The Cold Spring Tragedy.

 

Jacob and Nancy Young were involved in what would later be called a Ponzi scheme with Nancy Clem in Indianapolis. In 1868 the Youngs decided it was time to pull out. They took between $7,000 and $9,000 and tried to leave town. The following day they were found dead from shotgun wounds by the river near Cold Spring. 

Nancy Clem was the prime suspect. She was tried four times but due to hung juries and legal technicalities, she remained unpunished.

Read the full story here The Notorious Mrs. Clem.

The Notorious Mrs. Clem.

The sensational murders of successful businessman, Jacob Young and his wife in Indianapolis, in 1868, exposed a web of financial fraud involving some of the most influential men in the city. Circumstantial evidence soon pointed to Mrs. Nancy E. Clem, mastermind of the fraudulent scheme, as the perpetrator of the murders. The notorious Mrs. Clem, however, proved remarkably hard to convict.

Scenes from the Burdell Murder.

The 1857 murder of Dr. Harvey Burdell, with its colorful cast of characters and upscale urban setting, was the kind of story that sold papers for the penny press and the nascent illustrated newspapers of the day. In fact, Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper was on the verge of bankruptcy when they sent an artist to the Burdell crime scene. The coverage sold enough copies to keep the paper afloat and Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper became a national institution publishing for another sixty-two years.

This post summarizes the Burdell murder using engravings from Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper and other contemporary sources. The details of the Burdell murder can be found here: The Bond Street Tragedy.

The murder took place in a boarding house at No. 31 Bond Street in Manhattan, owned by Dr. Burdell and managed by his paramour, Mrs. Emma Cunningham. All of the murder suspects boarded there.

The Residents of 31 Bond Street.
Dr. Harvey Burdell   Dr. Harvey Burdell was a prominent and successful New York City dentist and real estate speculator. He was also a sporting man and a libertine, known to frequent gambling halls and borthels. In 1857 his affair with Emma Cunningham was turning sour and he was planning to evict her from the house.	Mrs. Emma Cunningham   Emma Cunningham was a widow with five children when she set her sights on Harvey Burdell and won his affection. She knew her position with him was tenuous and she was jealous of the other women she knew Burdell was seeing. After Burdell’s death she produced a marriage certificate showing that the two were married; at his request they had kept the marriage a secret.	John Eckel   John Eckel was tanner who had a room on the third floor of 31 Bond Street. His room shared a door with Mrs. Cunningham’s bedroom and maids at the boardinghouse testified that the two were sleeping together.
Augusta Cunningham   Augusta Cunningham was Emma Cunningham’s twenty-two year old daughter. August was implicated in the murder because a business associates of Dr. Burdell testified that Burdell feared violence from Augusta and her mother, along with John Eckel and George Snodgrass.	George Snodgrass   George Snodgrass was a poet and a banjo player with a room on the third floor of the boardinghouse. He was going out with Mrs. Cunningham’s daughter Helen and when his room was searched the police found some of Helen’s undergarments. It was implied that he was sleeping with Augusta as well.	Helen (Ella) Cunningham   Helen Cunningham, Mrs. Cunningham’s fifteen year old daughter had a room on the same floor as George Snodgrass.

Three Wounds - The Rest of the Story.

The Boston Daily Globe followed the story in the previous post, “Three Wounds” for two more days.  It turns out the Willard Nesbit was, in fact, the missing Dedham bridegroom, and on August 13, 1892, the Globe printed a picture of Nesbit’s disappointed bride-to-be, Miss Bridget Hanlon. Nesbit did recover from his wounds, but it was not a case of assault or attempted murder; for whatever reason, Nesbit’s wounds were self-inflicted.

He Knew Too Much.

Winfield Scott Goss was a chemical experimenter with a well-known fondness for intoxicating spirits. When his workshop, in a cottage outside of Baltimore, exploded in February 1872, no one doubted that the badly charred corpse found inside was his. No one, that is, but the four insurance companies who had sold policies on Goss’s life totaling $25,000. They had many questions, and Goss’s friend and brother-in-law William Udderzook had all the answers. But rather than quelling their doubts, Udderzook’s “plausible stories” only fueled them—he seemed to know too much.

The Cuban Con Artist.

 Carolino Amalia Espos y Mina

In May 1831, Cuban exile Lino Espos y Mina found himself alone and penniless in the town of Andalusia, Pennsylvania He stopped at the home Dr. William Chapman and his wife Lucretia and begged for a place to spend the night. A month later Lino was still living with the Chapmans and William was on his deathbed. Fifteen days after William Chapman died, Lino and Lucretia were married. Was Lucretia Chapman an accomplice to murder or another victim of the Cuban con artist?