The Lambeth Poisoner

Between October 1891 and April 1892 a series of murders in London racked the city with a terror reminiscent of the fear surrounding Jack the Ripper’s murders, just three years earlier. Once again the victims were prostitutes but this time the method was poisoning. The killer was captured and identified as Dr. Thomas Neill Cream, who had already been convicted of murder by strychnine in the United States. In fact, if he had not been released early from Chicago’s Joliet Prison, four young London women would have been spared excruciating death.

The Virtual Dime Museum

The Glass Bridge
The story of the 1891 murder of Frieda Borchinsky and her five year old son Isaac. And of a haunted Brooklyn tenement.

The Man of Two Lives.

Edward H. Rulloff was considered by many to be a genius, a man of great intellect, ahead of his time, ready to revolutionize the study of philology. And just as many thought him a fraud and a conman. He was well versed in medicine, law, and language and an educator respected by his students. He was also a thief and a swindler who had trouble leaving a city without a run-in with the law. When an 1870 burglary in Binghamton, New York went bad, leaving three men dead, the public would face the paradox of the “Man of Two Lives.”

The Fatal Bowl of Soup

Book Review:

Arsenic and Clam Chowder: Murder in Gilded Age New York
by James D. Livingston

Newspaper accounts of New York City murders had always been sensational, grabbing the attention of nineteenth century readers far beyond the city limits. The 1896 murder of Evelina Bliss, related in the new book Arsenic and Clam Chowder: Murder in Gilded Age New York by James D. Livingston, is among Manhattan’s most spectacular. The bizarre circumstances surrounding Evelina’s death sparked a circulation war among New York’s newspapers, and found an audience across America.

The facts of the murder are straightforward. The afternoon of August 30, 1895, Mary Alice Livingston Fleming ordered a pail of clam chowder and a piece of lemon meringue pie from the Colonial Hotel where she and her children lived. She had her 10-year-old daughter Grace deliver the meal to her mother, Evelina Bliss, who lived a few blocks away. Somewhere between the kitchen of the Colonial Hotel and Evelina’s lips the chowder had acquired enough arsenic to kill her several times over. Mary Alice stood to gain financially by her mother’s death; she was arrested for murder soon after.

While matricide by chowder is interesting in itself, the fact that Mary Alice was a Livingston, one of New York’s oldest and most prominent families – well represented in “Mrs. Astor’s 400” – made the story front page news. Mary Alice had never married; a judge awarded her the right to use the name Fleming in a breach of promise suit against Henry Fleming, father of her first child. She was the mother of three illegitimate children (all with different fathers) and at the time of the murder was pregnant with a fourth who would be born in New York’s Tombs prison. The murder of Evelina Bliss and the loose morals of her daughter provided fodder for the burgeoning “yellow journalism” of William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal and Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World. Then, as now, nothing sold papers like scandals of the rich and famous.

The real drama in a case like this takes place in the courtroom and the trial of Mary Alice Fleming was considered one of the most sensational in New York’s history. Author James D. Livingston distills salient moments from a trial that lasted six weeks and pulls important testimony from a transcript that averaged 250 pages of stenographer’s notes a day. Livingston provides enough background information on the witnesses and attorneys to express the nuance behind the testimony. His aside on the effects and history of arsenic is fascinating and welcome information, contrasting the dry and prolonged chemical testimony in the trial itself, which literally put at least one juror to sleep. And he deftly maintains suspense as to the trial’s outcome until the verdict is read.

Arsenic and Clam Chowder is a great read, not just for murder buffs, but for anyone interested in the vibrant years that ended the 19th Century—a time that seems distant and foreign, yet somehow quite familiar. It also raises serious questions on the legal concept of “reasonable doubt”, and answers them with intelligence and candor. But fans of clam chowder beware; you may be less inclined to order your favorite soup after reading of Evelina’s demise.

Some aditional notes from Murder by Gaslight:
As distinctive as it was, the murder of Evelina Bliss is not the only case of poisoned soup at Murder by Gaslight. In 1831, Dr. William Chapman was poisoned by an arsenic laden bowl of chicken soup. It too was delivered to him by a 10-year-old girl. We may need to add a new category for soup murders.

Also, MBG has always tried to seek out and share any murder ballads associated with our posts. We have learned that James Livingston has rewritten the lyrics to "Who Threw the Overalls in Mrs. Murphy's Chowder?" to fit the murder of Evelina Bliss. It has been recorded by the History Singers and here is a link:
Who Put the Arsenic in Mrs. Bliss's Chowder?

Who was the first American serial killer?

Crime history 101: Who was the first American serial killer?

I’ve never understood the appeal of serial killers. Sure, there is the shock value of an individual taking remorseless pleasure in unspeakable acts. But shock value is not enough; a murder without a motive just isn't a story.

Though I am not a fan of serial killers, I am a fan of historical accuracy and apparently so is Dan Norder, Crime Historian for examiner.com. His post, Crime history 101: Who was the first American serial killer?, provides a sampling (admittedly incomplete) of American serial killers in reverse chronological order.

Though he lists Jack the Ripper as a possible American serial killer, like me Norder does not think any of the arguments asserting this are convincing. And his list easily debunks the myth that H. H. Holmes (1890s) was America’s first serial killer.

So, who was America’s first serial killer? Norder likes the Harpe brothers (1799).  Until something earlier turns up, so does Murder by Gaslight.

Jesse Pomeroy - "Boston Boy Fiend"

On December 22, 1871, four-year-old Billy Paine was found hanging by his wrists, half-naked, from the roof beam of a tumbledown privy on Powder Horn Hill in Chelsea, Massachusetts. His back was covered with welts from a whipping. Over the next nine months seven more children, none older than 8, were found tied and brutally tortured in Chelsea and South Boston. The assaults became increasingly vicious and in 1874 resulted in the deaths of a four-year-old boy and a ten-year-old girl. When the killer was proven to be fourteen-year-old Jesse Pomeroy, Massachusetts had to face two tough questions: could someone so brutal be considered sane? and if so, did the state have the will to execute the “boy fiend?”

The Prophet Matthias

From the outside, Mount Zion, near Sing Sing, New York, looked like any other well-ordered farmhouse in the summer of 1834. Inside, however, the residents of Mount Zion had little in common with their neighbors. They were a diverse group—from former slaves to prosperous businessmen—devotedly following The Prophet Mathias, self-proclaimed Spirit of Truth. Mathias ran the farm as an Old Testament patriarchy, controlling all aspects of his followers’ lives, from diet to sex partners. But did he also control whether they lived or died?

Lizzie Borden: Girl Detective

Lizzie Borden: Girl Detective


Finally someone qualified to solve the Whitechapel murders.

The Great Sheedy Murder Case.

The evening of January 11, 1891, John Sheedy stepped out of the front door of his Lincoln, Nebraska home and was attacked by a man charging from the shadows. Sheedy was struck three times in the side of the head with a leather-covered steel cane. A powerful but controversial man, John Sheedy owned an illegal gambling casino and had enemies on both sides of the law. But when it was learned that the assailant may have been paid by Sheedy’s wife who delivered the death blow herself by poisoning his coffee, the unfolding tale of adultery, miscegenation, conspiracy, extortion, and murder threatened to undermine the social decorum and moral order of Lincoln.

A Rash of Murders

There has been a rash of 19th Century American murder postings around the web recently.  Here is a samplng:

from Ephemeral New York
Grisly murders rock 19th century Staten Island

from History and Women
The Murder of Helen Jewett
(more on Helen Jewett)

from Nobody Move!
This Day in Crime History July 2 1881 - The Assassination of James A. Garfield
This Day in Crime History July 8 1898 - The murder of "Soapy" Smith

from The Bowery Boys
First officer Down: Highbinder riots at St Peter's Church

from JTR Forums
1885 Austin Texas Murders

from Clews
Before H.H. Holmes, there was...Harry Hayward
(more in Harry Hayward and H.H. Holmes)

The Richardson-McFarland Tragedy

On the afternoon of November 25, 1869 Daniel McFarland walked into the office of the New York Tribune and there shot and killed Albert Richardson, a Tribune editor. Richardson had planned to marry Daniel McFarland’s ex-wife, Abby Sage McFarland. The facts of the murder were irrefutable, but the trial that followed focused instead on the behavior of Abby McFarland. Was her adultery an attack on the sanctity of marriage that drove Daniel McFarland to murderous insanity? Or had she been justified in leaving a drunken, abusive husband, running to the safety of another man’s arms?

Poor Ellen Smith.

The morning of July 21, 1892, the body of Ellen Smith was found behind the Zinzendorf Hotel in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She had been shot through the heart. The story of Ellen Smith’s murder is a classic tale of seduction and betrayal. A beautiful but innocent young woman strays from the path of righteousness for a faithless lover who soon becomes her killer. It is the stuff of Victorian cautionary literature and mountain murder ballads.

Clan-na-Gael and the Murder of Dr. Cronin.

Dr. Patrick Henry Cronin was a prominent Chicago physician and a member of Clan-na-Gael an American political organization formed to promote Irish independence from British rule. Clan-na-Gael was very effective at raising large sums of money for the cause, but the money was administered in secret by three members of the Executive Board led by Chicago lawyer Alexander Sullivan. When Dr. Cronin criticized the board’s secrecy and accused them of embezzling funds he was denounced as a traitor and a British spy. When his accusations persisted, Sullivan marked him for death and on May 4, 1889 Dr. Cronin disappeared.

False Witness - The Lucy Pollard Murder

The brutal axe murder of Lucy Jane Pollard occurred in broad daylight, just outside her home in Lunenburg County, Virginia on June 14, 1895. Within four days the constable had arrested four suspects— three women and a man, all African American. By July 20 all four had been convicted of first degree murder. But as it became increasingly obvious that the male suspect had lied in all four trials, the fight to save the women became all-out war, pitting white against black, city against country, and simple truth against Southern honor.

Date: June 14, 1895

Location: Lunenburg County, Virginia

Victim: Lucy Jane Pollard

Cause of Death: Blows from an axe

Accused: Mary Abernathy, Mary Barnes, Pokey Barnes, William Henry "Solomon" Marable

Synopsis:

Edward Pollard married Lucy Jane Fowlkes in 1882; he was 60 and she was 44. He had been married twice before, each time to his financial betterment and by the time his second wife died Edward was a successful tobacco farmer with substantial land holdings. His marriage to Lucy Jane, from a planter family, augmented Edward’s social standing.

In 1895 Edward Pollard was 73 years old and had become a bit cantankerous, constantly involved in disputes with his neighbors over property and right of way. He had also become a money lender. It was well known in Lunenburg County the Pollards kept large amounts of cash in their house.

The afternoon of June 14, 1895, Edward came in from the field and found his wife’s body lying on the ground just outside the backdoor of the house. Her head had been gashed by several blows from a meat axe that the Pollards kept outside the house. The motive had been robbery; more than $800 in cash had been taken from the house, along with some of Lucy’s dresses and bed linen.

The Constable, the Justice of the Peace, and a private citizen named Cass Gregory began the investigation, questioning neighbors and farmhands well into the night.  Mary Abernathy, a black farmhand and tenant of the Pollards had been the last person to see Lucy alive. Twenty four hours after the murder, Mary Abernathy was arrested. Pokey Barnes, also black, was arrested next. She was a neighbor of the Pollards and was seen near the Pollard’s house that day. By the end of the second day four more black women were arrested, including Pokey Barnes’s mother, Mary Barnes.

The authorities were looking for one more suspect, William Henry Marable, a black sawmill hand, who went by the name Solomon. In Chase City, Virginia, not far from the murder scene, Solomon Marable had paid a fifty cent restaurant tab with a twenty dollar bill—equivalent to using a hundred dollar bill today to buy breakfast. The waitress noticed that he had another twenty as well. Marable became a murder suspect and was arrested on Tuesday, June 18.

Solomon Marable claimed he saw Mary Barnes, Pokey Barnes, and Mary Abernathy the day of the murder and they told him “they had something good in store.” Later he saw Pokey Barnes and Mary Abernathy with their clothes and hands covered in blood. Mary Abernathy gave him $20 and told him to say nothing about it. He did not learn about the murder until the following day. The three women Solomon mentioned—referred to as the Lunenburg Women—were held, the rest were released. Lynching was a very real threat to the prisoners and it was felt they would not be safe in the Lunenburg jail. They were taken, under heavy guard to Petersburg, more than a day’s ride away.


Trials: July 1895
            March 1896

The prisoners were returned to Lunenburg jail on July 11 escorted by two companies of the state militia who would remain in to keep order in the village of Lunenburg until all four were tried. The trials were held in quick succession starting with Solomon Marable’s on July 13. Virginia at the time had no formal system of public defenders and though the judge tried to get Marable a lawyer, no one was willing to take the case. Solomon Marable sat alone, acting in his own defense.

The evidence against him was circumstantial, but Marable damned himself when he said on the stand that he held Mrs. Pollard’s hands while Pokey Barnes hit her with a stick and Mary Abernathy hit her with the axe. The jury deliberated for nine minutes then returned a verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree.

The Lunenburg Women were also tried without the benefit of counsel. With no legal knowledge they could do little but tell their story and throw themselves on the mercy of the court. Only Pokey Barnes was able to mount a significant defense—she was able to provide a believable alibi. But all three were found guilty. May Abernathy and Pokey Barnes were found guilty of first degree murder and sentenced to hang, Mary Barnes, to the prosecutors dismay, was found guilty of second degree murder and sentenced to ten years in the penitentiary.

Solomon Marable testified at all of the trials but his story changed each time he told it. In his original story he said he had no knowledge of the murder but at his trial he said he had been directly involved. At the trial of Mary Abernathy he claimed she had told him a week before the murder that the three women were planning to rob and kill Mrs. Pollard. At Pokey Barnes trial he dropped a new bombshell claiming that a white man had forced him at gunpoint to help him kill Mrs. Pollard. The man then asked if Solomon knew anyone in the area and Marable said Pokey Barnes, Mary Barnes and Mary Abernathy. The white man told him to blame them for the murder. When Solomon was challenged by the prosecution, Solomon Marable sat silent for nearly ten minutes then said “Mary Abernathy got possession of the money.”

By now the case was famous throughout Virginia; the Richmond press had followed it closely, and the state militiamen brought home stories of Solomon Marable’s erratic testimony. At this point the cause of the Lunenburg Women was taken up by John R. Mitchell Jr., editor of the Richmond Planet a prominent African American weekly newspaper. The Richmond Planet, with the help of contributions from its readers and from citizens and civic groups, both black and white, from all over Virginia, was able to mount an appeal on behalf of Solomon Marable and the women. They hired an impressive team of attorneys led by former Congressman George Douglas Wise.

The Richmond Times, a mainstream daily, also took up the cause, saying that these women…

“have had no trial, and if they are to be judicially murdered under the present program, the life of none of us is safe.”

The Richmond Dispatch took the opposite point of view coming perilously close to advocating lynching the prisoners to protect family and property.

The first hurdle for the new defense lawyers was finding grounds for appeal. The defendants, all acting as their own attorneys, had neglected to file exceptions that would be grounds for appeal –an act that would be second nature to a losing attorney. Wise and his team, examining the record, found something they could work with. When a court adjourned in midtrial the judge was required to charge a sworn officer to keep the jury together and to keep them away from outsiders. And the judge’s charge had to be part of the written record. This was not done in any of the cases.

The citizens Lunenburg took the appeal as a grievous insult. They were appalled that anyone could accuse a Lunenburg trial of being anything less than fair and they hired their own team of attorneys including future governor of Virginia, William Hodges Mann. Mann realized that the opposition had a strong case and tried to file a nunc pro tunc order—literally “now for then”—to add language to the record that should have been there all along. The order was denied and the appeals court granted each defendant a new trial.

The defense attorneys moved for a change of venue which was granted. Mary Barnes refused the new trial, fearing her next verdict would be worse than ten years in prison, but the rest would be retried in the town and Farmville in Prince Edward County. Solomon Marable’s case was heard first and after two days of testimony and eighteen minutes of deliberation he was again found guilty of first degree murder. Mary Abernathy’s case was harder fought and her trial lasted longer than all four of the original trials put together, but in the end the jury deliberated only five minutes before returning a verdict of guilty of first degree murder.

The trial of Pokey Barnes appeared to be following the same course but after the prosecution rested, Prince Edward County prosecutor Asa Watkins spoke for the first time. Up to this point Watkins had yielded the prosecution to William Mann and the Lunenburg team but now he was taking back control. He had listened to prosecution’s evidence…

“And now that all the evidence in the possession of the Commonwealth has been given in, I cannot believe that it is sufficient to justify the jury brining in a verdict of guilty. I have reached this conclusion without consultation with anyone.”

Watkins filed a nolle prosequi motion, dropping the charges. The motion was allowed and Pokey was released.

Mary Abernathy’s new verdict was appealed and the appeal succeeded allowing her another trial. This time the commonwealth dropped the charges and Mary Abernathy was free.

Mary Barnes was then pardoned by Virginia Governor Charles T. O’Ferrall based on the unreliability of Solomon Marable’s testimony, saying:

“The life or liberty of a citizen, however humble, is too sacred in the eyes of civilized man to be taken upon the testimony alone of a self-convicted perjurer and murderer…Every mandate of justice and dictate of conscience require that the prisoner be restored to her liberty.

Verdict: First trials: Solomon Marable, Mary Abernathy, Pokey Barnes-Guilty of first degree murder
              Second trials: Solomon Marable - Guilty of first degree murder
                                   Mary Abernathy - Guilty of first degree - reversed on appeal
                                   Pokey Barnes - nolle prosequi

Aftermath:
Solomon Marable, now seriously worried about the afterlife was converted to Catholicism by Father Weblers, a white priest who headed Richmond’s only black Catholic church. He had also refined his “white man” story, and now said it was David Thompson, a storekeeper in the town of Finneywood, who had involved him at gunpoint in the murder that Thompson committed. But Thompson had an alibi; he was with four other businessmen who would testify to that. Unlike his earlier stories, Marable stuck with this one over multiple tellings and was still telling it on the day of his execution.

Solomon Marable was hanged inside the Prince Edward County jail on the morning of July 3, 1896. He had converted back to Baptist, partially because Father Weblers did not believe his “white man story” and pressured him to confess. Solomon stuck to his story to the end.

The story Solomon Marable first told, implicating the women, was repeated at least eight times and was different each time he told it. The second story, where a white man forced him to help with the murder, was told and recorded nine times, each time the same. It has been theorized that Marable was confused about the identity of the white man and that the killer had actually been Herbert Thompson, David Thompson’s brother. Both of the Thompsons were deeply in debt and had a motive for the robbery. Herbert Thompson had a history of violence and, if Marable’s story was true, he  may have been white man who had forced Solomon Marable, at gunpoint, to assist in the murder.

There is little question that Solomon Marable was at least an accessory in the murder of Lucy Pollard, but it was never determined who actually killed her. The stolen money was never recovered.

Sources:

Websites:

Suzanne Lebsock

Books:

Lebsock, Suzanne. A Murder in Virginia: Southern Justice on Trial. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2004.

Trotti, Michael Ayers. The Body in the Reservoir: Murder and Sensationalism in the South. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2008

Albany Gothic

Cherry Hill, the stately mansion overlooking the Hudson River near Albany, New York, was already forty years old in 1827 when it sheltered a vibrant household of 17 people. They were aristocrats mostly, scions of the Van Rensselaer and Lansing families. And there was John Whipple, the young upstart who had married Elsie Lansing, the erratic niece of Catherine Van Rensselaer. At least five servants, including itinerant workman, Jesse Strang, were living in the basement rooms. Domestic tranquility at Cherry Hill would be disrupted forever when Elsie and Jesse failed to observe the distinction between upstairs and downstairs.

YesterYear Once More

Recommended:

YesterYear Once More is a great American history blog that returns to those thrilling days through newspaper clippings and period artwork. They have a number of regular features such as Tragic Tuesday, Horse Thief Thursday, and, of course the favorite around here, Bloody Murder Monday. This Monday’s post is:


Brutal Blute Kicks His Wife to Death

It is the story of the 1886 murder of Margaret Blute by her husband John in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, told entirely with newspaper reports from the time. To quote Mr. Blute, “This is a bad piece of business.”

Jubilee Jim

Jubilee Jim Fisk was the consummate Gilded Age robber baron. Together with his partner Jay Gould, Fisk managed to wrest the Erie Railroad from Cornelius Vanderbilt, and by attempting to corner the gold market triggered the 1869 financial panic known as “Black Friday.” But unlike his dour partner, Jim Fisk lived a personal life as large and extravagant as his business dealings. Everything he had or did had to be the biggest and best, so when he cheated on his wife it was with the most beautiful woman in America. When that relationship turned scandalous, it was an epic scandal filled with blackmail, courtroom drama, and finally murder.

The Blue Eyed Six

It was a foolproof plan. Six men in Lebanon County Pennsylvania bought insurance policies on the life of Joseph Raber, an elderly recluse living in a hut in the Blue Mountains. They were sure Raber would die soon and end their financial problems. But the premiums proved costly and the men grew tired of waiting for Raber to die. In July 1878 they decided to take matters into their own hands. Their plot was common knowledge in Lebanon County and it was not long before all six were arrested for murder. The conspirators had a number of common characteristics–all six men were illiterate, all six were living in poverty, all six were of low moral character— but one trait captured the public’s imagination – all six had blue eyes.

The Minneapolis Svengali.

Harry Hayward was a handsome young playboy from a wealthy Minneapolis family. An inveterate gambler, he would finance his habit through theft, insurance fraud and counterfeit currency. And he was thought to have hypnotic powers. He persuaded Catherine Ging to make him beneficiary on a life insurance policy, then, on December 3, 1894, he lured her to a meeting with Claus Blixt – also acting under Hayward’s spell. As Catherine Ging was being murdered, Harry Hayward sat in a Minneapolis theatre watching a play with another woman. When the sordid details were learned, the press dubbed Hayward “The Minneapolis Svengali.”

The Knoxville Girl

Mary Lula Noel’s sister and brother-in-law were not afraid to leave Mary alone with her boyfriend William Simmons. They were going across Elk River to meet Mary’s parents and they knew Mary would soon follow, after William caught the train to Joplin, Missouri. But the river rose that afternoon, becoming uncrossable, and Mary did not meet her relatives. A week later her strangled and battered body was found floating in Elk River. The brutal murder was memorialized by an equally brutal folk ballad, "The Knoxville girl;" an American song with very deep English roots.