The Proctor Mystery.

(Illustrated Police News, February 1, 1885)

On Thursday, July 27, 1882, Sarah Proctor, of Salem, Massachusetts, heard groans coming from the cellar where her husband, George, was working.  Downstairs, she found him lying on the floor between two barrels. She rushed toward him exclaiming, “Good God, what is the matter, George?”

There was no response, so she ran to a neighbor for help. He found George alive but unconscious. On the floor was a small pool of blood from a wound in the back of his head, believed to have been sustained when his head hit the barrel. A doctor was summoned, but there was little he could do. George remained unconscious but held on until 10:15 that night. The official cause of death was “paralysis of brain.”

On Saturday, Sarah’s young nephew, Benny, was playing in the cellar and found a seven-shot Robin Hood pistol under the stairwell. One shot had been fired. He gave it to Sarah, who passed it on to her father-in-law. He gave it to the police the following day. When Medical Examiner Carlton heard of the discovery, he deemed it necessary to examine the body. George’s funeral was being held at the First Universalist Church. Following the service, the body was taken back to the undertaker’s, where Carlton performed an autopsy. 

The autopsy showed that the wound behind George’s left ear was a bullet wound. The bullet was still in the skull. It was removed and found to match the bullets in the pistol found under the cellar stairs.

Everyone’s first thought was that George Proctor had committed suicide. He was the owner of the Produce Exchange in Salem. In the week before his death, he made his will, paid his insurance assessments, settled his accounts, and installed his brother as manager of the Exchange. But from the position of the wound and the fact that the hairs around it were not singed, the Medical Examiner concluded the wound was not self-inflicted. 

George Proctor was murdered in the cellar of his own home, but it was unclear who would benefit from his death. The Proctors lived comfortably, but they were not wealthy. Some of his business ventures had failed. The will left his insurance benefit in trust for his widow and children; his brother would remain manager of the Exchange, and net profits would be divided semi-annually between his wife and his brother.

On August 1, Judge Osgood held an informal hearing where Sarah Proctors and other witnesses testified as to the circumstances of the murder. The hearing lasted two days, but nothing was resolved.

The following February, at a spiritualist meeting, a medium named Mrs. S. Dick communicated with George Proctor. She received tidings from the spirit world, then she suddenly paused and said, “I cannot go any further until I tell something which is the message that I hear, ‘No woman had anything to do with my death. George K. Proctor.’”

(Illustrated Police News, February 1, 1885)

The murder remained a mystery, and it gradually faded from public memory. However, the police did not forget the murder. District Officer Joseph E. Shaw of the State Force, together with Salem City Marshal Hart, continued to gather evidence. The investigation proceeded for another three years until February 1885, when, despite Mrs. Dick’s pronouncement, the Grand Jury of Essex County found an indictment against Sarah Proctor.

“Mrs. Proctor, I have a very painful duty to perform,” said Marshal Hart at Sarah Proctor's door.

“What is it, Mr. Hart?” she replied.

“I am instructed to arrest you, Mrs. Proctor, for causing the death of your husband, George K. Proctor.”

She fell back, as though stunned, and burst into tears. “You know I didn’t do that; you know I am innocent.”

The Marshal took her to jail in Lawrence.

Statements from people who knew the Proctors told the lawmen that their household was not a happy one. Sarah Proctor had a violent temper when aroused, and on more than one occasion, just before his death, George came to the police station and asked for protection. The City Marshal told him that he could obtain a warrant against his wife, but advised him not to bring public scandal on his family. George and his wife spent very little time together, and his friends advised him to get a legal separation.

Owing to trouble with her mother, their oldest daughter, Lilly, moved out of the house a year before Sarah’s arrest. Their other daughter was not on speaking terms with her mother and sued her for her share of the income from the Produce Exchange. She testified against her mother before the Grand Jury.

Sarah claimed that she had not heard a gunshot that morning, but the police conducted experiments that proved the shot would have been heard anywhere in the house. Her mother had sent Lilly out of town that day, and the younger sister was asleep. They also proved that the pistol could not have been thrown to the spot under the stairs where it was found. Other witnesses claimed there were towels saturated with blood at the house that morning, indicating that the bullet had bled more profusely than first thought. The police claimed to have additional evidence against Sarah that they did not make public.

Sarah Proctor remained in jail until May 12, 1885, when her case came before the Supreme Judicial Court. Attorney General Sherman moved that Sarah P. Proctor be arraigned on the charge of murder. However, he told the court that since the Grand Jury indictment, a number of important witnesses had changed their testimony and the evidence needed to be examined with more care.

“Since then, “ said the Attorney General, “I have, with the assistance of the district attorney and the officers, made a most thorough and searching examination of this important case, and I have come to the conclusion that I cannot expect or properly ask a jury to convict the prisoner on the evidence which we have at present.”

While the arraignment stayed in effect, Mrs. Proctor was released from custody. Public sympathy turned in her favor, and the suicide theory was revised, but the case remained unsolved.

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Sources: 

“The Celebrated Proctor Murder Case,” Daily Evening Bulletin, May 13, 1885.
“Clearing Up a Mystery,” GALENA INDUSTRIAL PRESS, February 19, 1885.
“More Murder,” BOSTON HERALD, February 3, 1885.
“Mrs. Sarah P. Proctor, the Alleged Husband Murderer,” Illustrated Police News, February 21, 1885.
“A Mysterious Tragedy At Salem,” Springfield Republican, July 31, 1882.
“Obituary,” Boston Daily Advertiser, July 28, 1882.
“The Proctor Mystery,” Worcester Evening Gazette, July 31, 1882.
“Salem,” Boston Daily Journal, September 5, 1882.
“Salem,” Boston Evening Journal, February 26, 1883.
“Salem,” Boston Daily Journal, October 19, 1883.
“The Salem Mystery,” Boston Evening Journal, May 13, 1885.
“A Salem Sensation,” Boston Evening Journal, February 3, 1885.
“The Salem Tragedy ,” Boston Daily Journal, August 2, 1882.
“Tragedy at Salem,” Boston Daily Journal, July 31, 1882.

Sadie and Clarence.

Sadie and Clarence.

In April 1894, the murder of Montgomery Gibbs, a successful attorney, caused great excitement in Buffalo, New York. He was found shot to death in a driveway on Delaware Avenue with no clues to the killer’s identity. The police and newspapers investigated the crime, but they had no solid leads, and it remained unsolved. Then, in October, they received a tip that Clarence Robinson, a young burglar in custody in Cleveland, Ohio, committed the murder with his wife, Sadie.   At their trial for first-degree, both pleaded not guilty, each saying they had been coerced by the other.

Read the full story here: The Delaware Avenue Murder.

The Attleboro Sensation.

(Illustrated Police News, April 3, 1886.)

Agnes Anastasia Long moved out of her parents’ home in East Attleboro, Massachusetts, in April 1882. With her many male suiters, she was considered the black sheep of the family. Her father had enough of her bad behavior and, according to the Boston Herald, “refused to permit her to darken the threshold of his humble home.”

Daniel, Teresa, and Phillip.

Daniel Sickles, Teresa Bagioli, Phillip Key

In 1859, Dan Sickles, a congressman from New York (and future Union General), was married to the most beautiful woman in Washington, but his other interests, including his mistresses, often kept him away from home. His lonely young wife, Teresa, found comfort in the arms of Philip Barton Key, D.C. District Attorney and son of poet Francis Scott Key. When Sickles learned of their affair, he armed himself and confronted Key on the street. Blinded by rage, he shot and killed his wife’s lover. Was it premeditated murder or temporary insanity?

Read the full story here: Dan Sickle's Temporary Insanity.

A Delilah's Revenge.

 

In 1863, Theodore B. Weber, then a businessman in Burlington, Iowa, was attracted to Mrs. Adelaide (Ada) Bennert, a woman sixteen years his junior. His passion “soon ripened into criminal intimacy,” and although both were married, they began a romantic affair. When Mr. Bennert learned of his wife’s infidelity, he left her in disgust. Weber moved to Chicago to join his brother’s boot-and-shoe wholesale business. Ada followed him to Chicago, and the affair continued.

Hannah and Stephen.

 

Stephen Pettus gave Hannah Southworth a glass of drugged champagne and had his way with her while she was unconscious. Hannah became pregnant and for years after, she badgered Pettus to acknowledge that he had ruined her. When all legal means were exhausted, she avenged her honor by shooting him in the back on a Brooklyn street.

Read the full story here: Avenging Her Honor.

Medford's Murder Mystery.

(Boston Post, March 29, 1897,)

Walter R. Debbins was shot twice in the back, in broad daylight, on Highland Street in Medford, Massachusetts, on the afternoon of Saturday, March 27, 1897. Though no one saw the murder or heard the gunshots, there was enough traffic on Highland Street that afternoon for the police to precisely pinpoint the time of the shooting to between 1:00 and 1:05. But that was all they could pinpoint; everything else about the crime was shrouded in mystery that grew more dense with each new revelation.

 

Read the full story here: The Medford Mystery.

Harry and Catherine.

 

Harry and Catherine.
(Harry Hayward: Life, crimes, dying confession and execution of the Celebrated Minneapolis Criminal.)

Harry Hayward was a handsome young conman from a wealthy Minneapolis family. He persuaded Catherine Ging to make him beneficiary on a life insurance policy, then, on December 3, 1894, he lured her to her death. 

Read the full story here: The Minneapolis Svengali.

Asked His Wife to Shoot Him.

Lourens Signourette and his wife lived near Foster’s Bar, a remote camp in the Yubas Foot Hills in California. Lourens had been ailing for quite a while, and on December 1, 1891, he decided to end his life by taking strychnine. The poison did not have the immediate effect that he wanted, so he asked his wife to get his shotgun and shoot him.

Frank and Christie.

Frank Almy and Christie Warden.
(Life, Trial, and Confession of Frank C. Almy, Laconia, N.H.: J.J. Lane, 1891.)

While working as a farmhand in Hanover, New Hampshire, career criminal Frank Almy (aka George Abbott) fell in love with the farmer’s daughter, Christie Warden. When Christie did not return his love Abbot went back to his old ways and took it at gunpoint in the shady hollow known as the Vale of Tempe.

Read the full story here: Murder in the Vale of Tempe.

Killed her Pretty Rival.

Henry Provenchia (sometimes spelled “Provencher”) met Lizzie Hutchins in 1890 at a dance in Somersworth, New Hampshire. Three weeks later, they were married. He was 19, she was 15. They were happy for a while, but Lizzie had an ugly temper, and when stirred up, she became physically abusive. Henry said that once, “he saw stars when she biffed him on the nose.”

After Lizzie gave birth to a son, she started drinking heavily. Her temper became worse, and the couple frequently quarreled. In 1897, they realized they could no longer agree and decided to separate.  Henry took the boy and moved to Rochester, New Hampshire, and Lizzie stayed in Somersworth.

In Rochester, Henry hired 18-year-old Annie Cox as his housekeeper, and their relationship blossomed into romance.  Lizzie’s mother, Sadie Fuse, also lived in Rochester, and she could see Annie Cox as she came and went from Henry’s house. She relayed this news to Lizzie, who became consumed with jealousy.

The Richardson McFarland Tragedy.

On the afternoon of November 25, 1869, Daniel McFarland walked into the office of the New York Tribune and there shot and killed Albert Richardson, a Tribune editor. Richardson had planned to marry Daniel McFarland’s ex-wife, Abby Sage McFarland. The facts of the murder were irrefutable, but the trial that followed focused instead on the behavior of Abby McFarland. Was her adultery an attack on the sanctity of marriage that drove Daniel McFarland to murderous insanity? Or had she been justified in leaving a drunken, abusive husband, running to the safety of another man’s arms?

Read the full story here: The Richardson-McFarland Tragedy.

The Demon Druses.

 "The verdict of the coroner’s jury charges that Mrs. Druse shot her husband with a revolver, struck him with an axe upon the head, and severed his head from his body, causing instantaneous death. That Roxalana Druse afterward cut up and burned the body. Mary J. Druse, George W. S. Druse, and Frank Gates are charged with being feloniously present and abetting the said Roxalana Druse in committing the murder."

--"The Demon Druses", Illustrated Police News, February 14, 1885.

Read the full story here: The Druse Butchery.

Lust and Lead.

Around 1:30 a.m. on February 5, 1881, police were summoned to 109 Poplar Street in St. Louis to investigate gunshots. Inside, they found a scene of bloody carnage. At the top of a staircase, a woman lay on her back, the blood from three gunshot wounds slowly dripping down the steps. Sprawled across the bottom steps in a pool of blood lay the corpse of a man with a single wound to the head. It was a murder-suicide. 

The victims were Xavier and Aglae Wilhelm (no relation to the author), who were married in France sixteen years earlier, when she was 16 and he was 25. The age difference was a problem from the beginning; Aglae liked to flirt, and Xavier was profoundly jealous.

They emigrated to America and ended up in St. Louis. Aglae had some money, and they used it to open a coffee restaurant and ice cream parlor. They were raising two children, but business was bad, and Xavier and Aglae were constantly quarreling. Aglae couldn’t take it anymore, and in 1880, she took the children back to France.

Xavier followed soon after and persuaded her to return to St. Louis. They left the children in France and came back to the city with a new business plan. They purchased the two-story building on Poplar Street, opened a saloon on the first floor, and a brothel on the second floor. 

Sometime later, Xavier returned to Paris to recruit new blood for their house of ill-fame. He secured three young girls by telling them they would work as domestics in a fine hotel, for fabulous wages. The authorities in France got wind of his scheme and managed to rescue two of the girls. He returned to St. Louis with one.

During his absence, Xavier put his bartender, Jean Morrel, in charge of the saloon. Upon his return, Xavier began to suspect that Morrel had taken charge of his wife as well. The old jealousies returned, and he swore out a warrant charging his wife and her paramour with adultery. On February 5, the case came before a judge who dismissed it for want of evidence. Racked with jealousy and devoid of hope, Xavier put an end to their problems with four gunshots.

The coroner’s inquest returned the only possible conclusion: 

Verdict: Aglae Wilhelm came to her death from the effects of bullets fired from a revolver at the hand of her husband, Xavier Wilhelm, deceased at 109 Poplar Street. 

Verdict: Xavier Wilhelm, suicide by gunshot wound.

Morbid fascination with the crime was so strong in St. Louis that people visited the scene of the crime all day to gaze upon the place where blood had been shed. Crowds gathered at the morgue, though the bodies were covered and kept behind closed doors. 

Public fascination with the crime was matched by utter disdain in the press for both Xavier and Aglae. The Memphis Daily Appeal called it A “fitting end to a bad pair.” The St. Louis Post-Dispatch said: 

Mr. Wilhelm is to be congratulated upon his success. As a rule, the blackguards who murder women are so exhausted by the manly exercise that they miserably fail when they attempt to do a good turn in the same line for themselves.

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Sources: 

“Bathed in Blood,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, February 5, 1881.
“The Bloody End,” The Cincinnati Enquirer, February 6, 1881.
“Fitting End of a Bad Pair,” Memphis Daily Appeal, February 6, 1881.
“Lust and Lead,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, February 6, 1881.
“News Article,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 5, 1881.
“The Wilhelm Horror in St. Louis,” Illustrated Police News, February 26, 1881.

"Your Time has Come!"

 

--"'Your Time has Come'", Illustrated Police News, December 8, 1883.

Thomas Barrows was found dead in his home in Kittery, Maine, on November 14, 1883.  He was lying in his bed with six bullet wounds in his arms, legs, and head. His wife, Mary, told the coroner that Thomas had committed suicide. The coroner was faced with two immediate mysteries: if Thomas Barrows had committed suicide, why did he wound himself five times before firing the shot to the head that killed him? And how had he shot himself six times with the five-barreled revolver found near the bed?

In fact, his wife, Mary, persuaded her son-in-law, Oscar Blaney, to murder her husband. Blaney ambushed Barrows by the barn, shot him four times, and fled. But Barrows was not dead. Mary brought Blaney back to finish the job. found Barrows sitting on the side of his bed, groaning.

“Oscar, I guess I will go soon,” said Barrows.

“Yes, your time has come now,” Blaney said and fired two more shots.

Read the full story here: The Kittery Crime.

Dr. John W. Hughes.

Dr. John W. Hughes was a restless, intemperate man whose life never ran smoothly. When his home life turned sour, he found love with a woman half his age. Then, he lost her through an act of deception, and in a fit of drunken rage, Dr. Hughes killed his one true love.

Read the full story here: The Bedford Murder.

The Mysterious Murder.

A boatman working near the foot of Little Street in Brooklyn, on October 3, 1864, saw a package floating on the water. Thinking it might contain something of value, he took it into his boat. He unraveled the enameled oilcloth surrounding the package, and inside, covered in sheets of brown paper, was the trunk of a human body. The head, arms, pelvis, and legs had been cut off with a saw or sharp knife, as if by a butcher.  The clothing had not been removed. He took the package to the 42^nd Police Precinct.

Was Abbott Innocent?

Illustrated Police News, February 28, 1885.

Joseph Crue returned from work to his home in Groton, Massachusetts, on January 18, 1880, and found his wife, Maria, lying dead in the bedroom.  She had been shot three times in the face, and the Medical Examiner determined that she had been raped.

A tramp was seen in the neighborhood that day looking for work. A neighbor of the Crues, Jennie Carr, identified the tramp as Stearns K. Abbott from a police photograph. Abbott had recently been released from New Hampshire State Prison, where he had served time for larceny. He had also served prison time in Massachusetts and Connecticut. Abbott had already left town, so the police circulated his photograph among New England police departments. Ten days later, Abbott was arrested in East Weare, New Hampshire.

Abbott was convicted of murder and sentenced to hang, but there was lingering doubt as to his guilt. In February 1885, Chief Wade of the State District Police said:

I never thought Abbot Killed that woman. Why, there was a whole hour of her husband’s time that was unaccounted for, and that length of time was sufficient for him to commit the deed in. It was the old story, though, of giving a dog a bad name and everybody will kick it. Abbott had a bad reputation and no friends to look out for his interests. That Jennie Carr that swore so strongly in the case knew a good deal more than she swore to. She didn’t care to tell all she knew. I have no doubt that the truth will come out in this case and that it will be at last cleared up. Stearns Kendall Abbott is an innocent man, so far as the murder of Mrs. Crue is concerned. 

The truth never did come out, but public pressure led the state governor to commute Abbott's sentence to life in prison. Abbott served thirty years of his sentence before being pardoned in 1911. He never wavered in his assertion of innocence. 

Read the full story here: The Groton Tragedy.

Views of the Fisk Assassination.

James Fisk Jr. was a robber baron, stock manipulator, and financial fraudster. In spite of this, he was a popular, much-loved public figure. On January 6, 1872, he was assassinated on the staircase of the Grand Central Hotel in New York City by his friend and sometime business partner, Edward “Ned” Stokes. Fisk and Stokes were both in love with Josie Mansfield, considered by some to be the most beautiful woman in America. 

The murder became a national sensation and was graphically illustrated many times in magazines and books.

Read the full story here: Jubilee Jim.
 

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1. Life, Adventures, Strange Career and Assassination of Col. James Fisk Jr. (Philadelphia: Barclay and Co, 1872.)
2. Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, January 20, 1872.
3. The Life of James Fisk Jr. (Philadelphia: Union Publishing Company, 1872.)
4. “The Stokes-Fisk Assassination,” Illustrated Police News, January 11, 1872.

Parting from Her Doomed Lover.

National Police Gazette, December 29, 1888.

Franklin Asbury Hawkins murdered his mother on October 29, 1887, and dumped her body, beaten and shot, by the side of the road in Islip, Long Island. 22-year-old Hawkins was angered that his mother objected to his desire to marry Hattie Schrecht, a servant girl. Hawkins was easily convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to be hanged in December 1888.

Hattie Schrecht visited Hawkins in his jail cell the night before his execution. She blamed herself for the murder, but the weeping girl assured her doomed lover that they would meet again in heaven.

Read the full story here: The Hawkins Matricide.