Charles and Lizzie.

 

Charles Kaiser conspired with Lizzie DeKalb to murder his wife for insurance. When the plot was uncovered and the murderers tried, both claimed that they acted under the hypnotic power of James Clemmer, the insurance agent who conceived the plan.

Read the full story here: The Kaiser Conspiracy.

Blue-Eyed Executions.

It was a foolproof plan. Six men in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania, bought insurance policies on the life of Joseph Raber, an elderly recluse living in a hut in the Blue Mountains. They were sure Raber would pass away soon and end their financial problems, but when he took too long to die, they helped him along. At their murder trial, reporters noticed that the killers all had one common trait and branded them “The Blue-Eyed Six.”

Two of the six, Franklin Stichler and Charles Drews, were hanged on November 14, 1879:

Illustrated Police News, Oct. 18, 1879

Henry Wise, Isreal Brandt, and Josiah Hummel were hanged on May 13, 1880:

Illustrated Police News, May 29, 1880.

The last of the six, George Zechman, was found not guilty on appeal. He was an insurance investor, not a party to the conspiracy.

Read the full story here: The Blue Eyed Six.

The Cronin Trial.

 

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.

Clemmer's Hypnotic Power.

 

Charles Kaiser, with two co-conspirators, staged a robbery on a road outside of Norristown, Pennsylvania in 1896, to cover up the murder of his wife Emma. The police quickly saw through the plot and Kaiser was convicted of first-degree murder. 

Soon after, the police arrested his accomplices, James Clemmer and Lizzie DeKalb. DeKalb put all the blame on Clemmer, saying she had no knowledge of the conspiracy but was under Clemmer’s hypnotic spell and did whatever he said. Kaiser also changed his story, saying he too was under Clemmer’s hypnotic power. Their stories had little effect on the outcome.

Read the full story here: The Kaiser Conspiracy.

The Ging Murder Case.

Harry Hayward, "The Plotter," was a handsome young playboy from a wealthy Minneapolis family. An inveterate gambler, he would finance his habit through theft, insurance fraud, and counterfeit currency.

Hayward was thought to have hypnotic powers. He persuaded Catherine Ging, "The Victim," to make him the beneficiary on a life insurance policy, then, on December 3, 1894, he lured her to a meeting with Claus Blixt, "The Assassin" – also acting under Hayward’s spell. As Catherine Ging was being murdered, Harry Hayward sat in a Minneapolis theatre watching a play with another woman. 

Read the full story here: The Minneapolis Svengali.

The Kaiser Conspiracy.

On a road outside of Norristown, Pennsylvania, on October 28, 1896, Frank Mancil and his daughter came upon an agitated man shouting, “Murder! Help!” The man was bleeding from his arm, and, in a buggy nearby, a woman lay prostrate.

The man, Charles O. Kaiser, Jr., told Mancil that he and his wife Emma had been attacked by highwaymen who shot them both then left with their watches and her purse containing $53. Mancil thought the woman was only unconscious, so they went in two carriages to the office of Dr. Mann in Bridgeport. Dr. Mann could see right away that Emma Kaiser had died from a bullet wound to the left temple.

An Ancient Mystery Solved.

Little Murders

(From New York Tribune, November 29, 1883)

An Ancient Mystery Solved.
 The Perpetrator of One Murder, Which Led to Four Others, Discovered.

Seymour, Ind., Nov. 28. – An old murder mystery, resulting in four other tragedies, has just been cleared up. Moore Woodmansee, a wealthy merchant of Medora, nineteen miles from here, came to Seymour, January 3, 1866, on his way to Cincinnati. He had $2,000 with which to purchase goods. He was missed from his room at the Roder House, and the cause of his disappearance was a mystery until October, when his body was found in White River, with the head cut off. Gordon Kinney, an employee of the hotel, was suspected of the crime. When the excitement caused by the finding of the body was at its highest, an unknown man called Kinney from his door one night; as the latter opened the door he was shot and instantly killed.

In 1872 Reuben Wheeler was mortally wounded. When told he had to die, Wheeler made a confession, saying that on the night of Woodmansee’s murder two men had taken from the Roder stable the horse and spring-wagon. In the morning they returned. The bottom of the wagon was covered with blood. It was afterward taken out and new boards substituted. Roder was arrested for the murder, but acquitted; and again the affair was a dark mystery.