Sororcide.

The Murder of Lizzie Anderson

Josie Fay was standing at the corner of Bowker and Sudbury Streets in Boston’s West End, on the evening of January 19, 1880. Stella Vannell approached her and asked if she had seen Ida King. Josie pointed down Bowker Street, where Ida stood talking with a young man named Michael Tolan. Stella walked up to the couple, called out to Ida, and began making disparaging remarks about Tolan. The women exchanged angry words, and the argument escalated until, in a flash, Stella drew a large clasp-knife and plunged it into Ida’s breast. Both women were drunk at the time of the incident, and both were using assumed names. In fact, they were sisters, Maggie and Lizzie Anderson.

Rum and the Knife.

On November 14, 1877, the Lynches of South Boston were expecting a visit from Mrs. Lynch’s sister, Bridget Frances Kenneally. Mr. and Mrs. Lynch were sitting in the kitchen at around 6:30 when the door suddenly flew open, and Bridget fell flat on her face across the threshold. They thought she had fainted, so they carried her to the sofa and attempted to revive her but were unsuccessful. Bridget appeared to be dying, so the Lynches sent for a physician and a Catholic priest, but she died before either arrived, without uttering a word or giving the slightest clue as to the cause.

A Great Burly, Broad-Shouldered Bully.

Billy Wieners was the night watchman and bouncer for the saloon in the Theatre Comique in St. Louis. He was a large man—“a great burly, broad-shouldered bully,” said the Cincinnati Commercial Tribune. In January 1877, he was under bond for attempting to kill his wife.

He was also quite fond of whiskey. He was drunk on the night of January 29 when he was working as a bouncer at the saloon. He overheard the assistant barkeeper, A.V. Lawrence, make disparaging remarks about Wieners’s wife to the Head Barkeeper. Wieners responded, drawing his revolver and threatening to kill Lawrence.

A.V. Lawrence, alias Lawrence Mack, was known as a quiet, inoffensive young man, a short man of slight build. He was no match for Billy Wieners. A bystander stepped in to separate them, and Wieners agreed to go home. But before Wieners left, the altercation renewed, and Wieners struck Lawrence in the face with his fist. Lawrence picked up a soda bottle to hurl at Wieners, but before he could throw it, Wieners drew two pistols and fired one, hitting Lawrence in the neck. He died almost instantly. 

Wieners was quickly arrested, and the following October, he was tried for first-degree murder. He was found guilty and sentenced to hang on December 14. As the judge pronounced the sentence, Wieners smiled pleasantly and seemed unconcerned, but later, he told reporters he would starve or kill himself before he would meet death on the scaffold. After five months of incarceration, Wieners had already lost 70 pounds.

Wieners received a stay of execution while his lawyer appealed the verdict before the Missouri Supreme Court. They alleged that the judge in Wieners’s trial did not instruct the jury regarding murder in the second degree. At issue was whether Wieners acted with premeditation and malice aforethought in killing Lawrence. Wieners’s attorney argued that he had acted in the heat of passion and should not be charged with first-degree murder. The Supreme Court upheld the verdict. They summed up their lengthy ruling by saying, “We have carefully examined the record to find evidence tending to mitigate the offense of which the defendant was guilty but have failed to discover a circumstance to indicate it was other than deliberate murder.”

The hanging was rescheduled for February 1878. As Billy Weiners awaited his punishment, his sister Annie worked to have his sentence commuted to life in prison. She circulated a petition and met personally with Governor Phelps. While support for commutation was growing, the Governor would not commit himself.

Billy Wieners was hanged at 8:30 AM on February 1, 1878, in the jail yard in St. Louis in front of a small group of spectators, mostly reporters and attorneys. Wieners made a brief speech in which he admitted to killing Lawrence, but not in cold blood. He said he was crazed with liquor, and he warned all men against whiskey and bad associations.

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Sources:

 
“Brutal Murder at St. Louis,” Cincinnati Commercial Tribune, January 30, 1877.
“Deliberate Murder,” Chicago Daily Tribune, January 30, 1877.
“Execution of Wieners at St. Louis,” Cincinnati Daily Gazette, February 2, 1878.
“Jottings By Telegraph,” Cincinnati Daily Gazette, January 14, 1878.
“Missouri,” Rock Island Argus, February 1, 1878.
“Murder,” Illustrated Police News, February 17, 1877.
“Murderer Sentenced,” Arkansas Gazette, October 31, 1877.
“News Of the Day,” Alexandria Gazette, January 30, 1877.
“A Second Stay,” Chicago Daily News, December 15, 1877.
“Sentence of Death,” Chicago Daily Tribune, October 31, 1877.
“Telegraphic Notes,” Milan Exchange, February 8, 1877.
“Wieners Must Hang,” State journal, January 18, 1878.

She Killed the Beast.

 

Bob Ramsey, a waiter at a resort hotel in Murphy, North Carolina, was standing in a lower hallway he heard a scream coming from the stairway. He recognized the woman running down the stairs as Lillian Gould, a pretty blonde Englishwoman about 30 years old. She was screaming because her husband, Charles, ten years older, tall and strong, was chasing her with a riding crop. 

Good News! Three Cheers!

 

The Hangman, a newspaper dedicated to the abolition of capital punishment, celebrated the commutation of Orrin DeWolf’s death sentence on September 9, 1845.

Did this young, drunken, diseased, conniving, duplicitous, murderous, libertine deserve mercy? You decide: Orrin DeWolf. 

Two Shots, a Shriek.

“A dark, mean little bedroom, a woman, half-undressed, dirty and pale, and blear-eyed from long excesses, a male companion, leaning over her with a revolver at her head, two shots, a shriek, an ugly hole under the ear, and the vice and crime of Boston had added another murder to its long score.” The Boston Herald’s vivid description of the murder of Josephine Brown on Christmas Eve, 1891, served to underscore her sad and dismal life. Married and divorced by age twenty, Josephine’s family blamed her for the failed marriage and turned her away. Left to fend for herself, Josephine Brown spent the next twenty years as a prostitute.

Joe, as she was known on the street, had been working in a brothel run by Mrs. Mary Ann Fisher on Pitt Street, in Boston’s West End. The house had recently closed down with the arrest of Mrs. Fisher, and Joe was working as a street walker. The demise of Mrs. Fisher’s house meant more than the loss of shelter, it left Joe without protection from the potential violence of her profession, and without anyone to keep her away from whiskey, which, when she was left on her own, became Joe’s consuming passion.

The Secession Murder Case.

Samuel Merritt and Cornelius Salmon were walking down Prince Street in New York City on May

31, 1861, and as they approached a lager beer saloon, Salmon suggested that they stop for a glass of beer. Merritt agreed, and they went into the saloon which was in the basement of a house owned by John Immen.  The owner’s son Edward was tending the bar and poured the men two glasses as they took seats at a table.

A little after 4:00, John M. Swain, who lived in the house above the saloon, stopped in for a drink, and Salmon invited him to join them at the table. They had a pleasant conversation until the subject of politics came up. 

The issue of the day was the secession of the southern states, and Swain was a strong supporter of the secessionists. Merritt, who staunchly supported the Union angrily disagreed. Swain said that the Union should be dissolved, and there should be two confederacies, one southern and one northern. The argument became heated, and Swain said he would like to have the American flag trampled upon. Merritt, who could take no more, said “United States or nothing” and demanded that Swain say it too. Swain refused.

There were only four men in the saloon at that time, and none of the witnesses could say for sure how it transpired, but Merritt had a pistol in his hand and fired a shot into Swain’s chest, killing him instantly. Merritt laid the pistol on the table, then he and Salmon left the saloon and went separate ways. 

The police were called the scene and got the story from Edward Immen. Patrolman Sullivan arrested Cornelius Salmon, and at about 6:45 that evening, Samuel Merritt went to the Eighth Precinct station and turned himself in. By that evening, a coroner’s jury determined that John M. Swain had come to his death by a pistol shot wound at the hands of Samuel H. Merritt. Merritt declared he was not guilty and said the pistol had belonged to Swain.

Merritt’s trial for murder began on January 28, 1862. There was no doubt that Merritt pulled the trigger, but the trial focused more on Swain’s seccessionist views. As the Philadelphia Inquirer said, “the only question to be determined by the jury is what amount of guilt attaches itself to a man who unintentionally kills a ‘traitor?’”

The jury found Samuel Merritt guilty of manslaughter in the third degree and recommended mercy. He was given the minimum sentence of two years in State Prison.

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Sources:
“Murder in the Eighth Ward,” World, June 1, 1861.
“The Murder of John M. Swain,” The New York Times, June 2, 1861.
“Murder of John Swain,” Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, June 8, 1861.
“News Article,” Herald, January 30, 1862.
“Our New York Letter,” Philadelphia Inquirer, January 28, 1862.
“The Secession Murder Case,” Herald, January 29, 1862.
“Verdict in the Eighth Ward Murder,” World, June 3, 1861.

Fatal Family Feud.

The morning of December 18, 1889, Edward O’Connor, a San Francisco bartender, surrendered
himself to a group of police officers saying, “I hit a man with a stick last night, and I think he is dead.”

O’Connor was quite intoxicated and was reluctant to take the officers to see the body.  He finally led them to the home of his father-in-law, Henry Armstrong where they found Armstrong’s body laying on the floor of the front room. The floor was strewn with broken glass, clay pipes and cigarette butts and a number of half-empty whiskey and gin bottles stood on a table in another room. 

Armstrong’s wife lay passed out on a bed near the body. O’Connor’s wife Sarah, as drunk as her husband became excited at the approach of the officers. Apparently unaware of what Edward had told them, Sarah said that the shooting had been accidental then corrected herself saying Armstrong had dropped dead from heart disease.

O’Connor then exclaimed “No, no! I am the murderer! I killed him. He abused my wife and I shot him.”

Armstrong had begun throwing things at his wife, O’Connor explained, pointing to an alarm clock Armstrong had hurled. O’Connor hit him with a stick and Sarah ran to get his revolver. The gun went off accidentally as O’Connor tried to take it away from her. Examining the body, the officers discovered a bullet wound in Armstrong’s left side.

Sarah had married Edward O’Connor on November 7, and the four of them lived together in a four-room cottage—it was a disaster waiting to happen. Since the wedding, the household had been “on a protracted debauch” of drunken animosity. Henry Armstrong, who owned the cottage, was bitterly opposed to his stepdaughter’s marriage and had threatened to throw everyone out. He was a confirmed drunkard with a mean disposition and had been arrested two years earlier for feloniously assaulting Sarah. Edward O’Connor was also a drunkard. His first wife had recently secured a divorce on the grounds of cruelty and intemperance. That night all four had been drinking heavily.

Once everyone had sobered up, police managed to piece together the events of the night before. Armstrong had come home drunk at about 9:00 and everyone else had already gone to bed. Sarah got up and prepared supper for him, then took a bowl of soup to her husband and a drink of liquor to her mother. Armstrong became angry that Sarah had not brought him a drink. He verbally abused her saying the dinner was not fit for a dog. Becoming increasingly angry Armstrong began throwing things at her including a lamp chimney and an alarm clock.

The noise aroused O’Connor who grabbed his cane and rushed at Armstrong, intending to give him a clubbing. Armstrong evaded the stick, rushed into his room and shut the door. O’Connor turned to go back to bed and was surprised to see his wife approaching with his bulldog pistol in her hand. O’Connor grappled with her and managed to take it away after the gun went off. Thinking nothing was wrong the two went back to bed.

Two hours later, Mrs. Armstrong called out saying that her husband was hurt. They thought she was fooling and paid no attention. She insisted they come and when they did they found Armstrong on the floor very weak and faint. O’Connor went to get some whiskey and when he returned Armstrong was dead. Then he went for the police.

Sarah claimed that she had not intended to use the pistol; she wanted to hide it so her husband wouldn’t use it. Sarah was released and Edward O’Connor was held for murder. At his trial the following March, O’Connor was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to five years at San Quentin.

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Sources:
“The Day of Doom,” San Francisco Chronicle, March 22, 1890.
“Fatal Family Feud,” San Diego Union, December 26, 1889.
“Kicked out of the House,” San Francisco Bulletin, February 13, 1890.
“Mrs. Sarah O'Connor Kills Her Step-Father,” Evening News, December 18, 1889.
“Murder Most Foul!,” The National Police Gazette, January 11, 1890.
“On Trial for Murder,” San Francisco Bulletin, March 1, 1890.
“A San Francisco Tragedy,” Sacramento Bee, December 18, 1889.
“Who Shot Him?,” San Francisco Bulletin, December 18, 1889.

Liquor and Jealousy.

In October 1893, 64-year-old Patrick Finney of New Bedford, Pennsylvania, was visiting his old friend and drinking buddy James Campbell in Hazelton, Ohio.  Campbell had been a saloonkeeper in Pittsburgh before retiring and moving with his wife to Hazelton, a suburb of Youngstown. 

As was their custom, Finney and the Campbells were drinking heavily the night of October 9. James Campbell had a reputation as a man of ungovernable temper when intoxicated and this night was no exception. Around 10:00, when it became clear that Campbell had exceeded his limit, a neighbor who had been drinking with them helped Campbell to bed. Finney and Mrs. Campbell stayed up and continued talking. 

Around twenty minutes after going to bed, Campbell came back downstairs. Still drunk and angry, Campbell was holding a 22-caliber revolver. 

“I’ll fix you,” he said, then fired three shots. One went through his wife’s chest, killing her instantly and the other two hit Finney in the head and abdomen.

The police arrived quickly, arresting Campbell and rushing Finney to the hospital. Campbell told the police he had shot his wife and friend because he had caught them in a compromising position, but once he was locked in a cell he said, “I don’t know what made me do it.” The newspapers concluded that liquor and unfounded jealousy were the cause.

In January 1894, James Campbell was indicted for the murder of his wife and attempted murder of Patrick Finney.  He announced his intention to plead insanity but being “crazy drunk” has never been a good defense. The following March, Campbell was found guilty of second-degree murder.

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Sources:
“An Old Man's Murderous Jealousy,” Evening Herald, October 10, 1893.
“Commits Double Murder.” Daily Inter Ocean, October 10, 1893.
“Jealousy Causes Murder,” Patriot, October 10, 1893.
“On Trial for his Life,” Plain Dealer, February 27, 1894.
“Plenty Of Indictments,” Plain Dealer, January 18, 1894.
“Shot his Wife Dead,” National Police Gazette, November 4, 1893.

Murder at the Pool Table.

Thomas H. Jones, aged 21, was planning to leave Brooklyn on October 5, 1880, to start a new life in San Francisco. The night before his planned departure he went to say goodbye to his friend George Secor and the two young men went to a lager beer saloon run by N. Debrowski on Atlantic Street to play billiards.

Between games, they went to the bar for some soda water. As they were placing their order John J. Dwyer entered the saloon, extremely intoxicated. He stood next to Jones and Secor and said, “I’ll take whiskey for mine.”  Neither man knew Dwyer and they ignored him; Debrowski told him that he had no whiskey.

With a Knife in His Heart.

Patrick S. Donovan, better known as “Snip,” began drinking champagne after the first race at Monmouth Park in Oceanport, New Jersey, on August 6, 1893. The wine continued to flow as he watched the day’s races and Donovan appeared to be in a jovial mood, but he may have been trying to drown his sorrows. “Snip” Donovan was a successful and well-known horse trainer, but he had recently been discharged from the stables of Pierre Lorillard in a dispute over training methods. Donovan was also having a run of bad luck in his betting. In spite of his problems, witnesses agreed that Donovan had been in a good mood throughout the day.

After the last race, Donovan wanted to keep drinking so he and John Chew, a stable hand who worked for Lorillard, hitched up a buggy and went to Oceanport. Chew, the more sober of the two drove the horse. They drank for several hours in Oceanport then went to the Monmouth Hotel near the track and had some more. Those who saw them that night said the men appeared to be on friendly terms, but, sometime after midnight the mood changed. Donovan had been drinking heavily, while Chew drank only three bottles of beer. Chew was ready to leave the hotel, but Donovan wanted to stay for another drink.

Rum, Jealousy and Murder.

George Widman and Thomas Brownlee accompanied a young lady name Miss Norris on an excursion up the Hudson River from Yonkers, New York to Newberg, aboard the steamer Grand Republic on Sunday, October 5, 1879. Widman, a 25-year-old carpenter, and Brownlee, a 27-year-old blacksmith were good friends, members of the same hose company of the Yonkers fire department. Widman was a steady man with quiet, temperate habits; Brownlee was a hard drinker known to become quarrelsome when drunk.

As the trip progressed, it became clear the Miss Norris favored the attention of Widman, who had taken her to the circus the previous Friday. Brownlee drank heavily on the boat and expressed his feelings toward Widman in very intemperate language.

Williamsburg Stabbing Affray.

The night ended in a melee at Henry Shear’s lager-beer saloon in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn on January 6, 1868, and Henry Shear himself was fatally stabbed. There were two versions of how this tragedy occurred. It was first reported that Otto Schade had come into the saloon for beer but had no money. Shear, being an amiable young man, told Schade he was welcome to all the beer he wanted and could pay later. Schade took full advantage of this offer and “while in a hilarious state” decided to show the other patrons some card tricks. Not everyone enjoyed the show, and someone knocked the cards from Schade’s hands. Schade took umbrage at this, a fight ensued and Schade was roughly handled. Henry Shear intervened and tried to make peace, but Schade had drawn has jackknife and was swinging wildly. Unable to distinguish friend from foe he plunged the knife into Shear’s left breast. As soon as he could, Schade left the saloon, unaware of what he had done.

First Avenue Butchery.

Charles Jacobs, a 27-year-old German immigrant, ran a butcher shop at 262 First Avenue in New York City. His business was being hampered by loafers loitering on the sidewalk outside the shop. On Saturday, January 4, 1868, one of the loafers, a man he knew only as Kelly, decided to loiter inside the  shop. Kelly was clearly drunk and loudly making his presence known so Jacobs tried to rush him back outside. In the scuffle that followed Kelly grabbed a butcher knife from the counter and plunged it into Jacob’s abdomen. Reportedly, the wound was so ghastly that Jacob’s bowels could be seen protruding.

Kelly fled, and Jacobs was taken to Bellevue Hospital. The hospital staff knew that Jacobs was beyond saving, and they sent for Coroner Schirmer to take his ante-mortem statement. Jacob declared Kelly was his killer; he died soon after. As of January 25, Kelly was still at large; it is unlikely he was ever arrested for this crime.

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Sources:
“Carnival of Crime,” Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, January 25, 1868.
“City And Suburban Facts,” Commercial Advertiser, January 6, 1868.
“Murder in First-Ave,” New York Tribune, January 6, 1868.
“Stabbing Affray,” The Buffalo Commercial, January 6, 1868.

A Deliberate, Damnable Murder.

William B. Baldwin

Around 2:00 a.m., the morning of November 25, 1879, the citizens of Hastings, Nebraska, were awakened by frenzied cries of “fire!” The Burlington & Missouri Railroad Depot was burning. Firemen were dispatched to the blaze but, in the words of The Nebraska State Journal, Hastings had “as poor a Fire Department as could be well conceived.” The depot burned to the ground along with two freight cars, for a loss estimated at $20,000.

When the smoke cleared an even greater loss was revealed, the partially consumed body of Allen J. Yocum, a brakeman on the B&M line. Two other men at the scene Ralph M. Taylor, another brakeman, and William B. Baldwin, the telegraph operator at the depot said that an oil lamp had exploded and they managed to escape the fire. Baldwin expressed regret that he hadn’t tried harder to rescue Yocum.

But Baldwin and Taylor were clearly drunk when they were questioned and their stories were confused and contradictory. Witnesses stated that they had heard two or three gunshots prior to hearing the alarm. Rumors began to circulate that the fire was not accidental. Yocum’s body which was in the process of being transferred to his parents in Albia, Nebraska, was stopped in transit. A post-mortem examination revealed that Allen Yocum had two bullet wounds on his left side.

A coroner’s jury determined that Yocum had been murdered, shot by either Baldwin or Taylor. William Baldwin had a 22-caliber revolver which had recently been discharged. It was supposed that Baldwin had quarreled with Yocum and killed him, then set the fire attempting to hide the crime. He forced Taylor at gunpoint to keep quiet. “A Deliberate, Damnable Murder,” said The Nebraska State Journal.

But when the case went to trial the following June, the charge had been reduced, probably due to the circumstantial nature of the evidence. William B. Baldwin was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to ten years at hard labor in the Eastings Penitentiary.

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Sources:
“Burned to Death,” The Nebraska State Journal, November 26, 1879.
“Caught By the Fire,” Chicago Tribune, November 26, 1879.
“A Hardened Villain,” National Police Gazette, November 27, 1880.
“The Hastings Affair,” The Nebraska State Journal, November 29, 1879.
“Murder and Arson,” Chicago Tribune, November 29, 1879.

Orrin De Wolf.

Orrin De Wolf

Orrin De Wolf was a humble hostler in Worcester, Massachusetts in January 1845, but he had prospects for a brighter future. He had a deal with Eliza Ann Stiles—on the death of her husband William they would share his estate. William was a deformed, alcoholic in poor health and not likely to live another year. But Orin did not want to wait and his impatience would be his downfall.

The Butler Fratricide.

The Murder of Henry Butler - Portrait of his Killer.

On October 6, 1879, Henry Butler went to visit his younger brother, Robert, at the King farm outside of Bradford, Pennsylvania, where Robert boarded. The brothers exchanged warm greetings, they had not seen each other in four years. They made plans to visit a third brother in Hornellsville, New York, then all three would go together to see their father. But first, they would have a night on the town.

“But you’re stabbed, don’t you know.”

Little Murders

On Wednesday evening, October 1, 1888, Brundage H. Welton, a well-known insurance man, was standing in Wilcox Brother’s cigar store in Bainbridge, New York, when a young man came into the store, walked up to Welton and punched him in the side.

“Don’t punch a fellow that way; you hurt,” Welton said to him.

“But you’re stabbed, don’t you know,” the other man said, grinning. He punched him again and said “Look and see.”

Welton unbuttoned his coat and was horrified to see a great quantity of blood flowing from stab wounds in his side.

The New Hampshire Horror.

After his wife left him in November, 1883, Thomas Samon began a weekend of drunken debauchery in Laconia, New Hampshire, with Jane Ford, the wife of his landlord. But when the beer ran out Saturday morning, events turned unexpectedly violent, ending in a horrible triple murder