The East Liverpool Borgia.

Daniel Van Fossen and his wife hosted a dinner party for their extended family on January 8, 1885, at their home in East Liverpool, Ohio. Fourteen people were in attendance, including members of the Van Fossen, McBane, and Collins families. Coffee and Tea were served after the meal, and almost immediately, the coffee drinkers complained of a burning, bitter sensation in their throats. Soon, they all became violently ill with symptoms of arsenic poisoning. Around midnight that night, six-year-old Allie McBane died after suffering great agony. Soon after, Ann Collins, Mrs. Van Fossen’s 85-year-old mother, succumbed.

Eleven people who drank coffee became ill, while three who drank tea remained unaffected. An examination of the coffee pot revealed a package of “Rough on Rats,” a popular brand of rat poison, at the bottom of the pot. Daniel’s 19-year-old daughter, Annie Van Fossen, was suspected of intentionally poisoning the group. She had prepared the meal and the coffee, and although she drank some coffee, she was not as ill as the rest of the party.

Annie Van Fossen was a bit unstable. She was addicted to laudanum, and three times in the past two years, she had taken so much that she needed her stomach pumped. Some believed these were suicide attempts.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported a strange trip Annie took two weeks before the poisoning. She went to Bellaire, Ohio, where she met some young men, “without the formality of an introduction.” She told them that on Saturday, her mother had given her $5 to buy groceries, but she didn’t want to stay at home. She slipped down to the Cleveland & Pittsburgh depot and traveled to Bellaire with a brakeman. She remained until Sunday evening, then went to Wheeling ostensibly to see a sister. She returned to Bellaire on Christmas night in company with a drug clerk from Wheeling. They were both drunk and remained out overnight. She told the Bellaire boys that she “was not going home as long as she could keep on the turf.” After the poisoning, they spoke to the press out of fear that they would be somehow connected to the affair.

When Annie Van Fossen was arrested and charged with first-degree murder, she denied committing the crime. The press quickly turned on her, accusing her of malice and calling her “The Coffee Poisoner” and “The East Liverpool Borgia.” After waiving a preliminary hearing and pleading not guilty, Annie was remanded to the county jail in New Lisbon, Ohio, to await trial.

She spent five months in jail, but her cell was quite comfortable on the second floor across from the sheriff’s sitting room. The cell was carpeted and furnished by her friends and appeared more like a parlor than the cell of a murderess.

She was free to associate with the male prisoners and became quite attached to George Hunter, one of the inmates. Hunter was also awaiting trial for murder; he was accused of killing his sweetheart, Gertie Phillips. Annie’s friendship with Hunter blossomed into romance, and the couple vowed to wed if both were acquitted.

The murder trial of Annie Van Fossen began on June 15, 1865, and lasted a week. More than sixty witnesses were summoned. Annie testified that the “Rough on Rats” had accidentally fallen into the coffee pot without her knowledge. The jury accepted her defense and found her not guilty, though many believed her beauty and graceful figure had also worked in her favor.

George Hunter was ecstatic when he learned of Annie’s acquittal. However, he was found guilty of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. Sadly, the wedding never took place.

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Sources: 

“Annie Van Fossen,” The Dayton Herald, February 10, 1885.
“Annie Van Fossen Acquitted,” The Sun, June 22, 1885.
“Annie Von Vossen's Trip,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, January 14, 1885.
“East Liverpool Briefs,” The Saturday Review, January 17, 1885.
“A Girl Saved from the Gallows,” The Sentinel, June 23, 1885.
“A Girl's Awful Malice,” Morning Journal and Courier., January 10, 1885.
“Miss Annie Van Fossen, the East Liverpool O, Borgia,” Illustrated Police News, January 24, 1885.
“The Murder of Gertie Phillips,” Stark County Democrat, April 2, 1885.
“Pleaded Not Guilty,” Grand Rapids Eagle, January 12, 1885.
“Telegraphic Sparks,” Plain Dealer, January 9, 1885.
“Two of the Victims of the Poisoning Dead,” Canton Daily Repository., January 12, 1885.
“The Van Fossen Poisoning,” Illinois State Journal., January 12, 1885.

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.

Charley and Mary.

Charley McGill and Mary Kelly.

In 1874, Charley McGill saw Mary Kelly on the street in Columbus, Ohio. He struck up an acquaintance with Mary that soon turned into “desperate infatuated love.” They traveled together throughout Ohio, and although not married, they lived together as man and wife.

Mary was a virtuous girl before meeting Charley, but reportedly, in Cleveland, they lived off Mary’s earnings as a prostitute. After an angry quarrel, Mary moved out. Charley searched for four weeks before finding Mary living in a Cleveland brothel. She invited him to her room, and as they lay together in bed, he pulled out his revolver and shot her in the head.

At his murder trial, Charley McGill pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, but the jury did not buy it. He successfully appealed the verdict and was retried but found guilty again. McGill was hanged in Cleveland on February 13, 1879.

Read the full story here: Love and Lunacy.

The Banjo Homicide.

William Condon was a banjo player and a variety performer at Ryan’s Saloon in Cincinnati. For six months, he had been living with a woman named Lou Perry, and in June 1880, they moved into a rented room at No.300 West Fifth Street. The move had not gone smoothly, and they began quarreling frequently.

Lou Perry—known as “Big Lou”—was from a troubled family. Her real name was Louisa Dorff, and she was born in West Virginia. Around 1870, the family moved to Cincinnati, where her two brothers, Charles and Samuel, got into trouble and were sent to the penitentiary. When they returned from prison, they got into trouble again, and the family was driven out of the city. Lou stayed behind.

The Illustrated Police News politely referred to Lou as a “kept woman.” The Cincinnati Daily Star was a bit harsher: “She went from bad to worse and finally became a low, miserable, besotted prostitute.”

The Stull-Best Murder.

On the evening of Saturday, November 9, 1878, Mrs. Amy Best left her home to visit her grandchildren, just a short walk away from her home in Port Washington, Ohio. She never reached her destination. The next day, friends and family made a diligent search of the area and found the body of Mrs. Best at the edge of the woods, near a fence. Her neck was broken, and her skull was crushed. Bruises on her neck indicated that she had been strangled.

The prime suspect in Amy Best’s murder quickly became Mrs. Catherine Stull. Though Amy Best was a 60-year-old widowed grandmother, Mrs. Stull believed she had been having intimate relations with her husband, John Stull, for the past fifteen years. Because of her husband’s infidelity, Mrs. Stull “had endured discord at home and scandal abroad.” She had openly declared that if she ever caught them together, she would kill them both.

A Young Fiend.

Maggie Thompson, a pretty eight-year-old girl living on Merchant Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio, mysteriously disappeared on May 9, 1889. She was coming from school, just two blocks away, but she never reached her home. Detectives, police constables, and private citizens searched the neighborhood to no avail. They found no trace of Maggie.

The Boss Butcher.

On December 11, 1879, neighbors searching the Harelson farm in Kerney, Nebraska, found the bodies of Mrs. Harelson and her three children inside a haystack. There was little question as to the murderer's identity. Stephen D. Richards, who had been living with the Harelsons for the previous two weeks, told them that Mrs. Harelson and the children had gone to join her husband, a fugitive from justice. The neighbors were searching because they did not believe him.

By the time the bodies were found, Richards had sold the farm and fled the state. Sheriff S.L. Martin of Hastings, Nebraska, obtained some letters Richards had written to a woman there saying that he planned to meet her in Mt. Pleasant, Ohio. Richards took a circuitous route, and Martin tracked him to Omaha, Chicago, and other points. Martin nearly captured him in Chicago, but the press got wind of his arrival and published it in the newspaper, alerting Richards. He finally captured Richards as he was walking across a field in Mt. Pleasant in the company of two young women.

After his arrest, Richards confessed to murdering the Harelsons. He continued talking, and by his second day in jail, Richards, whom the Illustrated Police News dubbed “The Boss Butcher,” confessed to a total of nine murders. The Chicago Daily Tribune published his official confession:

I was born in Mt. Pleasant, Jefferson County, Ohio, and am a Quaker by birth and religion. I lived there with nothing eventful happening to me until three years ago when a desire to roam about took possession of me. I went West and have lived in Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, Kansas, Missouri, Colorado, and Nebraska. 

The first murder I committed was in Buffalo County, in the latter State, where I shot a man with whom I engaged in a quarrel. I afterward murdered another man in his own house, because he cursed me, beating his brains out with a hammer. I then went to Kearney. At that place there lived a Swede, a bachelor, on a farm by himself. He had plenty of money, and I went to live with him, and soon after which I poisoned him, but, as he did not die quick enough to suit me, I one night knocked his brains out with a club and took all his money.

This Mrs. Harelson, whom I murdered along with her three children, had a dissolute husband, and a short time ago, he went away and left her. I conceived the idea of murdering her and her children and then selling off everything she had and pocketing the proceeds. For this purpose, I told neighbors I was going to take Mrs. Harelson and her children to a neighboring town and for them to come over the next day and feed the stock. That night, I murdered them, hid their bodies under a haystack, and went away myself.

After two or three days, I returned and gave out that Mrs. Harelson had gone to join her husband and that I had bought everything she had. I accordingly sold out everything and, as I saw that I was suspected, left the place and came on Mt. Pleasant. It was on the 8th of December that I committed the murders.

Richards broke Mrs. Harelson’s jaw and smashed the back of her head with a smoothing iron. He dispatched the two oldest children the same way, then dashed the infant’s head against the floor.

Sheriffs Martin and Anderson of Kearney and Buffalo counties took him to Nebraska on December 24. They anticipated lynch mobs both in Ohio and Nebraska. As they waited for the train, Richards, in iron shackles and handcuffs, was heavily guarded. 

On the train, Richards maintained an attitude of cool indifference. When asked if he feared lynching, he said he would as soon die one way as another. He held his life of no account, and regarding those he killed, he said, “I placed others at about the same importance as hogs.”

As the train approached Kearney, the sheriffs heard that a large crowd had gathered at the depot. They feared a lynch mob but were also concerned about Richards's boast that the “secret society” he belonged to would be there to free him and take revenge on the lawmen.

They got off the train two miles east of Kearney and secured him in a wagon. Sheriff Anderson went to Kearney and addressed the crowd. He said that Sheriff Martin had taken him to Grand Island, and he would not be in Kearney until the following day. Martin had not taken him to Grand Island. After the crowd dispersed, he secretly took Richards to the Kearney jail.

The court issued three indictments against Richards for the murder of six people. He was tried on January 15, 1879, for the first-degree murder of Peter Anderson, the Swede he killed prior to the Harelsons. His plea was not guilty; he claimed he had killed Anderson in self-defense. The trial lasted two days, and after two hours of deliberation, the jury found him guilty. The judge immediately sentenced him to hang on April 26.

As execution day approached, Richards lost his cool attitude. The Reading Daily Eagle reported, “Lately, he has cried like a child and cannot sleep or eat, being so thoroughly unmanned through fear that it is thought he will have to be carried to the gallows.”

The hanging was to be held privately inside a high enclosure, but a mob quickly tore down the fence, and at least 2,500 people witnessed the execution. Richards regained his composure on the gallows and made a short address saying his soul was going to God and his body to the undertaker. Then, after a prayer by his spiritual advisor, he asked the crowd to join him in singing, “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.” 

The trap was sprung, and fifteen minutes later, Stephen D. Richards was dead.

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Sources: 

“An Outlaw,” New Haven Evening Register, December 24, 1878.
“The Boss Murderer,” Illustrated Police News, January 4, 1879.
“By Mail and Telegraph,” READING DAILY EAGLE, December 23, 1878.
“Convicted and Sentenced for Murder,” Cincinnati Daily Gazette, January 17, 1879.
“A Cowardly Wretch,” READING DAILY EAGLE., April 26, 1879.
“Criminal News,” Chicago Daily Tribune., December 24, 1878.
“The Death Penalty,” Cincinnati Daily Gazette, April 28, 1879.
“A Desperado in Jail,” New York Herald., December 29, 1878.
“He Killed Children as He Would Rabbits,” New York Herald, January 7, 1879.
“The Nebraska Fiend,” Chicago Daily News, April 25, 1879.
“News Article,” Cincinnati Daily Star., December 23, 1878.
“Richards, The Murderer,” Canton Daily Repository., December 27, 1878.
“Richards, the Wholesale Murderer, Streteched Hemp Yesterday,” Cheyenne daily leader. [volume], April 27, 1879.

Elizabeth and Arthur.

Elizabeth and Arthur Ragan.

As Arthur Ragan lay dying of a stomach ailment in Piqua, Ohio, on April 3, 1855, his wife, Elizabeth, took the physician aside and told him she believed her husband had poisoned himself. She said she thought the cream of tartar he had been taking for his stomach was actually arsenic. Mr. Ragan died that day, and a post-mortem examination proved his wife correct, he had died of arsenic poisoning. However, there were reasons to believe that Arthur Ragan had not committed suicide, and suspicion fell on Elizabeth as his murderer.

Read the full story here: Love and Arsenic.

"Give Me Back My Children."

Margaret Howard learned too late that the man she married was a violent, two-timing gambler. After they separated, he kidnapped their children to be raised by another woman posing as his wife. Margaret snapped and took her revenge on the false Mrs. Howard.  

Read the full story here: Margaret Howard.

The Bedford Murder.

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.

Date:  August 9, 1865

Location:   Bedford, Ohio

Victim:  Tamzen Parsons

Cause of Death:  Gunshot

Accused:   Dr. John W. Hughes

Love and Lunacy.

In 1874, Charley McGill had a steady job as a cabinet maker, living in Columbus, Ohio, with a wife and a child. He was standing on the street with his friend, Elliot Hymrod when two young ladies passed by. Hymrod proposed that they follow the ladies, and McGill agreed. One of the ladies, Mary Kelly, caught McGill’s eye, and he struck up an acquaintance with her that grew into “desperate, infatuated love.”

The Remains of Schilling.

In 1874, a feud within Cincinnati’s German community led to the brutal murder and illegal cremation of Herman Schilling. The case would also serve as a stepping stone for Lafcadio Hearn, a young aspiring journalist and illustrator on his way to international literary renown.

Read the full story here: The Tanyard Murder.

A Murdered Mother.

The morning of January 12, 1889, 22-year-old Elmer L. Sharkey ran to the home of his neighbor, John Clare. A noise on the stairway frightened Sharkey, who jumped out of the second-story window. He thought a burglar was in the house and ran for help.

Sharkey and Clare returned to the Sharkey farmhouse, two and a half miles north of Cincinnati, Ohio. They found his mother, Caroline Sharkey, lying in bed in a pool of blood. Her arm was broken, and the back of her head was “crushed to a jelly.” The murder weapon lay on the floor nearby—a wooden maul with iron rings on each end, used for splitting rails. Caroline Sharkey, age 46, was a widow living with her son on her 130-acre farm. Sharkey stuck the burglar story, though nothing was taken from the house.

News of the murder spread quickly, generating tremendous excitement in the region. Suspicion fell on Elmer Sharkey. Although he offered a $1,000 reward for the capture of his mother’s killer, he seemed utterly indifferent to his mother’s fate, showing little emotion.

Sharkey became restless and uneasy. After his mother’s funeral on January 14, he called his uncle and cousins together to talk about the murder. Then, in the presence of a reporter from the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Sharkey admitted that he killed his mother but did not know why he did it. Fearing a lynch mob, the police arrested Sharkey and quickly took him to jail.

The following April, Sharkey was tried for the first-degree murder of Caroline Sharkey. The motive given by the prosecution was Sharkey’s desire to inherit his mother’s 130-acre farm and to remove her objection to his proposed marriage. 

For his defense, Sharkey pled insanity. In addition to Sharkey’s strange behavior after the murder, the defense attorneys cited massive evidence of insanity in Sharkey’s family history. His mother had been in an insane asylum and twice had tried to commit suicide—once by jumping down a well and once by hanging herself. Her sister Sarah had also been in an asylum and had two insane children. Her uncle, John Risnger had attempted suicide by butting his head against a building. His sister Malinda had strange spells of suspected insanity, as did her brothers William and Levi. William’s daughter suffered from epilepsy, and several more of Elmer’s mother’s relatives were considered insane.

On his father’s side, his father Henry was epileptic and had attempted suicide, his uncle Michael had two insane children and a feeble-minded son, his uncle Noah had two epileptic daughters, and his aunt had two children who committed suicide.

However, the “insanity dodge,” as one newspaper called it, was unsuccessful. The jury found Elmer Sharkey guilty of first-degree murder, and he was sentenced to hang on September 13.

Sharkey was granted a stay of execution while his attorney prepared an appeal. The state Supreme Court granted a new trial due to errors in the first trial, and in April 1890, he was retried for the murder of his mother. Once again, Sharkey was found guilty and sentenced to hang. 

As his execution drew near, Sharkey claimed he had no recollection of what happened the night of the murder. He claimed his confession had been forced through threats of lynching.

Despite another appeal and a petition to commute his sentence to life in prison, Sharkey could not escape the gallows. Shortly after midnight on December 18, 1890, Elmer Sharkey was hanged in the annex of the Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus.

His last words were, “I will answer to God for what I have done and forgive all.”

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Sources: 

“The Boy Murderer,” Evening Post., April 9, 1890.
“Convicted of the Murder of his Mother,” Evening Post, May 2, 1889.
“Elmer Sharkey Convicted,” Democratic Northwest., May 16, 1889.
“Found Murdered in Her Bed,” Cleveland Leader AND MORNING HERALD., January 13, 1889.
“Got a NEw Trial,” Lexington Herald Leader, November 20, 1889.
“Her Skull was Crushed,” National Police Gazette, February 2, 1889.
“Killed By Her Son,” Plain Dealer, January 15, 1889.
“A Murdered Mother,” Evening Post., January 14, 1889.
“Murderer Sharkey to Hang,” Ccourier-Post, May 22, 1889.
“News Article,” Erie Morning Dispatch, April 1, 1890.
“News Of The State,” Plain Dealer, February 26, 1890.
“Respited,” The Dayton Herald, November 20, 1889.
“Sharkey Must Go,” Columbus Evening Dispatch, July 25, 1890.
“A Stay of Execution Granted ,” The Piqua Daily Call, August 3, 1889.
“Two Murderers Hang,” The Daily Interocean, December 19, 1890.
“A Young Fiend,” Cleveland Leader AND MORNING HERALD., January 15, 1889.

Political Protection.

William Farrell, Patrick Muldoon, and “Tonce” Joy played cards in Muldoon’s Cincinnati saloon on November 30, 1896. They were secretly colluding to cheat a fourth man. After skinning their victim, Joy’s job was to steer him away, but when he returned for his share, his partners wouldn’t pay. A fight ensued, a pistol fired, and “Tonce” Joy stagged out of Muldoon’s saloon to die. Farrell and Muldoon were politically connected, and after their arrests, a policeman named James Welton came forward with another story. He claimed that Joy, drunk and abusive, grabbed his revolver during a scuffle, and it accidentally fired. Regardless of which account was true, the DA did not have enough evidence to prosecute anyone.

Read the full story here: Who Shot "Tonce" Joy?

The Murdered Congressman.

The Honorable Cornelius S. Hamilton was the Congressional Representative of the Eighth District of Ohio. In December 1867, he received word that his son Thomas was in a bad way, so the Congressman hurried back from Washinton, DC, to his home in Marysville, Ohio.

18-year-old Thomas Hamilton had been experiencing some mental problems—“mild insanity,” the newspapers said, “such as would only be readily detected by medical men.” But recently, Thomas had been exceedingly melancholy, prompting his teacher to take Thomas to Columbus to be examined by his uncle, Dr. J.W. Hamilton. After meeting with his nephew, Dr. Hamilton advised his brother and the teacher to watch Thomas closely. The diagnosis prompted the Congressman’s return. 

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.

The Mysterious Murder of Bessie Little.

A swimmer in the Miami River outside of Dayton, Ohio discovered the body of Bessie Little in September 1896. It took two autopsies to determine that she died from gunshot wounds. The pistol could not be found so it was unclear whether she had committed suicide or was shot by her lover, Albert Frantz. The police used twelve three-pound magnets to search the river bottom for the missing pistol.

Read the full story here: The Bessie Little Mystery.

Murdered in Church.

Ferdinand Hoffman, a German immigrant, arrived in Canton, Ohio, in 1864. There he met Caroline Yost, and after a brief courtship, he proposed to her. Caroline’s parents opposed the marriage because they did not trust Hoffman and knew nothing of his background. Predictably, their opposition only drove Caroline closer to Ferdinand, and the couple eloped.

The Yosts' suspicions of Hoffman’s character proved justified. Before coming to Canton, Hoffman was an “unprincipled vagabond” who engaged in counterfeiting and horse stealing. Caroline learned firsthand of his bad character when he began to abuse her and engage in criminal activities. He was caught stealing from her father and sentenced to prison, but he was released early when he agreed to join an Ohio regiment fighting for the Union. He soon deserted and returned home with a head wound that he claimed resulted from a rebel guerilla gunshot. It was later revealed that he received the wound in a Cincinnati gambling hell.

So Far from Home.

New Book!

So Far from Home 

The Pearl Bryan Murder

"Yes. they drove far from the city,

To a place so far from home,

There they left her body lying

Headless and all stained with blood"

 Pearl Bryan (Traditional Ballad)

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The Bessie Little Mystery.

A swimmer in the Miami River outside of Dayton, Ohio, discovered the body of a young woman floating in the water on September 3, 1896. The coroner found nothing to indicate violence; the cause of death was believed to be suicide and the unidentified body was hastily buried.

When he heard of the body in the river, Dayton Police Chief Thomas Farrell believed he knew who she was, and he had reason to believe that she had been murdered. Farrell had the woman’s body disinterred and soon after she was identified as 23-year-old Bessie Little by her adopted parents and by her dentist who kept detailed records of his patients’ teeth. The coroner still could not determine the cause of death and the body was reburied.

Her parents said they did not report Bessie missing because she had left home several weeks earlier to look for work; she was living in a Dayton boarding house run by Mrs. Freese. The full story was, the Littles had kicked Bessie out of their house when they learned she had been intimate with her boyfriend 20-year-old Albert Frantz. They told her not to return unless he agreed to marry her.