Guest Blogger: Anthony Vaver of Early American Crime

Murder by Gaslight is pleased to welcome guest blogger Anthony Vaver of Early American Crime, a blog that documents murder, thievery and other criminal behavior in America’s colonial period. Anthony is the author of the new book Bound with an Iron Chain, which tells the fascinating story of America’s forgotten settlers: the fifty thousand convicts transported from England into servitude in the colonies. The book is available at Amazon.

Today, Anthony will be sharing with us the story of Charles O’Donnel, a particularly vile murderer whose narrative bridges the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.




Charles O’Donnel: His Life and Confession

By Anthony Vaver

On the side of a road in the middle of nowhere Mrs. Shokey begged for her life with “many bitter cries and tears,” but Charles O’Donnel remained unmoved. The unexpected meeting of the two neighbors presented O’Donnel with the opportunity to follow through on his previous threat: that he would kill Shokey if his daughter’s illness did not improve.

The Manhattan Well Mystery

On January 2, 1800, the body of Gulielma Sands was found in the Manhattan Well, not far from her boardinghouse on Greenwich Street, New York City. There were two contradictory schools of thought among those who knew Gulielma Sands—those who remembered her as melancholy and suicidal, and those remembered her as happy and cheerful, especially so on the night she disappeared when she revealed that she was to marry Levi Weeks. When Levi Weeks was arrested for murder everyone in the city would take a side. The trial of Levi Weeks was the first of New York City’s sensational murder cases, the first American murder trial to be transcribed, and the first defense council “dream team.” Levi Weeks was represented in court by Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr.

Big Harpe and Little Harpe

Micajah and Wiley Harpe –known respectively as "Big" and "Little" Harpe—spread misery and terror through the western frontier in the 1790s.  They took what they wanted and recognized no law, leaving a trail of death and destruction through Kentucky and Tennessee.  More heinous than mere outlaws, the Harpes had declared war on humanity, killing men, women, and children indiscriminately; repaying frontier hospitality with arson and death.  The Harpes are considered by many to be the first recorded serial killers in American history.