Confessing an Awful Crime.

Little Murders

(From Oshkosh Daily Northwestern, Oshkosh, Wisconsin, April 18, 1894)

CONFESSING AN AWFUL CRIME.

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A Georgia Man describes How He Butchered His Five Children.

Waynesboro, Ga, April. 19.—Edward Dowse, who is held in jail charged with the murder of his five children, has confessed his guilt. He says his children kept accumulating upon him, while his ability to support them diminished, and on the morning of the murder he felt an uncontrollable desire to rid himself of the burden. Pretending to his wife that he wanted some necessary article in the cabin he went there, and having fastened the door behind him, he attacked the youngest child with an ax and killed it. The others held him by the legs, beseeching him to spare the child. Turning from his dead victim he grasped two others and beat their heads against each other until they became unconscious. With the ax he then killed them. The two remaining children sought refuge under the bed. Reaching for them he killed them also and left five dead bodies on the floor. Closing the door he returned to work, giving no sign of the bloody work in which he had been engaged. It is believed that his wife and sister, who have disappeared, are also guilty.

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Oshkosh Daily Northwestern, Oshkosh, Wisconsin, April 18, 1894.

George Tartar.

Little Murders:

From Defenders and Offenders:

George Tartar.

"George Tartar, who is a most desperate thief and villain, making his home in Kentucky when out of prison, and has added to his numerous crimes that of murder. A dance was given at a distillery near Summerset, Ky., and there was a large assemblage on hand. Tartar, who was out of jail only twelve days, invited himself. After arming himself with a pair of brass knuckles and a dirk, he had not been at the dance long before he showed his determination to create a fight. Tartar commenced by knocking an inoffensive young man down, and others coming to his assistance, Tartar pulled out his dirk, slashing right and left, literally hacking one man to pieces, who afterwards died."

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Defenders and offenders. New York: D. Buchner & Co., 1888.

Startling Parallelisms.

Just five days before the start of Lizzie Borden’s trial for the murder of her father and step-mother in Fall River, Massachusetts, the town was shocked by another brutal axe murder. The mutilated body of Bertha Manchester was found in the kitchen of her home. The “startling parallelism” between this case and the Borden murders—the excessive number of wounds in each case, the fact that both incidents occurred in broad daylight, the lack of any apparent motive—threatened to open a new line of defense in Lizzie’s trial. It would, at very least, challenge many of the prosecution’s stated assumptions.

51 Murder Mysteries in Two Years

The New York City newspaper, The World, printed this map in their July 18, 1897 edition, indicating the locations of 131 murders in the city during the previous 28 months. The accompanying story had some interesting statistics regarding New York’s murders. To an overwhelming degree, the killers who were captured received only minor sentences; only fifteen of the murderers were sentenced to death or to life in prison. And in fifty-one of the cases—more than a third of the total—the mystery was unsolved and likely to remain unsolved. The World assessed the situation this way:

Thus the murderer’s chances in New York, estimated from the experience of two years past, may be summarized about as follows:

Of capital punishment  ………………………………………… 1 in 18

Of life imprisonment    ………………………………………… 1 in 16

Of minor punishment   ………………………………………… 1 in 3

Of escape altogether …………………………………………… 1 in 3

Though the murder rate in New York City 1895 - 1897 seems high, according to Memoirs of a Murder Man by Arthur A. Carey—who was the head of New York’s Homicide Bureau during this period—of all the major American cities, only Los Angeles had a lower murder rate than New York. These were bloody times.


The World article lists all 131 of the murders and surprisingly, only one of them has already been covered at Murder by Gaslight—the murder of Domenico Cataldo by Maria Barbella. This is likely to change.


While there is little point in duplicating their entire list, a few selections from the unsolved mysteries may be interesting:

DARKEST OF THE MYSTERIES

• Henry Neumeister – Struck on head by an unknown person and killed at Columbus Avenue and One Hundred and First Street March 1895. A mystery.
• William H. Bower—Killed with a billiard cue at 1502 Lexington Avenue Feb.27, 1897. John Cotter accused of the killing, has never been arrested according to the entry in District-Attorney’s office.
• Michael Healy—Stabbed in the eye, Nov. 9, 1895, on Grove street with umbrella in hands of unknown person. Died from injuries. A mystery.
• Dennis Hurley—Killed, May 4, 1897, by brick thrown from roof of 210 East Forty-fourth street by unknown person.
• Prof. Max Eglau—Killed in the Institution for the Improved Instruction of Deaf Mutes. Lexington  Avenue and Sixty-Seventh Street. Feb. 10, 1896. Several of the pupils in the school were arrested on suspicion and discharged. The murder is still a profound mystery.
• Maggie Riley, alias “Diamond Flossie” Murphy—Killed at 228 West Twenty-fourth street, April 22, 1897. Strangled. Still a mystery.

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Sources:

• Carey, Arthur A., and Howard McLellan. Memoirs of a murder man,. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Doran and Co., 1930.
• "Fifty-One ‘Murder Mysteries’ in Two Years." The World [New York] 18 July 1897: 28.

A Woman Scorned.

William Goodrich paid a visit to the lodging of his brother Charles, on Degraw Street in Brooklyn, on March 21, 1873. Getting no response at the door William entered the house to search for his brother, and found Charles  lying dead on the basement floor, neatly posed, as if laid out by an undertaker. Charles had been shot in the head, and lying on the floor near his hand lay a revolver, suggesting suicide. But William Goodrich knew his brother too well to believe this.

“You never did this yourself!” he said, “This is murder! Not suicide!”

Decapitation and Dismemberment

Cutting the head and limbs off a corpse is hard and messy work. It is almost always an afterthought, an act of desperation by the murderer to avoid capture by hiding the identity of the body or to facilitate its disposal.

Of course, there were cases where decapitation was part of a deranged killer’s psychotic obsession.  Joseph Lapage raped and murdered 17-year-old Josie Langmaid, who was on her way to school in Pembroke, New Hampshire in 1875. Then, for no apparent reason, Lapage cut off her head and carried it half a mile before dropping it in the woods.

More often, the head was removed to obscure the identity of the corpse. The killers of Pearl Bryan in Newport, Kentucky, in 1896, were accused of severing her head while she was still alive. Whether she was alive at the time or not, Pearl Bryan’s head was removed to hide her identity. The killers might have succeeded in this if they had thought to remove her shoes as well.

The Beautiful Carrie Andrews

“The Beautiful Carrie Andrews” is a tragic love story about an up-and-coming young singer from the town of Essex, Massachusetts, and her obsessed suitor.  It is one of 14 tales of murderous acts and other bad behavior from my new book Murder and Mayhem in Essex County.


The Beautiful Carrie Andrews
Essex, 1894 

Thomas Oliver Hazard Perry Burnham was a successful bookseller and publisher in Boston, who was born and raised in the Town of Essex, a small, but prosperous, town on the coast of Cape Ann. The Burnhams were an old and prominent family going back to the days when Essex was the Chebacco Parish in Ipswich. Incorporated in 1819, Essex became famous in the nineteenth century for shipbuilding. By the end of the century, over five thousand sailing ships, known for their speed and craftsmanship, were built in the shipyards of Essex. T. O. H. P. Burnham never forgot his roots and on his death in 1893, he bequeathed $20,000—the worth of a new Essex schooner—to the town of Essex to build a new town hall and library.

The Hunter-Armstrong Tragedy

John M. Armstrong

The night of January 23, 1878, a man was found on the ground with a serious head wound not far from the home of Ford W. Davis in Camden, New Jersey. Near the wounded man, a hammer and a hatchet were found, each marked with the initials F. W. D. The man was identified as  Philadelphia music publisher John M. Armstrong, and when it was learned that he owed Ford W. Davis a sizeable amount of money, Davis was arrested. But Armstrong also owed $12,000 to Benjamin F. Hunter, who had insured Armstrong’s life for more than double that amount.

Hattie Woolsteen.

Little Murders:

From Defenders and Offenders:

Hattie Woolsteen.

"One of the most extraordinary crimes which ever excited California, occurred in a small village, eleven miles East of South Los Angeles. Doc Harlan, a well known sporting dentist was a victim. His body was found in the ruins of an out-house, where he lived with two sisters, Hattie and Minnie Woolsteen for some time. Hattie was arrested and accused of murder. Jealousy was supposed to be the cause."

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Defenders and offenders. New York: D. Buchner & Co., 1888.

Was it Murder?

Little Murders

(From The Evening Statesman. Marshall, Michigan, February 12, 1887.)

WAS IT MURDER?

The death of Bart Garfield said to be surrounded by Mysterious Circumstances.

Referring to the death of the late Bert Garfield, mention of which has previously been made in these columns, the Bellevue Gazette says: "Suspicions have been mentioned of foul play, and the reasons given thereof; still we hardly think grounds exist on which to base such views. It is said that after his injuries he partially regained consciousness, and indistinctly uttered something about "poker" and "lantern." It is also claimed that when found his cap, gloves and overshoes were missing, and it is hardly probable that he would have been on top of the train in that condition. Reports are also current of trouble between him and the engineer and other train hands, and that the engineer on one trip would not allow him to enter the cab compelling him to ride in the cold on top of the cars. The wound (or fracture of his skull) is said to have been such as one as would have been caused by a blow from a hammer or small blunt instrument,—possibly the end of a poker,— and not such as would have probably been received had he fallen from the top of the train and struck on the hard, frozen ground. Bert's experience as a railroad brakeman was short. Less than three months ago he left a good home with his parents on their farm in Convis, and pushed out into the world to battle for himself among its vicissitudes. Now he fills an early grave."

This morning a reporter of the STATESMAN interviewed a gentleman of this city who has known the Garfield family for years and he stated that in his opinion Bert Garfield was murdered and that the relatives of the deceased also entertained the same opinion. The authorities should investigate this matter.

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The Evening Statesman. Marshall, Michigan, February 12, 1887.

The Mysteries of Pearl Bryan

Someone with a knowledge of American murder ballads would likely notice a serious omission at Murder by Gaslight—the 1896 murder of Pearl Bryan that inspired three distinct ballads, each with several variations. The reason I haven’t yet posted on the death of Pearl Bryan is that I have written a book on that murder and was hoping to publish the book before the post.  But at the moment, I have no idea when that might happen.

In the meantime, an article I wrote some time ago on the death of Pearl Bryan was recently published by the magazine, Kentucky Explorer, and I have decided to reprint the article here. “Pearl Bryan: Headless Corpse Found on Northern Ky. Farm” –originally titled “The Mysteries of Pearl Bryan”—explores some of the unanswered questions in a case that today is usually presented as open-and-shut. It is longer than the average post, but it is a complicated story and still just the tip of the iceberg.

And here is a version of one of the ballads, “Pearl Bryan,” recorded in 1926 by Burnett & Rutherford:

"Pearl Bryan" - Burnett & Rutherford

 The Mysteries of Pearl Bryan

When the headless corpse of a young pregnant woman was found on John Locke’s farm in the Highlands near Ft. Thomas, on February 1, 1896, the shock was felt far beyond the Ohio Valley.  For the rest of that winter and most of the spring the Ft. Thomas Tragedy unfolded in daily newspapers across America and, for a time, rivaled the murder of Lizzie Borden’s parents, four years earlier, for the dubious distinction of “Crime of the Century.”  The woman was Pearl Bryan, from the little town of Greencastle, Indiana and the mystery of how she had come to Kentucky, and there met such a gruesome fate, seemed as unfathomable as it was incomprehensible.

The Veiled Murderess.

In 1854, a woman calling herself Henrietta Robinson stood trial in Troy, New York, for poisoning a neighbor and his sister-in-law. Despite the judge’s admonitions, she sat through the trial with her face covered by a black veil, hiding her appearance from the throngs of spectators who had come to watch. Everything about the defendant was a mystery—her motive for murder, her behavior before and after the crime, and even her true identity. It was well known that “Henrietta Robinson” was an assumed name, but who she really was has never been determined.

Alfred Taylor

Little Murders:

From Defenders and Offenders:

Alfred Taylor.

In July, 1888, Alfred Taylor of Lapeer, N. Y., killed Melville Frieze of Richford, in same State. Taylor had a wife, while Frieze was a single man. They lived for a while near each other and Taylor became jealous of Frieze’s attention to his wife. Taylor and a companion who had been out hunting and who had a loaded rifle in his hands, were sitting a grocery store at Hartford Mills, when Frieze entered the store. He jumped up and snatching the rifle out of his companion’s hand, fired at Frieze. The bullet struck his victim in the breast, just above the heart, and passed through his body. The wound was mortal, and death followed a few hours later.

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Defenders and offenders. New York: D. Buchner & Co., 1888.

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.

A Bloody Christmas Eve

Little Murders

(From The Galveston Daily News, Galveston Texas, December 26, 1885.)

A BLOODY CHRISTMAS EVE.

SHOCKING BUTCHERIES AT AUSTIN.

Another Chapter of Crime form the State Capital That Makes the Blood Run Cold.

Austin, December 25—Of all the murders that have been committed within the annals of Austin those of last night (Christmas eve) stand out in bold relief. Just one year ago this month the first of the series of murders was committed and since that time the assassins have

STRUCK BLOW AFTER BLOW

Thrown Out the Window.

The body of Mary E. Hill was found lying outside her Philadelphia home, by her maid returning from church the night of November 22, 1868. She had evidently been killed in her dining room by blows to the head with a fireplace poker, she was then dragged into the sitting room, then Mrs. Hill was thrown out the second story window. Though two people were tried for this murder and one was sentenced to be hanged, there would be no execution.

Cherry Scott

Little Murders:

From Defenders and Offenders:

Cherry Scott.

"Cherry Scott is a mulatto woman, who killed her mother, and was brought to Dallas, Texas, from the Indian Territory where the crime was committed. Her mother, herself, a married brother, his wife and two other children all lived together in Fannin County, and were employed in raising a crop. The sister-in-law would not work and this made Cherry Scott angry, and therefore when she was told to do some work she refused, ordering the sister-in-law to do it. A quarrel ensued and the mother sided with the daughter-in-law. This so angered Cherry, the next morning, while the mother lay in bed, Cherry approached her bed with a rifle and shot her dead."

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Defenders and offenders. New York: D. Buchner & Co., 1888.

The Six Capsules

Helen Potts, a nineteen year old student at Miss Comstock’s School in New York City, decided not to join her roommates when they went to hear a concert. Helen was feeling ill, but she had a remedy prescribed by her boyfriend, a medical student named Carlyle Harris. When the girls returned, Helen told them of the wonderful dreams she had been having about Carlyle. But she also complained of numbness throughout her body; before long she could not move and her breathing was labored. The dreams soon vanished, giving way to nightmare, revealing a world filled with deceit, betrayal and ultimately murder.

A Weschseter Tragedy Revived.

Little Murders

(From The World. New York, New York, November 18, 1885.)

A WESTCHESTER TRAGEDY REVIVED

Sudden Death of a Man Whose Name was
Connected with a Brutal Murder.

When the announcement was made in Kensico, Westchester County, yesterday that Wesley Stillison had been found dead in his bed there were many inquiries as to whether he had committed suicide. His sudden death recalled the particulars of a terrible murder committed in that village three years ago, in which Stillison's name was unpleasantly connected.

Stillison was the stepfather of Mrs. Mary Montfort, whose husband, Albert Montfort, kept a country store in the edge of the village. Montfort had some money, while Stillison was a shiftless fellow. Mrs. Montfort and her husband did not agree. Her brother Charles J. Reynolds, now in Sing Sing Prison, took sides with her against her husband. Affairs were approaching a domestic crisis when, one morning in August, 1882, Montfort was found murdered in his store.

Stillison was the discoverer of this crime. Montfort had been called from his bed, and when he opened the door he was struck in the head with an axe, knocked down and his head was chopped to pieces. Mrs. Montfort had gone away the day before.The store was robbed of about $300, as near as could be estimated.

Coroner Schirmer’s investigation led him to suspect Stillison and Reynolds, his stepson, and he placed Stillison under surveillance and arrested Reynolds. An axe was found in the bushes covered with hair and blood. Reynolds was locked up and the Coroner informed Stillison that he believed he was guilty. Reynolds had been indicted for burglary and pleaded guilty to the surprise of the prosecuting officer, and was sent to Sing Sing for seven years. Stillison then commenced a suit for $2,000 damages against Coroner Schirmer. The trial fully sustained the suspicion expressed by the Coroner, and the ease was thrown out of court. Since that time . Stillison has been moody and restive. The District-Attorney has been weighing the evidence and collecting such as he could with a view to lay the facts before the Grand Jury.

Death has now put an end to further proceedings, but there is a suspicion that Stillison's death was not due to natural causes and Coroner Purdy will hold an Inquest.

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The World. New York, New York, November 18, 1885.

An Unfortunate Organization

Phrenology, the theory that a person’s character is determined by the size and shape of his head, was quite popular in America during the 1850s. A phrenological analysis of Reuben Dunbar in 1851 found him to be excessive in Destructiveness, Combativeness, Aqusitiveness, Secretiveness and Firmness, while being deficient in Self-esteem and Philoprogenitiveness.  He had “an unfortunate organization” in which his moral faculties were not sufficiently large to balance his animal propensities. While the phrenologist professed scientific objectivity in the analysis of Dunbar’s head, she may have been  somewhat influenced the fact that, at the time, Reuben Dunbar was charged with murdering his two young stepbrothers to protect his inheritance.