A Mystery in Pittsburgh.

Little Murders

Police Lieutenant Snyder, walking down Frankstown Avenue in Pittsburgh’s East End, around one a.m. on January 8, 1889, heard a gunshot from the house of Albert Davis, a well-known African American restaurant owner. The Lieutenant forced his way inside and found Davis lying dead at the bottom of a staircase. A revolver lay on a table next to several empty beer bottles. Standing near the body in their nightclothes were Carrie Palmer and Mollie White, both African American. Mollie White, a girl no older than 14, said she had been awakened by the shot and saw Davis fall down the stairs, but knew nothing of the circumstances leading up to his death. Carrie Palmer refused to give any information.

The Manheim Tragedy.

Richards & Anderson

On a sunny December morning in 1857, Mrs. Anna Garber and Mrs. Elizabeth Ream were raped and murdered in Mrs. Garber’s home in Manheim, Pennsylvania. Evidence overwhelmingly pointed to Alexander Anderson and Henry Richards, two African American workmen seen in the neighborhood. Though there was little doubt as to who committed the murders, a question still remained: would they be tried by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania or would the case would be handled by "Judge Lynch."

A Brutal Murder.

Little Murders

(From Sedalia Daily Democrat, Sedalia, Missouri, October 15, 1876)

A Brutal Murder.

 

A Quarrel Between Colored Secret Societies Results in a Hanging Scrape.

St Louis, Oct. 12—A special to the Globe-Democrat from Waco, Texas says: A most brutal murder was committed near this place two weeks ago, and the coroner’s jury to-day completed the investigation, which proves that a body of colored Masons had opposition from another secret clique, and the Masons were to have their Worshipful Master, a person named Jones, murdered by another negro named McCann. Therefore Jones conterplotted, and McCann was urged several times to come out of his hole at night, but refused till the night of the 30th, when he agreed, and a party of negroes numbering ten, among them Jones, met and murdered him as per the following sample of evidence, given by Alex. Cox, who turned state’s evidence.

The Great Sheedy Murder Case.

The evening of January 11, 1891, John Sheedy stepped out of the front door of his Lincoln, Nebraska home and was attacked by a man charging from the shadows. Sheedy was struck three times in the side of the head with a leather-covered steel cane. A powerful but controversial man, John Sheedy owned an illegal gambling casino and had enemies on both sides of the law. But when it was learned that the assailant may have been paid by Sheedy’s wife who delivered the death blow herself by poisoning his coffee, the unfolding tale of adultery, miscegenation, conspiracy, extortion, and murder threatened to undermine the social decorum and moral order of Lincoln.