The Murder and the Ghouls.

Little Murders

(From Cincinnati Daily Gazette, March 24, 1879)

The Murder and the Ghouls

The course of several of the city papers on the terrible tragedy of the murder of Harry Baldwin is an example of the way in which a mere mercenary desire for a sensation scandal, to sell a few more papers, can overcame all principle, all conscience, all the instincts of decency, all sense of justice toward the dead, and all regard for the feelings of the living relatives. Harry Baldwin was found on the street, after his arrival in the night by railway from Indiana, shot through the head and dying, and with signs of having been robbed. Men have been murdered on our streets for the purpose of robbery before now. And even if the police did not at the moment know who did it, this was no reason for throwing themselves into wild inventions. He was found in this dying slate leaning against the wall of a house nearly opposite the public house of which Kate Bennett is mistress. With no other ground than this, the theories of the police and of these newspapers have centered upon and circulated round Kate Bennett's house, and have persisted in connecting Baldwin’s death with that.

From the first, and up to this time not a particle of evidence has been produced to show that Harry Baldwin ever had any illicit relations with any girl, or was ever in that house, yet the police and these papers have insisted that the solution of the mystery was in that house, and have invented and given currency to a mass of wild fancies of his relations with a woman who had become desperate because of his marriage. No such girl has yet been found nor heard of.

The police arrested the Bennett and all persons in her house—boarders and servants. This was accepted and published as positive proof that Baldwin went from the cars to that house and there met his death at the hands of a desperate woman. Then a woman of the lowest degree of prostitution, living in that vicinity, was arrested with her two daughters, one of them described as having had her face partly eaten up with disease. This conveyed the idea that Harry Baldwin was a companion of all sorts of degraded women. A paper remarked that it did not know which of these Dalton girls was his paramour.

Murdered in Court.

Little Murders

A bitter rivalry between two Ashland, Ohio newspapers turned bloody in a Cleveland courtroom on October 30, 1887. The details of the lawsuit have been overshadowed by subsequent events in the courtroom, but C. D. Mason, the editor of the Ashland Gazette, was the plaintiff in a suit to recover $52.50 from Elias Lutz on a note transferred to him from his brother James Mason. Representing Mr. Lutz was attorney W. H. Reynolds, who was also the editor of the Ashland Times. In a separate case, the Mason brothers were suing Reynolds for libel over an article in his paper characterizing the note transaction as a swindle.

The tension in the room was palpable when James Mason took the witness stand. As he spoke, W. H. Reynolds made irritating remarks regarding his testimony. D. C. Mason soon had enough of Reynolds’s comments; he stood up and struck Reynolds with a chair. Reynolds, who was lame, stood up as well, and supporting himself on a chair, began to strike D. C. Mason with his cane. James Mason came to his brother’s defense from the witness stand, by pulling out his .38 caliber revolver and firing two fatal shots into W. H. Reynolds. Spectators who were supporting Reynolds called for the lynching of James Mason, but cooler heads prevailed and with some difficulty, both Mason brothers were protected.

Concerning Popular Sympathy.

In January 1892, Carlyle W. Harris was convicted of murdering his wife, nineteen-year-old, Helen Potts Harris. It was a particularly ugly story—Harris had bragged about his amorous conquests, saying he had gone so far as to marry a girl to get her into bed, then dump her later. This appeared to be the case with his marriage to Helen Potts; they eloped, kept the marriage a secret, and at his insistence they used assumed names at the ceremony. When Helen’s mother found out and demanded they make the marriage public, Harris decided to murder Helen instead. In spite of an elaborate plot to make the death appear to be accidental poisoning, Harris was convicted and sentenced to the electric chair. The whole story can be found here: The Six Capsules.

Little Murders:

The Slayback Homicide.

Alonzo W. Slayback and John A. Cockrell were two of the most respected men in St. Louis; Slayback was a prominent attorney and politician, and Cockerell the managing editor of the Post-Dispatch. Both were members of the Elks Club and reportedly had been amiable, if not close friends. But hey had their differences, Slayback had been a colonel in the Confederate army and Cockrell a Union colonel under General Sherman, and in the fall of 1882 they took opposite sides in a local election. Slayback’s law partner, James Broadhead was running for congress and the Post-Dispatch was publishing editorials against Broadhead and Slayback, one of which called Col. Slayback a coward.

Scenes from the Burdell Murder.

The 1857 murder of Dr. Harvey Burdell, with its colorful cast of characters and upscale urban setting, was the kind of story that sold papers for the penny press and the nascent illustrated newspapers of the day. In fact, Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper was on the verge of bankruptcy when they sent an artist to the Burdell crime scene. The coverage sold enough copies to keep the paper afloat and Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper became a national institution publishing for another sixty-two years.

This post summarizes the Burdell murder using engravings from Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper and other contemporary sources. The details of the Burdell murder can be found here: The Bond Street Tragedy.

The murder took place in a boarding house at No. 31 Bond Street in Manhattan, owned by Dr. Burdell and managed by his paramour, Mrs. Emma Cunningham. All of the murder suspects boarded there.

The Residents of 31 Bond Street.
Dr. Harvey Burdell   Dr. Harvey Burdell was a prominent and successful New York City dentist and real estate speculator. He was also a sporting man and a libertine, known to frequent gambling halls and borthels. In 1857 his affair with Emma Cunningham was turning sour and he was planning to evict her from the house.	Mrs. Emma Cunningham   Emma Cunningham was a widow with five children when she set her sights on Harvey Burdell and won his affection. She knew her position with him was tenuous and she was jealous of the other women she knew Burdell was seeing. After Burdell’s death she produced a marriage certificate showing that the two were married; at his request they had kept the marriage a secret.	John Eckel   John Eckel was tanner who had a room on the third floor of 31 Bond Street. His room shared a door with Mrs. Cunningham’s bedroom and maids at the boardinghouse testified that the two were sleeping together.
Augusta Cunningham   Augusta Cunningham was Emma Cunningham’s twenty-two year old daughter. August was implicated in the murder because a business associates of Dr. Burdell testified that Burdell feared violence from Augusta and her mother, along with John Eckel and George Snodgrass.	George Snodgrass   George Snodgrass was a poet and a banjo player with a room on the third floor of the boardinghouse. He was going out with Mrs. Cunningham’s daughter Helen and when his room was searched the police found some of Helen’s undergarments. It was implied that he was sleeping with Augusta as well.	Helen (Ella) Cunningham   Helen Cunningham, Mrs. Cunningham’s fifteen year old daughter had a room on the same floor as George Snodgrass.