Determined on Murder.

Little Murders

(From The National Police Gazette, October 16,1886)

Determined on Murder. 

Bent on Murder.
James M’Cambrick, After trying several ways of killing Mrs. Cline,
finally succeeds by throwing her out of the window.

About two o’clock the morning of Sept. 26, James McCambrick came to his house on Morgan street, Chicago, and engaged in a quarrel with the woman living with him as his wife. After threatening to shoot her he poured oil on her linen and said he would burn her alive. He then reached for his revolver, and, failing to find it, seized the woman and threw her from an open window to the ground, eighteen feet below. The woman’s back was broken by the fall. She will die. Mrs. Cline was married to her husband two years ago, and until last year lived with him on Cottage Grove avenue. He then became so cruel that she was driven to McCambrick, who offered her shelter. McCambrick is a rather good-looking fellow, but is a brute when under the influence of liquor. Mrs. Cline is a pretty woman, twenty-three years of age.

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The National Police Gazette, October 16,1886.

The Wrong Victim.

Little Murders

 

Matt Rollinger.

Matt Rollinger and his wife Abbie separated in the fall of 1895 and Matt moved out of their home on Mohawk Street in Chicago. Though Abbie allowed Matt to visit their three children, in her mind the separation was final and by Christmas had rented out a room in the house to Fred Mueller, a bicycle maker from Germany. Mueller had been in the house less than one day when he gave his landlady a new tablecloth as a Christmas present. During the winter months Mueller took Mrs. Rollinger to masquerade balls and other entertainments.

The Sailor and the Spiritualist.

Alfred and Althadine Smith had been married for more than twenty years but over time their lives had grown apart. He became a Great Lakes sailor interested more in drinking and carousing than in raising a family; she became a professional clairvoyant. When Alfred’s neglect turned to physical abuse and Althadine filed for divorce, she had the foresight to send the children away and bring in a friend for support and protection, but her clairvoyance failed when she was unable to predict the tragic consequence of letting Alfred stay just one more night.

Unique Murder in Missouri.

Little Murders

(From The Cincinnati Daily Enquirer , January 2, 1871)

Unique Murder in Missouri.

Diabolical Treachery.

On Tuesday morning a young man named brown killed one Dean, near New Market, Platte County, under the following atrocious circumstances:

About two months ago Dean and Brown had quarreled, but shortly after made it up, and apparently became friends again. On Monday night there was a dance at New Market, at the house of a man by the name of Smith. Brown and Dean both came to the dance riding one mule. During the night Dean borrowed Brown’s knife, for what purpose he did not state. The dance lasted until daybreak, when Dean and Brown both left Smith’s, seemingly good friends.

Now, right here is where this case proves to be one of premeditation and cold blooded murder; Dean, apparently to give Brown the best place on the mule, compelled, him to ride on the saddle while he rode behind. A little distance from Smith’s he stabbed Brown through the back, killing him almost instantly. Brown was about twenty-one years of age, and a single man. Dean is described as being slender built, about six feet high, sharp feature, and very large, prominent teeth. In features he is rather repulsive. He is twenty-five or twenty-six years of age, and unmarried. The murderer is still at large. Let our detectives up this way look out for him.

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"Unique Murder in Missouri." Cincinnati Daily Enquirer, 2 Jan 1871: 2.

John J. Delaney

Little Murders:

From Defenders and Offenders:

John J. Delaney.

"John J. Delaney is only 17 years of age and is a self-confessed murderer. On June 3d, 1887, Mary Jane Cox was found dead in the kitchen of the house where she worked in Brooklyn, and in the pocket of her dress was found a bottle one-third filled with a preparation of arsenic. Delaney afterwards confessed that he had purchased the poison and given it to Mary, with the intention of getting rid of her, and telling her it was a harmless preparation which would do her good."

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

Murder at Bloomingdale.

Harvey Keith

While boating on Max Lake in Bloomingdale, Michigan in August 1885, Frank Lackey and his companions saw what they thought was a dead sheep floating in the water. Closer inspection revealed that it was the body of a man, wearing only a white shirt and a pair of socks. The body was soon identified as Harvey Keith who had been missing for several days. With no signs of violence on the head or upper body, the death would probably have been ruled a suicide except that the man’s genitals had been cut off.

A Modern Macbeth Murder Case.

Little Murders

(From New York Tribune, March 26, 1877)

 

A Modern Macbeth Murder Case.

 

An old man named Thomas J. Poyntz, living at Bay Shore, was found dead in a bed at the house of Nathaniel Evans, near Thompson’s Station on the Long Island Railroad, Jan. 29, with a deep wound in the left side, apparently inflicted with a carpenter’s gouge. Evans was a cabinetmaker and upholsterer, and apt to be in possession of such a tool. This, with other circumstances, excited strong suspicion against him. After an investigation by Coroner Preston of Amityville, in which it was shown that Evans and Poyntz—possibly Kennedy and others—had been carousing on the day previous. Evans was held for the murder, although there was doubt of his guilt, and there seemed to be a probability that the Grand Jury would refuse to find an indictment against him. There has been a suspicion, strengthened by the actions of the woman herself, that Evans’s wife knew more about Poynitz’s death than Evans himself—who, according to the evidence at the inquest, was very drunk on the night of the occurrence, and probably incapable of committing the deed. The Grand Jury, which has just adjourned, indicted both husband and wife for murder in the first degree. The impression is strong that though Evans may have a guilty knowledge of the crime, his wife is the principal criminal. They are both now in the County Jail at Riverhead awaiting trial at the next term of the Oyer and Terminer, which will be held in April. This is the first indictment for murder in the first degree found by a Suffolk County Grand Jury since Nichols Behan for the Wickham murder 22 years ago.

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"A Modern Macbeth Murder Case." New York Tribune 26 Mar 1877: 8.

Cain and Abel.

Hiram Sawtell

Like the Biblical brothers Cain and Abel, the Sawtell brothers of Boston took divergent paths through life. While Hiram settled down and raised a family, supported by his successful fruit business, Isaac was doing time in Charlestown prison. And as with the Bible’s first murderer, Isaac’s jealousy of his brother became unbearable. Upon his release from prison, he lured Hiram from his family and killed him in cold blood.

A Gambler Shot Dead.

Little Murders

 

(From The National Police Gazette , January 13, 1894)

A Gambler Shot Dead.

 

 

City Attorney James Butler shot and killed a gambler known as Seven Up Jim O’leary, at Ada Huntley’s house of ill-fame in St. Louis, Mo. At 4 o’clock the other morning.

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"A Gambler Shot Dead." The National Police Gazette 13 Jan 1894.

Elmer D. Morrill.

Little Murders:

From Defenders and Offenders:

Elmer D. Morrill.

“In the early part of 1887, the good city of Lewiston, Maine, was thrown into considerable excitement by the discovery of a young woman dead on the street, with her newly born babe beside her. Upon investigation by the police, Elmer D. Morrill was arrested for the crime of murdering her, and the grand jury found an indictment against him for murder. The cause of the murder was at first considerably shrouded in mystery; but subsequent events pointed to the above individual.”

 

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

Guest Blogger: ExecutedToday

ExecutedToday.com  has been posting an execution story every day since Halloween 2007 so it’s not surprising when they come up with a murder not covered by Murder by Gaslight. Here is the story of the Blanc brothers, driven to murder by reading sensational books.

1897: Ernest and Alexis Blanc, brothers in blood

Originally posted April 2nd, 2013  by Headsman

         

On this date in 1897, some 4,000 residents of Lafayette turned up to watch the hanging of two Parisian-born young men.

It had been nearly a full year since Martin Begnaud was discovered bound, gagged, and stabbed over 50 times in his general store at Scott, Louisiana, just outside Lafayette. That was on April 22, 1896. The motive was self-evident: the prosperous late burgher had been plundered of several thousand dollars. But who did it?

The matter remained a mystery for many months, although two men were indicted for the deed — and blessedly never brought to trial.

But a few days after the murders, brothers Ernest and Alexis Blanc, teenage French orphans who were sharecropping on a plantation in April 1896 also abruptly disappeared without even bothering to sell their crop shares. This naturally raised suspicion as well, but their whereabouts were totally unknown and as months passed any hope of finding them had practically vanished.

Fanaticism and Murder.

Little Murders

(From The Wooster Republican, January 2, 1871)

 

Fanaticism and Murder.

 

The Cause of the Murder of the Family Near Dayton, O.

Cincinnati, March 11. – Further particulars in regard to the murder of a woman and three children, near Dayton, Saturday night, indicate the murder was committed by the father, Leonard Marquardt, who is evidently insane from a spiritual cause. The story the man himself tells is that a few days ago he read a chapter to his family from the Bible, and then rising up, accused his wife of being a witch and using witchcraft. He says his eldest daughter confirmed him in his suspicions. He says also that on Saturday night he told his wife he wanted their children to leave; then he and his wife stripped naked, and knelt down and prayed for fifteen minutes. They then stripped two of the children and took them out and drowned them and laid them side by side on the bank of the stream. They then dashed out the brains of the infant and left it in the woods, after which they returned home and went to bed. After lying there for fifteen minutes he told his wife that he wanted to send her to heaven also, and immediately fell upon and strangled her to death. After that he arose and prayed until three o’clock in the morning, when he went to the nearest neighbor and told him the whole story. Marquardt is a Germen farmer, and has been in this country about eighteen years. The murdered woman was his second wife.

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"Fanaticism and Murder." Wooster Republican, 14 Mar 1872: 2.

The Webster Mystery.

Alice Hoyle had last seen her sister, Lillie the night of September 1, 1887 in the room they shared in Webster, Massachusetts. Lillie had left to use the outhouse and Alice fell asleep before she returned. The next morning, Alice was late for work and left in a rush, thinking that her sister had already left for her job. That evening Lillie did not come home and Alice noticed that her watch and jewelry were still on the nightstand where she had left them the night before. Lillie had gone out and never come back. This is the story Alice told the police the following day. As the investigation progressed, she would change it several times.

19th Century Serial Killers.

There seems to be an ongoing debate on the question of who was America’s first serial killer. Often the names H. H. Holmes and the Bender Family are mentioned as the first, but both of these suggestions are wrong by decades. At Murder by Gaslight, we are not concerned with who was first since we are only interested in the 19th Century and serial killers have always been with us. 

The other debate around serial murder is how to define it. For simplicity we will use the definition agreed upon at a serial murder symposium sponsored by the FBI’s National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime: “The unlawful killing of two or more victims by the same offender(s), in separate events.” This differs slightly from a federal law which defines serial murder as “three or more killings,” but, as we shall see, two murders are usually enough to identify the problem. In both definitions motivation was intentionally omitted to avoid complexity. 

So here, in reverse chronological order of the year each started killing, is Murder by Gaslight’s list of nineteenth century murderers who fit the FBI’s definition of serial killer:

1895		Theo Durrant	Known as “The Demon of the Belfry” Theo Durrant raped, murdered and mutilated Blanche Lamont in the Emanuel Baptist Church on April 3, 1895. Nine days later he did the same to Minnie Williams. Durrant was captured and executed before he could kill more.
1888		H. H. Holmes	Herman Webster Mudgett, better known as H. H. Holmes, may have murdered many as 230 people between 1888 and 1894. While only convicted of one murder, Holmes confessed to killing 27 and police believed he burned, asphyxiated and tortured many times that.

The Corn Field Murder.

Sarah Alexander, a seventeen-year-old Jewish immigrant from Poland, left her home on the Lower East Side of Manhattan on December 12, 1875, to look for a job. She never returned. When she was still missing the following day her family placed an announcement in the New York Sun asking or information on their missing girl. Her uncle, Israel Rubenstein, noticed in the same edition of the Sun, a description of a murdered girl found in Brooklyn exactly matching that of Sarah Alexander. He later identified the body as his niece Sarah, but he never dreamed that her killer was his own son Pesach.

Verses from Beyond the Grave.

Thomas W. Piper killed Mabel Young two years after the death of poet Byron DeWolfe, so how was DeWolfe able to publish a poem about the murder? Read about the dead poet and Miss Lillie Darling, the Boston medium who channeled him in my article in the latest edition of The Readex Report, "Verses from Beyond the Grave."

Harold Schechter's The Mad Sculptor.

Murder by Gaslight is pleased to be a stop on Harold Schechter’s The Mad Sculptor (Of True Crime) Blog Tour. The works of Harold Schechter have been a part of Murder by Gaslight from the beginning, providing invaluable information on a number of historical murders. His books always deliver compelling stories based on meticulous research, and his new book, The Mad Sculptor, is no exception.

As part of The Mad Sculptor (Of True Crime) Blog Tour, Harold will answer questions about the book, his writing process, and the MADNESS in his topics of study as a preeminent true crime writer: murderers and the media!

Murder in San Francisco.

Murder in San Francisco. 

 

In response to the question, “Why cannot Murder be punished in San Francisco,” the Oakland Enquirer makes the following pertinent remarks:

“One most important reason why it is hard to punish murder in San Francisco is that in a great number of cases the majority of the people do not want it punished. They rather approve of murder in certain contingencies, and consider it the best redress for injuries that cannot be righted through the courts.

A Boy Shoots His Sweetheart and Himself.

Little Murders

(From The National Police Gazette, October 16,1886)

 

A Boy Shoots His Sweetheart and Himself.

A Love-Sick Murderer.
Eddie Clark, Eighteen Years of Age, Kills Melissa Fultz and then Shoots Himself in Monroe Co., Ill.

The Kentucky Tragedy.

Jereboam Beauchamp stabbed Col. Solomon Sharp to avenge the honor of his wife, Anna Cooke Beauchamp. The story of the murder—known from the start as the Kentucky Tragedy—was viewed by the Beauchamps as one of love, treachery, vengeance, and tragic heroism; all the elements of the romantic novels they both so dearly loved. But in reality, Jereboam and Anna were enacting another familiar American narrative: two troubled misfits lashing out at a world they both disdained.