Three Little Murders

Little Murders:

Here are three very short stories from the same edition of the Elyria Democrat, Elyria, Ohio:

The Trial of James Sawyer
The trial of James Sawyer at Warren for the murder of William Holcomb has resulted in a verdict of acquittal. Holcomb’s body was found in the woods near the centre of Vernon, on the 27th of May, 1867. He went to hunt some squirrels with a rifle, and was found lying dead with a bullet-hole through his head.
     Sawyer happened to be the person who discovered him, and he was charged with murder, the motive being a suspected improper intimacy between Sawyer and Mrs. Holcomb. This, the testimony showed, was without foundation.
 
Last week, Geo. Foreman, of Woodsfield, Ohio, confessed on his death-bed to the murder of Miss Josephine Allen, of Salem, Ohio, in 1858. He did not intend to kill her at first, but struck her during a quarrel, and finding that he had seriously hurt her, carried her home, killed her with an ax, and secreted the body where it was afterwards found.
 
Dr. G. M. Sandors of Dyersburg, Tennessee, was murdered on Friday.—
Two respectable ladies of that place called upon him the day before for medical advice. He administered chloroform and ravished them while under its effects. His assassin is supposed to be the brother of one of the ladies.

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Elyria Democrat, Elyria, Ohio, August 5, 1868

Defenders and Offenders

I found a very colorful book of lawmen and criminals published in 1888 entitled Defenders and Offenders (no author). It includes color portraits and brief but fascinating biographies of each subject.

Some of the offenders are well known— like Thomas G. Woolfolk who chopped up his family in Georgia in 1887—but most are fairly obscure. If I can find enough information I will feature some of the murderers, if not, they will probably turn up from time to time in the Little Murders series.

The defenders are all New York City police superintendents and inspectors like Thomas Byrnes who led the investigation of Carry Brown’s murder and most other major New York criminal investigations in the 1880s. Though not as interesting as the offenders, I will occasionally post their portraits as well.

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

The St. Louis Trunk Tragedy

On Sunday, April 12, 1885, the manager of the Southern Hotel in St. Louis, Missouri, entered room 144 responding to guests’ complaints of a foul odor emanating from inside. The manager found nothing amiss on Sunday but by Tuesday the stench was unbearable.  He checked again and it appeared that the occupants had moved out, leaving behind several trunks. Inside one of the trunks was the decomposing body of a man wearing only a pair of white drawers. Apparently one of the two young Englishmen sharing the room had murdered the other.  Though the death had been made to look like a political assassination, it was in fact the tragic ending of a “peculiar relationship.”

The Murdered Wife.

A troupe of temperance players who visited the town of Berlin, New York in December 1844 had a profound effect on Henry G. Green. It was not their message of sobriety that moved Henry, but the charm and beauty of their leading lady, Mary Ann Wyatt. When the troupe left Berlin, Henry followed and was soon courting Mary Ann. On February 10 they were married. Eight days after that Mary Ann Wyatt Green was dead from arsenic poisoning.  There is little doubt Henry Green murdered his wife but his motive in doing so is an enduring mystery.

Murders and Daring Outrages

From the frontispiece  of an 1837 American book entitled Confessions, Trials And Biographical Sketches Of the Most Cold Blooded Murderers Who Have Been Executed in This Country by S. Andrus And Son.  The verse is from "The Dream of Eugene Aram" by Thomas Hood -- about a murder that was not committed in this country.  More to come from Confessions…

The Sleepwalking Defense

The morning of October 27, 1845, the body of Maria Bickford, a beautiful young prostitute, was found murdered in her room in Boston’s Beacon Hill. Her throat had been cut from ear to ear and her bed had been set on fire. The prime suspect was Albert Tirrell who had been keeping Maria and who was seen arguing with her the day before. Tirrell was represented in court by prominent attorney and former US Senator, Rufus Choate, who used a three pronged defense: Maybe Maria Bickford had cut her own throat, maybe someone else killed her, or maybe Albert Tirrell killed her while sleepwalking and was not responsible for his actions.

Arsenic and Old Lace

Here is an interesting post from Lizzie Borden: Warps & Wefts: The Story Benind Arsenic & Old Lace. It's about "Sister Amy" Archer-Gilligan, the real-life inspiration for the play and movie Arsenic and Old Lace. Proof once again that truth is indeed stranger than fiction.

Little Murders

Up until now Murder by Gaslight has been documenting just the major American murders of the 19th century—stories with a beginning, a middle and an ending determined by a court of law. Sometimes, as with the murders of Captain Joseph White and Philip Barton Key they have set new legal precedent; and sometimes, as with the case of Lizzie Borden, the stories have become a part of our culture.

But the 19th century was long and bloody not every murder was so well recorded. A murder story may appear in only one newspaper article, never to be resolved. It could be the story of a murder/suicide that begins and ends in one telling, it could be a crime that remains forever unsolved, or it could be a story whose outcome has been lost to history.

Beginning today, Murder by Gaslight will occasionally feature murder stories that were complete in one newspaper article. While there are many more big murders to come, we would like to pay homage to the “Little Murders.”

This story from The Republican Compiler, Gettysburg, PA, April 20, 1846 (quoting The Cincinnati Commercial) tells the exciting but tragic story of Thomas Shannon’s murder in Yazoo, Mississippi. We can only hope that the fiend Waite got what was coming.

A Crime of Passion

In June 1831 Joel Clough moved into a boarding house in Bordentown, New Jersey and soon fell in love with his landlady’s daughter, a young widow named Mary Hamilton. He made his affections known to Mary and began giving her gifts and writing her letters. Joel thought Mary had returned his affection and at one point believed she had agreed to marry him. When it became apparent that she was seeing other men, he asked her again. She refused and he stabbed her in the chest eleven times. Joel Clough did not deny that he had murdered her, but he would contend that his passion for Mary Hamilton had driven him insane.

Christmas Murders

Just a quick post to commemorate two Christmas murders that have been immortalzied in song:

Billy Lyons shot by "Stack" Lee Shelton on Christmas Night, 1895

Delia Green shot by Moses "Cooney" Houston on Christmas Eve 1900

Lizzie Borden's Confession

In a book called Piracy, Mutiny and Murder by Edward Rowe Snow, I came across a Lizzie Borden story I had not heard before. It concerns a written confession allegedly signed by Lizzie in 1897, four years after she was acquitted of murdering her father and stepmother. Though the confession was soon proven to be a hoax, in 1959, when his book was published, Mr. Snow was firmly convinced of the confession’s authenticity and tells an interesting tale of its origin.

The Manhattan Well Mystery

On January 2, 1800, the body of Gulielma Sands was found in the Manhattan Well, not far from her boardinghouse on Greenwich Street, New York City. There were two contradictory schools of thought among those who knew Gulielma Sands—those who remembered her as melancholy and suicidal, and those remembered her as happy and cheerful, especially so on the night she disappeared when she revealed that she was to marry Levi Weeks. When Levi Weeks was arrested for murder everyone in the city would take a side. The trial of Levi Weeks was the first of New York City’s sensational murder cases, the first American murder trial to be transcribed, and the first defense council “dream team.” Levi Weeks was represented in court by Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr.

Kissing Cousins

Lillian Madison’s relations with her immediate family in the 1880s were strained if not outright hostile. Her parents disapproved of her social life and kept her from the education she desired and as soon as she could, Lillian left their home in King William County, Virginia. She found comfort and support among her mother’s relatives but she also began a romantic relationship with her cousin, Thomas Cluverius, that would end in her ruin. When Lillian’s body, eight months pregnant, was found floating in Richmond’s Old Reservoir, Cousin Thomas was the prime suspect.

Murderous New York

Fourteen of the fifty two stories and book reviews at Murder by Gaslight concern murders that took place in the state of New York. That’s 27%--higher by far than any other state. Why so many 19th century murders in New York? One reason is very simple, by 1800 New York was the most populous state in the union and New York City was the largest city in America.

But it was more than just population; New York was very good at publicizing its murders. New York City’s “penny press” of the 1830s learned quickly that nothing sold newspapers like a good murder. The murders of Helen Jewett, and Samuel Adams received heavy press coverage in New York that was picked up by newspapers throughout America. “Yellow Journalism” at the end of the century had Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World competing with William Hearst’s New York Journal for lurid details of murder cases like those of Evelina Bliss and Domenico Cataldo.

The Minister and the Mill Girl

In December 1832, the body of a young pregnant woman was found hanging at a Tiverton, Rhode Island farm. She was identified as Sarah Cornell a worker in a textile factory in nearby Fall River, Massachusetts. Evidence implicated Methodist minister Ephraim Avery and the community was outraged that a man of the cloth had seduced and murdered an innocent mill girl. But Sarah Cornell was far from innocent and she had reasons hate Reverend Avery that had nothing to do with her pregnancy. Could Sarah Cornell have planted evidence against Avery before taking her own life? The story of the minister and the mill girl would put the town of Fall River at the center of a national controversy 60 years before Lizzie Borden would do the same. And the outcome would be just as inconclusive.

Jack the Ripper: The Prime Suspect

Jack the Ripper: The Prime Suspect
by Michael Connor

What if Jack the Ripper wasn’t Prince Albert Edward, or Lewis Carroll, or Oscar Wilde’s lover or any of the dozen or so flamboyant, globe-trotting eccentrics usually named as suspects? What if he was just a local workman who fit the murders into his daily schedule? Someone like cart driver Charles Allen Lechmere, who was on the scene when the first body was discovered and who gave a false name at the inquest. Police in 1888 let him walk away, but in a modern murder investigation he would have been the prime suspect.

The Killing of Bill The Butcher

Bill “The Butcher” Poole was a champion New York City pugilist in 1855—before the Marquess of Queensbury rules—when kicking, biting and eye-gouging were acceptable tactics and “fight to the death” was more than a metaphor.  It was also a time when a challenge was likely to be issued out of pure hatred for your opponent.  When John Morrissey, the Irish enforcer for Tammany Hall challenged Bill Poole of the the anti-immigrant “Know-Nothing” Party it promised to be the ultimate grudge match. But when the fighters turned to knives and guns, all pretext of sport was gone.  It would be Bill “The Butcher” Poole’s last fight.

Abby Borden Crime Scene

Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts has in interesting slide show of the Abby Borden crime scene as it was then and as it is now: Lizzie Borden Crime Scene. The entire house has been nicely restored and is now the Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast in Fall River, MA. The murder is renacted there every August by the Pear Essential Players.

The Bloody Benders

In the early 1870s the counties of Labette and Montgomery in Kansas were experiencing an alarming number of missing persons. The investigation passed several times through the cabin of the Benders, a family of German immigrants who ran a small grocery store and restaurant outside of Cherryvale, Kansas, but the Benders appeared completely innocent. When authorities found the cabin abandoned one day the picture changed. A closer look revealed nine murdered corpses, the handiwork of the Bloody Benders.

Devil on the Silver Screen

We learn from Omnimystery News: Leonardo DiCaprio Acquires Film Rights to The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson. Devil in the White City, of course, is the bestselling non-fiction book about serial killer H. H. Holmes and the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair.

DiCaprio’s involvement means a big budget but that has never been a guarantee of success. We are hopeful that the right director and screenwriter will save this excellent book from the dismal treatment Hollywood gives most bestsellers. But Leonardo DiCaprio (who Kate Winslet described as  “A big girl’s blouse.”) as H.H. Holmes? Dubious.

What do you think?