A Damnable Dastardly Deed.

(Illustrated Police News, Feb. 15. 1879)

Molly McGlew (aka Mary McGlew) and her friend Ada McLaughlin stood on South Street in Indianapolis on the night of September 19, 1878, when Louis Guetig approached them. Molly had recently broken up with Louis, and she was not happy to see him. She worked as a dining room girl at the Spencer House hotel where Louis Guetig was the night clerk.  He was the nephew and adopted son of Henry Guetig, the hotel’s proprietor. Louis became enamored of Molly and courted her for two years. They had been engaged to marry until Molly broke it off because Louis had recently taken to drinking heavily and running with lewd women. 

He was intoxicated when he met the girls on South Street. He asked Molly to accompany him to the Spencer House to see his mother. When she refused, Louis became angry and threatened her. He did not relent until Ada advised her to go with him, and the three of them went inside the hotel. 

They went through the hotel and into the yard behind it. He asked Molly again to accompany him to see his mother, and she again refused. After a brief argument, Louis drew a five-shot revolver and fired at her. The bullet missed Molly and grazed Ada’s cheek. Molly fell to her knees and, throwing her hands in front of her face, shouted, “For God’s sake, don’t kill me!”

He fired again; the bullet nearly severed two fingers of her left hand and entered her face under the left eye. She begged for mercy, and he fired again, shouting, “God damn you, ain’t you dead yet?” The fatal shot hit her neck and severed the jugular vein and large arteries. 

Katie Collins, a waitress at the Spencer House, was in the yard and had started toward Mollie when the first shot was fired. She fell to the ground and appeared to be wounded in the thigh. It was later reported that she had not been hit but fainted out of fear.  

Police Officers Clary, Schmidt, and Case were in front of the hotel when the shots were fired. They rushed to the yard where they met Louis coming out with the revolver in his hand. He gave the pistol to Officer Clary and consented to go with them to the station house.

A reporter for the Indianapolis Daily Sentinel interviewed Louis at the station house. He told the reporter:

Well, I shot the girl, and that is all there is of it. If it had not been for persons going and talking to her about me the thing would never have happened. I bought two revolvers last Friday and went to the house where she was stopping, intending to kill her, but she was not there, and I returned to the hotel and gave up the intention of taking her life.

Yesterday, I again resolved to kill her, and borrowed a revolver of a friend and went out last night to find her. I met her and Ada McLaughlin on South Street, just east of West, and asked her to come up to the hotel and see mother…After we got in the yard, at the bottom of the stairway leading to the second story, she refused to go up and see mother, and I just thought that I might as well kill her right there.

Indianapolis had recently experienced a rash of fiendish murders, but the killing of Molly McGlew was viewed as the most cold-blooded. The Indianapolis Daily Sentinel ran the story under the headline “A Damnable Dastardly Deed.” This excerpt from a Sentinel editorial expresses the public sentiment against Louis Guetig.

Familiar as are the people with the existing depravity throughout the country manifested by murders, the recital of which defies exaggeration, we doubt if anything as diabolical as the murder of Mary McGlew by Louis Guetig has come under the notice. Taking all the circumstances into account, and grouping all the facts, the case is without parallel for cold-blooded, cruel, devilish wickedness, in the annals of Indiana crime, and we doubt if a more hideous monster than Louis Guetig could be found if all the dens of crime on the continent were ransacked for a century. The story of the terrible transaction, told in the simplest words of truth, appears absolutely incredible. A romance of hell, written by a devil damned, could not paint a more repulsive monster than Louis Guetig.

It seemed to be an open-and-shut case. Three witnesses saw the murder, and the killer confessed to the police and the press, even expressing a desire to be hanged. But when the case went to trial that November, the plea was not guilty. The defense planned to establish that Guetig’s mind was unsettled, owing to epileptic fits, and therefore he was not responsible for the murder.

The courtroom was filled to capacity during the trial. The judge and bailiffs worked hard to maintain order amid a crowd determined to express its opinions. The jury had to be locked up at night to avoid outside influences. 

After prosecution witnesses presented the facts in the case, the rest of the trial centered on Guetig’s mental state at the time of the murder. Physicians on both sides debated the difference between epilepsy and hysteria, whether Guetig could be considered insane at the time of the killing, and the effect alcohol would have on his condition.

On November 27, after nine days of testimony, the jury was given the case. They deliberated for two hours. At 6:00, they broke for dinner and immediately afterward returned their verdict: “We the jury find the defendant guilty as charged in the indictment and that he suffer death therefor.” The universal opinion was that the jury could not have ruled otherwise. 

Guetig’s attorneys moved for a new trial citing a number of errors in his trial, including the fact that one member of the jury had been part of a mob intent on lynching him. While awaiting the hearing, Guetig began to exhibit strange behavior in jail. Wearing no clothing above the waist, he would froth, rant, and bellow like a bull. The other prisoners avoided him because it was rumored that during his spasms, his bite was worse than that of a mad dog. 

Then, on December 31, two days before the hearing, he washed, dressed, and declared he could no longer play the insanity dodge. He appeared entirely rational and said he had been so from the outset. He was tired of simulating madness. In spite of this, Jailor O’Brien sat near Guetig in the courtroom to suppress him if his insanity showed signs of reappearing.

Judge Elam denied the motion for a new trial. He pronounced the sentence of death to be executed on January 29, the same day as convicted murderers John Achey and William Merrick.

The attorneys continued to appeal the sentence, arguing before the state Supreme Court. On January 27, two days before the execution, the Supreme Court reversed Judge Eman’s decision and grated Guetig a new trial. They found that the instructions of the judge in the original trial assumed to determine the force of evidence regarding epilepsy and insanity. It was the jury’s job, they said, to settle the effect of the evidence. Achey and Merrick would hang without Guetig.

Guetig’s new trial was held in June 1879. The defense found more witnesses who had firsthand experience of Guetig’s insanity, but it was not enough to sway the jury. This time it took them just ten minutes to find Guetig guilty of first-degree murder.

On September 19, 1879, a large crowd witnessed the execution of Louis Guetig outside the city jail. When asked on the gallows if he had anything to say, he read a prepared statement. Then he dropped the paper and spoke from the heart, "If there be any whom in the past I have wronged in any manner, I crave forgiveness, and if possible, their friendship in that other life where sorrow never comes."

---

Sources:

“Big Medicine,” Journal and Courier, January 4, 1879.
“A Crazy Coon Owns Up,” The Cincinnati Daily Star, January 1, 1879.
“A Damnable Dastartly Deed,” The Indianapolis Daily Sentinel, September 20, 1878.
“Followed His Victim ,” Indianapolis Daily Sentinel, September 20, 1879.
“Guestig and Gates,” The Indianapolis News, December 27, 1878.
“The Guetig Case,” The Indianapolis News, January 28, 1879.
“The Guetig Case ,” Indianapolis Daily Sentinel, November 19, 1878.
“Guetig Must Hang,” The Indianapolis Daily Sentinel, November 28, 1878.
“The Guetig Trial,” The Indianapolis News, November 20, 1878.
“Guetig's Case - The Motion for a New Trial,” The Indianapolis News, January 2, 1879.
“Guetig's Defense ,” Indianapolis Daily Sentinel, June 6, 1879.
“Guetig's Insanity,” The Indianapolis News, January 1, 1879.
“Guetig's Trial,” The Indianapolis Daily Sentinel, November 26, 1878.
“Indianapolis,” The Cincinnati Enquirer, November 19, 1878.
“The Indianapolis Hanging,” The Madison Courier, January 7, 1879.
“Miss Mollie McGlew, the Murdered Victim of Louis Guetig,” Illustrated Police News, February 15, 1879.
“Murder in Indianapolis,” Indianapolis Daily Sentinel, September 21, 1878.
“Sentenced,” Chicago Tribune, January 5, 1879.
“Sentenced to Die,” Journal, June 15, 1879.
“Will There be a Hanging on the 29th?,” The Indianapolis News, January 11, 1879.

Caught in the Act.

(The National Police Gazette, October 2, 1886.)

A little before 3 o’clock, on the afternoon of September 9, 1886, Henry H. Meyer rushed into the police station in Memphis, Tennessee, and said, “I have just killed a man, and I want to give myself up.”

Captain Hackett took down the information and had the man locked up, then hurried to the address he had given to see for himself what had happened. In an upstairs room, he found William B. Dunnavant lying on the floor, very nearly dead, bleeding from a gunshot wound to the chest. “I am to blame,” Dunnavant moaned. He died soon after.

Dunnavant was taking liberties with Meyer’s wife, but he didn’t know that Meyer was watching from a wardrobe. Meyer jumped out, brandishing a pistol, and  Dunnavant was shot in the scuffle.

Read the full story here: In Flagrante Delicto.

The Three Hangings, Lycoming County.

This week, we feature a guest post by Don Everett Smith Jr., author of The Goffle Road Murders of Passaic County (History Press, 2011).   In a previous post on Murder by Gaslight, “Revisiting the Goffle Road Murders,” Don presented an excerpt from his book. This week’s post, “The Three Hangings, Lycoming County,” examines the 1880 murder of Andrew Miller in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, and the prosecution of his killers.

The Three Hangings, Lycoming County.

Murder 

Lycoming County, Pennsylvania; 1880 – 1881

It was near springtime in 1880 when a small Lycoming County town, of Pine Creek, was shocked by the brutal death of a beloved Civil War veteran named Andrew Miller.  According to Feb. 4th, 1881 The Daily Banner, Miller was described as being 58 years old in 1880 and married to a woman 20 years younger named Catherine Rush. They had three girls and he supported them as “a laborer by occupation, working for a livelihood at such work as he could get in a farming community.”  

Miller was described as a “plain unassuming man, poor and industrious.”  He was “faithful and good to his wife’s parents” and a “hard and ready worker, kind and obliging to everybody.” However, on March 19th, 1880, in the early morning, “Andrew Miller had committed suicide by hanging himself” in the barn on his rented homestead. 

Carlyle and Helen.

 

Carlyle Harris and Helen Potts.
(The Trial of Carlyle W. Harris for Poisoning His Wife, Helen Potts, at New York.)

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 her boyfriend (secretly her husband), a medical student named Carlyle Harris, had prescribed a remedy. 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 nightmares, revealing a world filled with deceit, betrayal, and ultimately murder.

Read the full story here: The Six Capsules.

Laura and Alexander.

 

Laura D. Fair and Alexander P. Crittenden

A prominent California legislator was sitting with his wife and son on board the Oakland-San Francisco ferryboat El Capitain the evening of November 3, 1870. They did not notice the woman approaching them, dressed entirely in black, wearing a broad-brimmed black hat with a black veil covering her face. From the folds of her dress, the woman pulled a derringer and shot the man in the chest. The family recognized the woman in black then; it was Laura Fair, and she was finally ending her tumultuous affair with Alexander P. Crittenden.

Read the full story here: The Woman in Black.

A Cursed Murderer in Lowell, Mass.

William H. Devlin
(Illustrated Police News, December 22, 1877)

Shortly after noon on Monday, December 10, 1877, a man entered the Lowell, Massachusetts, Police Station in a highly excited state. He told Deputy Marshal Favor that he had heard a terrible fight between a husband and wife Saturday night in a tenement on Common Street. Since then, he had heard nothing from the house, and he feared the wife might be injured. Favor paid little attention; such reports were not unusual, but he sent officers Harris and McCaffrey to investigate.

The officers went to the home of William and Ellen Devlin and found the door locked. After receiving no response to their knocks, they broke it open. Inside, they were shocked to find a woman lying on the bedroom floor, battered and wounded, blood oozing from a deep gash behind her left ear, and her whole face was swollen and distorted, all indicating an agonizing death. On her breast, an infant lay dead, its neck and face showing signs of brutal treatment. 

James Dougherty's Obsession.

Mary Anderson was an acclaimed international stage actress in the late 1800s. Among her many fans was a young Brooklyn man named James M. Dougherty.  He worked as a telegraph lineman and studied science in his spare time. He dabbled in a little of everything until, after watching one of her plays, he became obsessed with Miss Anderson. 

His love for Mary Anderson became his sole controlling passion, and soon turned to delusion. Dougherty believed Mary Anderson loved him as well, but she was surrounded by a group of conspirators who worked to keep them apart. He began following her to every city where she performed. In 1889, his stalking came to the attention of the New York City Police. They declared him insane and sent him to King’s County Insane Asylum in Brooklyn.

As his condition appeared to improve and his obsession with Mary Anderson subsided, the doctors no longer considered Dougherty a threat. He was put to work on the asylum’s farm, and he took the opportunity to escape. In October 1890, Dougherty returned to the asylum with a loaded revolver and murdered Dr. Lloyd, one of the physicians who, he felt, mistreated him.

“I did it. I meant to kill him and would have killed ten more if I had the chance,” he told the police. “I am not crazy, but as sane as the sanest man that walks New York today.”

The court agreed that Dougherty was sane and sentenced him to life in Sing Sing Prison.

Read the full story here: Lunatic Dougherty.

Song of the St. George Murder.

 

A Song Written in Memory of

The St. George Murder.

(excerpt)

In St. George, Me., as you shall hear,
It proves to be the fatal year -
That Mrs. Meservey, in the prime of life.
By a murderer's hand has lost her life.
...
Nathan Hart is the murderer's name,
Father and husband think of the shame,
Did he forget all woman kind,
Seek like a beast some prey to find?
...
God in His written book doth say, 
"With sin He's angry every day."
And if you covet what is wrong,
O, think of Hart at Thomaston.

This song about the 1877 murder of Mrs. Sarah Meservey in Tenant's Harbor, a village in the town of St. George, Maine, names Nathan Hart as the killer and justifies his life sentence in Thomaston Prison. Not everyone agreed that Hart was guilty. An 1882 book entitled The True Story of the Hart-Meservey Murder Trial claimed that Nathan Hart was railroaded.

Read the full story here: The Hart-Meserver Murder.

So Far from Home - 99¢.

One Week Only! On sale for 99 cents! 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"

Buy for 99 cents

Sale ends Sept. 21

More Information

The Proctor Mystery.

(Illustrated Police News, February 1, 1885)

On Thursday, July 27, 1882, Sarah Proctor, of Salem, Massachusetts, heard groans coming from the cellar where her husband, George, was working.  Downstairs, she found him lying on the floor between two barrels. She rushed toward him exclaiming, “Good God, what is the matter, George?”

There was no response, so she ran to a neighbor for help. He found George alive but unconscious. On the floor was a small pool of blood from a wound in the back of his head, believed to have been sustained when his head hit the barrel. A doctor was summoned, but there was little he could do. George remained unconscious but held on until 10:15 that night. The official cause of death was “paralysis of brain.”

On Saturday, Sarah’s young nephew, Benny, was playing in the cellar and found a seven-shot Robin Hood pistol under the stairwell. One shot had been fired. He gave it to Sarah, who passed it on to her father-in-law. He gave it to the police the following day. When Medical Examiner Carlton heard of the discovery, he deemed it necessary to examine the body. George’s funeral was being held at the First Universalist Church. Following the service, the body was taken back to the undertaker’s, where Carlton performed an autopsy. 

Sadie and Clarence.

Sadie and Clarence.

In April 1894, the murder of Montgomery Gibbs, a successful attorney, caused great excitement in Buffalo, New York. He was found shot to death in a driveway on Delaware Avenue with no clues to the killer’s identity. The police and newspapers investigated the crime, but they had no solid leads, and it remained unsolved. Then, in October, they received a tip that Clarence Robinson, a young burglar in custody in Cleveland, Ohio, committed the murder with his wife, Sadie.   At their trial for first-degree, both pleaded not guilty, each saying they had been coerced by the other.

Read the full story here: The Delaware Avenue Murder.

John and Eva.

 

When John Keys and Eva Dickenson were married in Cincinnati on August 21, 1890, they told their relatives that they planned to honeymoon on the Atlantic coast, but John had another plan. He purchased an Ohio River shanty-boat and planned a slow trip downriver to St. Louis. It would not be their last deception; in fact, what transpired on that fateful journey would remain forever shrouded in mystery.

Read the full story here: The Lawrenceburg Shanty-boat Mystery.

The Attleboro Sensation.

(Illustrated Police News, April 3, 1886.)

Agnes Anastasia Long moved out of her parents’ home in East Attleboro, Massachusetts, in April 1882. With her many male suiters, she was considered the black sheep of the family. Her father had enough of her bad behavior and, according to the Boston Herald, “refused to permit her to darken the threshold of his humble home.”

Ida and Sophia.

 

Ida Quinlan and Sophia Grant.

Mrs. Ida Quinlan went out to buy a pair of stockings at around 9:00 on the night of February 1, 1896, leaving her baby in the care of her sister, Mrs. Sophia Grant. She took a streetcar to the store several miles away and returned to the house at around 11:00. Entering the sitting room, she was surprised to find the drawers of the chiffoniers pulled out and their contents spread on the floor. She called for Sophia and, getting no response, went into the kitchen, where she found her sister lying dead on the floor, covered with blood. Horrified, Ida ran from the house to seek assistance from the neighbors. At least that was the story she told the police. The following day, Ida Quinlan was arrested for the murder of her sister.

Read the full story here: Did Ida Do It?

Daniel, Teresa, and Phillip.

Daniel Sickles, Teresa Bagioli, Phillip Key

In 1859, Dan Sickles, a congressman from New York (and future Union General), was married to the most beautiful woman in Washington, but his other interests, including his mistresses, often kept him away from home. His lonely young wife, Teresa, found comfort in the arms of Philip Barton Key, D.C. District Attorney and son of poet Francis Scott Key. When Sickles learned of their affair, he armed himself and confronted Key on the street. Blinded by rage, he shot and killed his wife’s lover. Was it premeditated murder or temporary insanity?

Read the full story here: Dan Sickle's Temporary Insanity.

A Father's Demon Deed.

Illustrated Police News, February 8, 1879.

O.P. Hull, a well-to-do farmer, lived with his wife and six children near the village of Wassonville, Iowa. Mr. Hull was a kind father and affectionate husband who was adored by his family. He especially doted on his attractive and popular 19-year-old daughter, Emma. Her comfort and happiness were foremost in his mind. He would leave nothing undone to benefit his daughter, but his attachment to Emma was so strong that her absence from home, for any reason, would worry his mind terribly.

Guest Post: 'Once a Happy Bride.'

 Howard and Nina Brown are frequent contributors to Murder by Gaslight, on matters pertaining to the 1891 murder of Carrie Brown, viewed by some as the work of London’s Jack the Ripper. The Browns run the website JTRForums.com, discussing all aspects of Jack the Ripper's murders, and CarrieBrown: Murder In The East River Hotel, a discussion site on the Carrie Brown case. They have written three books on Carrie Brown: East Side Story:1891 Murder Case of Carrie Brown, An Illustrated Encyclopedia and A -Z: The1891 Murder Of Carrie Brown In The East River Hotel, and 'Once A Happy Bride' The Tragic Life Of Carrie Brown: From Liverpool To The Lower East Side.

Their latest book, ‘Once a Happy Bride’, available from Amazon, covers aspects of Carrie's life that have been generally glossed over, beginning with her days as a young bride of a successful sea captain, and continuing through her days in New York, when she was never able to shake the ravages of alcohol. Howard and Nina are sharing the foreword of their new book.

James and Ellen.

James Lattin and Ellen Lucas.
(Daily Graphic, November 20, 1874.)

Ellen Lucas of Bridgeport, Connecticut, was to be married on October 3, 1874. The typically happy 18-year-old was somewhat anxious on the evening of October 2, repeatedly looking at the clock as she hastily ate supper. Ellen changed her clothes and left the house at 7:00, telling her mother that she would not be gone long. Mrs. Lucas watched her daughter walk to the corner where she met her fiancé, James E. Lattin. Ellen never came home that night.

Read the full story here: The Bridgeport Tragedy.

The Tell-Tale Skull.

(Philadelphia Inquirer, April 29, 1895.)

Johanna Gahan married Jimmy Logue, a professional thief, in 1871, just as he was preparing to serve a seven-year prison sentence for burglary. She waited for him, and after his release, Jimmy bought a house for them in Philadelphia. Within a year, Jimmy was off on a “thieving expedition” to Boston. When he returned, Johanna was gone.

Those who knew Jimmy Logue knew he frequently beat Johanna, and they believed she had taken the opportunity of his absence to run away. Logue searched for her, but he was arrested again for burglary and sent back to prison. Nothing more was thought about Johanna’s disappearance until workmen repairing the kitchen of the Philadelphia house found a woman’s skull under the floorboards.

The skull was identified as Johanna’s by the formation of the teeth and the clothing found with the skull. Jimmy was in trouble again, but this time he had an alibi. 

Read the full story here: "A Romance in Crime."

The Confession of Mary Cole.

The Confession of Mary Cole, 1813.

Cornelius and Mary Cole lived in a farmhouse in Sussex County, New Jersey, with their two children and Mary’s widowed mother, Agnes Teaurs. Cornelius bought the property from Agnes in exchange for an annuity of $50 per year for the rest of her life. Mary and her husband did not live happily with Agnes. According to Mary, her mother was always very hard on her, and she insisted on sleeping in the same bed as Mary and Cornelius, even though they provided her with another bed.

In December 1811, Agnes apparently moved out of the house. Mary told the neighbors that Agnes was offended by something the couple did, so she packed up and moved in with her brother in Bergen County. The following March, Mary and Cornelius left as well, moving in with his family. They rented the farm to another family.

The family that moved into the farmhouse perceived an unusual and unpleasant odor. They believed it was coming from beneath the floor, and in June, they pulled up some floorboards in the kitchen and found the source. It was the dead body of a woman lying in a shallow hole covered with ashes and swingle tow (flax fiber). They raised an alarm, the neighbors collected in the kitchen and were able to identify the body as that of Agnes Teaurs.