The Just End of a Monster of Iniquity.

 

Dr. Thomas Neill Cream, “The Lambeth Poisoner” and possible Jack the Ripper suspect, was hanged at Newgate Prison in London on November 15, 1892. Dr. Cream had already been convicted of murder by strychnine in the United States. In fact, if he had not been released early from Chicago’s Joliet Prison, four young London women would have been spared excruciating death. 

Read the full story here:  The Lambeth Poisoner.

For Love of His Landlady.

Benjamin and Mary Merrill lived with their four-year-old son on Illinois Street in Chicago, where they ran a boarding house. During the day, Benjamin worked as a broker, and Mary took care of the house along with their chambermaid, Hattie Berk.

In May 1888, 22-year-old Andrew J. Martin took residence in the Merrills’ boarding house. He worked nights as a stationary engineer for the Union Steamboat Company. During the day, he lounged around the house, trying to ingratiate himself with Mrs. Merrill. 33-year-old Mary Merril, a tall, attractive brunette, was pleasant toward Martin, but was happily married and had no interest in his advances.

By December 1888, Martin was desperately in love and would not leave Mary alone. When other boarders began commenting on Martin’s behavior, Hattie Berk took their concerns to Mary.

Martin learned of this and on December 10, he approached Mary, who was sitting in the parlor, and tried to persuade her to discharge Hattie. He told her that Hattie was a loose character and would bring disgrace upon the house. Mary turned on him and said it was time for him to attend to his own business and leave the affairs of the house alone.  She did not care to have any more of his interference in her business and hoped he would leave the house as soon as he could find another place to live.

“Do you mean that?” Martin asked.

“I certainly do, Mr. Martin,” said Mary, “It will be best all around if you do.”

Martin said no more; he got up and left the house. Mary went upstairs to the room where Hattie was making the bed.

“Hattie, don’t you think I have a right to mind my own business?” said Mary, perhaps feeling guilty about being so harsh with Martin.

“Why certainly,” said Hattie, and they discussed Martin’s disruptive behavior.

Martin came back into the house and quietly climbed the stairs. He stood for a moment outside the room and overheard their conversation. Then he entered the room, and “affecting a devilish suavity,” he drew a pistol from his pocket.

“Who are you gabbing about now?” he said. Then he raised the pistol and fired at Hattie, who was sitting on the bed. The shot missed, and with a terrified shriek, she bounded off the bed and out the door. Martin pointed the pistol at Mary and fired twice, hitting her in the abdomen and in the jaw. Outside the room, Hattie turned and watched as Martin raised the pistol to his right temple and blew out his brains.

Hattie fled downstairs, picked up the Merrills’ son, and ran into the street screaming. She drew the attention of a policeman, who followed her back to the house. The upstairs room was a revolting sight. Martin lay dead, face up on the floor. Mary, lying in a pool of blood, was still alive. Conscious, but unable to speak, she lay that way for three hours before dying.

When Benjamin Merrill heard the news of his wife’s murder, he became hysterical and rushed home from work. Though he knew the killer was dead as well, he screamed, “Let me at him. He should be drawn and quartered.”

Later, he spoke more calmly:

No husband ever loved a wife more than I did mine. She was so sympathetic, and glorified in my success, and sympathized in my failures. She was all that a wife could be, true as steel and pure as a virgin.

Martin was a boy, a country lad. He was a good-hearted fellow, too, and often took our little boy to plays. Of course, he loved my wife. Who could blame him for loving her? But I was not jealous, for she told me everything and only looked on him as I did, as a good-natured country boy.

Benjamin was not well enough to testify at the coroner’s inquest the following day. Hattie Berk, the
eyewitness, told the whole story on the stand. The jury came to the only conclusion possible: that Andrew Martin committed suicide after shooting Mary Merrill twice.

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Sources: 

“Andrew J Martin,” National Police Gazette, December 29, 1888.
“Double Tragedy in Chicago,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, December 11, 1888.
“Faithful to the Last,” Evening Post, December 11, 1888.
“For Love of His Landlady,” News and Courier, December 11, 1888.
“The Martin Merrill Tragedy,” Chicago Daily News, December 11, 1888.
“Martin's Awful Crime,” Chicago Daily News, December 11, 1888.
“The Merrill Martin Murder,” Daily Inter Ocean, December 12, 1888.
“Sensational Double Tragedy,” Indianapolis Journal., December 11, 1888.
 

Zora Burns.

Illustrated Police News, Nov. 10, 1883.

Zora Burns was a beautiful and captivating young woman with “…abundant hair of yellow-golden tint clustered about features as perfectly regular as those which Phidias chiseled from the marble of Greece. Her form was grace and symmetry personified, and despite her lack of educational advantages, her natural tact and quickness of intellect atoned in great measure for her deficiencies.”  She was 19 years old in 1881 when she left her home in St. Elmo, Illinois, and took a job as a domestic servant for the family of Orrin Carpenter in Lincoln, Illinois.

Zora was unhappy and left her employer in 1883. She returned to her father’s home in St. Elmo, but on Friday, October 12, she went back to Lincoln, telling her father she was going to get $20.00 that Orrin Carpenter owed her. The following Monday, her body was found on the road outside Lincoln. Her head was bruised, and her throat had been cut from ear to ear. There was no apparent motive for the murder and no suspects.

The mystery cleared somewhat when a post-mortem examination revealed that Zora had been several months pregnant. Orrin Carpenter became the prime suspect in Zora’s murder.

Carpenter was tried for murder, but the evidence was slim and circumstantial. The jury found Carpenter not guilty, but he was convicted by the court of public opinion. 4,000 citizens of Lincoln agreed to banish Carpenter from Logan County and drove him out of town at gunpoint.

Read the full story here: The Mystery of Zora Burns

A Naked Man’s Horrible Deeds.

 

Thomas Ryan, aged 88, lived in Chester, Illinois, with his widowed daughter, Julia Smith, her 12-year-old daughter Sallie, and 8-year-old son Arthur. On December 7, 1880, their peaceful morning was shattered when an intruder burst into the house.  It was a naked man wielding an axe who ordered them all to kneel and pray as they only had a few minutes to live.

The Cronin Trial.

 

W. S. Forest, of counsel for the defense, cross-examining the expert microscopist Tollman.
Defendants (far left) 1. Beggs, 2. Coughlin, 3. O'Sullivan, 4. Burke, 5. Kunze.

Dr. Patrick Henry Cronin was a prominent Chicago physician, and a member of Clan-na-Gael an American political organization formed to promote Irish independence from British rule. After Dr. Cronin uncovered corruption among the leaders, his naked body was found stuffed in a sewer with icepick wounds to his head. In the 1889 murder trial of five members of Clan-na-Gael, the defense tried to paint Dr. Cronin as, alternately, a violent radical and a British spy. 

Read the full story here: Clan-na-Gael and the Murder of Dr. Cronin.

The Fatal Shot.

 

In the wee hours of February 8, 1888, burglars broke into the mansion of Amos J. Snell, one of the wealthiest men in Chicago. They went straight to Snell’s office and opened his safe and a strong box but did not find the fortune they expected. The thieves went upstairs and began gathering silver items.

The noise awaked Snell who came down in his nightshirt, armed with an old muzzle-loading pistol. Hearing the thieves in the parlor, he shouted, “Get out! Get out of here!”  and fired his pistol through the closed parlor door. The thieves responded by firing back through the door. Snell turned to run outside, and the thieves opened the parlor door and fired two more shots, killing Snell. 

The massive manhunt that followed involved the police, the Pinkertons, and many private detectives. The family offered a $50,000 reward for the killer's capture, reported at the time as “the largest amount ever offered for the capture of any human being in the world.”  Despite more than 1,000 arrests and several false confessions, the case remained unsolved until 1910, when a professional thief named James Gillan confessed to the murder on his deathbed. The confession was taken as fact, but there was little evidence that Gillan committed the crime.

Read the full story here: The Snell Murder.

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Pictures from Chicago Daily News, February 9, 1888.

Seduction and Murder.

In November 1871, 18-year-old Mary Ann Sevindell filed a lawsuit against Henry H. Howell of Prairie Creek, Illinois, for seduction. They were both in the law office of Beason & Bilan in Lincoln, Illinois, on November 28, where attorneys were hammering out a settlement agreement. The lawyers came up with a compromise that pleased them, but apparently, it did not please Miss Sevindell. As Howell was leaving to have the agreement acknowledged, Mary Anne drew a pistol and without saying a word, shot him in the back. The bullet came out at the left breast.

Dazed, Howell walked a few steps then unbuttoned his vest and saw blood oozing from the wound. He saw the bullet on the floor, picked it up and handed it to one of the gentlemen in the room. He remarked that he was killed then sank to the floor.

It does not appear that Mary Ann Sevindell was ever charged with Howell’s murder.

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Sources: 

“Seduction and Murder,” Plain Dealer, November 1, 1871.
“A Young Girl in Lincoln, Ill., Deliberately Shoots her Seducer,” Illustrated Police News, November 30, 1871.

It was Santa Claus' Fault.

In the Eagle Creek precinct of Shawneetown, Illinois, the Christmas tradition was for parents to bring presents for their children to a party at the local church. Each present was labeled and hung on the Christmas tree then everyone would watch as the presents were distributed to the children. On Christmas Eve, 1889, chaos ensued when the tags fell off some of the presents and were replaced haphazardly. 

After a dozen or so presents were handed out, a farmer named Johnson grabbed a sled from one of the children and declared it was the present he had brought for his little boy. The sexton tried to explain the mix-up, but Johnson would not listen, and he rudely pushed the sexton aside. Several young men had been drinking heavily at the celebration, and one of them tried to snatch the sled back. When Johnson would not release it, another man hit him with a chair.

The room erupted into a free fight with chairs, clubs, knives, and pistols. Thomas Burroughs, the church Doorkeeper was dangerously stabbed in two places. A bullet struck Stout Colbert in the chin. Several others were wounded. At the height of the battle, it looked as though several combatants would be killed, but none of the wounds proved fatal. A Christmas miracle. 

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Sources:

“Fight at a Christmas Tree,” Helena Daily Herald, December 26, 1889.
“A Free Fight in a Church,” Boston Herald, December 26, 1889.
“It Was Santa Claus' Fault,” National Police Gazette, January 11, 1890.
“Wound Up om a Free Fight,” New York Herald, December 26, 1889.

Hamilton Y. Jones, Detective.

In September 1886, a railroad depot opened outside of Marshall, Illinois, where the Cairo, Vincennes & Chicago line crossed the Vandalia Line. The station agent and operator was George Powers, a popular young man from Marshall. On September 12, Powers was working all night, and three of his friends decided to spend the night with him. They changed their minds, and when the midnight CV&C train stopped, they boarded and returned to Marshall. Powers sat down at the telegraph operator’s table and began writing a letter to his mother.

At 8:00 the next morning, George Powers’s dead body was found lying under the table with a bullet wound in the side of his head. A hole in the window near the table indicates that the shot was fired from outside. The murderer then broke out a back window, sash and all, and entered the room. Powers was still alive, and a fearful struggle ensued. His hands were covered with mud as if he had caught hold of the killer’s boots. The killer then beat Powers’s brains out with a club.

The killer rifled through Powers’s trunk and turned his pockets inside out, but the only thing taken was his pocket watch. The description of the stolen watch was remarkably detailed: a silver open-face watch, No. 14,122, with case No. 15,399, Hoyt movement, key winder. That day, $1,000 was raised to prosecute the search for the killer.

The killer or killers were believed to have been among a group of tramps seen around Marshall that week. Their identity remained unknown until September 14, when someone from Marshall recognized them in St. Louis. William. Lyons, alias Kerr, John J. Schanner, William Staab, and William Gagon were arrested on suspicion but later released.

The early afternoon of October 26, Chief of Police Phillips of Springfield, Illinois, received the following dispatch:

Lincoln, Ill., October 26 – Arrest a man, smooth face, black overcoat, black stiff hat, low heavy set. Wanted for murder. On freight due at 2:30 this p.m.

Jones.

Though the police did not know who Jones was, they arrested the described man as he descended from a boxcar. The man said his name was Martin Cratty, and among his effects were letters and papers addressed to that name. One letter, signed Kittie O’Brien, was suspicious. It spoke of a scheme and said Cratty had been recommended as one who could do the work and keep it secret. 

When the 3:50 passenger train arrived from the north, the police learned the identity of Mr. Jones, and they were none too happy. It was Hamilton Y. Jones, a self-styled detective that they knew well. “He is a notoriously hard character,” said the Daily Illinois State Journal, “and is as familiar with the walls of our county jails as he is with a drink of whiskey, and that is putting it pretty strong.” 

Jones produced a warrant for the arrest of A.C. Kerr and stated that Martin Cratty was an alias. He was wanted for the murder of George Powers in Marshall. Jones claimed that Cratty had pawned Powers’s watch in Lincoln the previous day. Cratty claimed he had purchased the watch from a jeweler in Bloomington and had the dealer’s certificate at home. Jones said he had been working the case for over a month and had captured the killer. From the State Journal again, “Hamilton, however, is a liar of proportions that Baron Munchausen never dreamed of and is a man whom the police regard as a sneak thief and petty crook of the worst stripe.” The police tended to believe Cratty’s story, but to be on the safe side, they held him in jail.

Jones left but planned to return on October 30 to take charge of the prisoner and return to Marshall. In the meantime, the police recovered the pawned watch and found it was not Powers’s—it had a Millan movement, not a Hoyt movement, and neither of the numbers matched. Cratty’s stepfather arrived in Springfield with a statement from Cratty’s employer proving he was in Bloomington at the time of the murder. 

Hamilton Jones returned to Springfield on October 30, and as soon as he entered the police station, he was arrested for the false imprisonment of Martin Cratty. Cratty was released, and Jones occupied his old cell.

When his investigations began, Hamilton Jones convinced authorities in Marshall that he was on the right track. They furnished him with $15 cash, a pair of handcuffs, and a good revolver. From time to time during his travels, Jones telegraphed for more money which Marshall provided. On November 12, Jones was arrested in Marshall for securing money under false pretense.

On December 15, Hamilton Y. Jones was arrested again in Springfield on an unrelated matter. He was charged with impersonating a United States Post Office Inspector and stealing mail. This time he would serve a term in the penitentiary.

The murder of George Powers remained unsolved.

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Sources: 

“'A Dungeon Cell'", Daily Illinois State Register, October 30, 1886.
“Arrested for the Powers Murder,” Chicago Daily News, October 27, 1886.
“Deeds of Blood,” Juneau County Argus, September 23, 1886.
“A Foul Murder,” Daily Illinois State Journal, September 14, 1886.
“Hamilton Y Jones' Vagaries,” Daily Inter Ocean, December 16, 1886.
“Illinois,” Indianapolis Journal, November 11, 1886.
“Martin Cratty,” Daily Illinois State Register, October 29, 1886.
“Minor Mention,” Daily Illinois State Register, November 12, 1886.
“A Mysterious Murder,” National Police Gazette, October 2, 1886.
“News Article,” Daily Illinois State Journal, October 28, 1886.
“A Rough Experience,” Daily Illinois State Journal, October 27, 1886.
“See Saw, See Saw,” Daily Illinois State Journal, October 30, 1886.

Fiend, or Innocent Victim?

 

The prosecution claimed that Adolph Luetgert, "Sausage King of Chicago," dissolved his wife Louisa in a vat of lye, but without a body, how could they prove she was dead?

Read the full story here: The Sausage Vat Murder.

A Night of Debauchery.

In 1880, Mrs. Anna Hayes was the landlady of a house at 396 State Street in Chicago. The newspapers referred to it as a “house of ill-fame,” but it was not a brothel, it was a house of assignation, renting rooms to prostitutes. On Sunday, November 7, 1880, Eva Lloyd rented room 6 on the top floor; one week for $3.00. Eva did not have the money but she had a revolver worth $4.00, and Mrs. Hayes took that as security.

Caught in Bad Company.

Luke Dimick was a successful livery stable keeper in Rock Island, Illinois, and the son of a wealthy Chicago real estate man. To all appearance, Luke seemed like an ideal husband, but he had one fault that his wife could not abide— a fondness for ladies of the night.

The night of July 27, 1889, Mrs. Dimick took her revolver and followed Luke to a Rock Island bawdy house, where she caught him in flagrante delicto with one of the prostitutes. In the scuffle that followed, Mrs. Dimick fired the pistol, hitting her husband. Luke Dimick died two days later and his wife was charged with manslaughter. Luke’s father, O. J. Dimick, took his daughter-in-law’s side and paid a $5,000 bond for her release.

The case went to trial the following October. Mrs. Dimick claimed that she had not intended to kill her husband, she meant to shoot the woman he was with, and Luke interfered. The women of the bawdy house disagreed, saying Mrs. Dimick had deliberately shot her husband. The jury took Mrs. Dimick’s word and found her not guilty.

Originally posted March 5, 2016.

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Sources:
"Among Our Neighbors." Decatur Daily Despatch 14 Sep 1889.
"Court Cullings." Rock Island Daily Argus 28 Sep 1889.
"He Was Caught in Very Bad Company." The Decatur Herald 29 Jul 1889.
"Held for Murder." Decatur Daily Despatch 30 Jul 1889.
"In a Bawdy House." National Police Gazette 5 Oct 1889.
"Telegraphic Brevities." Daily Illinois State Journal 14 Oct 1889.

The Snell Murder.

Rosa Buckstahlen and Ida Bjornstad, servants in the Chicago mansion of Amos J. Snell, were awakened at 2:00 the morning of February 8, 1888, by the sound of a gunshot from the floor below. They heard someone shout “Get out! Get out of here!” followed by more gunshots, then silence. Thinking that all was well—or more likely, too frightened to do anything else—the girls went back to sleep.

Five hours later, Mr. Snell’s coachman, Henry Winklebook, entered the house to attend the furnace fires and found evidence of a break-in. Snell’s basement office was strewn with scattered papers, his safe was open, and a broken strongbox lay on the floor. Winklebook hurried upstairs to inform his employer and found his lifeless body lying in a pool of blood in the hallway. 

A Maniac's Deed.

For several weeks in November 1892, Herman Siegler had been depressed and melancholy. Siegler was a wood carver employed by Wolf Bros. of West Erie Street, Chicago and was known as a man of good disposition who had, to all appearances, a happy domestic life. He and his wife Emilia had been married for eleven years and had three children, the oldest was 10-years-old and the youngest just a few months old. None of his family or friends could explain his recent depression.

Another Boy Murderer.

Near Rockport, Indiana, on the banks of the Ohio River, the morning of September 29, 1883, a boat was found, burned to the water’s edge. It had been a small trading boat, large enough sleep two or three and carry goods—most notably liquor—to sell along the river. Inside were the charred remains of a man who had been shot to death.

Rockport police soon learned the names of the men lived aboard the trading boat—R.T. Arnett, who lay dead in the smoldering boat, and Francis J. Kelly, the presumed murder, who had fled the scene. Detective Hales of Rockport undertook the task of locating Kelly and after three weeks of investigating he found the culprit in Ashley, Illinois, some 140 miles inland. Hales arrested Kelly and brought him back to Rockport.

She Didn’t Do as He Wished.

Little Murders

Shortly after 4:00, the afternoon of November 4, 1893, Fred L. Buck rushed into the police station in Elgin, Illinois and announced, “I’ve just killed my wife; she’s been leading a fast life and I had to end it.”

Police went to the Bucks’ residence and found Fred Buck’s wife, Julia, in the bedroom, lying face down in a pool of blood. He had shot her in the temple at such short range that the bullet went straight through her head and was found embedded in her hair, which she wore knotted in the back. A second shot he fired in her back had been unnecessary as the first shot had killed her instantly.

Fred Buck was the Illinois State Game and Fish Warden and had been in charge of the government aquariums in the Fisheries Building at the World’s Fair in Chicago. He was also engaged in the manufacture of a patent lantern and had previously been a private detective. His wife Julia, 30-years-old, was the brother of Theodore F. Swan who owned a large department store in Elgin. Both Fred and Julia were previously married and divorced.

Murders, Murder Trials, Confessions of Murder, Discoveries of Murder, &c., &c.

Little Murders

(From Richmond Enquirer November 6, 1845)

The last Chicago Democrat 22d ult., is little better than a continued chronicle of horribles. First comes a confession said to have been made by Birch, one of the murderers of Col. Davenport, in which he discloses all the particulars of that horrible transaction.

“The Redmans, (or Redings,) kept a house which was used as a general rendezvous for the fraternity of rascals in their visits to that part of the country. It was at the house, (on Devil Creek, Lee county, Iowa,) that the plan was devised and conceived of murdering Col. D., and the father of the family, (there are three of them—the father and two sons) was present and assisted in the arrangement for the bloody deed. He has been indicted by the Grand Jury of Rock Island, as an accessory before the fact. A son of this old man (William) assisted at the robbery of Knox and Drury’s office, in Rock Island, about the time of Davenport’s murder, for which an indictment was also found against him.”

The trial of Birch, and two of his accomplices in the murder, was to have commenced last Monday:

“Fox of Indiana, alias Sutton of Illinois, alias Johnson of Iowa, is still at large In the violent indignation of the people against him, woe to the man or woman who secrets him. We fear that any discovery of the kind would lead to Lynch law; and unless he is found soon, some persons who have heretofore secreted him had better leave the State until the excitement is past. There is a point beyond which such knaves as Fox, Big Davis, Favor, Baker , Aiken, Land, Dean, Driskell, Button, &c., &c., cannot go in Illinois.”

Next comes the solution of a mysterious murder, committed some months since:

“It will be remembered that, soon after the two Hodges were hung, one of the brothers of the Hodges was killed in Nauvoo. Among other developments at Rock Island, it has come out that, out of fear of his confessing, he was shot by Jack Reding, or Redman, whose father and brother are now confined at Rock Island. Jack is still at large.”

Chicago Tragedy.

Little Murders

Oscar Grundman and his wife Annie were living unhappily in a Chicago tenement in 1891. Annie’s excessive drinking had been a continual source of trouble for her husband. He complained that she spent all of his hard-earned wages and neglected her domestic duties; he was running out of patience.

That September Oscar Grundman had Annie arrested and wanted to have her sent to the Washingtonian Home, an institution for the treatment of alcoholism. The judge dismissed her case, however, and sent her back home. After that, Annie lived in fear of her husband and locked him out of the house.



On September 15, Oscar persuaded a neighbor boy to knock on Annie’s door and tell her the police wanted to see her. When she came to the door he struck her on the head with a hatchet. Oscar ran away, escaping arrest, leaving Annie with a serious scalp wound. At the hospital, she was told that her thick hair had probably saved her life.



A week later, Oscar called on Annie again. This time, believing he had come to reconcile, she let him in. “Annie,” he said to her, loud enough for the other tenants to hear, “I have determined that we must part. We can’t live together happily. I have put our children in good hands. Now we must say goodbye.



Annie protested, pleading with him not to leave her. But leaving her was not what Oscar had in mind. The neighbors heard him say, “It’s no use Annie, we must die. Don’t scream. It will soon be over, Annie, and we will be happier than now.”



Oscar pulled out his revolver then and shot Annie once in the head, then turning the pistol on himself, fired a second shot. The neighbors heard the gunshots and heard two bodies fall to the ground. They forced their way into the room and found the unhappy couple lying dead, their blood mingling in pools around their bodies.

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Sources:
"Chicago Tragedy." Elkhart Daily Review 23 Sep 1891.
"Double Tragedy in Chicago." National Police Gazette 17 Oct 1891.
"Murder and Suicide." Daily Inter Ocean 23 Sep 1891.
"Struck with a Hatchet." Daily Inter Ocean 16 Sep 1891.

Murderous Chicago.

Referring to an 1889 book entitled The Crime of the Century or, The Assassination of Dr. Patrick Henry Cronin, noted crime writer Edmund Pearson remarked, “…anyone with the faintest knowledge of Chicago will remember that that city has a Crime of the Century every four or five years.” With that in mind, this small list of big Chicago crimes is presented in full awareness that it merely scratches the surface.

	A Shrewd Rascal. Samuel Smith and his wife Emma appeared happy and affectionate, but they hid a turmoil, not revealed until Emma was found dead in their apartment, her head blown apart by a shotgun blast.
	Clan-na-Gael and the Murder of Dr. Cronin. When Dr. Patrick Henry Cronin accused the leaders of Clan-na-Gael, of embezzling funds, he was denounced as a traitor and a British spy, and ultimately assassinated.
	H. H. Holmes - "I was born with the devil in me." Dr. Henry Howard Holmes was probably America’s most prodigious serial killer. He perfected his skills in his self-styled “murder castle” during Chicago’s Columbian Exposition.
	Louise Luetgert - The Sausage Vat Murder. Adolph Luetgert, “Sausage King” of Chicago, was constantly fighting with his wife Louise. Did he solve his domestic problems by dissolving her in body in one of his sausage vats?

The Mystery of Zora Burns.

Zora Burns

Missouri Burns, better known as Zora, was nineteen years old when she left her father's home in St. Elmo, Illinois, to work as a domestic for the family of Orrin A. Carpenter, the richest man in Lincoln, Illinois. Carpenter was a grain dealer who owned a huge grain elevator as well as a farm and other real estate in Logan County. He was fifty years old with a wife and two daughters.

In newspaper reports, Zora Burns was described as a beautiful and captivating young woman: “Abundant hair of yellow-golden tint clustered about features as perfectly regular as those which Phidias chiseled from the marble of Greece. Her form was grace and symmetry personified, and despite her lack of educational advantages, her natural tact and quickness of intellect atoned in great measure for her deficiencies.” It is not surprising that Mr. Carpenter soon became infatuated with his young servant.