Butchered and Burned.

National Police Gazette, January 28, 1882

Mrs. J.W. Gibbons was away from her home in Ashland, Kentucky, on December 23, 1881. She left behind her 18-year-old son Robert, her 14-year-old daughter Fannie, and 17-year-old Emma Thomas (aka Carico), who was staying with them. Mrs. Gibbons returned the following day to find her home burned to the ground and all three inhabitants dead.

Read the full story here: The Ashland Outrage.

Frederick F. Streeter.

About half past three, the morning of July 2, 1863, a young man on his way to work in Medina, Ohio, saw the home of Shubal Coy in flames. He alerted the neighbors, who came out to douse the flames with water. When the fire was under control, they went inside to look for the Coy family. They found Shubal lying in bed with nine stab wounds in his throat and breast, any one of them capable of producing death. His wife lay on the floor, with her throat cut. She had fought with her attacker and had twenty-four cuts on her head and body. Their seven-year-old son Ferdinand lay in bed with his throat cut. Mercifully, it appeared he was murdered in his sleep.

Medford's Murder Mystery.

(Boston Post, March 29, 1897,)

Walter R. Debbins was shot twice in the back, in broad daylight, on Highland Street in Medford, Massachusetts, on the afternoon of Saturday, March 27, 1897. Though no one saw the murder or heard the gunshots, there was enough traffic on Highland Street that afternoon for the police to precisely pinpoint the time of the shooting to between 1:00 and 1:05. But that was all they could pinpoint; everything else about the crime was shrouded in mystery that grew more dense with each new revelation.

 

Read the full story here: The Medford Mystery.

Sororcide.

The Murder of Lizzie Anderson

Josie Fay was standing at the corner of Bowker and Sudbury Streets in Boston’s West End, on the evening of January 19, 1880. Stella Vannell approached her and asked if she had seen Ida King. Josie pointed down Bowker Street, where Ida stood talking with a young man named Michael Tolan. Stella walked up to the couple, called out to Ida, and began making disparaging remarks about Tolan. The women exchanged angry words, and the argument escalated until, in a flash, Stella drew a large clasp-knife and plunged it into Ida’s breast. Both women were drunk at the time of the incident, and both were using assumed names. In fact, they were sisters, Maggie and Lizzie Anderson.

Harry and Catherine.

 

Harry and Catherine.
(Harry Hayward: Life, crimes, dying confession and execution of the Celebrated Minneapolis Criminal.)

Harry Hayward was a handsome young conman from a wealthy Minneapolis family. He persuaded Catherine Ging to make him beneficiary on a life insurance policy, then, on December 3, 1894, he lured her to her death. 

Read the full story here: The Minneapolis Svengali.

A Murder on Ice.

A group of young boys from Lambertville, New Jersey, went skating on Island Creek on December 15, 1880. They brought their lunches and, when they sat down to eat, they built a fire on the ice to keep warm. John Pierman, an older boy (age reported variously as 15, 16, or 18) with another group, came upon them and started kicking the burning wood around the ice. Theodore Parker, aged 13 or 14, told Pierman to stop. An argument ensued and words led to blows. When Parker struck Pierman in the face, breaking his pipe, Pierman pulled out a knife and plunged it into Parker’s left breast, piercing his heart.

Clara and Daniel.

 

("On Trial for Murder," Daily Inter Ocean, November 27, 1895.)

During a time of conflict between the Shanks family and the Keller family in rural Indiana, the body of 18-year-old Clara Shanks was found floating in Wolf Creek. Circumstantial evidence pointed to Daniel Keller, who had a clandestine romance with Clara.

Read the full story here: The Wolf Creek Tragedy.

So far From Home: The Pearl Bryan Murder.

 So far From Home: The Pearl Bryan Murder - Amazon, Audible.

Who Killed Carrie Farrel?

Mrs. Carrie Farrel left her home in Sibley, Iowa, at 7:00 a.m. on May 6, 1889. She went on horseback to visit her parents, who lived about two miles away. When she didn’t return that night, her husband thought nothing strange of her absence. It was not unusual for Carrie to spend the night with her parents. But when her horse returned home riderless the following morning, her husband became alarmed and began searching for her.

James and Sarah Jane.

 

James E. Eldredge and Sarah Jane Gould.
(The Trial of James E Eldredge )

James E. Eldredge left his home in Canton, New York in the spring of 1856. He returned six months later with a new name and a duplicitous personality to match. All those around him soon learned to distrust anything the young man said—all except his fiancé, Sarah Jane Gould. She remained trusting to the end, when Eldredge poisoned Sarah Jane to pursue her younger sister.

Read the full story here: James E. Eldredge.

Asked His Wife to Shoot Him.

Lourens Signourette and his wife lived near Foster’s Bar, a remote camp in the Yubas Foot Hills in California. Lourens had been ailing for quite a while, and on December 1, 1891, he decided to end his life by taking strychnine. The poison did not have the immediate effect that he wanted, so he asked his wife to get his shotgun and shoot him.

The Late Mr. Benjamin Nathan.

Harper's Weekly, August 20, 1870.

Benjamin Nathan, a wealthy stockbroker and philanthropist, was found brutally beaten to death in his Manhattan home the morning of July 29, 1870. Some jewelry and a small amount of cash were stolen, and the police were quick to rule the incident a burglary gone bad. But if so, how and when did the burglars enter? And how could four others staying in the house sleep through the violent attack? In fact, the Nathan murder looked more like a classic locked-room mystery—a mystery that remains unsolved.

Read the full story here:

Who Killed Benjamin Nathan?

The Crosby Street Murder.

At around 6:30, the morning of February 4, 1877, the residents of Crosby Street in New York City were alarmed by a woman’s shriek. Many were preparing for church that Sunday morning, and from their windows, they watched the woman, barefoot, wearing just a skirt and a thin chemise, run across the street, pursued by a man wielding what appeared to be a long iron spike. She ran to the house at 52 Crosby Street, screaming, “Open the door; for the blessed Virgin’s sake, open the door.”

Frank and Christie.

Frank Almy and Christie Warden.
(Life, Trial, and Confession of Frank C. Almy, Laconia, N.H.: J.J. Lane, 1891.)

While working as a farmhand in Hanover, New Hampshire, career criminal Frank Almy (aka George Abbott) fell in love with the farmer’s daughter, Christie Warden. When Christie did not return his love Abbot went back to his old ways and took it at gunpoint in the shady hollow known as the Vale of Tempe.

Read the full story here: Murder in the Vale of Tempe.

Murderous Christmas Celebrations.

Murder never pauses for Christmas; it is all too often an unwelcome guest at Yuletide parties.

Here are a few murderous nineteenth-century American Christmas "celebrations." 

	Two Shots, a Shriek. “A dark, mean little bedroom, a woman, half-undressed, dirty and pale, and blear-eyed from long excesses, a male companion, leaning over her with a revolver at her head, two shots, a shriek, an ugly hole under the ear, and the vice and crime of Boston had added another murder to its long score.”  - The Boston Herald’s vivid description of the murder of Josephine Brown on Christmas Eve, 1891.
	It was Santa Claus' Fault. On Christmas Eve, 1889, chaos ensued at a  Shawneetown, Illinois, Christmas party, when the tags fell off some of the presents and were replaced haphazardly.  The room erupted into a free fight with chairs, clubs, knives, and pistols. it looked as though several combatants would be killed, but none of the wounds proved fatal. A Christmas miracle.
	Mrs. Southern's Sad Case. At a Pickens County, Georgia Christmas party in 1876, Kate Southern warned her husband not to dance with his mistress, Narcissa Cowan, and she warned Narcissa to stay away from her husband. When they danced together anyway Kate borrowed her father's pocketknife and plunged it into Narcissa's chest.
	That Bad Man Stagolee. Troubadours have sung the story of Stagolee for over a hundred years. Each singer seems to know a different version and tell a different story of its origin. But the story is true. The legend was born when Stack Lee Shelton shot Billy Lyons, in a fight over a Stetson hat, in Bill Curtis's Saloon, on Christmas night 1895.
	Delia's Gone, One More Round. On Christmas Eve 1900, Cooney Houston shot and killed Delia Green. If that isn’t tragic enough, they were both 14 years old. Their sad story would have been long forgotten, even in Yamacraw – the black neighborhood in the western end of Savannah, Georgia, where the killing took place – if it hadn’t been for a song. The ballad of Delia’s murder traveled from Georgia to the Bahamas, then back to the States during the folk boom of the 1950s.

The Just End of a Monster of Iniquity.

 

Dr. Thomas Neill Cream, “The Lambeth Poisoner” and possible Jack the Ripper suspect, was hanged at Newgate Prison in London on November 15, 1892. Dr. Cream 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. 

Read the full story here:  The Lambeth Poisoner.

The Knife in Boston.

On the afternoon of November 27, 1874, Aaron P Barnes went, with his business assistant, John W. Ganie, to a lodging house Barnes owned on Gouch Street in Boston. One of the lodgers had left, and they wanted to ensure the room was ready for the next tenant. They went upstairs and found three young ruffians, somewhat intoxicated, lounging in the furnished but otherwise vacated room.

The men, Richard Nealon, James McCall, and George Watson (alias Jeremiah Cummings), appeared ready for a permanent stay. Barnes told them to leave, and they refused. An argument ensued.

McCall stepped up and said, “Shut your mouth; I’ll shoot you.”

Adolph and Lizzie.

(National Police Gazette, November 20, 1881.)

After less than two years of marriage in Iowa City, Iowa, Lizzie Stein filed for divorce from her husband, Adolph. She was tired of Adolph’s abuse, but he said that he would not live without Lizzie. When the divorce became final, on November 4, 1881, Adolph slashed and stabbed Lizzie, then he poisoned himself with belladonna.

 “The horror of the deed threw a chill over the entire city, and the remembrance of it will not pass away for many years,” said the Chicago Tribune.

Read the full story here: A Day of Blood.

So Far from Home.

The Pearl Bryan Murder

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Killed her Pretty Rival.

Henry Provenchia (sometimes spelled “Provencher”) met Lizzie Hutchins in 1890 at a dance in Somersworth, New Hampshire. Three weeks later, they were married. He was 19, she was 15. They were happy for a while, but Lizzie had an ugly temper, and when stirred up, she became physically abusive. Henry said that once, “he saw stars when she biffed him on the nose.”

After Lizzie gave birth to a son, she started drinking heavily. Her temper became worse, and the couple frequently quarreled. In 1897, they realized they could no longer agree and decided to separate.  Henry took the boy and moved to Rochester, New Hampshire, and Lizzie stayed in Somersworth.

In Rochester, Henry hired 18-year-old Annie Cox as his housekeeper, and their relationship blossomed into romance.  Lizzie’s mother, Sadie Fuse, also lived in Rochester, and she could see Annie Cox as she came and went from Henry’s house. She relayed this news to Lizzie, who became consumed with jealousy.