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.

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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.

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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.