A Husband's Vengeance.

John Kolesko, a Slavonian laborer, met Lizzie Mattis in a small town in Hungary in 1884. Six weeks later, they married and sailed at once to America. They settled in Denver, Colorado, where John found work in a glass factory.

The couple appeared to live happily together until Paul Weber, a friend of John’s, came to board at their house. After a few months, Paul began paying undue attention to Lizzie. Then, one night in 1889, John came home to find that Paul and Lizzie had left together for parts unknown. 

It took John Kolesko two years to track Paul and Lizzie to Cleveland, Ohio. On the morning of November 16, 1891, he went to their house and begged Lizzie to return with him to Denver. She refused, claiming John had beaten and otherwise ill-treated her. When his pleading failed, he went to the police department and tried to obtain a warrant to force his wife to return to him, but he was not able to prove that they were married.

That afternoon he went back to the house and commanded Lizzie to return with him. When she refused again, he shot her four times killing her instantly. Kolesko did not try to escape. He cooly walked to the police station and gave himself up.

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Sources: 

“A Deliberate Murder,” Jersey Journal, November 17, 1891.
“A Husband's Vengeance,” National Police Gazette, December 5, 1891.
“Killed His Wife,” Bucyrus Evening Telegraph, November 17, 1891.
“Shot His Truant Wife,” Delaware gazette and state journal, November 19, 1891.

Transitory Frenzy.

Charles E. Henry came to Denver, Colorado, determined to live the fast life. The ambitious nineteen-year-old left his home in London, Ontario, in 1887 after winning $5,000 in the Louisiana lottery. He planned to use his winnings as seed money to begin a career as a professional gambler and to finance a life of luxury as he did so.

Henry had some initial success in the arcades of Denver, winning, on average, $30 a day for his first two weeks in town, but he spent more than that on the girls at the Palace Theater. The show at the Palace featured a variety company with a number of attractive young actresses and female vocalist. The theater required the women, when not on stage, to entertain individual customers, luring them to private boxes in the theater balcony and enticing them to buy drinks, for which the women received kickbacks. Charles Henry bought drinks for most of the cast before focusing his attentions on Miss Effie Moore, an actress with a round face and long curls of shiny black hair, who did a solo seriocomic performance in the show.

Murder Quickly Avenged.

George Lear, an ex-prize fighter living in Altman, Colorado, had a bone to pick with Irene Good, a pretty barmaid at the Branch Saloon on Bull Mountain, Cripple Creek, Colorado. On November 15, 1893, Lear came to the door of the saloon and called for Irene. She went out and soon after, bartender Sam James heard her screaming. James ran outside and found that Lear had knocked Irene down and run away.

Later, Lear came back and entered the rear door of the saloon, he went into the barroom and began shooting. Irene Good, who had come from behind the bar, fell to the floor and cried, “I am killed.” Sam James then emptied his revolver into George Lear. Though seriously wounded, Lear walked to where Irene was lying, shot her through the temple, then fell dead across her body.

It is not clear what Irene Good had done to enrage George Lear.

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Sources:
“Murder Quickly Avenged,” Muskegon Chronicle, November 17, 1893.
“A Pretty Barmaid Murdered,” National Police Gazette, December 9, 1893.

Alfred Packer, Man-eater.

From Harper's Weekly, 1874

In February of 1874, a group of six men led by Alfred Packer, ventured into the San Juan Mountains in Colorado territory in search of gold. That April, Packer arrived alone at the Los Pinos Indian Agency, somewhat wild looking, but remarkably healthy for someone who had endured two month of brutal winter weather in the mountains. Packer claimed that he had taken ill, his men had abandoned him and he had traveled alone to the Agency. But when confronted with evidence that suggested his story was false, Packer made a full confession. He had survived the San Juan winter by eating his companions.

Is Holmes Hatch?

Herman Webster Mudgett, alias Dr. H. H. Holmes, confessed to killing 27 men, women, and children, but lawmen estimated that his actual total was as high as 230 murders. This is not enough for some people; there appears to be a movement afoot, to pin every unsolved murder of the 19th century on Dr. Holmes. Some amateur detectives are now attempting to “prove” that H. H. Holmes was also Jack the Ripper, though there is no evidence that Holmes ever left North America, and the modus operandi of the two men could not be more different (the ripper killed with a quick slash to the throat; Holmes preferred slow torture from a distance). It is also rumored that someone is trying to connect Holmes to the murder of Lizzie Borden’s parents.

Apparently, accusing Holmes of murders he did not commit, is not a new phenomenon. This article from The Fort Wayne Journal, September 1, 1895, tells of a  theory from Colorado, that Clark W. Hatch, who murdered his uncle there, was actually H. H. Holmes. The theory was effectively refuted by Yankee common sense.

IS HOLMES HATCH?
COLORADO PEOPLE HAVE WORKED OUT A STORY
THEY THINK MULTI-MURDERER HOLMES AND THE MYSTERIOUS HATCH ARE ONE AND THE SAME MAN – A HISTORY OF HATCH AND HIS CRIMES