Elizabeth Wharton, in custody, en route to trial in Annapolis. |
Elizabeth Wharton, in custody, en route to trial in Annapolis. |
Charles
had to go to Highgate Centre on June 6, 1876, and he asked Alice to join him.
She declined, saying she felt ill and planned to go to bed. Charles’s father was
away visiting friends that evening, so Tatro said he would stay and take care
of Alice. Charles left home at about 7:00.
He
returned at about 10:00 and put his horse in the barn. As he approached the house,
he was surprised to see no lights. Charles entered the dark kitchen, and as he looked
for a match, he stumbled over something lying on the floor. He was shocked to
see what it was.
“He
lighted the match, and there met his sight the lifeless remains of his lovely
wife in a pool of blood, in the most mutilated condition,” said the St. Albans
Daily Messenger, “her head beaten almost to a pumice, and her brains oozing out
on to the floor.”
Charles
saw an axe covered with blood, several bloody sticks of wood, a chair broken to
pieces, and his rifle lying on the floor. A pair of pants lay near the stove,
and Alice was naked from the waist down.
When he regained
his composure, Charles started out looking for assistance. He heard voices approaching
and saw Edward Tatro approaching with some of his neighbors. Tatro was crying
and howling like a madman.
“Ed, what
does all this mean?” said Charles.
“Oh,” responded Tatro, “poor Alice is dead; they have killed her; for God’s sake, save me!”
Charles
was skeptical of the story and rode back to Highgate Centre to see the police.
He returned with Constable O.E. Sheridan and Dr. O.S. Searle. The doctor
confirmed that Alice had died from blows to the head. She also had bruises on
her shoulders and defensive wounds on her hand. Dr. Searle turned his attention
to Tatro and found some scratches on his neck. There was no evidence that he
had sustained the level of beating that he claimed. All of the blood on him was
Alice’s.
There were
blood stains and signs of a struggle in the upstairs bedrooms of Tatro and he Butlers,
as well as the kitchen. Tatro’s room was separated from the Butlers’ by a plaster
partition. Investigators found a small hole dug through the plaster. They believed
Tatro had used it to spy on Alice Butler.
The
following day, an inquest was held at the scene of the crime. The coroner’s
jury examined the premises and heard the facts, then concluded that the deceased
was murdered by Edward Tatro. The severity and circumstances of the murder were
compared to the murders of Josie Langmaid and Marietta Ball in New Hampshire
and Vermont. The killer, Joseph Lapage, also French-Canadian, had been arrested the
prior year.
The police
arrested Tatro and took him to Highgate Centre to face a grand jury. By now,
the whole community knew of the murder. Crowds gathered, and the officers
succeeded in keeping order despite threats of lynching.
The authorities
believed that Tatro attempted to sexually assault Alice Butler and murdered her
to hide the evidence. Tatro took off his pants and then went into the
downstairs bedroom where Alice was lying. He got into bed and tried to attack
her. They found her drawers on the floor between the bed and the stand. She
escaped and ran upstairs. In the struggle that followed, he pulled off her skirt.
She ran downstairs, and he followed, knocking her down in the kitchen. He went
to the shed to get the axe and finish her off.
Tatro stuck
to his story, professing innocence to the murder. But, three days of intense
questioning weakened his resolve. After a visit from his mother, Tatro made a full
confession:
Mrs. Butler was lying on the bed in the room downstairs; went in there and sat down in a chair near the bed; I felt sick at my stomach, probably from the effect of some liquor I had previously drunk, and she got up and prepared me some saleratus (sodium bicarbonate) and water; I went upstairs after I took the saleratus and water; I went to my room and turned own the quilts to my bed but did not take off my pants; Mrs. Butler soon came upstairs and went to her room. I heard her when she came up, then I went in there and found her sitting on the side of the bed; we talked a few minutes, and I sat down by the side of her and then pulled her over back on the bed; she jumped up and ran out into the other room. She picked up a chair that was near the stove and threw it at me; I threw the chair back at her, and she threw it at me again. Then I took it and struck her and knocked her down. I broke the chair all to pieces there; I don't remember of hitting her but once. It was dark; I must have broken the chair upon the floor. She got up and went to the head of the stairs; there we had a hard tussle and both struggled along downstairs. In the dining room, she got up and ran out through the kitchen into the woodshed and got the axe. I stood by the kitchen stove. I told her to behave herself and I would. She threw the axe at me. I threw it back near the water pail where she stood; she threw it at me again; I left it where it fell; she ran down to the wood box and got a stick of wood and threw it at me; it hit the palm of my hand as I raised it to ward off the blow; then she struck me over the eye; I picked up the stick and struck her with it and knocked her down; I picked up the axe and went to her and struck her with it. I went and got the gun, which was in the kitchen stairway, and laid it on the floor near the front door; I did that for a blind; the gun was not used at all; I then went out of the front door and ran over to Mr. Fortune's.
Under
further questioning, Tatro said he had been drinking some that night. He did
not remember when he took his pants off. His mother asked if any other person
was connected with the horrid deed. Tatro said he did it alone.
While in
the St. Albans jail awaiting trial, Tatro made another confession. He said he
did not kill Mrs. Butler alone; he was at work with a young Frenchman (name
withheld) who suggested putting Mrs. Butler out of the way when her husband was
out to steal their money. The man was the first to attack her. Tatro struck her
once, but the other man delivered the death blow with the axe.
On April
23, 1877, the case was brought to trial, and interest in the proceedings was so
great that extra chairs had to be brought into the courtroom. The trial began before
a standing room only crowd. Tatro’s attorneys moved for a change of venue
because they did not believe he could get a fair trial in St. Albans. The motion
was denied. They also moved to exclude Tatro’s first confession from testimony.
This was denied as well.
Their
defense now was insanity, brought on by delirium tremens, and they called
witnesses to testify to Tatro’s excessive drinking. His brother Albert said
that Edward drank liquor as often as he could get it, and his brother John said
Edward had been drinking often since he was eight years old.
The trial
lasted six days. At 1:00, April 28, the jury had dinner and began
deliberations. At 2:15, they returned a verdict of guilty of first-degree
murder. Tatro was sentenced to death but would first serve a two-year
sentence at the State Prison in Windsor—twenty months of hard labor and the
rest in solitary confinement. He would hang on the first Friday of April 1880.
As he was
led away, Tatro said, “Well, by God, that settles my hash.”
That July,
while still in the St. Albans jail, Tatro and three other convicts attempted to
escape. They dug through the wooden floor of the cell and were removing masonry
beneath it when discovered. They said they had first planned to knock down the Sheriff
when he opened the cell door, but none were willing to take the lead.
After
being transferred to State Prison, Tatro made another confession. Being left
alone with Alice Butler that day, he resolved to “have connection” with her and
went to her room upstairs. She resisted, and he knocked her down with a blow on
the head from a chair. She promised to yield if he would let her go down the
stairs. Suspecting that she meant to escape, he seized her, and they went struggling
down. When she tried to run away, he knocked her down with a stick and finished
her with an axe. Then, when she was writhing in her death struggle, he accomplished
his fiendish purpose. “I started to do it,” he said, “and by God, I did it.”
As
execution day approached, Tatro made a new confession. He said the death of Mrs. Butler
was an outgrowth of an agreement with Mr. Butler. Tatro was to have certain
undue privileges with Butler’s wife, to enable the husband to obtain grounds
for divorce. This story only served to further decrease Tatro’s credibility.
The New York Post dubbed April 2, 1880, “Hangman’s Day.” Eight men in five different states were executed that day. One was Edward Tatro. He mounted the gallows at the State Prison and made a brief speech before the hanging. He confessed to the murder once more but, this time blamed the liquor that Charles Butler let him have. Butler taught him to drink and was his ruin. He laid the blame for the whole matter on Butler. At 2:37, the trap was sprung; fifteen minutes later, Tatro was pronounced dead.
Dr. Henry Clark of Boston was summoned to 11 Hamilton Place at around 7:00 the morning of December 30, 1879. A woman had been shot and needed urgent care. When he got there, she was nearly gone, and there was nothing he could do.
A policeman and a medical examiner arrived soon after and determined that the woman, Mrs. Helen J. Ward, had been shot twice in the head. One shot entered her temple and went through her head, the other fractured her skull without entering.
Her 18-year-old daughter, also named Helen, did her best to explain what happened. Mother and daughter shared a bed. They worried about burglars, so they kept a revolver on a chair beside the bed. Miss Ward believed she had been in a somnambulant state and fired at a moving object that she thought was a burglar. Alternatively, she thought the gun may have discharged accidentally. This took place around 4:00 am, raising the question of why she didn’t contact someone sooner. Miss Ward was considered cold and unfeeling because she did not seem overly affected by her mother’s death.
From the confession of Mary Brown to the murder of her husband, John Brown, by her paramour, Joseph Wade:
When I first went to the gate Mr. Brown was lying with his feet about the middle of the gate and his head towards the buggy, close to the hind wheel. The buggy robe was under him and the blanket over him, so that I could not see his head. After I took the child in and returned Brown was still groaning, as he was when I first come to the gate. I said: "My God, Joe, what have you done?" He said: "Darling, this is what love will do," and threw his arms around my shoulders. He said: "I love every hair of your head better than my own life." Mr. Brown was still groaning, and he (Joe) said: "Shall I hit him?" I said: "No." He said: 'I shall have to finish it now." He added: "I will have to hit him or use my knife." I said: "Oh, my God; no; don't touch him. Let me take him in the house." I had not seen his head and didn't know he was so badly hurt. Wade said: "No, this has got to be finished."
"What Lust Will Do," Illustrated Police News, February 28. 1880.
Read the full story here: The Brown Tragedy.
W. S. Forest, of counsel for the defense, cross-examining the expert microscopist Tollman. Defendants (far left) 1. Beggs, 2. Coughlin, 3. O'Sullivan, 4. Burke, 5. Kunze. Dr. Patrick Henry Cronin was a prominent Chicago physician,
and a member of Clan-na-Gael an American political organization formed to
promote Irish independence from British rule. After Dr. Cronin uncovered
corruption among the leaders, his naked body was found stuffed in a sewer with
icepick wounds to his head. In the 1889 murder trial of five members of Clan-na-Gael,
the defense tried to paint Dr. Cronin as, alternately, a violent radical and a
British spy. Read the full story here: Clan-na-Gael and the Murder of Dr. Cronin. |
Later that day, Kildorf’s body was discovered, and the
authorities tracked Wilbur to his father’s house. They arrested him and brought
him before Esquire Simpson. Wilbur waived examination and was committed to
jail.
George Wilbur was from a good family and was “respectably connected.”
Michael Kildorf was a stranger in North Plains, living with his aunt, Mrs.
Burke.
The public sentiment in North Plains was overwhelmingly in
Wilbur’s favor. A correspondent who did not share the “maudlin sympathy for
murderers” commented sarcastically:
Now is the time to commence sympathy for poor Wilbur. Oh! he must be in jail! How unpleasant it must be when Kildorf is so comfortable underground, below the frost. Will poor Wilbur have to be tried? He ought not to be, for he must have been insane—poor fellow. Oh, how easy he whipped out that pistol and drove that bullet into the back of Kildorf's bead! He must have been ready at any time—poor fellow. And then if he had missed Kildorf's head how bad he would have felt. I hope he won't have to be tried. Can't we get him out on low bail, and then let him off—it will be so unpleasant for him to stay in jail and then be tried? And then if we had hanging for murder, how bad the poor fellow would feel when they put the rope round his neck. And then if he should be ten or fifteen minutes in dying, when he slipped Kildorf off in about one minute, and so easy. And then to be hung up and not touch the ground! Oh! horrible! Oh, the poor fellow! He will go straight to Heaven, of course.
It does not appear that George Wilbur was ever tried or
sentenced for the murder.
When William W. Place’s first wife died, he married his
housekeeper, Martha Scovoll. It was a whirlwind courtship and William did not
listen to his relatives who thought Martha would bring trouble. Sure enough,
before long, Martha’s true nature came out. She had a quick temper and was
irrationally jealous of William’s relationship with his young daughter Ida.
Martha had violent fits of temper and threatened to kill both William and Ida. On
February 8, 1868, she made good on her threats, strangling Ida to death and
attacking William with an axe. She was convicted of first-degree murder and was
the first woman to be executed in the electric chair.
Read the full story here:
Cobb’s friends and neighbors believed he was murdered, and they had a ready suspect. Wesley W. Bishop was having an affair with Cobb’s wife, Kate, and they were not very discreet. Bishop had purchased arsenic, which he said he had given to Cobb, and Bishop’s wife had died four months earlier under similar circumstances.
In the wee hours of February 8, 1888, burglars broke into the mansion of Amos J. Snell, one of the wealthiest men in Chicago. They went straight to Snell’s office and opened his safe and a strong box but did not find the fortune they expected. The thieves went upstairs and began gathering silver items.
The noise awaked Snell who came down in his nightshirt, armed with an old muzzle-loading pistol. Hearing the thieves in the parlor, he shouted, “Get out! Get out of here!” and fired his pistol through the closed parlor door. The thieves responded by firing back through the door. Snell turned to run outside, and the thieves opened the parlor door and fired two more shots, killing Snell.
The massive manhunt that followed involved the police, the Pinkertons, and many private detectives. The family offered a $50,000 reward for the killer's capture, reported at the time as “the largest amount ever offered for the capture of any human being in the world.” Despite more than 1,000 arrests and several false confessions, the case remained unsolved until 1910, when a professional thief named James Gillan confessed to the murder on his deathbed. The confession was taken as fact, but there was little evidence that Gillan committed the crime.
On April 14, 1885, the manager of the Southern Hotel in St. Louis, Missouri, responded to complaints of a foul odor emanating from room 144. Inside a trunk in that room, the manager found the murdered body of Charles Arthur Preller, one of two Englishmen who had checked in two weeks earlier. The killer left a note implying that the death had been a political assassination, but it was, in fact, the tragic ending of a “peculiar relationship.” The hunt for the killer, Hugh Mottram Brooks, would end 8,000 miles away in New Zealand.
Read the full story here:
On Saturday, January 25, 1879, George Rowell returned home to Montville, Maine, from a trip to Bath, eighteen miles away. He lived in the house owned by John and Salina McFarland, a married couple in their seventies. Rowell, 40, married their son’s widowed wife, Abby, who had a 14-year-daughter, Cora McFarland. She also had an infant son with Rowell. All six lived together in the Montville farmhouse.
George W. Rowell. |
“Why, George,” said Abby, “what are you up for?”
“I do not like to sleep alone,” said George, “I want a woman with me.”
He grabbed Cora then and tried to carry the struggling young girl into the bedroom. He told her to be quiet, he wouldn’t hurt her and said their child would be an angel. Rowell carried her into the bedroom, but John McFarland put his foot in the door to prevent it from closing. Rowell dropped Cora, knocked down McFarland, and went for his rifle. Abby and Cora grabbed the baby and ran outside to the house of a neighbor, Alonzo Raynes. John and Salina McFarland followed them.
On May 23, 1875, Thomas W. Piper lured five-year-old Mabel
Young to the belfry of the Warren Avenue Baptist Church on the pretext of
viewing pigeons. There he beat her to death with a cricket bat, then escaped by
leaping from the belfry window.
Read the full story here: The Boston Belfry Tragedy.
Twenty-year-old Mattie was described as beautiful, intelligent and talented. In February 1879, she was engaged to marry John Bast. Some in
Buckner believed Bast was an average young man who would make a good
husband, while others thought he was a ne’er-do-well. Mattie’s family was in
the latter camp and did not approve of the engagement.
On the night of February 8, 1879, Bast came calling and Mattie’s
brother-in-law, Jonathan Dark, met him at the door. He would not let Bast in
the house and told him he must cease his visits. Mattie was livid. She spent
the rest of the night berating Dark, her anger becoming increasingly fierce.
The next morning, she was still angry. She went into a fit
of rage, smashing windows and threatening Dark with an axe. Her mother was alarmed
and sent for Deputy Constable James M. Adams. Mattie left the house for a while.
When she returned, she was still angry but seemed more subdued. Constable Adams
believed the danger was over and left the house.
When Adams was gone, Mattie approached Jonathan Dark.
“I have you now,” she said, drawing a pistol from her pocket. She fired, hitting Dark in the right breast. He fell to the floor.
The second volume of The Bloody Century presents 60 more
true tales of murder. These sensational crimes present a fascinating journey
through enforcement methods and legal procedures in the 19th century. Killers
driven by Jealousy, Revenge, Insanity, and random violence are joined by
remorseless serial killers. Most stories end with justice well served, while
others remain forever unsolved.
Illustrated Police News, March 8, 1879 |
The Reverend’s relationship with Mary became a little too close. In August 1878, when she believed herself pregnant again, she accused Hayden and sent him a letter asking for assistance. On September 3, 1878, Mary’s body, stabbed and poisoned, was found on the path outside her house. Rev. Hayden was tried for her murder and acquitted.
Mary’s orphaned son, Willie, a bright 3-year-old, was put up for adoption.
Nellie and Fanny. |
Nelly Dalton and Fanny Coburn, two young Boston women, were out on the town one autumn afternoon in 1855. They met and flirted with William Sumner and Josiah Porter, two promising young college graduates. Though both women were married, they arranged to see the boys again.
Nelly and William embarked on a heartfelt correspondence. Their amorous letters sometimes included romantic poetry. Everything was fine until Mr. Dalton found the letters.
Benjamin Dalton told Edward Coburn about Nellie's dalliance with William Sumner and Coburn's wife's flirtation with Josiah Porter. The husbands enticed the boys to Dalton's home, where they severely beat them. When they were satisfied, they kicked them out the back door.
Porter lived to file charges against Dalton and Coburn, but William Sumner died a few days later. A victim of the femmes fatales.
Read the full story here: Erring Wives and Jealous Husbands.
Frank came home at about ten o’clock on October 26, 1858, and his father reprimanded him about money he had taken. Frank responded with “a low chuckling laugh, full of moaning and fiendish wickedness.” He entered his stepmother's room, and as she lay in bed, he hit her several times on the head with a dull hatchet. She rose up, trying to ward off the blows, then fell to the floor. He continued his violent spree, leaving three family members wounded and one servant dead.
Ella Hearn. |
Both Ella and Lilly were considered beautiful but were opposites in nature. Ella was quiet and retiring with a delicate build and ladylike manners, while Lilly was described as “a madcap, independent sort of girl, and exceedingly eccentric.” Lilly wore her hair short and, on hunting expeditions, would dress in male attire. She enjoyed target shooting and had pockets sewn into her dresses to carry a small revolver unobserved.
John Armstrong was seriously wounded but still alive when he was found on the ground in Camden, New Jersey, on January 23, 1878. He was taken to his home in Philadelphia, across the Delaware River, to be treated for head wounds. His friend, Benjamin Hunter, was among the first to visit him at home. In the guise of helping, Hunter suspiciously removed the bandages on Armstrong’s head, reopening the wound. After Armstrong died, police learned that Hunter had purchased a large insurance policy on Armstrong’s life, with himself as beneficiary.
Read the full story here:
John Wesley Elkins. |
John Wesley Elkins was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life at hard labor in Anamosa State Penitentiary.
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.
Read the full story here: A Murder in Pantomime.
On December 19, 1857, Nathan Newhafer slipped while crossing the Andrews Street Bridge in Rochester, New York. He fell into the Genesee River, was swept over High Falls, and disappeared. Newhafer was the president of Rochester’s Jewish Synagogue, and his congregation offered a reward for the recovery of his body. The following day, searchers found a man’s corpse on the shore of Falls Field. His skull had been fractured by blows to the head, his face had multiple wounds, and he was not Nathan Newhafer.
Falls Field, Rochester, NY |
In 1883, Edward Rowell of Batavia, New York, suspected his
wife of cheating and set a trap to catch her. He told her he would be gone for
severl days on business but did not leave. That night he caught his wife in bed
with their former neighbor, Johnson Lynch. Rowell burst into the room brandishing
a revolver and fired wildly wounding his wife and killing Lynch. The murder
caused quite a stir and had far reaching consequenes. Lynch’s uncle, Arthur Johnson
was so distressed that he shot himself in the chest. He left a note saying “I
myself have done this thing. Please ask no questions about it.”
Read the full story here: The Confession of a Wife Murderer.
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.
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
Sometime after 11:00, the night of January 15, 1888, Mrs. Emma Belden was awakened by someone ringing the front doorbell. She went to the door and heard the person trying to get inside.
“Who’s there,” she called.
“Let me in,” a gruff voice responded.
“You can’t get in.”
The man outside started kicking the door, trying to break in.
Alice Hoyle last saw her sister, Lillie, the night of September 1, 1887, in the room they shared in Webster, Massachusetts. Lillie left to use the outhouse, and Alice fell asleep. Lillie never returned. The next morning, Alice went out, thinking Lillie had already left for work. That is the story Alice told the police— as the investigation progressed, she would change it several times.
Read the full story here: The Webster Mystery.
Howard and Nina have written a book on the Carrie Brown murder, East Side Story: 1891 Murder Case of Carrie Brown, available here: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/east-side-story-howard-and-nina-brown/1144649128?ean=9798855694468
They also run Carrie Brown: Murder In The East River Hotel, a discussion site on the Carrie Brown case.
East Side Story.
It isn't often that the perpetrator in one case of murder becomes the catalyst for the revision of the narrative in another murder case.
This revision to a crucial aspect within the 123-year narrative in the 'Old Shakespeare' murder case ( the nickname of Carrie Brown, murdered in the East River Hotel on April 23, 1891) came unintentionally from James M. Dougherty when he wrote a letter to NY Governor Benjamin Odell on June 22nd, 1901. Dougherty was a convicted lunatic in Dannemora Prison in 1901.
Orange Terrell, of Terrell, Texas, had, for a number of years, been “paying his respects” to Sophia Wickson. In the spring of 1886, Sophia had another admirer, Miles Henderson, who was proving to be a successful rival to Tarrell. Around 9:30, the night of June 7, Tarrell went to the house of Austin Thomas, where he knew Sophia was stopping. Expecting trouble, he took his revolver with him.
When he got to the house, Tarrell found Henderson already there. Without a word, he opened fire on the couple. He hit Henderson in the chest then turned his attention to Sophia. He emptied his pistol, hitting her once on the leg. Then he fled.
While Tarrell was gone, Dr. J. A. Stovall was summoned to attend to the wounded. After reloading his revolver, Terrell returned to the house. He gave his pocketbook to Dr. Stovall and told him the money in it was to pay his room and board, as he did not expect to leave that house alive. He took off his shoes and lay down on a bed in the front room.
When City Marshal, Jim Keller, learned of the shooting and that Terrell was still in the house, he went with several other men to surround the place. Keller went in the back door, through the kitchen, into the front room. Seeing Tarrell lying on the bed, he ordered him to throw up his hands and surrender. Tarrell’s hands went up, but he was still holding the pistol. He fired at Keller, barely missing him. Keller then fired five or six times, riddling Terrell with bullets, killing him instantly.
Two days later, the coroner impaneled a jury. After hearing the evidence, they ruled that Marshal Keller was justified in his action.
In 1876, Robert Southern was the most eligible bachelor in Pickens County, Georgia. Kate Hambrick and Narcissa Cowan were rivals for his affection. Kate was the winner; she and Robert married that autumn. But Kate’s victory was short-lived; Robert was still secretly seeing Narcissa. At a Christmas party that year, he danced with Narissa and paid her more attention than Kate thought proper. Kate Southern solved the problem by stabbing her rival in the chest with a penknife.
Read the full story here: Mrs. Southern's Sad Case.
Greed, jealousy, revenge, obsession – the motives of America’s gas-lit murders are universal and timeless. Yet their stories are tightly bound to a particular place and time; uniquely American, uniquely 19th Century.
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