Harold Schechter's The Mad Sculptor.

Murder by Gaslight is pleased to be a stop on Harold Schechter’s The Mad Sculptor (Of True Crime) Blog Tour. The works of Harold Schechter have been a part of Murder by Gaslight from the beginning, providing invaluable information on a number of historical murders. His books always deliver compelling stories based on meticulous research, and his new book, The Mad Sculptor, is no exception.

As part of The Mad Sculptor (Of True Crime) Blog Tour, Harold will answer questions about the book, his writing process, and the MADNESS in his topics of study as a preeminent true crime writer: murderers and the media!

Murder in San Francisco.

Murder in San Francisco. 

 

In response to the question, “Why cannot Murder be punished in San Francisco,” the Oakland Enquirer makes the following pertinent remarks:

“One most important reason why it is hard to punish murder in San Francisco is that in a great number of cases the majority of the people do not want it punished. They rather approve of murder in certain contingencies, and consider it the best redress for injuries that cannot be righted through the courts.

A Boy Shoots His Sweetheart and Himself.

Little Murders

(From The National Police Gazette, October 16,1886)

 

A Boy Shoots His Sweetheart and Himself.

A Love-Sick Murderer.
Eddie Clark, Eighteen Years of Age, Kills Melissa Fultz and then Shoots Himself in Monroe Co., Ill.

The Kentucky Tragedy.

Jereboam Beauchamp stabbed Col. Solomon Sharp to avenge the honor of his wife, Anna Cooke Beauchamp. The story of the murder—known from the start as the Kentucky Tragedy—was viewed by the Beauchamps as one of love, treachery, vengeance, and tragic heroism; all the elements of the romantic novels they both so dearly loved. But in reality, Jereboam and Anna were enacting another familiar American narrative: two troubled misfits lashing out at a world they both disdained.

Victims of a Mysterious Strangler.

Five women of New York have been murdered by a fiend. Their cases are similar to that of the woman whose body was found in the courtyard in the rear of the tenement at No. 27 Monroe Street. The police accuse John Brown, a sailor, with this last murder. Is he the fiend who strangled the other women?

William D. Sindram.

Little Murders:

From Defenders and Offenders:

William D. Sindram.

"On Friday, the 21st day of October 1882, William D. Sindram was hanged in the Tombs, New York City, for the murder of his landlady, Mrs. Cave. The murder was committed a year earlier. Sindram had been drinking, and entered his boarding house, and without provocation shot his landlady. He maintained a bold front up to the minute of his execution, and walked without flinching to the gallows, and showed more nerve than one would suppose possible under the circumstances."

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

Chloroformed to Death.

A terrible crime occurred at the home of Dr. Arthur Kniffin, in Trenton, New Jersey, the night of January 2, 1890. While Dr. Kniffin was out of town, someone entered the house and chloroformed his wife Myra and her cousin Emma Purcell. Myra Kniffin died as a result, but Miss Purcell recovered and told of burglars charging through the door and subduing them both. Friends and family accepted this story, but Miss Purcell had a history of crying wolf and rumors afloat in Trenton said that Dr. Kniffin’s relations with his wife’s cousin “were not what they should have been.”

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.

Murder on Christmas Morning.

Little Murders

 

(From New York Tribune , New York, New York, December 26, 1899)

Murder on Christmas Morning.

 

A Motorman Falls Asleep in a Barroom and Shoots the Saloonkeeper When the Latter Attempts to Eject Him.

Christmas was unfortunately marked in Jersey City by a tragedy. Nicholas Schmitt, fifty-three years old, a saloonkeeper at No. 1,134 Summit ave., was shot and instantly killed by Theodore Brunnert, twenty-three years old, of Homestead. The police acted promptly, and Brunnert is in custody on a charge of murder.

Brunnert, who has been employed as a motorman by the Jersey City, Hoboken and Rutherford Traction Company, quit work about 9 o’clock on Sunday night and visited his stepfatner Christian Schopp, who keeps a saloon at New-York-ave. and Hutton-st., Jersey City. He had several glasses of beer while there, and left there at midnight. He stepped into Schmitt’s saloon, drank two glasses of beer and fell asleep. About 3 o’clock Schmitt started to arouse him, and the fatal quarrel began. The stories are contradictory as to whether the pistol was used in self-defense or whether the mortal wound was inflicted without provocation.

The Notorious Patty Cannon.

Patty Cannon was, by all accounts, among the most barbarous and amoral women in American history. In antebellum Delaware, Patty Cannon led a gang who kidnapped free blacks and sold them into slavery further south. She would indiscriminately murder any man, woman or child—including her own husband and baby— who stood in her way. An1841 murder pamphlet sums it up, “And we can truly say, that we have never seen recorded, a greater instance of moral depravity, so perfectly regardless of every feeling, which should inhabit the human breast.”

The Victorian Murderess.

The ideal woman in Victorian (and pre-Victorian) America was modest, prim and respectable, but when a woman deviated from the ideal she did it with gusto. When a Victorian woman turned to murder she was ruthless, efficient and often brutal. Poisoning was the traditional method for women; it required no strength and allowed for dispassionate murder at a distance. But when the murder was driven by passion, Victorian women proved equally adept at shooting, stabbing, slashing, strangling and chopping. Here in chronological order are Murder by Gaslight’s female killers:

	Lucretia Chapman - 1831 Lucretia Chapman conspired with her young Cuban lover, Carolino Amalia Espos y Mina, to poison her husband William Chapman. Lucretia went free; Carolino went the gallows.
	Frankie Silver - 1831 After enduring years of physical abuse from her husband, Charles, Frankie Silver could take no more. She chopped him up with an axe and burned the pieces in the fireplace.
	Henrietta Robinson - 1853 Henrietta Robinson wore a black veil over her face throughout her trial for poisoning her neighbors, Timothy Lanagan and Catherine Lubee. The motive for the murder was as mysterious as the murderess herself.

Guilty of Murder.

Little Murders

 

(From Huntsville Gazette, Huntsville, Alabama, August 9, 1884)

Guilty of Murder.

 

A Verdict of Murder in the First Degree Found Against "Big Bill" Kinney at Wheeling, West Virginia—Lynching Talked of.

 

Wheeling, W. VA., August 7.

The jury in the trial of “Big Bill” Kinney returned a verdict at four o’clock last evening, of murder in the first degree. Imprisonment of life was fixed as the penalty. The murder being a particularly shocking one, there is very general satisfaction over the verdict. Two cousins, known as Big and Little Bill Kinney entered the house of Barney Doyle, struck him on back of the head with an axe and killed him. The Kinneys then beat out the brains of Doyle’s youngest daughter, aged eight, and attempted to kill the second girl, aged thirteen, but who recovered, and on her testimony the Kinneys were convicted. Little Bill was sentenced last week to seventeen years in the Penitentiary. Lynching of Big Bill is freely talked of. The community is a wild one. Nine murders have occurred in the county in thirteen months and no hanging yet.

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"Guilty of Murder." Huntsville Gazette 9 Aug 1884: 1.

The Raven Stream Crime.

Rose Clark Ambler

Rose Ambler said goodnight to her fiancé at the Raven Stream Bridge, the night of September 2, 1883, and started walking home alone as she usually did. She was never again seen alive. Her body was found the next day, beaten and stabbed, and the perpetrator was never captured. Rose Ambler joined Mary Stannard and Jennie Cramer in the growing list of unpunished Connecticut murders.

Theodore Baker.

Little Murders:

From Defenders and Offenders:

Theodore Baker.

"Theodore Baker was hanged at Los Vegas, N.M., for killing of Frank Unruh, a wealthy ranchman, in December 1885. Baker worked on the ranch for Unruh and became infatuated with the latter’s wife, and it is supposed his love was returned. Mrs. Unruh engaged the highest legal talent to defend Baker. At one time he was taken from jail by a mob and hanged to a tree, but was rescued in the nick of time, and reserved later for the legal hangman."

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

Did it Mean Murder?

Little Murders

 

(From Kansas City Times, Kansas City, Missouri, October 17, 1885)

Did it Mean Murder

 

Two Sisters Quarrel and Separate, and the Younger Visits the House of the Elder at Night.

Discovered, and Being Unknown, She is Pursued and Shot, and Two Revolvers are Found on Her Person.

A Probable Tragedy Averted.
(Special to the Kansas City Times.) 

 

Seneca, Kan., Oct. 16.—Capioma is a small trading point about sixteen miles southeast of this city, and is surrounded by one of the richest agricultural districts in the state, all the farmers being well-to-do, and some quite wealthy.  A highly sensational occurrence has just leaked out, which has thrown this unusually quiet neighborhood into a fever of excitement. The facts are as follows:

Walker Downs, one of the must substantial farmers in that section, was married to a Miss McCarty, who had a younger sister, Nellie, who lived with them prior to about three years ago. It seems that Nellie and Mrs. Downs had some difficulty which resulted in very bad feelings between the sisters and Miss Nellie left for Iowa to visit other relatives. A short time ago some one was seen to look into the windows of the Downs residence late at night, but on inspection no one could be found. The next night there was as a repetition of the occurrence of the night before, and the dog kept up an incessant barking until about 3 o’clock in the morning, but Mr. Downs and his hired hand, on going outside could see no one. The next evening about 10 o‘clock the dog began to bark but stopped in about an hour, and when the family awoke in the morning they found him dead on the doorstep. That night Mr. Downs and his hired man armed themselves and took their positions on the outside to watch for their tormentor. About 10:30 they saw what they supposed to be a man with an overcoat on approaching and demanded the person halt. No attention was paid to the command, and the party started to run, and the hired man followed calling several times to the fugitive to halt, with no better results, and he finally fired three shots, the past of which took effect and the wounded intruder exclaimed, “My God, you have killed me!” He and Mr. Downs hastened to the spot when they were horrified to find that they had shot Miss Nellie McCarty, sister of Mrs. Downs. She was taken to the house and it was found that the ball entered the fleshy part of the leg and was not dangerous. They also found on the young lady two 38-caliber revolvers and a large bottle of strychnine. Many stories are float as to what the young lady’s intentions were, some claiming that she intended to poison the stock, others that she intended to shoot her sister then poison herself. She is still at Mr. Downs’ and no prosecution will follow. She expresses herself deeply regretting her actions. She is about 25 years old, a school teacher and very pretty.

 

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Kansas City Times, Kansas City, Missouri, October 17, 1885

The Marlow Murder.

William Bachmann came to Jamestown, New York, from Toledo, Ohio, in August 1871, intent on purchasing some property and he told everyone he met that he was carrying $6,000 in cash. This was a mistake. Bachmann was last seen alive at a brewery owned by Charles Marlow and Marlow was quickly arrested for Bachmann’s murder. But prosecuting Marlow would prove difficult because there were no eye-witnesses to the crime, there was no identifiable body, and Marlow’s mother-in-law, under oath, confessed to murdering Bachmann.

The Brooklyn Wife Murder.

Little Murders

 

(From The National Police Gazette, November 10, 1883)
 

The Brooklyn Wife Murder.  

 

A Saloon Keeper, Prompted by the Green-Eyed Monster,
Kills his Better Half.

 

The shooting of Mrs. Thomas Young by her husband formerly a clerk in the Internal Revenue Department, and latterly a saloon keeper and politician, has created much excitement in the city of Brooklyn. The affair occurred on Tuesday, Oct. 23. Husband and wife had quarreled for some days, and on the 20th ult. Mrs. Young, who was a woman of great personal beauty, left the conjugal roof and went to live with her mother, Mrs. Mary Cole, at No. 95 Tompkins avenue. On the 23d Young called at this place and asked his wife to return to live with him. She refused emphatically. To his further entreaties she said,

“You have often threatened to kill me, and I know you intend to do it now. You have a pistol in your pocket, and you have come here to kill me.”

Young said he had no such intention, and denied that he had a pistol. He then appealed to his mother-in-law, and asked if he could not go into a private room with his wife, so that they could talk the matter over. If he could see her alone, Young said, he could induce her to return to his home. Both mother and daughter objected. Young again denied that he had any murderous intention, but even while he was speaking his wife saw him draw a pistol from his pocket. She ran from a back room on the first floor, where they had been talking, toward a front room, but before she could escape Young fired directly at her, the ball entering her abdomen.

James McCabe, who lives in the upper part of the house, ran down stairs when he heard the shot. Seeing Young with a pistol in his hand and Mrs. Young lying on the floor. McCabe knocked the husband down and took the pistol from his hand, and held him until the arrival of Roundsman O’Reilly, of the Thirteenth Precinct. After the pistol had been taken from his hand, Young got down on his knees and begged his wife to say that he had not intended to shoot her. Mrs. Young could not speak, but her mother said that no such statement could be made truthfully, because she had seen Young take deliberate aim at her daughter. On the following day the latter died and Young was held to await the action of the grand jury. Jealousy was the cause of his trouble with his wife.

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Reprinted from "The Brooklyn Wife Murder." National Police Gazette 10 Nov 1883.

Mabel Smith.

Little Murders:

From Defenders and Offenders:

Mabel Smith.

"This big mulatto is a wicked creature, who severed her grandmother’s head from her body with an axe, in order to effect her elopement with her white paramour, who called himself Thomas B. Hayward. After the deed, they skipped off together in a buggy. The old woman was opposed to the connection, and it was supposed the deed was done in a fit of anger while quarreling over the man. They were both captured a few hours after the deed."

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

Another "Bender Family."

In the 1870s the people of Kansas were outraged by the crimes of the Benders, a family of four who welcomed weary travelers then murdered and robbed them. The Benders managed to escape before their crimes were discovered and, by most accounts, they were never captured. When another family in Kansas, the Kellys, duplicated the Benders’ crimes in 1887, the people of Kansas were determined to make them pay.

Murderous Clergy.

In the nineteenth century men of the cloth were often looked upon with as much suspicion as respect. When a minister was accused of murder it would turn the community against him, especially if a woman was involved. Though often condemned in the court of public opinion, clergymen fared much better in a court of law. All of the religious leaders in in our list were acquitted (though one Sunday school superintendent was hanged.)

	Rev. Ephraim Kingsbury Avery - 1832 Rev. Ephraim Kingsbury Avery was accused of seducing and murdering Sarah Maria Cornell, but the two had a long, contentious history and the jury was convinced that Sarah killed herself and framed Rev. Avery.
	The Prophet Matthias - 1834 Robert Mathiews, aka the Prophet Matthias, was the leader of a religious cult and controlled all aspects of his followers’ lives. When co-founder Elija Pierson was found dead, the Prophet Mathias was accused of going too far. The jury disagreed.
	Rev. Henry Budge - 1859 When the wife of Rev. Henry Budge was found with her throat cut, suicide was suspected, but soon suspicion fell on the Reverend. Despite compelling evidence against him, Reverend Budge was acquitted.
	Rev. John S. Glendenning - 1874 Church organist Mary Pomeroy was seduced and abandoned by her pastor, Rev. John Glendenning. She died soon after giving birth to his child. Though not technically a murderer, Glendenning was tried by the Presbyterian Church who found him innocent of all charges.
	Rev. Herbert H. Hayden- 1886 Rev. Herbert Hayden was accused of stabbing and poisoning Mary Stannard, a young housekeeper employed by his wife. Many  believed that he had seduced and impregnated her. He denied it all and was released after a hung jury.
	Theo Durrant - 1895 Mild-mannered Theo Durrant was the superintendent of Sunday school at Emmanuel Baptist Church in San Francisco. But Theo had a dark side—he murdered and mutilated two young women, leaving their remains in the church. "The Demon of the Belfry" was convicted.