A Youthful Murderer.

George Wilbur and Michael Kildorf, both 17 years old, were good friends in North Plains, Michigan. On January 28, 1879, they went together into the woods to hunt rabbits. At some point during the hunt, a dispute arose between them. The cause of the disagreement was not disclosed, but it continued to escalate. Kildorf was resting on the root of a tree when Wilbur came up behind him and shot him in the back of the head, killing him instantly. Wilbur took Kildorf’s revolver and went back home.

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.

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Sources: 

“A Deliberate Young Murderer,” Illustrated Police News, February 15, 1879.

“Minor Telegrams,” PORTLAND DAILY PRESS., January 31, 1879.
“A Youthful Murderer,” Detroit Free Press, January 30, 1879.
“A Youthful Murderer,” The Inter Ocean, January 30, 1879.

The Murderous Barker Brothers.

The Baker Brothers of Bloomingdale, Michigan, suspected Harvey Keith of having adulterous relations with both of their wives. When they caught him in bed with Marshal Baker's wife, they brutally murdered Keith and dumped his body in Max Lake.

Read the full story: Murder at Bloomingdale.

Michigan Double Murder.

A very anxious and excited man arrived at the jail in Ann Arbor, Michigan, around midnight, October 22, 1871. He told the jailer he was unwell and wanted to sleep in the jail that night. The jailor decided it was in everyone’s best interest to give him what he wanted. As he locked the cell door, the man burst out crying but would not say why. The following morning the jailor released him. 

The man, Henry Wagner, went to see his brother August and declared that he thought he had murdered his wife. “I don’t know what I have been doing,” he said, “I don’t know whether she will live or not.” They went to the police and gave Officer Leonard the key to Wagner’s house so he could check on the wife’s condition. 

Wagner’s wife, Henrietta, ran a fancy store with her partner Mary Miley. Henry, Henrietta, and Henrietta’s 3-year-old son Oscar lived in the back room of the store. What Officer Leonard saw when he opened the door to their room nearly froze his blood. Mrs. Wagner lay on her side in her nightdress; her head was a mass of pounded flesh and bone. Around her, spatters of blood and clots of bloody gore covered the walls and nightclothes. Nearby laid a bloody hatchet—she had been beaten with the blunt end. After several minutes, the officer heard a slight rustling in the bed. He pulled back the covers to find little Oscar covered with blood; his head had been smashed, but he was still alive. Leonard notified the coroner and arrested Henry Wagner. Oscar died a few hours later.

The Wagners had come to Ann Arbor from Germany about three years earlier. At the time, they were unmarried; Henrietta was the ex-wife of Henry’s older brother, Oscar’s father, who was still living in Germany. Henry and Henrietta married the previous July, but at times it was an unhappy marriage—they would have serious arguments, sometimes ending in violence. Despite the fighting, Henry declared he had always loved his wife very dearly. 

24-year-old Henry Wagner related what had occurred the night of the murder to a reporter who visited him in jail:

“For the past two or three days, we lived most happily; she never seemed to love me so much. Last night she went to bed, I don’t know what time. I said to her good night and went to the bed to kiss her when she spit in my face and kicked me, saying, go away, you are a crazy man, and I can’t live with a crazy man. I said to her, give me my money, and I will go. She said nothing to this. I then went and got the money and started to leave, when she jumped up and said, ‘I will cut you in pieces before you go with that money.’ That made me very angry, and I took the hatchet from the wood-box and went toward her, she jumped at me and called me a dog, and told me to leave the house. I kept brandishing the hatchet to frighten her. She and the child both cried fire and murder, and as she clutched me by the throat, I hit her accidentally. She fell right down and said, “Oh my,” and groaned. When I saw what I had done, that she was hurt so she could never get well, I thought I would put an end to her life and struck her several times. After this, I remember nothing. I seemed to see my wife before my eyes all the time. I don’t remember striking the boy at all. I remember putting out the light and locking the door. I went out in the street, but I could not go anywhere I did not see my wife just as I struck her, lying before my eyes. I came down to the jail, but I could not sleep or eat. I don’t know what I shall do.”

At the inquest the following day, August Wagner testified that the trouble between Henry and Henrietta was due to the child. Henrietta had been the prostitute of their older brother in Germany. They had several children together, and he called her his wife, but they were never married. He believed that Henry was Oscar’s father, but Henry did not acknowledge this.

Mary Miley testified that Henry was very jealous of Henrietta and the trouble between them began about two weeks after their wedding. Mary said he had willed Henrietta all his property, including money still in Germany. A written contract giving her all his money, some $3,000, was found in Henry’s pocket, torn in two.

The newspapers speculated correctly that Henry Wagner would try “the insanity dodge” at his trial the following March. Friends, coworkers, and clergymen testified that Henry always seemed excited and uneasy, speaking in a disconnected manner, frequently disparaging his wife’s character. August Wagner said that the family always considered him of unsound mind.

The defense had no professional witnesses to give medical testimony as to the state of Henry Wagner’s mind, but the prosecution did. Professor Palmer, a specialist in insanity, visited Wagner in jail several times and conversed with him. He testified that Wagner did not show any signs of insanity or anything to indicate homicidal impulse. Drs. Lewitt and Kapp also examined Wagner and agreed that he was perfectly sane.

The jury deliberated for two hours then found Henry Wagner guilty of first-degree murder. He was sentenced to life in prison in solitary confinement and hard labor.

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Sources: 

“Ann Arbor,” Detroit Free Press, March 14, 1872.
“Conclusion of the Wagner Murder Case,” Detroit Free Press, March 16, 1872.
“The Double Murder At Ann Arbor,” Jackson Citizen Patriot, October 24, 1871.

“Minor Telegrams,” Cincinnati Daily Gazette, October 24, 1871.

“Murder of a Wife and Child,” Illustrated Police News, December 21, 1871.
“A Startling Murder,” Vermont Union, November 3, 1871.
“The Trial of Henry Wagner,” Michigan Argus, March 22, 1872.
“The Trial of Wagner,” Michigan Argus, March 15, 1872.
“The Wagner Murder,” Detroit Free Press, March 13, 1872.

Compelled to Die.

Little Murders

In the autumn of 1889, Mrs. Nathaniel Strang, of Moserville, Michigan, began to exhibit signs of insanity. The extent of her condition came to light on November 18 when she tried to kill herself and her eighteen-year-old daughter Maud with aconite, a poisonous herb, because she feared that murderers were after them. A doctor was called in time to save both women.

In spite of this incident, Nathaniel left his wife and daughter alone again two days later. This time, Mrs. Strang poured two tumblers of Paris green, a compound used to kill rats and insects. She drank one herself, then pointing a revolver at Maud’s head, forced her to drink the other.

When Nathaniel returned home, Mrs. Strang told him what she had done. Nathaniel quickly summoned the doctor once again, but it was too late, the poison had already begun working. Mrs. Strang died in agony at midnight. Maud, who had watched her mother’s horrible death, begged the physician to save her life, but there was nothing he could do. She died an hour later.

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Sources:

"A Horrible Suicide." New Haven Register 21 Nov 1889.
"A Mother's Crime." New Castle Weekly News 27 Nov 1889.
"A Mother's Terrible Deed." Michigan Argus 29 Nov 1889.
"Compelled to Die." National Police Gazette 7 Dec 1889.

Triple Murder in Michigan.

William Major returned from a trip to Romeo, Michigan, to his home in Mount Vernon, Michigan, on December 27, 1890, to find that his daughter and young granddaughter had come for a visit. Major, a well-to-do farmer, fifty years old, had come home in a cheerful mood and spent the evening conversing with his wife and daughter before the family went to bed. But Major could not sleep; something had unsettled his mind to the point of rage, and he needed to take action.

The “Rough on Rats” Murder.

Little Murders

(From The Kalamazoo Gazette, February 20, 1884)

The “Rough on Rats” Murder.

A Woman Found Guilty of Murder in the First Degree—Her Husband Awaiting Trial.

Muskegon, Mich., Feb. 19—The Jury in the case of Mrs. Korun Larson, after being out eighteen hours, brought in a verdict of murder in the first degree.. She poisoned John Guild on the first of August last with “Rough on Rats.” Her husband awaits trial on the same charge. She was remanded for sentence until March 3.

The Larsons lived on a farm owned by Guild, who was a single man, sixty years of age. In 1883 he deeded the farm to Mrs. Larson on condition that she should furnish a home during life. On the first of August in that year Guild died suddenly, and the contents of his stomach being analyzed, ten and a half grains of arsenic was found. During the trial a neighbor of the Larsons testified to having purchased a package of “Rough on Rats” for Mrs. Larson, a few days before the death of Guild. It was also shown that the Larsons paid a number of bills that they owed and had considerable money after Guild’s death, and that not a dollar of several hundred that Guild was known to have in his possession a day or two previous to his death could be found by his friends.

 

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"The "Rough On Rats" Murder." Kalamazoo Gazette 20 Feb 1884: 1.

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.

The Vanderpool-Field Tragedy.

Though he was only twenty-one years old in 1869, Herbert Field had already faced death numerous times in a variety of exotic locations. Field had lived an adventurous life and seemed to attract danger, but he never encountered a danger he could not overcome until he settled down in Michigan to become a banker.

How to Abolish Murder.

In 1869 H. H. Bingham, agent of the Michigan State Prison, issued a pamphlet analyzing the effect of Michigan’s abolition of the death penalty some twenty-two years earlier.  In place of hanging, Michigan sentenced capital offenders to solitary imprisonment for life (though the longest anyone actually stayed in solitary confinement was five years). Bingham concluded that, though the number of criminal convictions in Michigan increased during that period “…there is no evidence in the increased convictions that there is an increase of crime beyond the ratio of increase in population.” In fact, the number of convicted murderers, as a percentage of total convictions, actually decreased.

About five years later the information in the pamphlet was summarized in a number of mid-western newspapers. Bingham’s conclusions were greeted with a good deal of skepticism as illustrated by this sarcastic editorial in the Cincinnati Daily Gazette:

HOW TO ABOLISH MURDER.

A correspondent writing from Michigan says the abolition of capital punishment in that State has diminished the murder rate. What an anomaly is human nature! Persons inclined to murder find that in Michigan they can not enjoy the privilege of being hanged for it; so they resolve they won’t play. Probably they go off to other States where hanging is allowed, to do their business. We presume that equally trustworthy statistics would show that murder has increased in the adjoining States since Michigan abolished Hanging. If this diminution of the terror of the penalty for murder has diminished murder in Michigan, it follows logically and morally that if she should abolish all penalties, murder would cease entirely in that State for want of encouragement. There are persons of equal intelligence of human nature who think that if the common people are permitted to see a public hanging, they will incontinently be seized with a propensity to go and murder somebody in order to play a star part in so attractive a spectacle.
 

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Sources:

Collections of the Pioneer Society of the State of Michigan. Lansing: Wynkoop Hallenbeck Crawford Company, 1907.

"How to Abolish Murder." Cincinnati Daily Gazette 15 Oct. 1875.

Oregon Hamilton.

Little Murders:

From Defenders and Offenders:

Oregon Hamilton.

"In the month of May, 1888, Oregon Hamilton of Newaygo, Mich., was convicted of murder in the second degree. He is a widower and the crime for which he was convicted was in whipping his nineteen months old daughter to death. The case excited the inhabitants of this small town, and the verdict met with general approval, as the case was one of horrible cruelty, and if the inhabitants could have taken summary punishment in their own hands, the wretch could have saved the county the cost of a trial."

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

Was it Murder?

Little Murders

(From The Evening Statesman. Marshall, Michigan, February 12, 1887.)

WAS IT MURDER?

The death of Bart Garfield said to be surrounded by Mysterious Circumstances.

Referring to the death of the late Bert Garfield, mention of which has previously been made in these columns, the Bellevue Gazette says: "Suspicions have been mentioned of foul play, and the reasons given thereof; still we hardly think grounds exist on which to base such views. It is said that after his injuries he partially regained consciousness, and indistinctly uttered something about "poker" and "lantern." It is also claimed that when found his cap, gloves and overshoes were missing, and it is hardly probable that he would have been on top of the train in that condition. Reports are also current of trouble between him and the engineer and other train hands, and that the engineer on one trip would not allow him to enter the cab compelling him to ride in the cold on top of the cars. The wound (or fracture of his skull) is said to have been such as one as would have been caused by a blow from a hammer or small blunt instrument,—possibly the end of a poker,— and not such as would have probably been received had he fallen from the top of the train and struck on the hard, frozen ground. Bert's experience as a railroad brakeman was short. Less than three months ago he left a good home with his parents on their farm in Convis, and pushed out into the world to battle for himself among its vicissitudes. Now he fills an early grave."

This morning a reporter of the STATESMAN interviewed a gentleman of this city who has known the Garfield family for years and he stated that in his opinion Bert Garfield was murdered and that the relatives of the deceased also entertained the same opinion. The authorities should investigate this matter.

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The Evening Statesman. Marshall, Michigan, February 12, 1887.

Shocking Tragedy in Gratiot County

Little Murders

Shocking Tragedy in Gratiot County
Democratic Expounder, Marshall, MI, March 28, 1861

One of the most frightful and inhuman transactions which it has ever been our lot to record was enacted last week in the village of Ithaca, Gratiot county about twenty miles north of this place. The result of the horrible transaction—which was the murder of three persons, a man, aged about forty-five and two girls of about seventeen years—was discovered on Friday of last week, and in consequence of which that village was thrown into the highest state of excitement.