, and they had essentially ended her term, the court had no further jurisdiction in the case. The judge disagreed, saying the former sentence was void and Harriet was in the same position as before the sentence was pronounced. He resentenced her to life in the Onondaga Penitentiary in Syracuse. 

Separately, a group of prominent Syracuse women, including the wife of a former superintendent of the penitentiary, petitioned New York Governor Flower to pardon Harriet. The governor refused.

In 1891, a new women’s prison was established in Auburn, New York, in the building formerly occupied by the State Asylum for the Criminally Insane. The new prison was unique in that it was entirely administered by women. Sometime after 1893, Harriet was transferred to Auburn.

Meanwhile, in Lowville, it was reported that Charles B. Merrihew was now living with his alleged mistress, Maria Sheldon. She had been present at David’s death and testified for the prosecution against Harriet. 

Though Governor Flower failed to pardon Harriet, the campaign for her freedom continued. In 1899, after serving 18 years of her life sentence, Harriet was pardoned by the new governor, Theodore Roosevelt.

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Sources: 

“Current Notes,” Boston Evening Journal, June 7, 1879.
“Lowville,” WATERTOWN DAILY TIMES., March 10, 1880.
“The Merrihew Murder,” Evening Post, October 5, 1880.
“The Merrihew Murderers Merry,” WATERTOWN DAILY TIMES., June 7, 1879.
“The Merrihews,” WATERTOWN DAILY TIMES., May 23, 1879.
“Mrs. Merrihew in Prions for Life,” READING DAILY EAGLE., August 31, 1880.
“Mrs. Merrihew in Prison,” Watertown Times., January 7, 1893.
“Murder in the Second Degree,” New Haven Evening Register, August 30, 1880.
“Murder Trial,” New York Herald, August 25, 1880.
“News Article,” WATERTOWN DAILY TIMES., May 13, 1879.
“Pardon Expected for Mrs. Merrihew,” Watertown Times., January 5, 1893.
“A Poisoner's Confession,” New York Herald, May 13, 1879.
“A Prison Run by Women,” sun., August 11, 1895.
“A Private Poisoner's Terrible Confession,” Illustrated Police News, June 7, 1879.

The Mysterious Murder of Rose Clark Ambler.

 

Rose Ambler said goodnight to her fiancé at the Raven Stream Bridge in Stratford, Connecticut on the night of September 2, 1883, and started walking home alone as she usually did. She was never again seen alive. Her body was found the next day, beaten and stabbed, and the perpetrator was never captured. Rose Ambler joined Mary Stannard and Jennie Cramer in the growing list of unpunished Connecticut murders.

Read the full story here: The Raven Stream Crime.

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Picture from Illustrated Police News, September 22, 1883.

The Banjo Homicide.

William Condon was a banjo player and a variety performer at Ryan’s Saloon in Cincinnati. For six months, he had been living with a woman named Lou Perry, and in June 1880, they moved into a rented room at No.300 West Fifth Street. The move had not gone smoothly, and they began quarreling frequently.

Lou Perry—known as “Big Lou”—was from a troubled family. Her real name was Louisa Dorff, and she was born in West Virginia. Around 1870, the family moved to Cincinnati, where her two brothers, Charles and Samuel, got into trouble and were sent to the penitentiary. When they returned from prison, they got into trouble again, and the family was driven out of the city. Lou stayed behind.

The Illustrated Police News politely referred to Lou as a “kept woman.” The Cincinnati Daily Star was a bit harsher: “She went from bad to worse and finally became a low, miserable, besotted prostitute.”

The house William and Lou moved to on West Fifth Street probably helped to deteriorate their relationship. According to the Cincinnati Daily Gazette:

The house has been noted during the past two years for the disgraceful orgies carried on within its walls. It is no uncommon thing, it is said, for women perfectly nude to be running about the place in broad daylight, and rows are of almost nightly occurrence.

Around midnight on June 17, 1880, Condon saw Lou with another man. They were both intoxicated, and Lou was trying to take him upstairs to their room. Condon interceded, and the man ran away. Lou and Condon began fighting and he decided he had enough. He went inside their room to get his things to move out. Outside, Lou pounded and kicked the door, but he would not let her in. Condon came out carrying his banjo, and the fight renewed as they went down the stairs. 

Outside, in a narrow courtyard on one side of the building, the fight turned violent. Lou Rushed towards him, and Condon struck her on the face with the rim of the heavy, brass-bound banjo. The blow broke her nose and cut a gash from the bridge of her nose to the lower part of the right cheek. Lou sank to the pavement. 

Witnesses carried Lou upstairs to her bed. Condon made no attempt to escape but helped wash the blood from the ghastly wound. Lou died half an hour later. Condon gave no resistance when he was arrested. In Police Court, he was charged with second-degree murder and held on $5,000 bail. Two women at the scene, Hattie Whiting and Mattie Davis, were arrested for vagrancy and held in the workhouse to guarantee they would be available to testify. 

At the inquest, Coroner Carrick stated, 

The deceased came to her death from effusion of blood on the brain. I further find that the blow which fractured the nasal bones was the cause of said effusion and that the blow was inflicted with a banjo in the hands of William Condon.

On June 26, Condon was back in police court. He was bound over to the grand jury on the charge of manslaughter, with bail fixed at $2,000. Both the charge and the bail amount had been reduced.

There was no further mention of the case in the newspapers until December 29, when the Cincinnati Commercial printed a summary of Cincinnati homicides for the year 1880. Without further explanation, the article states that William Condon was discharged on the order of Prosecutor Drew.

At the time, the Cincinnati government was dominated by rival political gangs controlled by saloon owners. Corruption was rampant, and paying the right person could influence the outcome of a trial. This may be what saved Condon from prosecution. 

---

Sources: 

“"Busted" With a Banjo,” Illustrated Police News, July 3, 1880.
“An Actor in a Tragic Role,” JACKSON DAILY CITIZEN., June 17, 1880.
“The Banjo Homicide,” Cincinnati Commercial Tribune, June 18, 1880.
“Condon's Crime,” Cincinnati Daily Star., June 17, 1880.
“A Cutting Matinee,” The Cincinnati Enquirer, October 10, 1881.
“The Los Perry Murder,” Cincinnati Commercial Tribune, June 27, 1880.
“Lou. Dorf's Murder,” Cincinnati Daily Star., June 18, 1880.

Miller, Zane L. Boss Cox's Cincinnati. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1968.
“The Perry Inquest,” The Cincinnati Enquirer, June 19, 1880.
“Police Court,” The Cincinnati Daily Star, June 26, 1880.
“Twenty Homicides in Cincinnati during the Year,” Cincinnati Commercial, December 29, 1880.
“Where Are the Police?,” Cincinnati Daily Gazette, June 18, 1880.
“The Woman Killed With a Banjo,” Cincinnati Daily Gazette, June 19, 1880.

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The Meierhoffer Execution.

On January 6, 1881, Mrs. Margaret Meierhoffer and her alleged paramour, Frank Lamens, were hanged in Newark, New Jersey, for the murder of Margaret’s husband, John. Two years earlier, the Meierhoffers hired Lamens to work on their farm, but Lamens’s presence put further strain on their already troubled marriage. John was dissatisfied with Lamens's work and wanted him gone, but Margaret insisted that he stay.

On October 9, 1879, the police found John Meierhoffer’s body at the foot of the cellar stairs with a gunshot wound in his throat. Upstairs they found Margaret Meierhoffer in bed with Frank Lamens. Neither confessed to the murder; they each accused the other. The state found them both guilty and sentenced them to death.

The illustration is incorrect. The New Jersey gallows was not configured to hang two at a time. Margaret was launched into eternity at 10:25, an hour later Frank Lammens followed her.

Read the full story here: Who Shot Meierhoffer?

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Picture from Illustrated Police News, January 15, 1881.

A Naked Man’s Horrible Deeds.

 

Thomas Ryan, aged 88, lived in Chester, Illinois, with his widowed daughter, Julia Smith, her 12-year-old daughter Sallie, and 8-year-old son Arthur. On December 7, 1880, their peaceful morning was shattered when an intruder burst into the house.  It was a naked man wielding an axe who ordered them all to kneel and pray as they only had a few minutes to live.

The man was Louis Tochstein, who, the day before, had been in police custody and was declared insane. Tochstein was raised Catholic but had recently been attending meetings of other denominations. As his religious excitement grew, so did his madness. Tochstein was insane but not considered violent; his mania was limited to asking people to pray with him at inappropriate times and places. On Saturday, December 4, he made his two sisters kneel and pray with him in the street while he preached that the end of the world would come in a few days.

The police arrested Tochstein then, and on Monday, he was adjudged insane and ordered to be sent to the asylum in Jacksonville, Illinois. Before the trip, he was held in a hotel room guarded by two policemen. Tuesday morning, they brought him a bowl of water to wash up.  He dashed the water into their faces then broke through the window of the room and ran away.

He randomly ran to the Ryan house, about a quarter mile away. Along the way, he shed his clothing and acquired an axe. As most of the household obeyed his orders and fell to their knees, Arthur Ryan managed to escape and alarm the neighborhood. The neighbors arrived too late. When they reached the house, they found Thomas Ryan and his daughter with their skulls crushed. Sallie’s body lay on the floor, and her head was completely severed.

Outside they saw Tochstein running to the next house, swinging Sallie’s bloody head in the air. He found a servant girl who screamed when he ordered her to kneel. Before he could harm her, the neighbors arrived and overpowered him. The police secured Tochstein and took him away once more.

The story he told the police served to confirm his insanity. He said he had to leave the hotel because people there were trying to rob him. When he neared the Ryan house, he discovered that it was on fire. He rushed in and saved all the inmates but the little boy, who perished in the flames. While saving the Ryans, his own clothes were burned off him and he was badly scorched.

By now, the whole town had learned of the carnage, and there was serious talk of lynching. To avoid the mob, the police took Tochstein by wagon to a small way station, where they boarded a train to East St. Louis on their way to the Jacksonville asylum.

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Sources: 

“Crazed by the Church,” The Kansas City Times, December 9, 1880.
“Local News,” The Alton Telegraph, December 16, 1880.
“A Naked Man's Horrible Deeds,” Illustrated Police News, December 18, 1880.
“A Triple Murder,” The Boston Globe, December 8, 1860.
www.ancestry.com

"The Boy Murderer."

Myron Buel.
“He possesses an expressionless and almost
idiotic countenance.”  Illustrated Police News.

Myron Buel was called “The Boy Murderer,” though he was 20 years old when he committed the crime. He was charged with the murder of Catherine Richards in Plainfield, New York, on June 25, 1878. The following February he was tried and convicted of first-degree murder.

Buel continued to profess innocence while his attorneys appealed the verdict. His motion for a new trial was denied, and the governor refused to grant a reprieve. Three days before his execution, Buel confessed. He was in love with Catherine, the 14-year-old daughter of his employer. Her rejections angered him so much that he lured Catherine into the barn and then threw a rope around her neck. He beat her to death with a milking stool, then ravished her.

Myron Buel was hanged on November 14, 1879.

Read the full story here: The Confessions of Myron Buel.

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.

---

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.

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.

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.

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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.

Ann and John.

Mrs. Ann E. Freese ran a brothel in a section of Rutland, Vermont, known as the “Swamp.” On June 9, 1874, the house burned to the ground. Amid the rubble was the body of Mrs. Freese, badly burned but recognizable. She had been stabbed several times in the throat before the fire started. The investigation proved daunting with so many anonymous men coming and going from the house, but one man stood out. John Phair, a known associate of Freese, left town around the time of the fire. When he was identified as the man who pawned her jewelry in several Boston pawnshops, Phair was arrested. He was convicted of first-degree murder and hanged in 1879, professing innocence to the end.

Read the full story here: Fire in the Swamp.

A Mysterious Tragedy.

Dr. Henry Clark of Boston was summoned to 11 Hamilton Place at around 7:00 the morning of December 30, 1879. A woman had been shot and needed urgent care. When he got there, she was nearly gone, and there was nothing he could do. 

A policeman and a medical examiner arrived soon after and determined that the woman, Mrs. Helen J. Ward, had been shot twice in the head. One shot entered her temple and went through her head, the other fractured her skull without entering. 

Her 18-year-old daughter, also named Helen, did her best to explain what happened. Mother and daughter shared a bed. They worried about burglars, so they kept a revolver on a chair beside the bed. Miss Ward believed she had been in a somnambulant state and fired at a moving object that she thought was a burglar. Alternatively, she thought the gun may have discharged accidentally. This took place around 4:00 am, raising the question of why she didn’t contact someone sooner. Miss Ward was considered cold and unfeeling because she did not seem overly affected by her mother’s death.

Horrible Beyond Precedent.

In 1872, George Wheeler married May Tilson in Boston. He soon fell in love with May’s younger sister, Delia, and they began an intimate relationship. In 1880 George and Delia were living together in San Francisco. There, Delia began a relationship with another man, and Wheeler declared he would rather see her dead than with another lover. According to Wheeler, Delia felt so conflicted and disgraced that she agreed with him and begged him to cut her throat. Instead, he strangled Delia and hid her body in a trunk.

Read the full story here: "Thus She Passed Away."

Image from "Horrible Beyond Precedent," Illustrated Police News, November 6, 1880.

What Lust Will Do.

From the confession of Mary Brown to the murder of her husband, John Brown, by her paramour, Joseph Wade:

When I first went to the gate Mr. Brown was lying with his feet about the middle of the gate and his head towards the buggy, close to the hind wheel. The buggy robe was under him and the blanket over him, so that I could not see his head. After I took the child in and returned Brown was still groaning, as he was when I first come to the gate. I said: "My God, Joe, what have you done?" He said: "Darling, this is what love will do," and threw his arms around my shoulders. He said: "I love every hair of your head better than my own life." Mr. Brown was still groaning, and he (Joe) said: "Shall I hit him?" I said: "No." He said: 'I shall have to finish it now." He added: "I will have to hit him or use my knife." I said: "Oh, my God; no; don't touch him. Let me take him in the house." I had not seen his head and didn't know he was so badly hurt. Wade said: "No, this has got to be finished."

"What Lust Will Do," Illustrated Police News, February 28. 1880.

Read the full story here: The Brown Tragedy.

A Young Fiend.

Maggie Thompson, a pretty eight-year-old girl living on Merchant Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio, mysteriously disappeared on May 9, 1889. She was coming from school, just two blocks away, but she never reached her home. Detectives, police constables, and private citizens searched the neighborhood to no avail. They found no trace of Maggie.

The Cronin Trial.

 

W. S. Forest, of counsel for the defense, cross-examining the expert microscopist Tollman.
Defendants (far left) 1. Beggs, 2. Coughlin, 3. O'Sullivan, 4. Burke, 5. Kunze.

Dr. Patrick Henry Cronin was a prominent Chicago physician, and a member of Clan-na-Gael an American political organization formed to promote Irish independence from British rule. After Dr. Cronin uncovered corruption among the leaders, his naked body was found stuffed in a sewer with icepick wounds to his head. In the 1889 murder trial of five members of Clan-na-Gael, the defense tried to paint Dr. Cronin as, alternately, a violent radical and a British spy. 

Read the full story here: Clan-na-Gael and the Murder of Dr. Cronin.

A Youthful Murderer.

George Wilbur and Michael Kildorf, both 17 years old, were good friends in North Plains, Michigan. On January 28, 1879, they went together into the woods to hunt rabbits. At some point during the hunt, a dispute arose between them. The cause of the disagreement was not disclosed, but it continued to escalate. Kildorf was resting on the root of a tree when Wilbur came up behind him and shot him in the back of the head, killing him instantly. Wilbur took Kildorf’s revolver and went back home.

Later that day, Kildorf’s body was discovered, and the authorities tracked Wilbur to his father’s house. They arrested him and brought him before Esquire Simpson. Wilbur waived examination and was committed to jail.

George Wilbur was from a good family and was “respectably connected.” Michael Kildorf was a stranger in North Plains, living with his aunt, Mrs. Burke.

The public sentiment in North Plains was overwhelmingly in Wilbur’s favor. A correspondent who did not share the “maudlin sympathy for murderers” commented sarcastically:

Now is the time to commence sympathy for poor Wilbur. Oh! he must be in jail! How unpleasant it must be when Kildorf is so comfortable underground, below the frost. Will poor Wilbur have to be tried? He ought not to be, for he must have been insane—poor fellow. Oh, how easy he whipped out that pistol and drove that bullet into the back of Kildorf's bead! He must have been ready at any time—poor fellow. And then if he had missed Kildorf's head how bad he would have felt. I hope he won't have to be tried. Can't we get him out on low bail, and then let him off—it will be so unpleasant for him to stay in jail and then be tried? And then if we had hanging for murder, how bad the poor fellow would feel when they put the rope round his neck. And then if he should be ten or fifteen minutes in dying, when he slipped Kildorf off in about one minute, and so easy. And then to be hung up and not touch the ground! Oh! horrible! Oh, the poor fellow! He will go straight to Heaven, of course.

It does not appear that George Wilbur was ever tried or sentenced for the murder.

---

Sources: 

“A Deliberate Young Murderer,” Illustrated Police News, February 15, 1879.

“Minor Telegrams,” PORTLAND DAILY PRESS., January 31, 1879.
“A Youthful Murderer,” Detroit Free Press, January 30, 1879.
“A Youthful Murderer,” The Inter Ocean, January 30, 1879.

A Red Path of Jealousy.

 

When William W. Place’s first wife died, he married his housekeeper, Martha Scovoll. It was a whirlwind courtship and William did not listen to his relatives who thought Martha would bring trouble. Sure enough, before long, Martha’s true nature came out. She had a quick temper and was irrationally jealous of William’s relationship with his young daughter Ida. Martha had violent fits of temper and threatened to kill both William and Ida. On February 8, 1868, she made good on her threats, strangling Ida to death and attacking William with an axe. She was convicted of first-degree murder and was the first woman to be executed in the electric chair. 

Read the full story here: 

The Brooklyn Murderess.

The Norwich Poisoning.

Around February 1878, Charles H. Cobb, City Collector of Norwich, Connecticut, was stricken with a mysterious illness. His doctor diagnosed his condition as lead poisoning from lead water pipes or a lead drinking vessel. He prescribed various tonics without success, and the illness lingered for months. Then, on June 6, Cobb died suddenly and unexpectedly, arousing suspicion.

Cobb’s friends and neighbors believed he was murdered, and they had a ready suspect. Wesley W. Bishop was having an affair with Cobb’s wife, Kate, and they were not very discreet. Bishop had purchased arsenic, which he said he had given to Cobb, and Bishop’s wife had died four months earlier under similar circumstances.

The Fatal Shot.

 

In the wee hours of February 8, 1888, burglars broke into the mansion of Amos J. Snell, one of the wealthiest men in Chicago. They went straight to Snell’s office and opened his safe and a strong box but did not find the fortune they expected. The thieves went upstairs and began gathering silver items.

The noise awaked Snell who came down in his nightshirt, armed with an old muzzle-loading pistol. Hearing the thieves in the parlor, he shouted, “Get out! Get out of here!”  and fired his pistol through the closed parlor door. The thieves responded by firing back through the door. Snell turned to run outside, and the thieves opened the parlor door and fired two more shots, killing Snell. 

The massive manhunt that followed involved the police, the Pinkertons, and many private detectives. The family offered a $50,000 reward for the killer's capture, reported at the time as “the largest amount ever offered for the capture of any human being in the world.”  Despite more than 1,000 arrests and several false confessions, the case remained unsolved until 1910, when a professional thief named James Gillan confessed to the murder on his deathbed. The confession was taken as fact, but there was little evidence that Gillan committed the crime.

Read the full story here: The Snell Murder.

---

Pictures from Chicago Daily News, February 9, 1888.

The Body in the Trunk.

 

On April 14, 1885, the manager of the Southern Hotel in St. Louis, Missouri, responded to complaints of a foul odor emanating from room 144.  Inside a trunk in that room, the manager found the murdered body of Charles Arthur Preller, one of two Englishmen who had checked in two weeks earlier. The killer left a note implying that the death had been a political assassination, but it was, in fact, the tragic ending of a “peculiar relationship.” The hunt for the killer, Hugh Mottram Brooks, would end 8,000 miles away in New Zealand.

Read the full story here:

 The St. Louis Trunk Tragedy.

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Pictures from Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, April 25, 1885.

The Montville Tragedy.

On Saturday, January 25, 1879, George Rowell returned home to Montville, Maine, from a trip to Bath, eighteen miles away. He lived in the house owned by John and Salina McFarland, a married couple in their seventies. Rowell, 40, married their son’s widowed wife, Abby, who had a 14-year-daughter, Cora McFarland. She also had an infant son with Rowell. All six lived together in the Montville farmhouse.

George W. Rowell.

Rowell was a big, muscular man weighing over two hundred pounds. Due to his erratic behavior, he was viewed as somewhat insane, but he was generally quiet and considered harmless. Tired from his trip, Rowell went to bed about 6:00 that evening. A short time later, he got up and went into the room where the family was sitting.

“Why, George,” said Abby, “what are you up for?”

“I do not like to sleep alone,” said George, “I want a woman with me.”

He grabbed Cora then and tried to carry the struggling young girl into the bedroom. He told her to be quiet, he wouldn’t hurt her and said their child would be an angel. Rowell carried her into the bedroom, but John McFarland put his foot in the door to prevent it from closing. Rowell dropped Cora, knocked down McFarland, and went for his rifle. Abby and Cora grabbed the baby and ran outside to the house of a neighbor, Alonzo Raynes. John and Salina McFarland followed them.

The Murdered Child.

On May 23, 1875, Thomas W. Piper lured five-year-old Mabel Young to the belfry of the Warren Avenue Baptist Church on the pretext of viewing pigeons. There he beat her to death with a cricket bat, then escaped by leaping from the belfry window.

Read the full story here: The Boston Belfry Tragedy.

Pictures from Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, June 12, 1875.

Mattie Collins.

Mattie Collins lived with her mother in a large farmhouse in Buckner, Missouri, about 9 miles from Kansas City.  Also living in the house were her brother, Davis “Doc” Collins, and her sister and brother-in-law, the Darks, with their four children. 

Twenty-year-old Mattie was described as beautiful, intelligent and talented. In February 1879, she was engaged to marry John Bast. Some in Buckner believed Bast was an average young man who would make a good husband, while others thought he was a ne’er-do-well. Mattie’s family was in the latter camp and did not approve of the engagement.

On the night of February 8, 1879, Bast came calling and Mattie’s brother-in-law, Jonathan Dark, met him at the door. He would not let Bast in the house and told him he must cease his visits. Mattie was livid. She spent the rest of the night berating Dark, her anger becoming increasingly fierce.

The next morning, she was still angry. She went into a fit of rage, smashing windows and threatening Dark with an axe. Her mother was alarmed and sent for Deputy Constable James M. Adams. Mattie left the house for a while. When she returned, she was still angry but seemed more subdued. Constable Adams believed the danger was over and left the house.

When Adams was gone, Mattie approached Jonathan Dark.

“I have you now,” she said, drawing a pistol from her pocket. She fired, hitting Dark in the right breast. He fell to the floor.

The Bloody Century 2.

New! 

The Bloody Century 2

The long-awaited sequel to The Bloody Century takes the reader back to 19th-century America in all its gory glory.

The second volume of The Bloody Century presents 60 more true tales of murder. These sensational crimes present a fascinating journey through enforcement methods and legal procedures in the 19th century. Killers driven by Jealousy, Revenge, Insanity, and random violence are joined by remorseless serial killers. Most stories end with justice well served, while others remain forever unsolved.

Available at Amazon.

Read three sample stories.

More information.

The Victim's Orphan.

Illustrated Police News, March 8, 1879

In 1876, Mary Stannard had a child out of wedlock, whom she named Willie. Mary’s friends and family knew she was easily manipulated and saw her as the object of pity rather than blame. Reverend Herbert H. Hayden took a special interest in Mary’s case and hired her as a housekeeper.

The Reverend’s relationship with Mary became a little too close. In August 1878, when she believed herself pregnant again, she accused Hayden and sent him a letter asking for assistance. On September 3, 1878, Mary’s body, stabbed and poisoned, was found on the path outside her house. Rev. Hayden was tried for her murder and acquitted.

Mary’s orphaned son, Willie, a bright 3-year-old, was put up for adoption.

Read the full story here: Poor Mary Stannard!

Femmes Fatales.

 

Nellie and Fanny.

Nelly Dalton and Fanny Coburn, two young Boston women, were out on the town one autumn afternoon in 1855. They met and flirted with William Sumner and Josiah Porter, two promising young college graduates. Though both women were married, they arranged to see the boys again.

Nelly and William embarked on a heartfelt correspondence. Their amorous letters sometimes included romantic poetry. Everything was fine until Mr. Dalton found the letters.

Benjamin Dalton told Edward Coburn about Nellie's dalliance with William Sumner and Coburn's wife's flirtation with Josiah Porter. The husbands enticed the boys to Dalton's home, where they severely beat them. When they were satisfied, they kicked them out the back door.

Porter lived to file charges against Dalton and Coburn, but William Sumner died a few days later. A victim of the femmes fatales. 

Read the full story here: Erring Wives and Jealous Husbands.

The Murderer's Attack on His Mother.

Frank Gouldy was a wild and restless young man. Unable to hold a job, he lived in idleness and dissipation in his father’s house. He was sometimes pleasant to his brothers and sisters but more often morose and vengeful, with an uncontrollable temper.

Frank came home at about ten o’clock on October 26, 1858, and his father reprimanded him about money he had taken. Frank responded with “a low chuckling laugh, full of moaning and fiendish wickedness.” He entered his stepmother's room, and as she lay in bed, he hit her several times on the head with a dull hatchet. She rose up, trying to ward off the blows, then fell to the floor. He continued his violent spree, leaving three family members wounded and one servant dead.

Read the full story here: The Thirtieth Street Murder.

The Pokomoke Tragedy.

Ella Hearn.

Ella Hearn and Lilly Duer were two young women living in Pokomoke City, Maryland, in 1878. Accounts differ as to their exact ages, but both girls were around 19. Both were from socially prominent families and had recently graduated with honors from an academy where they lived as roommates.

Both Ella and Lilly were considered beautiful but were opposites in nature. Ella was quiet and retiring with a delicate build and ladylike manners, while Lilly was described as “a madcap, independent sort of girl, and exceedingly eccentric.” Lilly wore her hair short and, on hunting expeditions, would dress in male attire.  She enjoyed target shooting and had pockets sewn into her dresses to carry a small revolver unobserved.

Removing the Bandages.

John Armstrong was seriously wounded but still alive when he was found on the ground in Camden, New Jersey, on January 23, 1878. He was taken to his home in Philadelphia, across the Delaware River, to be treated for head wounds. His friend, Benjamin Hunter, was among the first to visit him at home. In the guise of helping, Hunter suspiciously removed the bandages on Armstrong’s head, reopening the wound. After Armstrong died, police learned that Hunter had purchased a large insurance policy on Armstrong’s life, with himself as beneficiary.

Read the full story here: 

The Hunter-Armstrong Tragedy.

John Wesley Elkins.

John Wesley Elkins.

11-year-old John Wesley Elkins was slight of stature—four feet eight inches tall, weighing 73 pounds. He was intelligent and well-spoken, and he had never caused trouble until the day he murdered his parents. 

At 2:00 am, on July 24, 1889, while his parents were sleeping in their Iowa farmhouse, he shot his father in the head and then beat his mother to death with a club. Under questioning, Elkins quickly broke down and confessed. He had been unhappy at having to take care of his baby sister and wanted to set out on his own. After several unsuccessful attempts to run away, he concluded that murder was his only way out. 

John Wesley Elkins was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life at hard labor in Anamosa State Penitentiary.

Read the full story here: A Boy Murderer.

The Boss Butcher.

On December 11, 1879, neighbors searching the Harelson farm in Kerney, Nebraska, found the bodies of Mrs. Harelson and her three children inside a haystack. There was little question as to the murderer's identity. Stephen D. Richards, who had been living with the Harelsons for the previous two weeks, told them that Mrs. Harelson and the children had gone to join her husband, a fugitive from justice. The neighbors were searching because they did not believe him.

By the time the bodies were found, Richards had sold the farm and fled the state. Sheriff S.L. Martin of Hastings, Nebraska, obtained some letters Richards had written to a woman there saying that he planned to meet her in Mt. Pleasant, Ohio. Richards took a circuitous route, and Martin tracked him to Omaha, Chicago, and other points. Martin nearly captured him in Chicago, but the press got wind of his arrival and published it in the newspaper, alerting Richards. He finally captured Richards as he was walking across a field in Mt. Pleasant in the company of two young women.

After his arrest, Richards confessed to murdering the Harelsons. He continued talking, and by his second day in jail, Richards, whom the Illustrated Police News dubbed “The Boss Butcher,” confessed to a total of nine murders. The Chicago Daily Tribune published his official confession:

I was born in Mt. Pleasant, Jefferson County, Ohio, and am a Quaker by birth and religion. I lived there with nothing eventful happening to me until three years ago when a desire to roam about took possession of me. I went West and have lived in Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, Kansas, Missouri, Colorado, and Nebraska. 

The first murder I committed was in Buffalo County, in the latter State, where I shot a man with whom I engaged in a quarrel. I afterward murdered another man in his own house, because he cursed me, beating his brains out with a hammer. I then went to Kearney. At that place there lived a Swede, a bachelor, on a farm by himself. He had plenty of money, and I went to live with him, and soon after which I poisoned him, but, as he did not die quick enough to suit me, I one night knocked his brains out with a club and took all his money.

This Mrs. Harelson, whom I murdered along with her three children, had a dissolute husband, and a short time ago, he went away and left her. I conceived the idea of murdering her and her children and then selling off everything she had and pocketing the proceeds. For this purpose, I told neighbors I was going to take Mrs. Harelson and her children to a neighboring town and for them to come over the next day and feed the stock. That night, I murdered them, hid their bodies under a haystack, and went away myself.

After two or three days, I returned and gave out that Mrs. Harelson had gone to join her husband and that I had bought everything she had. I accordingly sold out everything and, as I saw that I was suspected, left the place and came on Mt. Pleasant. It was on the 8th of December that I committed the murders.

Richards broke Mrs. Harelson’s jaw and smashed the back of her head with a smoothing iron. He dispatched the two oldest children the same way, then dashed the infant’s head against the floor.

Sheriffs Martin and Anderson of Kearney and Buffalo counties took him to Nebraska on December 24. They anticipated lynch mobs both in Ohio and Nebraska. As they waited for the train, Richards, in iron shackles and handcuffs, was heavily guarded. 

On the train, Richards maintained an attitude of cool indifference. When asked if he feared lynching, he said he would as soon die one way as another. He held his life of no account, and regarding those he killed, he said, “I placed others at about the same importance as hogs.”

As the train approached Kearney, the sheriffs heard that a large crowd had gathered at the depot. They feared a lynch mob but were also concerned about Richards's boast that the “secret society” he belonged to would be there to free him and take revenge on the lawmen.

They got off the train two miles east of Kearney and secured him in a wagon. Sheriff Anderson went to Kearney and addressed the crowd. He said that Sheriff Martin had taken him to Grand Island, and he would not be in Kearney until the following day. Martin had not taken him to Grand Island. After the crowd dispersed, he secretly took Richards to the Kearney jail.

The court issued three indictments against Richards for the murder of six people. He was tried on January 15, 1879, for the first-degree murder of Peter Anderson, the Swede he killed prior to the Harelsons. His plea was not guilty; he claimed he had killed Anderson in self-defense. The trial lasted two days, and after two hours of deliberation, the jury found him guilty. The judge immediately sentenced him to hang on April 26.

As execution day approached, Richards lost his cool attitude. The Reading Daily Eagle reported, “Lately, he has cried like a child and cannot sleep or eat, being so thoroughly unmanned through fear that it is thought he will have to be carried to the gallows.”

The hanging was to be held privately inside a high enclosure, but a mob quickly tore down the fence, and at least 2,500 people witnessed the execution. Richards regained his composure on the gallows and made a short address saying his soul was going to God and his body to the undertaker. Then, after a prayer by his spiritual advisor, he asked the crowd to join him in singing, “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.” 

The trap was sprung, and fifteen minutes later, Stephen D. Richards was dead.

---

Sources: 

“An Outlaw,” New Haven Evening Register, December 24, 1878.
“The Boss Murderer,” Illustrated Police News, January 4, 1879.
“By Mail and Telegraph,” READING DAILY EAGLE, December 23, 1878.
“Convicted and Sentenced for Murder,” Cincinnati Daily Gazette, January 17, 1879.
“A Cowardly Wretch,” READING DAILY EAGLE., April 26, 1879.
“Criminal News,” Chicago Daily Tribune., December 24, 1878.
“The Death Penalty,” Cincinnati Daily Gazette, April 28, 1879.
“A Desperado in Jail,” New York Herald., December 29, 1878.
“He Killed Children as He Would Rabbits,” New York Herald, January 7, 1879.
“The Nebraska Fiend,” Chicago Daily News, April 25, 1879.
“News Article,” Cincinnati Daily Star., December 23, 1878.
“Richards, The Murderer,” Canton Daily Repository., December 27, 1878.
“Richards, the Wholesale Murderer, Streteched Hemp Yesterday,” Cheyenne daily leader. [volume], April 27, 1879.