Jealousy and Murder.

On June 15, 1877, Cora Young paid a call at The Club House, a saloon in Auburn, New York run by John H. Barrett. Cora was a prostitute, working out a brothel near the saloon, but she had a special relationship with John Barrett and viewed him as her man. Barrett was not as committed to the relationship as Cora but stayed with her out of fear; Cora was very jealous, and on several occasions, she had threatened his life. That afternoon Cora confronted Barrett at the saloon, accusing him of infidelity. They quarreled, and Cora left angry.

At closing time, Cora returned and was very drunk. Barrett took her home and spent the night in her room at the brothel. Cora was still angry, and around 6:00 that morning, three pistol shots were heard coming from Cora’s chamber. 

When the police arrived, they burst into the room and found Barrett lying on the bed with blood flowing from a bullet hole near his temple. Cora lay next to him, her arm around him, with two bullet wounds in her head. On the bed between them laid a seven-shot revolver. She had shot John Barrett in the head, then turned the gun on herself and fired twice. 

Cora Young

Barrett died about half an hour after he was found. Cora revived but remained in critical condition; it was believed that she would die as well. A coroner’s jury quickly ruled that Cora shot and killed John Barrett; if she survived her self-inflicted wounds, Cora would be tried for first-degree murder and face the gallows.

Cora did recover, and the following November, she was tried for murder. The case was given to the jury at 4:00 on November 17, 1877. As Cora's jury deliberated, the court heard the case of William Barr, a prisoner at Auburn State Prison who had killed a guard with a snow shovel. That case was interrupted at 6:00 when the jury returned with a verdict in Cora’s case. 

"Not guilty," said the foreman; the courtroom erupted with loud applause and Cora fainted. In the confusion that followed, Barr tried to escape, and after several minutes of struggle with the Sheriff’s officers, he was subdued. Barr was put in shackles, and his trial resumed.

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Sources: 

“Acquitted - Attempt to Escape from a Court Room,” Daily Nonpareil, November 18, 1877.
“The Auburn Murder-Lunatics in Prison,” New York Tribune, February 7, 1877.
“Confusion in a Murder Trial,” New York Herald, November 18, 1877.
“Double Tragedy,” Cincinnati Daily Star, June 15, 1877.
“Jealousy, Murder, and Suicide,” Illustrated Police News, June 30, 1877.
“Murder and Suicide,” Plain Dealer, June 15, 1877.

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pervaded nineteenth-century America marked by lurid newspaper accounts and remembered in ballad and verse. The Bloody Century presents 50 of the most intriguing murder cases from the archives of American crime. It is a collection of fascinating stories—some famous, some long-buried—of Americans, driven by desperation, greed, jealousy, or an irrational bloodlust, to take another’s life. The Bloody Century audiobook, narrated by Charles Huddleston, augments the true accounts of these murders with musical performances of period ballads and poems.

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The Poison Fiend.

When Horatio Sherman took sick after returning home from a week-long drunken spree, he said it was just one of his “old spells.” His wife Lydia agreed, and dosed him with brandy as usual. But Horatio’s doctor, who had treated his alcohol induced “spells” before, was suspicious this time. Horatio died two days later, and the doctor ordered a post-mortem examination which revealed the cause of death to be arsenic poisoning. When it was further learned that Lydia Sherman’s first two husbands, and seven of her children had all died of arsenic poisoning as well, she was called “The Arch Murderess of Connecticut,” “The Modern Borgia,” and “The Poison Fiend.”

A Cowardly Lover.

 Lottie Jackson of Greasy Bend, Kansas, was engaged to marry James “Jap” Rainey, but she broke it off in the Fall of 1893. It was probably due to his rowdy ways; Jap Rainey had a reputation as a gambler and “all-around sport.” He argued with Lottie, then left in a fit of jealous rage, vowing to kill her.

On October 28, 1893, Lottie paid a call at the home of Bosworth Morgan in Osawatomie. As she stood by an open window that night, she did not see Jap Rainey sneaking toward the house. He approached the window, then raised his pistol and made good on his promise. He fired into the house, killing Lottie Jackson, then escaped into the darkness.

Everyone knew who did it, and they quickly formed a posse to track him down. Their intentions were clear; when they caught Rainey, they planned to lynch him on the spot. Realizing his position was hopeless, Jap Rainey went to the police station in Paola, Kansas, and gave himself up. This was not enough for the residents of Greasy Bend, who organized a mob of 75 men to travel to Paola, break Rainey out of jail, and lynch him.

Rainey remained safe in the Paola jail until his trial in February 1894. He tried a plea of temporary insanity, but the jury did not buy it. Rainey was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to hang. He moved for a new trial, but the judge overruled the motion. When Rainey asked for mercy, the judge replied that even if such were meted, there was but one sentence possible under the jury’s verdict. He sentenced Rainey to one year in the penitentiary, then, whenever the governor should so will it, to be hanged.

The governor was not in a hanging mood, and as of December 1898, 46 men, including Jap Rainey, were on death row in Kansas, awaiting execution. In October 1913, after serving 19 years at the penitentiary, Jap Rainey met with pardon clerk S.T. Seaton and fell on his knees, pleading for Seaton to bring about his release. Seaton promised to do so, and that is the last we hear of Jap Rainey.

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Sources: 

“A Coweredly Lover,” National Police Gazette, November 18, 1893.
“Current Events,” Muskegon Chronicle, October 28, 1893.
“The Death Penalty,” Topeka Weekly Capital, December 30, 1898.
“Gave Himself Up,” Tyrone Daily Herald, October 31, 1893.
“Jealous Rage,” Indianapolis Sun, October 28, 1893.
“Killed his Sweetheart,” Albany Ledger, November 3, 1893.
“March of Avengers,” Pittsburg Daily Headlight, October 31, 1893.
“A Murder At Osowatomie,” Topeka Daily Capital, October 28, 1893.
“Murder in the First Degree,” Topeka Daily Capital, February 17, 1894.
“Murdered his Sweetheart,” St. Joseph Weekly Gazette, March 13, 1894.
“Murderer Rainey Still Safe,” Lawrence Daily Gazette, November 1, 1893.
“Water at Penitentiary,” Topeka state journal, October 25, 1913.

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Transitory Frenzy.

Charles E. Henry came to Denver, Colorado, determined to live the fast life. The ambitious nineteen-year-old left his home in London, Ontario, in 1887 after winning $5,000 in the Louisiana lottery. He planned to use his winnings as seed money to begin a career as a professional gambler and to finance a life of luxury as he did so.

Henry had some initial success in the arcades of Denver, winning, on average, $30 a day for his first two weeks in town, but he spent more than that on the girls at the Palace Theater. The show at the Palace featured a variety company with a number of attractive young actresses and female vocalist. The theater required the women, when not on stage, to entertain individual customers, luring them to private boxes in the theater balcony and enticing them to buy drinks, for which the women received kickbacks. Charles Henry bought drinks for most of the cast before focusing his attentions on Miss Effie Moore, an actress with a round face and long curls of shiny black hair, who did a solo seriocomic performance in the show.

The Body of Mena Muller.

 

A man gathering leaves in Guttenberg, New Jersey, on May 13, 1881, discovered the body of a young woman with a fractured skull. It took five days to identify her as Mena Muller of New York City. She left her husband then illegally married Martin Kinkowski. That marriage ended badly after Mena and Martin shared a bottle of wine.

Read the full story here: The Guttenberg Murder.

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Illustration from Wedded and murdered within an hour!,  Philadelphia: Barclay & Co., 1881

The Outraged Father.

In December 1882, 16-year-old Emma Nash was raped in Wahpeton, Dakota Territory, by E.A. Newton, an agent for the Northern Pacific, Fergus Falls, and Black Hills Railway. She swore out a warrant against Newton, and on December 23, he appeared before the Grand Jury in Washington, Dakota Territory.

Emma’s father, James G. Nash, watched from the gallery at the indictment hearing as the judge read the charges and asked Newton how he pled. “Not guilty,” said Newton. A moment later, James Nash rose from his seat, pulled a revolver, and shot Newton dead.

“The scene that ensued beggars description,” said the Illustrated Police News. Nash surrendered himself to the authorities as the audience loudly applauded his act.

Public sentiment remained firmly on the side of the outraged father when he was indicted the following March for the murder of E.A. Newton. Nash pled not guilty, but he was a poor man who could not afford adequate counsel. The community in Wahpeton took up a collection and raised enough money to hire attorney W.W. Erwin Esq. of St. Paul, Minnesota, for Nash’s defense. The newspapers speculated that it would be difficult to find a jury that would convict him.

Nash was released on $10,000 bail pending his trial for murder. It does not appear that the trial ever took place.

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Sources: 

“Nash, of Wahpeton, Indicted,” Bismarck Tribune, March 16, 1883.
“Record of Tragedies,” Mower County Transcript, January 3, 1883.
“Shot his Daughter's Seducer,” Illustrated Police News, January 20, 1883.
“Territorial News,” Butte Semi-weekly Miner, January 6, 1883.
“Territorial News,” Griggs County Courier, April 13, 1883.

Betrayed and Murdered at the Reservoir.

Parental hostility drove Fanny Madison out of her home and into the arms of her cousin, Thomas Cluverius. It was not a wise decision.

Read the full story here: Kissing Cousins.                                            

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Pictures from Illustrated Police News, May 2, 1885.

A Weight of Grief.

Fanny Windley Hyde

Fanny Windley began working in the factories of Brooklyn at age ten. When she was fifteen, Fanny was “seduced” by her forty-five-year-old employer, George W. Watson. Watson’s unwanted attention continued for the next two years, even after Fanny's marriage. Then one day, on the stairway of the factory, she countered Watson’s lewd advances with a gunshot to the head. There was no question that Fanny Windley Hyde killed George W. Watson; it would be up to the jury to decide whether this act was first degree murder, or if Fanny was “under a weight of grief that could not be resisted.”

She Killed the Beast.

 

Bob Ramsey, a waiter at a resort hotel in Murphy, North Carolina, was standing in a lower hallway he heard a scream coming from the stairway. He recognized the woman running down the stairs as Lillian Gould, a pretty blonde Englishwoman about 30 years old. She was screaming because her husband, Charles, ten years older, tall and strong, was chasing her with a riding crop. 

"Had No Use For Men."

 

Alice Mitchell and Freda Ward, aged 19 and 17, had become close friends at the Higbee School for Girls in Memphis. So close, in fact, that they declared their love for each other and planned to elope to St. Louis to live together as husband and wife. When Freda’s family stopped the relationship, forbidding Freda from seeing Alice, events took a dreadful turn. On the afternoon of January 25, 1892, Alice Mitchel met Freda Ward on Front Street and cut her throat with a straight razor. Was Alice driven by insanity, by jealousy, or by “an unnatural love?”

Read the full story here: "Girl Slays Girl."

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Pictures from Illustrated Police News, July 30, 1892.

The Cannibal of Austerlitz.

Simon Vandercook was a 55-year-old “eccentric wanderer” from Lansingburgh, New York, a fortune seeker who relatives said was always filled with “utopian schemes.” In 1882, he claimed he had discovered gold outside of Alford, in Berkshire County, Massachusetts. Berkshire County had several small iron mines, with Marble and other minerals found there as well so a gold discovery was not considered impossible. Vandercook purchased the land for his gold strike from Oscar Beckwith in exchange for shares in the company he formed to mine the gold.

If Vandercook had actually discovered gold, the mine was not producing enough to sustain fulltime operation, and he earned money by cutting trees on the property and selling lumber. Beckwith believed he had been swindled and threatened to sue Vandercook.

A Lovely Murderess.

The crack of gunfire startled the residents of 88 Merrimack Street, a boarding house in Lowell, Massachusetts, around 10:00, the night of  August 31, 1876. The boarders rushed to Lulu Martin’s room on the third floor, where the shot was fired. The door was locked; they heard a man inside shouting, “Go for the police! She has shot me! I will hold her! Break open the door!”

Poor Little Alice.

8-year-old Alice Sterling disappeared from the steps in front of her father’s Boston barbershop the afternoon of April 10, 1895. The three-day search for Alice ended at a shallow grave in the floor of a nearby barn. Angus Gilbert, a friend of the Sterling family especially fond of little Alice, lived in a room above the barn. Gilbert was charged with her rape and murder but professed innocence to the end.

Read the full story here: Where is Alice Sterling?
 

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“Poor Little Alice,” Illustrated Police News, April 27, 1895.

James E. Eldredge.

James E. Eldredge

James E. Eldredge left his home in Canton, New York in the spring of 1856. He returned six months later with a new name and a duplicitous personality to match. All those around him soon learned to distrust anything the young man said—all except his fiancé, Sarah Jane Gould. She remained trusting to the end, when Eldredge poisoned Sarah Jane to pursue her younger sister.

The Fisk Assassination.

Popular financier Jim Fisk and his business associate, Ned Stokes, were good friends until Stokes stole Fisk’s mistress, Josie Mansfield. The scandal that followed included blackmail, courtroom dramas, and finally murder. Stokes met Fisk on the staircase of the Grand Central Hotel and shot him in cold blood. 

While we can only imagine what transpired when Josie arrived in hell, “The Strong Hand of Justice” was somewhat weaker than depicted above. It took three trials to convict Ned Stokes, and his sentence was six years in prison. 

Read the full story here: Jubilee Jim.

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Picture from Illustrated Police News, January 25, 1872.

The Dilliard Tragedy.

Around 2:00 AM, the morning of September 6, 1889 Mrs. Margaret Dilliard roused her husband, Arron, saying she heard a noise near the chicken coop of their Beersville, Pennsylvania farm. Aaron was reluctant to go outside, but Margaret insisted, handing him a lantern and a single-barreled shotgun. As Aaron went to investigate, Margaret waited on the porch with their 13-year-old son, Jacob. The chicken coop appeared to be undisturbed, and Aaron started back to the house, but his wife told him to check the cherry tree near the road where the chickens sometimes roosted. Aaron went back to the tree.

Neither Margaret nor Jacob heard a gunshot, but Aaron came stumbling out of the darkness a few minutes later and fell dead at their feet. He had been shot twice, with a bullet through the heart and buckshot in his neck. The killer had apparently used a double-barreled shotgun.

It was first believed that chicken thieves had shot Aaron Dilliard, but Detectives Johnson and Simons, who arrived from Easton, Pennsylvania later that day, quickly dismissed that theory. There were several indications that Dilliard’s death had been the result of a well-laid plan.  Though Margaret and Jacob heard no gunshots, neighbors half a mile away did hear them. Examining Aaron’s gun, the detectives found that the firing pin had been removed, rendering it useless. The detectives found no trace of intruders near the chicken coop, but by the cherry tree, they found footprints, a set of keys, and a paper wad from the killer’s gun.

Margaret Dilliard

Detectives Johnson and Simon believed that Margaret Dilliard was involved in a plot to murder her husband, but the prime suspect for the man who pulled the trigger was William Bartholomew, who, for several years, had an intimate relationship with Mrs. Dilliard. Bartholomew’s daughter recognized the keys as belonging to her father. She also said he had left the house after midnight while he said he was in all night. The paper wad found at the scene was torn from a copy of the Northampton Democrat found in Bartholomew’s house.  Bartholomew’s boots perfectly matched the footprints hear the scene.

William Bartholomew was a particularly unpleasant man. “A slouchy, unkempt, repulsive looking man of about 50 years,” said the Pittsburg Dispatch. “He has a forbidding appearance,” said the Philadelphia Inquirer, “He has the low forehead, snaky eyes, and general makeup of a felon.” Several years earlier, the Dilliards lived near Bartholomew and his wife, and William began an intimate relationship with Margaret Dilliard, who was twelve years younger. They made little effort to hide their romance, causing frequent quarrels in both households. Aaron moved his family to a farm three miles away, and for a time, the romance ceased.

William Bartholomew

In 1888, Mrs. Bartholomew became ill, and as she lay dying, she called for her husband, but he said that he did not have time to see her. When she died, he did not attend her funeral. It was rumored that William had poisoned his wife.

After his wife’s death, William resumed his relationship with Margaret Dilliard, and three or four times a week, he made the three-mile trip to see her. Sometimes he would stay overnight; it was impossible to hide their infidelity since everyone slept in one room. Jacob testified that Bartholomew often came to the house when his father was away and would give him candy and peanuts and send him to the store for tobacco. Aaron complained to his neighbors about Bartholomew’s behavior, and at the time of the murder, he was planning to move the family west.

Margaret Dilliard denied any involvement in the murder, but at her husband’s funeral, she had a change of heart and confessed all to the presiding minister. At the inquest, she testified against Bartholomew. She said he would not leave her alone, and she did not like it. But when Bartholomew proposed they kill her husband, she agreed. He removed the firing pin from her husband’s shotgun and told her to say she did not hear the gunshots. 

William Bartholomew and Margaret Dilliard were both arrested and charged with first-degree murder. The following October they were tried separately; both were found guilty and sentenced to hang. In exchange for her testimony against Bartholomew, the District Attorney promised to use all his influence with the governor to save her from the gallows. In January 1890, he made good on his promise, and her sentence was commuted to life in prison.

On April 9, 1890, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania executed four men in four separate cities. Eight hundred people watched as William Bartholomew stood on the gallows in Easton. His last words were declarations of innocence mixed with curses and blasphemy, demanding that Mrs. Dilliard and Detective Johnson be hanged as well. 

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Sources: 

“Bartholomew Found Guilty,” Patriot, October 23, 1889.
“Details of the Crime,” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 12, 1889.
“The Dilliard Murder William Bartholomew Arrested for Committing the Fould Deed,” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 9, 1889.
“Four Hanged,” Evening World, April 9, 1890.
“Guilty Love Fired the Shot,” New York Herald, September 8, 1889.
“Hangman's Day,” Erie Times-News, April 9, 1890.
“He Caused the Murder,” Aberdeen Daily News, September 8, 1889.
“Her Death Sentencce,” Daily Yellowstone journal, January 14, 1890.
“Mrs,” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 10, 1889.
“Mrs Dillard Sentenced,” Patriot, December 10, 1889.
“Mrs Dilliard Arrested,” Patriot, September 11, 1889.
“A Murder Confessed ,” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 11, 1889.
“A Murder Near Beersville,” Patriot, September 7, 1889.
“Mysterious Murder Washington Dilliard Looks for Midnight Thieves and is Shot,” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 7, 1889.
“News and Other Notings,” Cambria freeman, December 20, 1889.
“Not So Mysterious,” Pittsburg Dispatch, September 8, 1889.
“Remorse of a Guilty Woman,” New York Herald, September 13, 1889.
“State News Notes,” Patriot, January 24, 1890.
“State News Notes,” Patriot, March 12, 1890.

The Mysterious Murder of Pretty Rose Ambler.

Rose Ambler said goodnight to her fiancé at the Raven Stream Bridge, the night of September 2, 1883, and started walking home alone as she usually did. She was never again seen alive. Her body was found the next day, beaten and stabbed, and the perpetrator was never captured. 

Read the full story here:

The Raven Stream Crime.

"Yes, I Shot to Kill."

Commerce on the busy intersection  of Twenty-Fourth and J Streets, in Omaha, Nebraska, was interrupted, the evening of October 16, by the crack of three pistol shots. A young woman fired once in the air, trying to get the attention of the man who had just walked away from her. When he continued walking without turning around, she aimed at his back and fired again. Then she pointed the revolver at her own head and fired a third shot. Two bodies fell to the pavement.

Both were still alive and were quickly taken to Presbyterian Hospital. The man was Henry J. Reiser, a well-known, single, man-about-town, connected to the Armour meat packing company. The shot had severed his spinal cord, and he was not expected to live. The woman was Mrs. Eloise Rutiger, a prominent Omaha social leader, whose husband was also associated with Armour. The bullet had only grazed her head, and she was in no danger.

“Is he dead yet?” Mrs. Rudiger asked when she came to in the hospital, “Yes, I shot to kill. It was for my husband to do, but he would not, so I did it myself. The wretch has given me enough cause, and I hope I have accomplished what I undertook.”