The Confessions of Edward Tatro.

Charles Butler, aged 25, owned a farm two miles north of Highgate Centre, Vermont, eleven miles from St. Albans. He lived there with his lovely 21-year-old wife Alice. Also in the household were Charles’s elderly father and Edward Tatro, a 20-year-old French-Canadian farmhand.

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.”

Ann and John.

Mrs. Ann E. Freese ran a brothel in a section of Rutland, Vermont, known as the “Swamp.” On June 9, 1874, the house burned to the ground. Amid the rubble was the body of Mrs. Freese, badly burned but recognizable. She had been stabbed several times in the throat before the fire started. The investigation proved daunting with so many anonymous men coming and going from the house, but one man stood out. John Phair, a known associate of Freese, left town around the time of the fire. When he was identified as the man who pawned her jewelry in several Boston pawnshops, Phair was arrested. He was convicted of first-degree murder and hanged in 1879, professing innocence to the end.

Read the full story here: Fire in the Swamp.

Anna Wheeler's Killer.

18-year-old Mildred Brewster left her parents' farm to make her own way in Montpelier, Vermont. She met and fell in love with a young man in her boarding house who seduced Mildred but did not return her affections. When Mildred learned that he was engaged to Annie Wheeler, she bought a revolver to take her rival's life as well as her own. She succeeded in killing Annie Wheeler but failed her suicide attempt. At her trial for premeditated murder, Mildred pled insanity.

Read the full story here: Insane Jealousy

The French Monster.

 

In 1874, Joseph LaPage, a French-Canadian woodcutter, raped and murdered Marietta Ball, a young schoolteacher in St. Albans, Vermont. He was released for lack of evidence. A year later he struck again, raping and brutally murdering 17-year-old Josie Langmaid in Pembroke, New Hampshire. After two contentious trials, he was convicted of Josie Langmaid’s murder.

Read the full story here: Josie Langmaid-"The Murdered Maiden Student."

Insane Jealousy.

Mildred Brewster

Mildred Brewster was the daughter of a wealthy farmer near Montpelier, Vermont. In 1897, 18-year-old Mildred decided to leave her father’s home and move to the city to make her own way. She found a job working for a tailor and took a room at a boarding house. All was going well until she met and fell in love with Jack Wheeler, a young granite-cutter who boarded at the same house. Wheeler knew of Mildred’s affections for him, but, he would later say, he did not return them.

Jack Wheeler was engaged to another wealthy farmer’s daughter named Annie Wheeler—they had the same last name but were not related.  When Mildred learned that he planned to take his fiancé to Barre, the end of May for the Decoration Day celebration she became incensed. She paid a visit on Annie Wheeler and told her in no uncertain terms to leave Jack Wheeler alone. Mildred said she had a prior claim on his affections and if Annie did not give him up, Mildred would kill him.

Fire in the Swamp.

The morning of June 9, 1874, a two-story house burned to the ground in a section of Rutland, Vermont known as the “swamp.”  Amid the rubble was the badly burned but recognizable corpse of Mrs. Ann E. Freese; she had been stabbed in the throat before the fire started. Finding her killer promised to be daunting since Mrs. Freese’s house was a well-known brothel with men coming and going at all hours. But circumstances quickly pointed to John Phair, a local ne’er-do-well whose relationship with Mrs. Freese was closer than that of a paying customer and who had conveniently left town the morning of the fire.

The Dead Alive

When Russell Colvin lost his Manchester, Vermont farm and had to move his wife Sally and their six children into her parents’ house, his in-laws treated him with utter disdain. Sally’s brothers, Jesse and Stephen Boorn, resented the new mouths to feed and taunted Russell relentlessly. Russell disappeared in 1812, after a particularly violent argument with the Bourne brothers, and rumors of foul play began to circulate in Manchester. After seven years, the rumors became accusations and the Boorn brothers were arrested, tried and convicted of killing Russell Colvin. With his execution just weeks away, nothing could save Stephen Boorn now but Russell Colvin’s return. And what were the odds of that?