Charley and Mary.

Charley McGill and Mary Kelly.

In 1874, Charley McGill saw Mary Kelly on the street in Columbus, Ohio. He struck up an acquaintance with Mary that soon turned into “desperate infatuated love.” They traveled together throughout Ohio, and although not married, they lived together as man and wife.

Mary was a virtuous girl before meeting Charley, but reportedly, in Cleveland, they lived off Mary’s earnings as a prostitute. After an angry quarrel, Mary moved out. Charley searched for four weeks before finding Mary living in a Cleveland brothel. She invited him to her room, and as they lay together in bed, he pulled out his revolver and shot her in the head.

At his murder trial, Charley McGill pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, but the jury did not buy it. He successfully appealed the verdict and was retried but found guilty again. McGill was hanged in Cleveland on February 13, 1879.

Read the full story here: Love and Lunacy.

A Naked Man’s Horrible Deeds.

 

Thomas Ryan, aged 88, lived in Chester, Illinois, with his widowed daughter, Julia Smith, her 12-year-old daughter Sallie, and 8-year-old son Arthur. On December 7, 1880, their peaceful morning was shattered when an intruder burst into the house.  It was a naked man wielding an axe who ordered them all to kneel and pray as they only had a few minutes to live.

A Fan's Obsession.

James M. Dougherty was a telegraph lineman in Brooklyn who studied meteorology, electricity, astronomy, and other sciences in his spare time. He dabbled in a little of everything until 1887 when he saw actress Mary Anderson and she became his sole obsession. He followed her wherever she performed and became convinced that a group of evil conspirators was keeping him from his true love. In 1889, the police arrested Dougherty for stalking Mary Anderson. Doctors pronounced him insane and sent him to the King’s County Insane Asylum in Brooklyn. Dougherty escaped from the asylum, only to return two weeks later with two loaded revolvers to murder one of his doctors.

Read the full story here: Lunatic Dougherty.

A Fiend and a Shotgun.

On the morning of April 25, 1896, Alfred “Pete” Egbert, of Rockville, Indiana, went suddenly and inexplicably insane. He murdered his neighbor, Mrs. Haske (or Hasche), with an axe, then took a shotgun and killed two of her children as they ate breakfast in their kitchen. Egbert’s shotgun took two more victims before a large, heavily armed posse surrounded him in the fairgrounds outside of town.

Read the full story here: The Rockville Tragedy.

A Murdered Mother.

The morning of January 12, 1889, 22-year-old Elmer L. Sharkey ran to the home of his neighbor, John Clare. A noise on the stairway frightened Sharkey, who jumped out of the second-story window. He thought a burglar was in the house and ran for help.

Sharkey and Clare returned to the Sharkey farmhouse, two and a half miles north of Cincinnati, Ohio. They found his mother, Caroline Sharkey, lying in bed in a pool of blood. Her arm was broken, and the back of her head was “crushed to a jelly.” The murder weapon lay on the floor nearby—a wooden maul with iron rings on each end, used for splitting rails. Caroline Sharkey, age 46, was a widow living with her son on her 130-acre farm. Sharkey stuck the burglar story, though nothing was taken from the house.

News of the murder spread quickly, generating tremendous excitement in the region. Suspicion fell on Elmer Sharkey. Although he offered a $1,000 reward for the capture of his mother’s killer, he seemed utterly indifferent to his mother’s fate, showing little emotion.

Sharkey became restless and uneasy. After his mother’s funeral on January 14, he called his uncle and cousins together to talk about the murder. Then, in the presence of a reporter from the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Sharkey admitted that he killed his mother but did not know why he did it. Fearing a lynch mob, the police arrested Sharkey and quickly took him to jail.

The following April, Sharkey was tried for the first-degree murder of Caroline Sharkey. The motive given by the prosecution was Sharkey’s desire to inherit his mother’s 130-acre farm and to remove her objection to his proposed marriage. 

For his defense, Sharkey pled insanity. In addition to Sharkey’s strange behavior after the murder, the defense attorneys cited massive evidence of insanity in Sharkey’s family history. His mother had been in an insane asylum and twice had tried to commit suicide—once by jumping down a well and once by hanging herself. Her sister Sarah had also been in an asylum and had two insane children. Her uncle, John Risnger had attempted suicide by butting his head against a building. His sister Malinda had strange spells of suspected insanity, as did her brothers William and Levi. William’s daughter suffered from epilepsy, and several more of Elmer’s mother’s relatives were considered insane.

On his father’s side, his father Henry was epileptic and had attempted suicide, his uncle Michael had two insane children and a feeble-minded son, his uncle Noah had two epileptic daughters, and his aunt had two children who committed suicide.

However, the “insanity dodge,” as one newspaper called it, was unsuccessful. The jury found Elmer Sharkey guilty of first-degree murder, and he was sentenced to hang on September 13.

Sharkey was granted a stay of execution while his attorney prepared an appeal. The state Supreme Court granted a new trial due to errors in the first trial, and in April 1890, he was retried for the murder of his mother. Once again, Sharkey was found guilty and sentenced to hang. 

As his execution drew near, Sharkey claimed he had no recollection of what happened the night of the murder. He claimed his confession had been forced through threats of lynching.

Despite another appeal and a petition to commute his sentence to life in prison, Sharkey could not escape the gallows. Shortly after midnight on December 18, 1890, Elmer Sharkey was hanged in the annex of the Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus.

His last words were, “I will answer to God for what I have done and forgive all.”

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Sources: 

“The Boy Murderer,” Evening Post., April 9, 1890.
“Convicted of the Murder of his Mother,” Evening Post, May 2, 1889.
“Elmer Sharkey Convicted,” Democratic Northwest., May 16, 1889.
“Found Murdered in Her Bed,” Cleveland Leader AND MORNING HERALD., January 13, 1889.
“Got a NEw Trial,” Lexington Herald Leader, November 20, 1889.
“Her Skull was Crushed,” National Police Gazette, February 2, 1889.
“Killed By Her Son,” Plain Dealer, January 15, 1889.
“A Murdered Mother,” Evening Post., January 14, 1889.
“Murderer Sharkey to Hang,” Ccourier-Post, May 22, 1889.
“News Article,” Erie Morning Dispatch, April 1, 1890.
“News Of The State,” Plain Dealer, February 26, 1890.
“Respited,” The Dayton Herald, November 20, 1889.
“Sharkey Must Go,” Columbus Evening Dispatch, July 25, 1890.
“A Stay of Execution Granted ,” The Piqua Daily Call, August 3, 1889.
“Two Murderers Hang,” The Daily Interocean, December 19, 1890.
“A Young Fiend,” Cleveland Leader AND MORNING HERALD., January 15, 1889.

Morbid and Melancholy.

Cora Marston.

On September 1, 1865, Dr. Carlos Marston, his wife Susannah, and their adopted daughter Cora were found shot to death in their bedrooms. Susannah Marston was said to have a “morbid and melancholy disposition” and suffered for years with depression. Her behavior was increasingly erratic and on that morning she snapped. Susannah drugged her husband and Cora with chloroform then shot them both. She then lay down beside Carlos and shot herself.

Read the full story here: The Dedham Tragedy.
 

The Schoonmaker Tragedy.

Harry and Edith Schoonmaker of Brooklyn, New York, appeared to have a perfect marriage in 1888. Henry D. (Harry) Schoonmaker was from a prominent Brooklyn political family. He had a substantial job as a salesman for a gas fitting company and had recently received a pay raise. The couple had a 14-month-old son.

“No more happy and loving couple could be found,” said Harry’s father, Col. John B. Schoonmaker, “So far as I knew, they never had a quarrel, and all was love and happiness.”

But in December 1888, Harry began acting strangely. His parents noticed he was irritable, and his talk was flighty. Others said he was “…alternately excited and depressed as if he was addicted to the use of opium or some other drug.” 

The Murdered Congressman.

The Honorable Cornelius S. Hamilton was the Congressional Representative of the Eighth District of Ohio. In December 1867, he received word that his son Thomas was in a bad way, so the Congressman hurried back from Washinton, DC, to his home in Marysville, Ohio.

18-year-old Thomas Hamilton had been experiencing some mental problems—“mild insanity,” the newspapers said, “such as would only be readily detected by medical men.” But recently, Thomas had been exceedingly melancholy, prompting his teacher to take Thomas to Columbus to be examined by his uncle, Dr. J.W. Hamilton. After meeting with his nephew, Dr. Hamilton advised his brother and the teacher to watch Thomas closely. The diagnosis prompted the Congressman’s return. 

Murdered at Prayer.

A.E. Ambrose was working in his yard in South Byfield, Massachusetts, the morning of January 3, 1879, when he was surprised by two of his neighbors, Mrs. Caldwell and her sister Miss Brown, excitedly running toward him. Mrs. Lucy Caldwell was known for her erratic behavior and always seemed somewhat excited, but he had never seen Miss Brown looking so terrified.

Mrs. Caldwell exclaimed, “Go up and take care of him; he threatened to kill me, and I hit him with an axe, and I don’t know, but I have killed him.”

A Deathbed Marriage.

Frank and Charles Zabel lived with their widowed mother in Reading, Pennsylvania. Though in modest circumstances, the family lived happily together. Everything changed on June 5, 1886, when 18-year-old Frank Zabel, for reasons never made clear, fired three shots into his brother’s chest then attempted suicide by desperately wounding himself.

Both brothers were in critical condition, but it was soon apparent that Charles would not survive. Charles was engaged to Salome Reeser; the marriage was to occur a few weeks later. As Charles lay on his deathbed, the couple decided to marry immediately. Rev. Dr. J.J. Kuendig, pastor of St. John’s Lutheran Church, came to the house, and as Salome stood sobbing by the bed, he performed the service. Charles died the following afternoon, leaving both his mother and his bride prostrate with grief so severe that they both required the care of a physician.

The coroner’s inquest charged Frank Zabel with the murder of his brother Charles. Frank was still bedridden, so the police put the house under surveillance until he was well enough for prison. The only explanation the family could provide for Frank’s behavior was that, on the day of the murder, Frank had taken an overdose of a drug used for dyspepsia, which affected his mind, causing him to commit murder and attempt suicide.

The district attorney sent the drug to be analyzed by a chemist to see if the claim was justified. The result of the analysis was not strong enough for him to drop the murder charge against Frank Zabel, but when the case went before a jury the following March, Zabel was acquitted on the grounds of insanity.

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Sources: 

“Berks County Murder Cases,” Patriot, December 11, 1886.
“Current Events,” Daily Gazette, June 7, 1886.
“In General,” Delaware gazette and state journal, March 31, 1887.
“Married and Died,” Plain Dealer, June 7, 1886.
“Married on his Death Bed,” National Police Gazette, June 26, 1886.
“News Summary,” Delaware Republican, June 8, 1886.
“The Zabel Tragedy,” Patriot, June 8, 1886.

The Shooting of Albert Richardson.

On the afternoon of November 25, 1869, Daniel McFarland walked into the office of the New York Tribune and there shot and killed Albert Richardson, a Tribune editor. Richardson had planned to marry Daniel McFarland’s ex-wife, Abby Sage McFarland. The facts of the murder were irrefutable, but the trial that followed focused instead on the behavior of Abby McFarland. Was her adultery an attack on the sanctity of marriage that drove Daniel McFarland to murderous insanity? Or had she been justified in leaving a drunken, abusive husband, running to the safety of another man’s arms?

Read the full story here: The Richardson-McFarland Tragedy.

The Insanity Dodge.

Insanity was seldom a popular defense to murder -- while defense attorneys used terms like temporary insanity, transitory frenzy, and monomania, to the press and the public it was “the insanity dodge.” The first successful use in America of temporary insanity as murder defense was the trial of Dan Sickles for the 1859 murder of Phillip Barton Key. Sickles appeared perfectly sane at his trial but claimed that his wife’s infidelity had temporarily made him unable to tell right from wrong. 

Here are a few cases using the insanity dodge with varying degrees of success:

	Dan Sickles's Temporary Insanity. 1859 - First successful use of the temporary insanity plea in America.
	The Worst Woman on Earth. Lizzie Halliday unsuccessfully pled insanity for the murder of her husband and two servants in 1893. She was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to the electric chair but the governor commuted her sentence and sent her to an insane asylum. There she murdered her nurse.
	Crazy John Daley. John Daley, known as “Crazy John," pled insanity for the axe murder of his wife in 1883 and was easily acquitted. “Daley became a homicidal maniac through a frenzy of religious excitement.” Said the press.
	Shot by a Jealous Husband. When Daniel Monahan shot his wife for adultery in 1886, the public viewed the murder as justified. He was acquitted on the grounds of insanity and the verdict was well received.
	Transitory Frenzy. Charles Henry was obsessed with actress Effie Moore. She led him on for a few weeks, but when he learned she was already married he shot her. He pled not guilty by reason of “transitory frenzy”; to everyone’s surprise, the verdict was not guilty.
	A Contract with the Devil. Joseph E. Kelley murdered Joseph Stikney during an 1897 bank robbery. He pled guilty but during sentencing medical experts described him as “A high-grade imbecile” “about 8 or 9 years old, mentally and morally.” Their diagnoses saved him from the gallows but he was sentenced to thirty years in prison.

Mrs. Halliday in Handcuffs.

 

In 1894, Lizzie Halliday was sentenced to death for murdering her husband and two others and. A state commission judged her insane and commuted her sentence to life in an asylum. Though she exhibited all the signs of a woman who was violently insane, many believed that Lizzie was merely a gifted actress.

At Mattawan State Asylum, she killed her favorite nurse with a pair of scissors. No one disagreed when the press dubbed Lizzie Halliday “Worst woman on earth.”

Read the full story here: The Worst Woman on Earth.

A Fatal Jealousy.

Deidrich Steffens, a bottler of lager beer, was making a delivery on Park Avenue in Brooklyn, the afternoon of April 17, 1883, when he was called to by John Cordes, a wholesale grocery dealer. Cordes was standing in front of the grocery store of Steffens’s friend, Diedrich Mahnken, and as Steffens crossed the street, Mahnken emerged from his store brandishing a “British bull dog” revolver. Without a word Mahnken fired five shots into Deidrich Steffens—four to the head, one to the chest.

Horrible Murder in Twelfth Street.

Mrs. Sarah Shancks owned a high-end millenary concern—“a fancy thread and needle store”—at 22 East 12th Street.  At around 10:00 AM, the morning of December 7, 1860, Susan Ferguson, who worked as a seamstress for Mrs. Shanks, entered the store but could not find her employer. She went to the back room where Mrs. Shanks resided and found her lying on the floor in a pool of blood. Her throat had been slashed, and she was surrounded by broken glass and crockery. Susan ran out of the store to alert the police.

The Bitter Fruit of a Jest.

Elvira Houghton, a dressmaker in Southbridge, Massachusetts, hired a carriage and driver to take her to her mother’s funeral in the summer of 1847. The driver, 27-year-old Milton Streeter, was instantly infatuated with Elvira. They had a pleasant conversation and when they returned to Southbridge Milton asked if he could see her again and Elvira said yes.

Also 27-years-old, Elvira feared she was approaching “that delicate and dreaded period, when, having out-maidened all her early associates, she would remain alone a withered remnant of the past.” Her fear may have clouded her judgment; After a whirlwind courtship of one month, she and Milton Streeter were married.

Utterly Unprovoked Shooting.

John Dilleber was a wealthy 28-year-old wholesale liquor dealer who lived and worked in New York City. In June 1975, he divorced his wife, left his home, and took up residence at the Westminster Hotel on 16th Street. 

It was Dilleber’s habit, after dinner, to wander the halls of the hotel while smoking a cigar. Romaine Dillon, another of the Westminster Hotel’s outcast residents, was much annoyed by Dilleber’s evening rambles and angrily told him so on several occasions. Dilleber ignored his complaints.

Crazy John Daley.

John Daley rushed from his house on Chouteau Avenue, St. Louis, bleeding profusely from the neck, at around 11:00 the night of May 11, 1883. He surrendered himself to Officer Jones, saying that he had just murdered his wife. Officer Jones summoned a patrol wagon to take Daley to the Four Courts, then went to Daley’s house to see about his wife.

Daley, a 55-year-old machinist, lived in a two-room house on Chouteau Avenue, with his 35-year-old wife, Eliza, and eight children, ranging in age from 5 months to 12 years. Inside the house Officer Jones found Eliza lying on the bed, her skull crushed and her throat cut. He found a rusty axe with blood on both ends of the blade. It appeared that Daley had first struck her head with the butt of the axe, then cut her throat, finishing the job with a knife.

There were no signs of a struggle. Eliza Daley was in her nightclothes, her shoes, and stockings by the side of the bed. The incident woke none of the children; the youngest lay by her mother’s side with blood on her head.

An Insane Explorer.

Survivors of Jeannette expedition (James Bartlett, seated second from left)

On July 8, 1879, the U.S.S. Jeanette left San Francisco bound for the Bering Strait. Its mission, funded by James Gordon Bennett, Jr., publisher of the New York Herald, was to make the United States the first nation to reach the North Pole, on the theory that a warm Pacific current would provide a water route. After nearly two years sailing through ice-bound waters, the Jeanette was “nipped” in the ice on June 12, 1881 and sank the following day. The crew set off on foot, hoping to reach the coast of Siberia before winter set in. They struggled for 91 days, living on seal, walrus, polar bear, and sea birds, and covered nearly one thousand miles. Only thirteen of the original crew of thirty-three survived.

Among the survivors of the Jeanette expedition was James R. Bartlett, who, in 1892, was living in San Francisco with his wife and their niece. Mentally, Bartlett never recovered from his arctic hardship; and had previously been confined in an insane asylum.

Around 1:30, the morning of October 30, 1892, Bartlett went into his house and told his wife he was going to kill her. He drew his revolver and shot his wife in the shoulder. As she ran screaming from the room, their young niece, Lottie Carpenter, came in and tried to intercede. Bartlett shot her in the head and she died moments later. He then went to a back room and shot himself in the head.

The newspapers all agreed that the tragedy was a direct result of hardships Bartlett suffered as a crewman of the ill-fated Jeanette expedition. The Oregonian questioned the value of such ventures, “Neither science, humanity nor common sense warrants a man in putting so severe strain upon his physical and mental powers as to render his crippled existence a misfortune to himself and a constant menace to those about him. The Jeannette expedition was one of the most costly in life, hardship and money that has ever been sent out in quest of an “open Polar Sea,” while its profits are so meager that science takes no note of them.”

Originally posted on 11/26/2016.

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Sources:
“[San Francisco; Miss Lottie Carpenter; James R.,” Oregonian, November 1, 1892.
“An Insane Explorer.,” Plain Dealer, October 31, 1892.
“An Insane Murderer,” San Diego Union, October 31, 1892.
“Crazed By His Arctic Sufferings.,” New York Tribune, October 31, 1892.
National Geographic: The Hair-Raising Tale of the U.S.S. Jeannette's Ill-Fated 1879 Polar Voyage . “James R. Bartlett Dead,” Daily Register-Gazette, October 26, 1893.
USNI News: The Jeannette Expedition.
“News in Brief.,” Huntsville Gazette, November 5, 1892.

Shot by a Jealous Husband.

Daniel Monahan, aged 45, lived with his wife, Maggie, and their children on Henry Street in Binghamton, New York, and kept a saloon in a building adjoining the house. In 1885, a young man named Patrick Garvey began working as a bartender at Monahan’s saloon. Garvey, an attractive 34-year-old Irishman, grew especially close to Maggie Monahan. Before long she expressed her love for Garvey, and the two began an intimate relationship. Garvey became a frequent visitor at the Monahan home when Daniel was away, and their romance became the subject of rumor in Binghamton.

Daniel had already suspected that improper relations existed between his wife and his bartender, so he fired Garvey and openly accused his wife of adultery. Maggie replied that, yes, she did think more of Garvey than she did of her husband, and she would go with Garvey as much as she pleased. Daniel pleaded with Maggie to abandon the romance and not disgrace their little daughters, but she ignored his pleadings and continued to meet Garvey, not only at home but at various places in the city. In desperation, Daniel told her if she did not leave Garvey, he would shoot him. Maggie told Garvey about her husband’s threats and bought him a revolver to defend himself.   

Maggie Monahan