Frederick F. Streeter.

About half past three, the morning of July 2, 1863, a young man on his way to work in Medina, Ohio, saw the home of Shubal Coy in flames. He alerted the neighbors, who came out to douse the flames with water. When the fire was under control, they went inside to look for the Coy family. They found Shubal lying in bed with nine stab wounds in his throat and breast, any one of them capable of producing death. His wife lay on the floor, with her throat cut. She had fought with her attacker and had twenty-four cuts on her head and body. Their seven-year-old son Ferdinand lay in bed with his throat cut. Mercifully, it appeared he was murdered in his sleep.

Shubal Coy was a 40-year-old livestock dealer who had cashed a $1,200 check the day before, planning to buy some sheep. Those who knew him told police that Coy slept with his money under his pillow for safekeeping. The money was gone. 

The police investigated the scene in the daylight but found little evidence. Handprints on a fence next to the property first made them think there were two killers, but the source turned out to be neighbors wiping the blood from their hands after moving the bodies. The murders had been well planned, and the killer had left no trace inside the house. He set the fire to hide the murders, and had it been allowed to burn another fifteen minutes, he may have succeeded. On the ground outside the house, the police found an empty envelope that had contained the money. There was blood on the edge where the envelope had been torn open.

The Coy Family Home (Elite Studio postcard)

The Coys had been out visiting friends until about 10:00 the night before. Ferdinand had asked if one of his playmates could sleep over, but his  mother said no because the hour was late. Had he slept over, there would be a fourth victim.

The door was locked, and the neighbors had to break into the house. They believed that the killer entered the house while the family was out and hid inside until they had gone to bed.

The community was outraged by the crime, and with so little to go on, the County Commissioners offered a $1,000 reward for information leading to an arrest. Several days later, they raised the reward to $4,000, with $500 paid in advance to detectives.

Suspicion fell on a man who called himself Captain Frederick F. Streeter. He came to Medina to set up a recruiting office for the Ohio Volunteer Infantry to fight in the Civil War. Streeter had enlisted in Berdan’s Sharpshooters in Vermont’s 1st regiment, but he never advanced beyond corporal. He became dissatisfied and deserted, returning to his home in Bellow’s Falls, Vermont. Allegedly, he attempted to set fire to his house there and burn his wife and son alive before fleeing to Ohio.

After his recruitment office in Medina failed, Streeter had no visible means of support. He married a 16-year-old girl, Miss Whitmore, who came from a prominent Medina family. Streeter was having trouble meeting his bills and borrowed money from his father-in-law and others. Streeter’s wife was a close friend of Mrs. Coy and had frequently taken Frederick to her house.

Streeter claimed that he was in Cleveland when the murder occurred. He said he won a large sum of money gambling and returned the day after the murder, wearing new clothes. He repaid his debts and spent freely in Medina. Soon after, he and his wife started on a trip west.

The Prosecuting Attorney of Medina, Mr. S. B. Woodward, along with Detective Burlison of Akron, tracked the Streeters on their journey west. They first stopped at Woodstock, Illinois, and stayed with a cousin of Mrs. Streeter. They spent lavishly and stayed at first-class hotels in Milwaukee, Chicago, and Springfield, then on to Kenosha, Wisconsin, where her uncle lived. In Kenosha, they bought tickets to Boston, but Woodward and Burlison caught up before they could use them. Streeter claimed to have no knowledge of the murder but did not fight when they took him back to Medina.

When arrested, Streeter had $64 in greenbacks in his pocket, including two $20 bills with blood on their edges. The bloodstains exactly matched those on the torn end of the envelope found at the crime scene. This fact, combined with Streeter’s incomplete and often inconsistent explanation of how and when he obtained the money, was sufficient to charge him with the first-degree murder of the Coy family.

The Wooster Republican described Frederick Streeter as 

“…a man of small stature, thin face, rather light hair, a low forehead, a fiery, piercing, snaky eye, and a long, slim neck. He is a man of small understanding, much ostentation, a man unaccustomed to work and fond of dress, a fop and a dandy.” 

Frederick F. Streeter 

The courtroom was packed when his trial began that December. At one point there were so many standing in the room that the floor gave way. Streeter sat in court with cool indifference throughout his trial. The jury deliberated for ten hours before returning a verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree. When Judge Burke asked Streeter if he had anything to say as to why sentence should not be pronounced upon, him he replied, “My counsel have done all for me that could be done, yet I protest I am an innocent man and time, I think, will develop it.”

The judge then reviewed the case, and while speaking of the innocent sleeping boy murdered that night, the prisoner closed his eyes, and trembling, became faint and sank into his chair. Judge Burke sentenced Streeter to be hanged on February 26, 1864. He admonished Streeter to repent his sins, and make peace with his God and closed with the sentence. “may God have mercy on your soul.”

Streeter was restless while confined in the Medina County Jail awaiting execution. Someone had passed tools through his cell window, and he attempted to dig through the ceiling and walls of his cell. On December 24, he succeeded.

The jail was built with apartments for the jailer’s family at one end and cells at the other, surrounded by a hall, six feet wide. Streeter dug a hole through the wall to an adjoining cell he knew to be unoccupied and unlocked. He climbed through the hole and waited until the jailer’s son came into the hall to build a fire in the stove there. The boy left the door unlocked, and Streeter slipped out unseen. He went upstairs to the floor above, waited until dark, and jumped out a window to freedom.

Before leaving town, Streeter stopped at his father-in-law’s house and slipped a note to his wife under the door. He wished her merry Christmas, and asked her to remain true to him, assuring her they would again live happily together.

The people of Medina were outraged that the murderer was on the loose. The Cincinnati Daily Commercial reported, “We notice, posted about the city, an offer of one thousand dollars reward for the apprehension of the demon in human shape, Frederick F. Streeter.” The reward was raised to $4,000, and a statewide manhunt commenced. 

Streeter was recaptured on December 30 in Richfield, Ohio, 24 miles from Medina. Two men of that town staked out the home of Hiram Hart, who they knew was a cousin of Streeter. They found him in Hart’s barn, and he surrendered without a fight. Streeter was taken back to the Medina jail, this time secured in his cell by chains.

Still trying to avoid his fate, Streeter feigned insanity. He then attempted to starve himself, making him susceptible to disease. By the day of his execution, he weighed less than 100 pounds and was too weak to walk alone. Before the hanging, interested parties were allowed to meet with Streeter. When the father of Mrs. Coy came to him, Streeter said, “As true as there is a God in heaven, I never murdered your daughter.”

A tall wooden fence was erected in the yard where the gallows stood. A crowd of over 15,000 people who came to witness the hanging tore down the fence and burned it. Guards prevented the mob from storming the gallows.

Streeter had to be carried to the gallows by the sheriff’s men. He could not stand, so they placed him in a chair over the trapdoor. His last words were, “The crime for which I am about to die I am entirely innocent of. May God forgive those who have wronged me.”

“He sat down,” said The Toledo Blade, “his arms were pinioned, the cap was drawn over his face, and he was moved to the fatal trap, still sitting in his chair.—But the final moments came at last; a movement of the lever and the trap flew from under him, and Frederick F. Steeter, the convicted treble murderer, was no more.”

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Sources: 

The Arrest and Trial of Frederick F. Streeter. (Medina: Gazette Print, 1864.) 

“Arrest of the Supposed Medina Murderer,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, September 16, 1863.
“Arrest of the Supposed Medina Murderer,” Portage County Democrat, September 16, 1863.
“Arrest of the Supposed Murder of the Coy Family,” Toledo Blade, September 21, 1863.
“Bound Over,” Cleveland morning leader, September 12, 1863.
“Escape of Streeter,” Cleveland morning leader, December 28, 1863.
“Escape of a Murder,” Cincinnati Daily Commercial, December 29, 1863.
“Escaped from Jail,” Plain Dealer, December 26, 1863.
“Execution of Streeter,” Toledo Blade, February 27, 1864.
“Execution of Streeter, the Medina Murderer,” Cadiz Democratic Sentinel., March 9, 1864.
“Frederick F Streeter,” Delaware gazette., March 4, 1864.
 Frederick F. Streeter - They Expect Wonders of Us 

 FREDERICK STREETER Gravesite - medinacountygraves.com  

“Horrible Murder in Ohio,” Louisville Daily Democrat., July 5, 1863.
“Horrible Tragedy,” Evening Post, July 8, 1863.
“The Late Murders in Medina,” Cleveland Morning Leader, July 6, 1863.
“The Medina Murder Case,” Cleveland Morning Leader, December 4, 1863.
“The Medina Murders,” Wooster Republican, July 16, 1863.
“The Medina Tragedy,” Cleveland Morning Leader, July 9, 1863.
“The Medina Tragedy,” Toledo Blade, December 2, 1863.
“A Murder Foretold in a Dream,” Evening Post, July 10, 1863.
“The Murder of the Coy Family,” Cleveland Morning Leader, September 14, 1863.
“Murder Trial in Medina,” Cleveland Morning Leader, November 24, 1863.
“Murder Will Out,” Portage County Democrat, January 6, 1864.
“The Murderer of the Coy Family Escaped from Prison,” Daily Ohio Statesman, December 29, 1863.
“Obituary,” Plain Dealer, July 18, 1863.
“Reward Offered,” Cleveland morning leader., July 8, 1863.
“Robbery and Murder in Medina County,” Toledo Blade, July 3, 1863.
“Shocking Event in Medina,” Cincinnati Daily Commercial, July 4, 1863.
“Trial Of Streeter, For the Murder of the Coy Family,” Wooster Republican, December 10, 1863.