MFDJ 07/20/26: John Phillips Potter’s Fatal Mistake

Today’s Bacteria-Riddled Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

Anatomist John Phillips Potter entered the dissection room at London’s University College Hospital on April 22, 1847 to anatomize the body of the circus performer and dwarf Harvey Leach, known by many in London as the “Gnome Fly” due to his propensity to flit around the stage like a winged insect.


John Phillips Potter

Leach, who was often billed as the “shortest man in the world,” had made a name for himself as a performing oddity. In addition to his small stature, one of his legs was eighteen inches long while the other measured twenty-four inches, and when he walked, his arms brushed against the ground like an ape’s. According to one of his contemporaries, Leach appeared “like a head and trunk, moving about on castors.”

Leach’s strange appearance eventually attracted the attention of the American showman and hoaxer P. T. Barnum, founder of the Barnum & Bailey Circus. Barnum dressed the dwarf in the skin of a wild beast and covered the walls of London with placards that read “What Is It?” Unbeknownst to Barnum, Leach was so recognizable at that point in his career that people guessed the true identity of his mysterious “beast” within days. Despite this initial bungle, Barnum retained Leach as a performer, until the forty-six-year-old man died as the result of an injured hip that had become infected. At a time when people went to great lengths to ensure their bodies remained intact after death, Leach allegedly stipulated that his be handed over to those who were most likely to cut him up. According to an Australian newspaper, Leach requested that his corpse “be presented to Dr. Liston, the eminent surgeon, not to be buried, but embalmed and kept in a glass case, as the doctor had been a particular friend to him.” Another newspaper in Britain said that Leach had “bequeathed his body over to his most intimate friend and companion, Mr. Potter,” which seems more likely given the fact that it was Potter who ultimately performed the dissection. Whatever the circumstances under which his body was obtained, and whatever his actual wishes might have been, an anatomization of Leach went ahead.


Barnum’s flyer.

Potter, who had just proven himself to be a lively, brilliant, and excellent teacher, had just that week been appointed assistant surgeon at University College Hospital. It was said that his kindness and zeal in his previous role as demonstrator of anatomy had made him popular with faculty and students alike, and Lister was among his admirers. As Potter cut into Leach’s stiff body, he noted: “It seems as though the thigh-bones and muscles had disappeared, and the knee-joints been raised up to the hips.” According to Potter, in place of a normal structure, Leach appeared to have “an immensely strong bone of triangular form, with the base upwards… knit to the hip with very strong ligaments.” Potter reckoned it was because of this that the famous circus performer could jump ten feet into the air.


Potter’s illustration of Leach’s skeleton.

Potter carefully sliced his way deeper into the corpse, pausing to make meticulous notes as he did so. Suddenly his lancet slipped, causing him to puncture the knuckle of his forefinger. Unaware of the precarious situation he now found himself in, Porter continued with the anatomization. Days later, the young surgeon began to develop pyemia, a form of septicemia that results in the development of widespread abscesses all over the body—a condition doubtless brought on by  his exposure to Leach’s bacteria-riddled corpse. The infection traveled up his arm, eventually spreading all over his body. Over the next three weeks, five doctors—including Robert Liston—attended Potter’s bedside, purportedly draining three pints of pus from his sacral region and an additional two pints from his chest, before the young man finally died. The official report concluded that had Potter eaten breakfast before rushing into the dissection room, he might have lived, because a full stomach would have aided the absorption of the toxic substances that had entered his body when dissecting Leach. In an era that knew nothing of germs, this explanation seems entirely possible.

Two hundred mourners followed Potter’s coffin into the sprawling expanse of London’s Kensal Green Cemetery for his funeral, turning out to pay their respects to the man who had shown so much promise in his short career. The Lancet later lamented that it was “a most melancholy and disheartening instance of brilliant talent and promise blighted in the blood.”


Potter’s grave – photo by David Bingham

Culled from: The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister’s Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine by Lindsey Fitzharris

 

Dermochrome Du Jour!

Wax model from the book Dermochromes – III (1910):


Eczema chronicum infantum (Crusta lactea)

The localization and nature of the causal factors have a marked influence on the clinical character and course of the various forms of eczema. When localized, as it so frequently is, on the face, different types are observed; that known as Crusta lactea in children occurs chiefly on the cheeks, forehead and ears, but also on the hairy scalp, in which grayish-yellow and brown or even bloody scabs are present, along with numerous weeping, scratched surfaces. Swelling of the neighboring lymphatic glands is usually present.

 

Garretdom: Fiendish Woman Du Jour!

Here’s another in the series of newspaper articles entitled, “A Fiendish Woman.”  This one is culled from the November 30, 1876 issue of the Catoctin Clarion of Mechanicstown, Maryland:

A FIENDISH WOMAN.—A stepmother at Lewistown, Maine, because her step daughter was in the habit of biting her finger nails, ordered her to wear gloves to school. One day the child returned without the gloves on, whereupon the mother, after beating her put the gloves on her hand and sewed them on through the loose flesh of the child’s wrists. The child’s aunt hearing of the matter, had the woman arrested and put upper bonds.

Fiendishness Count:
Sulfuric Acid – 1
Molten Lead – 1
Razor – 1
Broken Neck – 1

MFDJ 07/19/26: Buried Alive in a Plague Pit

Today’s Negligent Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

In England, during the 1604 and 1665 plague epidemics, persons believed to be profiting from the disease incurred much hatred and distrust, and doctors as well as keepers of the sick were accused of killing people or deliberately burying them alive. In the 1665 epidemic, a butcher in Newgate Market thought to be dead was not taken away from his room, because of the negligence of the corpse bearers. He returned to life during the night, came downstairs, and complained to a little girl that he felt cold. Another story tells of a poor simpleton piper who had passed out in the street after having had too much to drink in a public house. When the corpse cart came by to pick up a corpse from the house next door, the men threw the piper’s lifeless body onto the cart as well, believing him to be yet another plague corpse. One version of the tale has the piper making his resurrection known by playing his instrument! Daniel Defoe spoke to the man who drove the cart, however, and found out the truth. The unconscious piper, buried under a heap of corpses, had suddenly shouted, “Hey! Where am I?,” when the cart was unloaded at the Mount Mill plague pit. The men were frightened, believing that he was a ghost, but one of them said, “Why, you are in the dead-cart, and we are going to bury you!” The simple piper replied, “But I ain’t dead though, am I?” which made them laugh. The poet William Austin spoke for many when he wrote,

Wisely they leave graves open for the dead
‘Cause some too early are brought to bed.

One out of trance return’d, after much strike,
Among a heap of dead, exclaims for life.
One finding himself as some maid hard lace’t,
Or as a watch for pocket , straightly case’t,
Equaly terrif’d with pain and fear,
Complains to those can neither speak nor hear.

Culled from: Buried Alive: The Terrifying History of Our Most Primal Fear by Jan Bondeson

 

Suicide Du Jour!

One of my favorite books is Death Scenes: A Homicide Detective’s Scrapbook.  It is exactly what it says it is: a bizarre and oft-disturbing scrapbook collected over the years by Los Angeles area police detective Jack Huddleston, whose career spanned from 1921 to the early 1950’s. Here’s a famous entry:


PAUL BERN JEAN HARLOW. HUSBAND.
SUICIDE. “GUN”?

Wikipedia tells the story:

Paul Bern (born Paul Levy; December 3, 1889 – September 5, 1932) was a German-born American film director, screenwriter and producer for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), where he became the assistant to producer Irving Thalberg. He helped launch the career of Jean Harlow, whom he married in July 1932; two months later, he was found dead of a gunshot wound, leaving what appeared to be a suicide note. Various alternative theories of his death have been proposed. MGM writer and film producer Samuel Marx believed that he was killed by his ex-common-law wife Dorothy Millette, who jumped to her death from a ferry two days afterward.

Two months after marrying Harlow, on September 5, 1932, Bern was found dead from a gunshot wound to the head in their home on Easton Drive in Beverly Hills, California. The coroner ruled Bern’s death a suicide.

Police discovered a note at the scene that read as follows:

“Dearest Dear,
Unfortuately [sic] this is the only way to make good the frightful wrong I have done you and to wipe out my abject humiliation, I Love you.
Paul
You understand that last night was only a comedy”

Authorities viewed this as a suicide note signed by Bern.   To the police, and before a grand jury, Harlow’s only statement was that she “knew nothing.”  She was made an executor of her husband’s estate by Judge May Darlington Lahey. She never publicly spoke on the matter, and later died of renal failure (caused by a childhood bout of scarlet fever) in June 1937 at the age of 26.

Garretdom: Fiendish Woman Du Jour!

Here’s another in the series of newspaper articles entitled, “A Fiendish Woman.”  This one comes from the November 7, 1873 issue of The Chicago Evening Mail.

A FIENDISH WOMAN.

She Assassinated the Wife of Her Paramour—An Atrocious Crime.

From the Detroit Free Press, Nov. 4.

On Tuesday last a man named Lyman Arnold, a business man at Avoka, Steuben County, N.Y., left the town without informing his wife or friends of his departure, and before night it was discovered that he had forged notes and checks to the amount of $900, and obtained the cash on them. He was the husband of a very estimable woman, his second wife, and is the father of four or five children. From some words he let drop the day before it was thought that he had started for Detroit, and a telegraph was sent here. The Chief of Police gave the case to Detective Bishop, and the detective began working it up. After sending the telegram, the route taken by Arnold was more exactly ascertained, and Deputy Sheriff E. B. Higgins, of Avoka, started on the trail. He was fortunate to find the forger at Niagara Falls, just as he was preparing to come West, and he took him back to Avoka, arriving there Thursday to find that a cold-blooded and fiendish murder had been committed during his absence. Living in the village was a young woman named Emeline Tower, who had once worked for Arnold as a domestic. There was talk that the two were more intimate than they should have been, and the village gossip had created unpleasantness in Arnold’s family, so that Miss Tower did not visit the house, and was not on speaking terms with Mrs. Arnold. There was, however, no suspicion of a separation between man and wife, or of the horrible crime to grow out of the scandal. Arnold was supposed to be an honest man, and there were those who took his side and defended him.

Wednesday night about midnight Mrs. Arnold, who was sleeping alone, was aroused by having a bullet sent into her head, which passed out of her mouth. She had been sleeping soundly, and the first intimation of danger was the bullet in her face. As she sprang up the person in the room fired two more shots, both taking effect in Mrs. Arnold’s body, and both producing fatal wounds. There was no light in the room, but in the darkness Mrs. Arnold heard the rustle of a dress and discovered a female figure. As soon as the wife fell back dying this figure fled. It was some time before any of the children came down stairs, they having been chloroformed, as was afterward ascertained. They aroused the neighbors at once, and the dying woman made her statement about the female figure, though at the time it was thought she was out of her mind and was speaking at random. It was found that the person who committed the deed had effected entrance by climbing up on the summer kitchen and then raising one of the chamber windows of the house. Miss Tower knew of this route, but no one else outside of the family. Thursday morning, after the murder had become known throughout the village, and after she had discussed the affair in common with others, Miss Tower took the cars for Detroit. This circumstance in connection with the hint dropped by Arnold that he was coming this way, led to the belief that the two were connected with the murder, and were going off together. Another telegram arrived asking that the woman be watched. She arrived here Saturday morning, and registered herself at the Cass House under the name of Mrs. Hunt. The same morning a trunk belonging to Arnold arrived by express, marked “Mrs. L. Hunt, Cass Hotel, Detroit,” indicating that the pair had arranged their plans together, and were to meet here.

Arnold, of course, did not reach here, being under arrest. The woman waited until Saturday, and then, perhaps thinking that he had been captured, she took the train to Dexter, and from there drove out to her uncle’s, seven miles north, in the Township of Lindon. Bishop had kept track of her movements, and, when Sheriff Higgins arrived here Saturday night, the detective was ready to go with him. Sunday they went to Dexter, and then, procuring a carriage, drove to Lindon, reaching the house where Miss Tower was stopping two hours after the family had retired. She was called up and arrested, but was the least excited of the three, bearing herself coolly, and not even exhibiting any curiosity to know the charge against her. In her trunk was found a revolver with three empty chambers, and the ball brought along by the Sheriff from the scene of the murder was an exact fit for the weapon. Further than this, she had a bottle partly filled with chloroform. On her way into the city she was informed of the murder and the arrest of Arnold, but she had few questions to ask, no excuses to offer for her conduct, and up to yesterday noon, when she started for New York, she had not shed a tear.

The woman is 26 years of age, of medium height, and quite handsome. One to look at her or to study her face would never dream that she had the heart of a fiend. The Sheriff is positive that she is the midnight stranger who did the shooting.

The Saturday night previous to the murder, when Arnold was at home, someone entered the house, chloroformed the family, and went out without creating an alarm or removing anything. It is now thought that he and Miss Tower had planned the murder for that night, but that after entering the house her courage failed her, or Arnold asked for further delay. He had been getting ready for flight two weeks previous, and had his notes and checks forged, presented and paid so quickly and quietly that there was no time for detection. He intended to start for Detroit Tuesday, but he missed the train and then had to alter his course for fear that he would be pursued and arrested for his forgeries. There was nothing to have prevented the pair from eloping together and journeying wheresoever they desired, and this fact makes the murder stand out in a more brutal and bloodthirsty light.

The wife had been very patient under the scandal, clinging to her husband in spite of all.

Fiendishness Count:
Sulfuric Acid – 1
Molten Lead – 1
Razor – 1
Broken Neck – 1

MFDJ 07/18/26: Filthy Civil War Amputations

Today’s Filthy Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

Only a low dose of anesthetic was used during the Civil War, just enough to make the patient insensitive to pain. In some cases, men did not lose consciousness despite the anesthesia. Witnesses reported patients thrashing wildly and shrieking in pain throughout the operation. Adding to the chaos were soldiers begging to be taken next, to relieve their suffering. At the same time, many of those requiring amputation protested vehemently, all adding to the stress of the surgeons.

Three of every four surgeries required amputation, leading to the unfair characterization of surgeons as butchers. The minié ball did such devastating damage that saving a limb, particularly under battlefield hospital conditions and time constraints, was virtually impossible.

A typical amputation began as soon as the patient was anesthetized. The surgeon would wipe any blood off his scalpel that remained from the previous patient, then proceed with little or no additional sterilization. He deftly cut flesh and tissue above and blow the wound, cutting to the bone and leaving a small semi-circular shaped flap of skin, which would be used to close the wound after the procedure was completed. A bone saw was then used to cut through the bone, with the severed limb tossed onto a nearby pile from previous amputations. Amputated limbs would only be removed when the pile grew so large that it became a hindrance.


Amputation in a field hospital, Gettysburg

With the limb successfully removed, arteries were then tied off with cotton thread. If thread was not available, horsehair would be used. Those whose arteries were tied off with horsehair saw faster recovery than those with cotton thread, although there was no recognition of this phenomenon at the time. It would be some time before it became apparently that boiling the stiff horsehair to make it supple enough for use had the added benefit of sterilization.

Sharp edges of remaining bone would then be scraped to make them smoother, although many surgeons skipped this step. The flap of skin that had been left when the surgeon cut through the muscle and tissue was then folded over the open stump and sewed shut, leaving a small opening for drainage. the entire stump was then covered with a piece of cloth, which in turn was coated with a form of gelatin made from fish bladders, called isinglass. This dried to a rugged but flexible cover to keep the wound relatively dry and clean. Unfortunately, the cloth used was often just a dirty rag that may have been used earlier.

The patient was then removed from the table and placed wherever space could be found, often in a filthy barnyard. Many amputees who survived said that their wounds never healed completely, necessitating periodic draining for the rest of their lives. It is no surprise that a wounded soldier was was as likely to die of infection as he was to die of his actual wounds.

Culled from: Bullets and Bandages: The Aid Stations and Field Hospitals at Gettysburg by James Gindlesperger

 

Sing Sing Death House Prisoner Du Jour!

NAME: Henry Flakes aka Snow Flakes
NUMBER: 123-881
BORN: Alabama
AGE: 32
OCCUPATION: Auto mechanic
HABITS: Uses drugs
CRIME: Killed Freedman in robbery
ACCOMPLICES: Walter Green 123-880 and DeWitt Lee
JUDGE: Jacob A. Latona, Erie County Court
SENTENCED: 3-6-59
RECEIVED: 3-7-59
EXECUTED: 5-19-60

Culled from: Condemned: Inside the Sing Sing Death House

I found an article about Snowflakes in the November 10, 1958 Buffalo Evening News:

BOXER SNOWFLAKES SIGNS CONFESSION IN LACKAWANNA KILLING

Ex Heavyweight Admits He Took Part In Clothing-Store Holdup When Proprietor Was Slain
A tell-tale rust-colored raincoat gave police the clue they needed to pick up the trail of a husky, 31-year-old former heavyweight boxer in their investigation of the brutal holdup murder of a Lackawanna clothing store proprietor.
The boxer, Henry (Snow) Flakes of 151 Monroe Ave., today was charged with first-degree murder after he signed a statement admitting he took part in the holdup killing.
A general alarm has been broadcast to all police agencies for the pickup of his suspected accomplice, believed to be “armed and dangerous.”
Police had been stalled by a lack of clues after Joseph Friedman, 62, was found dying of a head wound in a back room of his store.
Is Former Convict
Dist. Atty. Dwyer announced the signing of the statement by Flakes, a former convict who has been in trouble with the police many times since he quit the ring.
Although ring records give the name as Henry (Snow) Flake, he fought under the name Henry Snowflakes, and the district attorney’s officelists him as Henry (Snow) Flakes.
The first break in the investigation came Saturday night when Detective Stanley F. Segit of the Arson Squad was told that Flakes had been seen in a Michigan Ave. tavern Friday night wearing a rust-colored raincoat similar to one worn by one of the holdup men.
The Arson Squad detective informed Acting Asst. Detective Chief John H. Schutt. The latter got out rogue’s gallery photographs of Flakes and showed them to the widow of the victim, Mrs. Helen Friedman of 145 Stanford Ave., Town of Tonawanda.
Mrs. Friedman made a tentative identification, adding “I’d like to see him in person.”
Special Squad Organized
Asst. Chief Schutt and Acting Detective Chief John D. McCarthy organized a special squad to go to Flakes’ house. Detective Chief John J. Whalen, who is on vacation, joined the group which included members of the West Side Squad, acting Detective Albert Vagne and Detective Robert R. Ritchie of the Arson Squad.
After surrounding the house, they took Flakes into custody at 4:10 o’clock Sunday morning. Police said a search of a car used by Flakes suspended nominal investigation showed several articles of new clothing with labels ripped out.

Flakes was taken to headquarters and then turned over to Lackawanna police. Homicide Squad Detective Sgt. Joseph T. McCarthy and Detective Walter G. Maul went to Lackawanna headquarters and confronted Flakes with the discovery of the clothes and other evidence.

Several Pages Written
Flakes wrote the statement out in his own handwriting, Detective Dwyer said, it covered several pages.
Mr. Dwyer came to Buffalo police headquarters this morning to check the statement. At about the same time, Mrs. Friedman was viewing Flakes at a special lineup at Lackawanna.
Flakes has a long police record, including nine traffic arrests since October 1952.
In February 1952 he was charged with being drunk and refusing the reasonable request of a policeman. In May 1952 he was locked up for District police in a concealed-weapons investigation. In July of the same year, a sentence on a dangerous weapons charge was suspended.
In March 1953 he was arrested for third-degree assault. Less than a year later, he was charged with first-degree robbery in an $11 mugging of a man. The charge was dismissed.
Probation Violator
In June 1954 he was jailed as a probation violator. He had been convicted of contempt of court earlier over his failure to appear in a Cheektowaga court to answer a traffic summons.
In January 1955 he was arrested on a felony charge of possessing a loaded revolver after Patrolman Francis I. O’Donnell of the Franklin Station disarmed him in a restaurant at Michigan and Eagle St. He was sentenced to 3½ to 7 years in Attica Prison on that charge, but had been released on parole.
Shortly before noon, Flakes was arraigned on a first-degree murder charge in Lackawanna City Court. He waived examination and was ordered held for the grand jury.
Casual Remark Provided Break In Slaying Case
It started as a casual conversation. But the idle talk provided the clue that broke the Friedman murder case.
Arson Squad Detectives Stanley J. Segit and Peter R. Ritchie met an acquaintance Saturday evening. The three men chatted idly about the split shots of the rust-colored raincoat Detective Ritchie was wearing.
“What color would you call that?” the man asked the detective.
Then he explained the reason for his curiosity. He had seen Henry (Snow) Flakes in a Michigan Ave. bar the previous night, and he had been wearing a coat of exactly the same color.
That bit of information was enough to send the detectives hurrying to get in touch with Acting Asst. Detective Chief John H. Schutt.
One of the bandits in Friday evening’s holdup murder in Lackawanna had worn a raincoat with the same rust color. Flakes was under arrest a short time later.
 

Garretdom: Fiendish Woman Du Jour!

Here’s the latest in articles entitled “A Fiendish Woman”.  Sometimes it’s hard to tell in old newspapers whether a story is real or not. (I suppose it’s equally hard to tell that in modern newspapers for different reasons.) This is one of those stories that I can’t figure out. The use of alibis instead of actual names suggests it is a story, not truth – but there’s nothing else to indicate that it might not be real. But just the other day, I almost shared another story about a fiendish girl gang leader before I researched her name to learn that she was a fictional character made up by a newspaper to sell copies. So, I guess we take it with a proverbial grain of salt. It’s a good read, anyway. From the January 3, 1873 issue of the Wilmington, Delaware News Journal:

A FIENDISH WOMAN.

A Jealous Woman in Pittsburgh Attempts a Diabolical Outrage on a Girl.

Mr. and Mrs. X. are believed to have lived as happily together as man and wife commonly do in their social position. Some time ago Mrs. X., with or without reason, began to fancy that Mr. X. preferred Ida D. to herself. This young girl had, for a while, kept house for the husband, in the temporary absence of the wife on a visit to relatives. One day Ida received a message from Mrs. X., requesting her to call at her house, as she (Mrs. X.) had a letter from the country for her. In the afternoon Ida dressed herself in her best clothes and went to Mrs. X.’s house, where she was met at the door by the woman, who kissed her, inquired particularly about the State of her health, and placed her in the most comfortable chair in the room, an armed rocking-chair. Mrs. X. offered the girl refreshments, which were declined, with a request for a glass of water. This was at once brought by the amiable hostess, who herself took a drink. The woman then went into an adjoining room, from which she speedily returned with a strong cord of rope arranged in the form of a noose. Smiling and talking pleasantly all the time, she stepped behind her visitor, and, dropping the noose over her head and arms, with a sudden jerk, she soon bound the young girl helpless to the chair. Ida’s feet were next tied to the chair.

“Now,” said the woman, “you shall see how I avenge myself;’ whereupon from the table drawer she took a pair of shears, a large knife, and revolver all of which implements she spread upon the table before her victim, by this time ready to faint with terror. The tormentor’s next step was to cut off the girl’s hair as close as possible to the skin, leaving only a single handful on the top of the head, for the purpose, as she explained, of facilitating the subsequent operation of scalping. The girl screamed and called for help ask loudly as she could, but the house stands on a lonely place, and no deliverer appeared.

After cutting off the hair, Mrs. X. brought a looking glass that Ida might see the change produced in her features. As the girl begged for release, saying that she was freezing, she was told, with plentiful application of mocking epithets, that she would be warm enough before she got away. Mrs. X. then put the poker in the stove, and while calmly waiting for it to become red hot, she told her victim what she intended to do with it. “First, I will burn your eyes out,” &c. &c. And she really began to execute her threats, but when she was trying to blind the girl, the latter by a superhuman effort succeeded in releasing one of her hands, with which she seized the glowing poker, and for a while arrested the monster in the perpetration of her crime. The interruption made it necessary to reheat the poker, and in the meantime the unlooked-for return of her husband was all that saved the girl from prolonged torture and death at the hands of Mrs. X.

Fiendishness Count:
Sulfuric Acid – 1
Molten Lead – 1
Razor – 1
Broken Neck – 1

MFDJ 07/17/26: The Freeway Strangler

Today’s Vicious Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

William Bonin committed his first criminal offenses at age ten. He was in and out of detention homes throughout his formative years. His father was a drunken gambler with a vicious temper and his mother dominated him. It was later conjectured that these homelife factors contributed to Bonin’s development, particularly his many acts of perversions and murders.

Jailed for several sex offenses, Bonin later became a truck driver, and with accomplices like Vernon Butts, he molested and killed by his own estimate at least 21 teenage boys in the Los Angeles area between 1978 and 1980. Butts later testified against the brutal Bonin, saying that the killer had a hypnotic hold on him and that “after the first one [murder] I couldn’t do anything about it.”


Vernon Butts

Bonin used his truck to cruise the freeways in Los Angeles and Orange counties, picking up young boys, sexually molesting them, torturing them, then strangling them to death before dumping their bodies on the on-off ramps of Los Angeles freeways. He was thus dubbed “The Freeway Strangler.”


William Bonin

When Butts dropped out of sight, Bonin enlisted other accomplices and one of these, a seventeen-year-old drifter Bonin had picked up in Hollywood, informed police. Bonin was arrested and tried, being convicted of fourteen counts of murder. Butts testified against him, saying that he participated in five of the sadistic killings. Butts hanged himself in his cell. Bonin was sentenced to death on March 12, 1982.


Some of the victims of Bonin

Culled from: Bloodletters and Badmen by Jay Robert Nash

This article does not do justice to the depravity of Bonin’s murders, so here are a couple examples from Wikipedia:

On August 4, 1979, Bonin drove from Silverado Canyon to Westminster with Butts. He soon suggested that they rape and murder a teenage hitchhiker. Butts was amenable to this suggestion, and they soon encountered 17-year-old boy Mark Shelton near Beach Boulevard. Bonin allegedly had sex with him, and Butts sexually assaulted him. Bonin drove into Cajon Pass in San Bernardino County, where Bonin parked the vehicle and raped him. Bonin and Butts physically assaulted him until he lost consciousness. He was violated with objects such as a stick, causing him to enter a fatal state of shock. His body was discarded beside a gravel road in Cajon Pass.

On August 27, 1979, Bonin and Butts abducted 15-year-old Hollywood resident Donald Hyden on Santa Monica Boulevard. Butts was driving the van. Bonin offered him sex. When Butts made an accidental wrong turn, Hyden became frantic, causing Bonin to beat, bind, torture, and sodomize him.  Bonin then strangled him to death.  Butts performed oral sex on his corpse before the pair dumped his body at a construction site near the Ventura Freeway. It was discovered hours later.  A coroner theorized that he had been impaled by a large object, evidenced by rectal damage.

And here’s an account of his execution:

On February 23, 1996, near midnight before the following day, Bonin (age 49) was executed by lethal injection inside the gas chamber at San Quentin State Prison. He had been on death row for fourteen years, and was the first person ever executed by lethal injection in California.  Governor Pete Wilson, who had rejected a submitted plea for clemency from Bonin’s attorneys three days before the execution, called Bonin the “poster boy for capital punishment”.

In his final interview, with a local radio station less than 24 hours before the execution, Bonin said that he had “made peace” with his impending death, and that his only major regret in life was not pursuing his teenage passion of bowling long enough to turn professional.  He also said that he thought the death penalty is wrong. He denied responsibility for his actions, saying that he had no control over them.

 

Crime Scene Photo Du Jour!

PHYSICIAN KILLED IN HIS OFFICE (circa 1934)

A physician lies dead in his office, a victim of a robbery. A policeman’s hat lies near the body. One of the dangers of running a medical practice is the threat of robbery and murder by drug addicts. Prior to the passage of rigorous federal laws regulating narcotics, most physicians’ offices contained large amounts of narcotic medications. The drugs were also sent as samples, a practice that is now prohibited by federal laws. Until recently, stealing prescription blanks was a common way to obtain drugs. Since 2006, New York State began issuing bar coded, numbered prescription blanks to physicians, so even time of issuance can be estimated fore each prescription.

Culled from: Deadly Intent: Crime and Punishment Photographs from the Burns Archive

 

Garretdom: A Fiendish Old Woman!

Here’s another Fiendish Woman, this time an OLD one!

A FIENDISH OLD WOMAN.—The Edgefield Advertiser says that on the 15th instant, Rachel Stallsworth, an aged negro woman living on the plantation of Major Lemuel Corley, murdered her great grand child, only four days old, by taking it from the bed of the mother, and deliberately breaking its neck. An inquest was held upon the body of the child, and a verdict rendered accordingly. The old murderess has been arrested and lodged in jail. The vile and unnatural atrocity of this murder is enough to make the blood run cold.

Culled from the Friday, November 24, 1871 issue of The Daily Phoenix, Columbia, South Carolina

Follow-up from The Charleston Daily News, May 6, 1872:

Rachel Stallsworth, who was convicted of murder, and sentenced to be hung in July next, which sentence was commuted to imprisonment for life in the Penitentiary, has had the sentence still further commuted to imprisonment for life in the county jail of Edgefield County, on account of her advanced age and feeble health, which will not allow her removal.

And another follow-up from the July 25, 1872 Charleston Daily Courier:

The Governor has pardoned Rachel Stallsworth, an old woman who is now on the verge of the grave. She was convicted of murder, and sentenced by Judge Melton to be hanged, but the sentence was commuted to imprisonment for life in the county jail, May 2, 1872.

Apparently, it pays to be old and infirm when you commit murders!

Fiendishness Count:
Sulfuric Acid – 1
Molten Lead – 1
Razor – 1
Broken Neck – 1

MFDJ 07/16/26: Broken on the Wheel in Surinam

Today’s Ultimate Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

In Surinam, situated on the South American coast, the torture method of breaking on the wheel was carried out to its ultimate and horrific end, no coup de grâce being administered. J. G. Stedman recounts in the book of his travels there between 1772 and 1777 how, in one execution, he saw a slave tied to the wooden cross. The slave’s left hand was then chopped off by the executioner using a hatchet. Next, seizing a heavy iron bar, he rained repeated blows on the victim, breaking his bones to slivers until the blood, marrow and splinters flew around the scaffold.

The slave, still alive, was untied. In his writhings he fell off the wheel on to the ground, cursing his tormentors. Such was his agony that he begged that his head should be shopped off, but his pleas were ignored. For six hours he endured the torment of his shattered limbs until his guard, motivated either by compassion or intolerance, knocked him on the hood with the butt-end of his musket.

Culled from: The Book of Execution by Geoffrey Abbott

 

Arcane Excerpts: Paternal Impressions

Here’s another bizarre excerpt from the fabulous Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine by George M. Gould and Walter L. Pyle (1896), this time on the topic of “paternal impressions” – the theory that physical conditions of the father can imprint upon his offspring:

Paternal Impressions.—Several [cases of Paternal Impression] are on record, but none are of sufficient authenticity to warrant much discussion on the subject. Those below are given to illustrate the method of report. Stahl, quoted by Steinan, 1843, speaks of the case of a child, the father being a soldier who lost an eye in the war. The child was born with one of its eyes dried up in the orbit, in this respect presenting an appearance like that of the father. Schneider says a man whose wife was expecting confinement dreamt that his oldest son stood beside his bedside with his genitals much mutilated and bleeding. He awoke in a great state of agitation, and a few days later the wife was delivered of a child with exstrophy of the bladder. Hoare recites the curious story of a man who vowed that if his next child was a daughter he would never speak to it. The child proved to be a son, and during the whole of the father’s life nothing could induce the son to speak to his father, nor, in fact, to any other male person, but after the father’s death he talked fluently to both men and women. Clark reports the birth of a child whose father had a stiff knee-joint, and the child’s knee was stiff and bent in exactly the same position as that of its father.

Likely stories, all of them!  

 

Garretdom: Another Fiendish Woman

Let’s continue our series of newspaper articles with the title “A Fiendish Woman” with an excerpt from the August 31, 1865 Paxton (Illinois) Record:

A fiendish woman in Dubuque, named Berlin, attempted to castrate her husband, last Sunday night, while he was asleep. She used a razor, and inflicted a terrible wound. The man lies in a critical condition, though hopes are entertained of preserving his life and manhood. The woman took $350, all the money there was in the house, and left. She has not been apprehended. It is stated that she was prompted to the crime by jealousy, but it is evident that devilishness had a good deal to do with it.

Fiendishness Count:
Sulfuric Acid – 1
Molten Lead – 1
Razor – 1

MFDJ 07/14/26: James Carey’s Strange Malconformation

Today’s Ambiguously Sexed Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the most benign term used to designate ambiguously sexed individuals was “hermaphrodite.” Other, more subjective, labels were frequently applied as well: “hybrid,” “impostor,” “unfortunate monstrosity.” Doctors used similar derogatory descriptions for genital incongruities. In an 1842 article on malformations of the male sexual organs, for example, one doctor referred to “these mortifying and disgusting imperfections.”

The published story of James Carey, who lived in Philadelphia in the 1830s—which still employed such terms as “hermaphroditic monster” — illustrated the emergence of a new sympathy for those born with unusual genitalia. We learn about Carey through the autopsy report written by the celebrated artist James Akin. According to Akin, Carey lived his entire life as a man, but the account describes a creature more beastly than manly. Akin went to great pains to prove the veracity of his narrative, appending signatures by attending doctors confirming the shape of Carey’s genitals, as well as his general demeanor. Akin recounted Carey’s sad and pitiful life for readers. A self-imposed recluse in particular dread of exposure, Carey vigorously guarded his privacy and shunned any interaction with people beyond that necessary to make a living. Akin wrote:

Conscious that busy intermeddlers might surprise him sleeping, and when in a state of nudity, discover his strange malconformation, he continually girded his pantaloons securely about his loins, and when thus shielded, he would confidently retire to rest, conceiving the vestment a fortress of impregnable strength to protect him against all infractions during repose… or changing his apparel, he would resort to every preventative for guarding against sudden obtrusion, determined to punish with promptitude infringements of the curious, who should violate his sanctuary.

Akin portrayed Carey as a stooped hunchback, “exhibiting features of a grotesque melancholy aspect.” His eyes were heavy and dull, his nose flat, “not unlike the lesser Ouran Outang or Pongo Ape of [the eighteenth-century French naturalist the comte de] Buffon.” He emitted “preternatural discharges” from his nose, “yeiling a horribly foetid stench” that could cause severe nausea or vomiting among onlookers. Provoked by the “very strange and unnatural conformation of his genital organs” and the nasal hemorrhage to which he believed they were connected, Carey took to “venting the most vile and impious imprecations, full of profanation and blasphemy, offensively disgusting to a chaste ear, and outraging all decency.”

Akin’s description, supported by documentation from those who knew Carey and from doctors who witnessed the postmortem, exposed a most distressing and pathetic character. Akin depicted a social recluse. Carey remained chaste throughout his lifetime; indeed, he showed an “incorrigible aversion” to women’s “soft blandishments” and never committed, in Akin’s words, “debasing earthly drudgery in commerce with the sex.” Akin’s tone suggested that this was for the best, given Carey’s bodily conformation. While nineteenth-century doctors argued whether there were “true” hermaphrodites, there lingered in their gradual medicalizing of this condition an older, harsher interpretation of hideous deformity. As the description of James Carey suggests, many doctors and other commentators never entirely abandoned this motif and slipped deprecating words of repugnance into medical descriptions of their patients.

Akin’s report nonetheless combines monstrosity with a touch of humanity. Although Carey would sometimes “storm in phrenzied gusts of furious and ungovernable rage,” frightening those who crossed his path, he was able to contain himself at work, Akin wrote, and he displayed honesty, loyalty, and punctuality in his duties. Whether he was working at a foundry or in a factory or driving a stagecoach, at work he exhibited a “firm and manly deportment”.

But if Akin recognized that Carey was not all monster, neither was he all man. His voice “partook of a faint boyish squeak.” And with his long, lean, and “smooth polished limbs… encased in a skin of delicate whiteness,” Carey had an “effeminate appearance.” Henry G. King, pastor of a Methodist church, attested in an addendum to Akin’s account that Carey’s skin was “smooth and sallow” and that his chin sported no beard. “In a word,” King concluded, “he neither resembled the mascular nor feminine gender.”

His body may have been ambiguously gendered, but for some observers, like this minister, Carey’s soul humanized him. King, along with employers and landlords, tried to save Carey, especially when he became very ill, exhorting him to prepare to meet God before his death. King’s first visit yielded no signs of repentance; at the second visit he saw “some degree of warmth.” We will never know if Carey experienced conversion since he died before the minister could see him again. That Akin chose to include the minister’s account of his personal interaction with Carey along with the autopsy report is telling. Carey was no longer just a monstrosity or a dissected body, but a human being with a soul that could achieve forgiveness.

Carey spent his entire life protecting his body’s secret, but when he died he could no longer guard his privacy. The coroner “marveled at the novel and singular spectacle” and told others that “all was not right.” These words led some to suspect that Carey’s death itself was suspicious, and so four days after the burial, the coroner ordered an inquest. Carey’s body was exhumed and became available for medical scrutiny, dissection, a published autopsy report, a poem, and subsequent historical analysis. Akin’s story of Carey’s life bridged the gap between an older conception of hermaphrodites as monsters and a newer emphases on personhood that combined a description of anatomical difference with moral evaluations of the person’s life.

Culled from: Bodies In Doubt: An American History of Intersex by Elizabeth Reis

 

Car Crash Du Jour!

One of my favorite books is Car Crashes and Other Sad Stories by Anaheim photographer Mell Kilpatrick. It’s a collection of car crash photos from the 40’s and 50’s, often with corpses still strewn across the enormous interior (or out of it, since there were no seat belts in those days). It combines my love of old cars with my love of morbidity and is the perfect ambulance chaser book!


Red Hill and Rt. 101

Garretdom (Olde News)

Let’s continue our series of newspaper articles with the title “A Fiendish Woman” with an excerpt from the October 6, 1847 issue of The Luzerne Union (Luzerne County, PA):

A FIENDISH WOMAN.—We learn from the Cumberland (Pa) Mountaineer that a foul murder was committed by a woman upon the preson of her husband, some few days ago.—This woman is the same identical Mrs. Frey who was accused of being accessory to the murder of a former husband, (Mr. Frey,) in the upper part of Allegheny county, Md., some two or three years since and for which Wm. S. Crise suffered death upon the gallows. She committed the foul deed while her husband was sleeping, by pouring hot lead into his ears. This last tragedy was performed in Pennsylvania, and the Maryland line. She is now confined in jail to await her trial.

Okay, so let’s keep track of the manner of fiendishness exhibited by these women!

Sulfuric Acid – 1
Molten Lead – 1

MFDJ 07/12/26: The Ripper Strikes Again and Again and Again!

Today’s Systematic Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

On September 30, 1888, Jack the Ripper struck again—twice. In a narrow court of Berner Street he slashed the throat of Elizabeth “Long Liz” Stride. Apparently in fear of being caught in the act, he fled without butchering her.


Berner Street as it looked at the time of Elizabeth Stride’s murder.


Young Elizabeth in life… 


… Elizabeth Stride in death.

Fifteen minutes later in Mitre Square, he encountered Catherine Eddowes and cut her to pieces. A letter from Jack to detective Abberline boasted of the “double event.”


The body of Catherine Eddowes was discovered close to the fence seen at the centre of this image 


An illustration of Catherine Eddowes in life…


… and Catherine Eddowes following her autopsy

Terrified East Enders directed their mounting frustration and fury at Commissioner Warren, demanding his resignation. It was, said the Star, “War on Warren.” But dismay over Warren’s conduct was not limited to the public and the press. It was shared by Abberline and others within the police who felt that the police commissioner was as much a hindrance as a help, citing his interference with the investigation of the Eddowes murder when he’d ordered the obliteration of a clue.  Chalked onto a wall nearby was:

The Juwes are not the
men that will be blamed
for nothing.

Convinced that it was a message from the killer, the police pleaded with Warren that it be preserved until first light of day so that it could be photographed. Concerned that passersby might interpret the message as an accusation against Jews, and fearing a mob action against Jews, Warren had the words erased.

In the midst of the drumbeat for his scalp, Warren defended himself and the police, and in an article for Murray’s Magazine criticized the organization of the Metropolitan Police in which the head of the Criminal Investigation Department was not subject to his control as commissioner. This division of authority, he argued, made efficient police work impossible. Infuriated by the article, Home Secretary Sir Charles Matthews called Warren in for a tongue-lashing. Warren offered to resign. Matthews accepted.

The next morning, the police and the rest of London reeled with disgust at the discovery of the Ripper’s newest victim. Her name was Mary Kelly. Another prostitute, she was spied through the window of her room by the landlord, come to collect rent. What he saw sickened him and sent him hurrying to find the police. Her death differed from the others in that she was slaughtered inside a dwelling, very near the previous killings, all of which had been committed outdoors with the possibility of the killer being seen and caught. But behind the locked door of 26 Dorset Street of Miller’s Court, unworried and unhurried, Jack the Ripper labored for at least two hours in systematic destruction of Mary Kelly’s body—cutting, slicing, hacking, arranging, displaying.


13 Miller’s Court. The murder of Mary Jane Kelly occurred within this single room on 9 November 1888.


An illustration of Mary Kelly in life.


… and the body of Mary Jane Kelly as discovered in Miller’s Court

Although Abberline and the others could not know it at the time, it was Jack’s last horror: November 17, 1888. He’d held London in terror for seventy-nine days.  But who was he?  No one knows.

Culled from: Bloody Business: An Anecdotal History of Scotland Yard by H. Paul Jeffers

 

Post-Mortem Portrait Du Jour!

Together in Death – circa 1854 – half-plate daguerreotype – 6″ x 5″

A woman and her newborn infant. In the nineteenth century, a difficult birth, such as breech, could often lead to death for both the mother and the child.

Culled from: Beyond the Dark Veil: Post-Mortem and Mourning Photography

Garretdom (Olde News)

So today’s clipping is entitled “A Fiendish Woman” but the type on the copy that I have is so darkened, I can’t read the article.  But I thought, what a fantastic title!!  “A Fiendish Woman.”  So I thought I’d do a series of newspaper articles entitled “A Fiendish Woman”.  And there are many!  Let’s see what variety of fiendishness we can encounter!

First up…

A FIENDISH WOMAN

Throws Vitrol [sic] in the Face of a Bride.

AUGUSTA, Ga., Sept. 16.—A sentence of six months in the County Chain Gang was passed yesterday upon Mrs. Fannie E. Denham, a widow of Terreon, for disfiguring the face of Mrs. Frank Hughes by an application of vitriol. Frank Hughes had been an admirer of Mrs. Denham, and when he married a farmer’s daughter she sought revenge.

Mrs. Denham rode up to the Hughes home on horseback and engaged the bride in conversation, and then she threw vitrol [sic] in her face, blinding her and leaving her disfigured. The trial attracted much attention, and the court room was constantly filled.

“Vitriol” is the old word for sulfuric acid.  

Culled from the September 20, 1893 issue of The Fresno Expositor

MFDJ 7/10/26: The Second Victim of Jack the Ripper

Today’s Short, Stout, Big-Nosed, Gap-Toothed Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

And here’s the story of the discovery of the second victim of Jack the Ripper:

Eight days later [after the murder of Polly Nichols], behind a lodging house at 29 Hanbury Street, less than half a mile from Buck’s Row, short, stout, big-nosed, gap-toothed, brown-haired, blue-eyed, forty-five-year-old Annie Chapman was also prepared to engage in the “world’s oldest profession” as she went down three stone steps into a backyard. Her companion, seen by a park keeper’s wife on her way to early morning market, was a man around forty, dark, genteel-looking, and wearing a brown deerstalker hat. Possibly, the witness said, the man was a foreigner. She’d heard him and Annie speaking to one another. “Will you?” he asked. “Yes,” Annie replied. The time was 5:30. Annie’s body was found at six.


Annie Chapman, in life…

“The wretch must have then seized the deceased,” reported a coroner, “perhaps with Judas-like approaches. He seized her by the chin. He pressed her throat, and while thus preventing the slightest cry, he at the same time produced insensibility and suffocation. There was no evidence of any struggle.” With the woman unconscious, he lowered her onto the ground and with her lying on her back cut her throat in two places. When found, she was face up with the left arm resting on the left breast, legs drawn up, and abdomen sliced open with the small intestines and a flap of abdomen lying on the right side above the right shoulder attached by a cord with the rest of the intestines inside the body. Two pieces of skin from the lower part of the abdomen lay in a large pool of blood above the left shoulder. The cuts in her throat ran deeply in a jagged manner all the way around, left to right.


Annie Chapman in death.

Abberline had never seen anything like it in all his years with the police.  Summoned to the scene by telegraph by Inspector Joseph Chandler of the Commercial Street police station, he also found a carnivallike mood at the place where Annie had met so vicious a death. People learned from windows of the surrounding houses to see what they could. Hanbury Street was mobbed by the curious, eager to observe. What they saw was police painstakingly combing the muddy yard for clues. One thing stood out. The killer had arranged some of the victim’s possessions in what appeared to be a ritualistic display. Two rings, some pennies, and two new farthings lay neatly at her feet. A piece of muslin, a comb, and a paper case were aligned near the body, as were an envelope dated in London on August 28 and a piece of paper containing two pills. They also found a leather apron lying near a water pump.


The entrance to the yard of 29 Hanbury Street. Chapman’s body was found lying parallel to the fence, with her head almost touching the rear steps of this property, on 8 September 1888.

Culled from: Bloody Business: An Anecdotal History of Scotland Yard by H. Paul Jeffers

 

Wyoming Territorial Prisoner Du Jour!

The Wyoming Territorial Prison is a former federal government prison near Laramie, Wyoming. Built in 1872, it is one of the oldest buildings in Wyoming. It operated as a federal penitentiary from 1872 to 1890, and as a state prison from 1890 to 1901.

Today we feature prisoner #62, from the Warden’s record book:

Edward Samuel Woodruff  – December 28, 1875 – Manslaughter (shot and killed his employer, ranchman John Freel with a Needle gun in November, 1874, at the ranch on the crossing of the Horse Creek Agency Road when he became intimate with Freel’s wife) – Laramie County – 10 years – Stone mason – Iowa – wife and baby in Fairfield, Iowa. Good conduct. Pardoned on December 13, 1877, by Secretary of State George W. French on the recommendation of Warden Spicer, Convict served 1 year and 11 1/2 months. Remarks: After two months of pursuit by the Rocky Mountain Detective Association officers, Woodruff, alias Tom Johnson was captured in Fairfield, Iowa, and taken to the jail at Golden, Colorado, for the murder of Reuben B. Hayward on September 10, 1879, for his team and wagon. He was taken out of jail with ex-Convict #36, Jules Seminole (Charles Clark) and lynched by mob on December 28, 1879.

You know, it blows me away how casual and light the sentences were back in the old west days.  He served less than two years for killing his boss?  No wonder these mobs felt like they had to take justice into their own hands when he killed again!  

And here’s a newspaper snippet showing the attitude of people at the time:


(The Democratic Leader, December 31, 1879)

 

Garretdom!

CARVED EACH OTHER.

A Cook and Waiter in a Chicago Restaurant Horrify the Diners.

CHICAGO, Sept.10.—While supper was being served to about fifty people in a restaurant on West Madison street last night, the guests were horrified by two figures pushing through the place—one with the blood streaming from him and flourishing an ugly-looking butcher knife, the other running for life.

John Morris, the cook, and Frank Foster, a waiter in the place, had quarreled about an order when Morris grabbed a carving knife fourteen inches long and plunged it into Foster’s abdomen. The weapon inflicted a frightful gash, penetrating from the left side to the right, and coming out directly below the right lung. Morris then coolly pulled the knife from the wound and laid it down on the table from which he had taken it. He then started to run, when Foster grabbed the knife just in time to dash Morris across the heel as the latter was running up stairs. The cut severed tendons and arteries of the leg. Foster was taken home, where physicians pronounced his injuries fatal. Morris, who became very weak from loss of blood, was sent to the county hospital.

Amazingly, I couldn’t find an update on this crazy story!  

Culled from the collection of The Comtesse DeSpair
1886 Morbid Scrapbook

MFDJ 07/05/26: Jack’s First Victim

Today’s Age-Old Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

Today I’ll start a brief series on the victims of Jack the Ripper.  First unfortunate up, poor Polly Nichols:

“Sorry, Polly,” said the landlord of the lodging house at 18 Thrawl Street, “but you know the score. If you ain’t got the doss money, you don’t got no bed.”


Thrawl Street, 1902

She’d been sleeping there for weeks at a time—”dossing” was the word for it—but in the past few days she’d wound up spending her doss money on gin, mostly at the Frying Pan public house in Brick Lane. “I’ll soon get it,” answered Polly, lurching away from the door. An explanation wasn’t needed. The landlord knew exactly what Polly Nichols meant. She’d raise the doss money by plying an age-old trade. Touching her new black straw hat with its black velvet trim, she gave the landlord a wink. “See?” she said. “See what a jolly bonnet I’ve got now.”

On that Friday morning, August 31, 1888, Mary Ann “Polly” Nichols was forty-two years old and five-feet-two-inches in height. Her brown hair was streaked with gray. Five front teeth were missing. Her dress was threadbare and her shoes were cut-down old boots with steel-tipped toes. Her breath reeked of all the gins she’d downed all day long and through the night, paid for with more than enough doss money shoved into her hand by the men she’d sold herself to that day. Confident that she’d find a patron, she began walking.

Shortly before four o’clock on a street called Buck’s Row, George Cross, a market porter on his way to work, pushed open a stable gate and found her body. He first thought that she’d been raped and was unconscious, but on closer examination he saw that she’d been slashed twice in the throat. The murder had to have taken place quite recently, Cross figured, because her legs were still warm. In fact, she’d been killed within the past half-hour. This was proved by Police Constable John Neil. Buck’s Row was on his beat and he’d passed by that very spot barely thirty minutes before Cross discovered her.


The body of Mary Ann Nichols was discovered at this gated stable entrance in Buck’s Row.

In all likelihood, speculated residents of the Whitechapel section of the East End, she’d been the victim of a gang that had been robbing prostitutes, two of whom had been murdered not far from the place where Polly met her death. But what really puzzled everyone in the close confines of Buck’s Row was that no one had heard her scream nor any sound that might have been her killer fleeing.

The investigation was begun by Detective Inspector Frederick Abberline. A soft-spoken, portly man nearing fifty years of age, he’d joined the Metropolitan Police in 1863 and was appointed one of the first divisional inspectors of the CID in 1878.


Frederick Abberline

His responsibility had been the Whitechapel and Bethnal Green area of the East End, exactly where Polly Nichols plied her trade and ran into a killer. Although he’d been transferred to headquarters at Scotland Yard in 1887, he was sent back to the old stomping grounds of Whitechapel because of his familiarity with the area.

First, he had to identify the victim Polly’s clothing turned up the mark of Lambeth Workhouse. Inquiries there produced positive identification and an account of her activities that night. “About 1:40 a.m. that morning,” Abberline reported,” she was seen in the kitchen at 18 Thrawl Street when she informed the deputy of the lodging house that she had no money to pay her lodgings. She requested that her bed might be kept for her and left stating that she would soon get the money. At this time she was drunk. She was next seen at 2:30 a.m. at the corner of Osborn Street and Whitechapel Road by Ellen Holland, a lodger of the same house, who seeing she was very drunk requested her to return with her to the lodging house. She refused, remarking that she would soon be back and walked away down the Whitechapel Road in the direction of the place where the body was found.” There was no doubt with regard to the hour, noted Abberline, because the Whitechapel church clock chimed at 2:30 and Holland called Polly’s attention to the time. “We have been unable to find any person,” said Abberline, “who saw her alive after Holland left her.”


Mortuary photo of Polly Nichols

Culled from: Bloody Business: An Anecdotal History of Scotland Yard by H. Paul Jeffers

Asylum Inmate Deaths Du Jour!

The book Angels in the Architecture contains Accounts of the First Twenty Patient Deaths of the Northern Michigan Asylum at Traverse City between November 30, 1885 and September 30, 1886.  Here are a couple of the deaths:

Female, age 71, married, native of Massachusetts
Occupation: minister’s wife

“[She] was admitted to the asylum suffering from chronic dementia. She had extensive lung disease. She gradually failed, and died from pulmonary consumption.”

Died: September 15, 1886
Cause of Death: pulmonary consumption

Male, age 46, married, native of Germany
Occupation: gardener

“[He] was admitted to the asylum well advanced in general paralysis. His death was due to exhaustion incident to a paretic seizure.”

Died: September 19, 1886
Cause of death: general paralysis

Culled from: Angels in the Architecture

Garretdom!

POISONED AT A WEDDING.

Fifty People Made Violently Ill by Eating Chicken Salad.

DECATUR, Ill., Sept. 10.—About fifty people were mysteriously poisoned at a country wedding about five miles west of here Wednesday night, and yesterday all the available physicians were hard at work attending the afflicted person who are retching and vomiting violently. Thomas W. Jacobs and Miss Alice Glasgow were married at the house of the bride’s father. Supper was served at nine o’clock, and included chicken salad, fried and boiled chicken, and all ate heartily. An hour later the bride and groom were taken sick, manifesting symptoms of having been poisoned. Part of the company had left, but those remaining were also taken sick, nearly all doubling up and vomiting. Great fright ensued. The mother of the groom and others were brought to Decatur, and the parties were so much exhausted that they had to be carried into houses before reaching the physicians.

It has been learned that the chicken for the salad were cooked and salted in a big copper kettle. It is supposed the salt caused the metal to corrode and mix with the chickens. These people are quite sick yet, but the doctors do not apprehend the fatal termination of any of the cases.

Culled from the collection of The Comtesse DeSpair
1886 Morbid Scrapbook

MFDJ 07/04/26: Photographing Antietam

Today’s Grisly Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

Alexander Gardner shook his head as he looked around for the best place to start. He was at Antietam Creek, in Sharpsburg, Maryland, on September 19 to photograph the battlefield two days after the battlefield two days after the battle of Antietam. The job was not going to be easy, although the main photographic problem—that of the movement of the subjects—was a non-issue. Dead men don’t move.

Alexander Gardner

Gardner’s employer, photographer Mathew Brady, had asked for at least 70 collodion plates to be made as quickly as possible—quickly, because in the heat and humidity of mid-September in southern Maryland, a corpse could go bad very fast.

The battle of Antietam, known in the South as the battle of Sharpsburg, was fought on September 17, 1862. Part of the Maryland campaign, it was the first major battle of the Civil War to occur on Union soil. It is also the bloodiest single-day battle in American history, with a combined count of 22,717 dead, wounded, and missing. Union Maj. Gen. George McClellan pursued and attacked Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, winning a narrow victory for the North.

Gardner’s assistant, James F. Gibson, pointed out a probable location for an image, and the two men got to work. They moved across the battlefield, past the Dunker Church, through the Cornfield, across Burnside’s Bridge, down Bloody Lane, then back again. Union and Confederate dead filled the glass plates trundled along in the Whatsit Wagon, carefully driven by Alfred Foons, who had to dodge the burial details at their grisly work.

It was a good day’s work, but pretty bad as well. The stench was unbelievable, and it would get worse if there were any further delay. Sam Fletcher of the 15th Massachusetts wrote about his experience was part of a burial detail on September 18: “It was vey hot and the bodies were getting soft and it was very unpleasant… I tasted the odor for several days.”

Weather showed little respect for the fallen. It had rained on both the living and the dead after the battle of Manassas and in between the two days of Shiloh. Now the sun was beating down on just under 4,000 dead soldiers. This number was, and still is, simply astounding. More Americans died on this battlefield than had died, or would ever die, on any one day in the nation’s military history.

Soldiers such as Charles A. Hale of the 5th New Hampshire wrote to his wife on September 19, telling her, “What a bloody place was that sunken road as we advanced and the Irish Brigade fell back; the fences went down on both sides, and the dead and wounded men were literally piled there in heaps.”

Gardner and Gibson moved from such ghastly groupings to individual men, memorializing the carnage of battle. They worked quickly, ducking under the hood behind the still camera, counting off seconds, then rushing the plate, still in its frame, back to the darkness of the little Whatsit Wagon for safekeeping.

Over two days, Gardner and Gibson took more than 90 images, then they drove back to Washington, D.C.

Culled from: The Aftermath of Battle: The Burial of the Civil War Dead by Meg Groeling

 

Arcane Excerpts: Melancholy

The Anatomy of Melancholy (full title: The Anatomy of Melancholy, What it is: With all the Kinds, Causes, Symptomes, Prognostickes, and Several Cures of it. In Three Maine Partitions with their several Sections, Members, and Subsections. Philosophically, Medicinally, Historically, Opened and Cut Up) is a book by Robert Burton, first published in 1621 but republished five more times over the next seventeen years with massive alterations and expansions.

The book is a medical treatise about melancholy (depression). Over 500,000 words long, it discusses a wide range of topics besides depression – including history, astronomy, geography, and various aspects of literature and science – and frequently uses humor to make points or explain topics.

The following is an excerpt from the book, which I still find highly relatable!

The Author’s Abstract of Melancholy

When I go musing all alone
Thinking of divers things fore-known,
When I build castles in the air,
Void of sorrow and void of fear,
Pleasing myself with phantasms sweet,
Methinks the time runs very fleet.
All my joys to this are folly,
Naught so sweet as melancholy.
When I lie waking all alone,
Recounting what I have ill done,
My thoughts on me then tyrannise,
Fear and sorrow me surprise,
Whether I tarry still or go,
Methinks the time moves very slow.
All my griefs to this are jolly,
Naught so mad as melancholy.
When to myself I act and smile,
With pleasing thoughts the time beguile,
By a brook side or wood so green,
Unheard, unsought for, or unseen,
A thousand pleasures do me bless,
And crown my soul with happiness.
All my joys besides are folly,
None so sweet as melancholy.
When I lie, sit, or walk alone,
I sigh, I grieve, making great moan,
In a dark grove, or irksome den,
With discontents and Furies then,
A thousand miseries at once
Mine heavy heart and soul ensconce,
All my griefs to this are jolly,
None so sour as melancholy.
Methinks I hear, methinks I see,
Sweet music, wondrous melody,
Towns, palaces, and cities fine;
Here now, then there; the world is mine,
Rare beauties, gallant ladies shine,
Whate’er is lovely or divine.
All other joys to this are folly,
None so sweet as melancholy.
Methinks I hear, methinks I see
Ghosts, goblins, fiends; my phantasy
Presents a thousand ugly shapes,
Headless bears, black men, and apes,
Doleful outcries, and fearful sights,
My sad and dismal soul affrights.
All my griefs to this are jolly,
None so damn’d as melancholy.
Methinks I court, methinks I kiss,
Methinks I now embrace my mistress.
O blessed days, O sweet content,
In Paradise my time is spent.
Such thoughts may still my fancy move,
So may I ever be in love.
All my joys to this are folly,
Naught so sweet as melancholy.
When I recount love’s many frights,
My sighs and tears, my waking nights,
My jealous fits; O mine hard fate
I now repent, but ’tis too late.
No torment is so bad as love,
So bitter to my soul can prove.
All my griefs to this are jolly,
Naught so harsh as melancholy.
Friends and companions get you gone,
‘Tis my desire to be alone;
Ne’er well but when my thoughts and I
Do domineer in privacy.
No Gem, no treasure like to this,
‘Tis my delight, my crown, my bliss.
All my joys to this are folly,
Naught so sweet as melancholy.
‘Tis my sole plague to be alone,
I am a beast, a monster grown,
I will no light nor company,
I find it now my misery.
The scene is turn’d, my joys are gone,
Fear, discontent, and sorrows come.
All my griefs to this are jolly,
Naught so fierce as melancholy.
I’ll not change life with any king,
I ravisht am: can the world bring
More joy, than still to laugh and smile,
In pleasant toys time to beguile?
Do not, O do not trouble me,
So sweet content I feel and see.
All my joys to this are folly,
None so divine as melancholy.
I’ll change my state with any wretch,
Thou canst from gaol or dunghill fetch;
My pain’s past cure, another hell,
I may not in this torment dwell!
Now desperate I hate my life,
Lend me a halter or a knife;
All my griefs to this are jolly,
Naught so damn’d as melancholy.

Culled from: The Anatomy of Melancholy

 

Garretdom!

A DOUBLE TRAGEDY.

A Son Kills His Father While Trying to Effect His Rescue.

PORTLAND, Ore., Sept. 12.—A special to the Oregonian from Spokane Falls, W. T., gives particulars of a double tragedy which occurred on the 7th, in Grand Coulee, half way between Spokane Falls and Okanogan. A man named Paine committed murder in Missouri several years ago, and was sentenced to be hanged. He made his escape, came to Washington Territory and settled at Okanogan county. His whereabouts having become known, a requisition for Paine was sent to Spokane Falls and was placed in the hands of Constable Jack Hubbard to serve. Hubbard took F. Allen for company and left on Sunday for Paine’s place, one hundred miles distant. They secured Paine without trouble and put handcuffs on him. Paine asked to be allowed to bid farewell to his wife in secret, and his request was granted. The two officers and the prisoner started on a buckboard about noon for Spokane Falls. Toward dusk a son of Paine, aged twenty-five years, who had followed on horseback and finally overtaken the officers and began firing from a Winchester rifle. The first shot hit his father, who died ten minutes afterward. The officers opened fire with revolvers , but the range of the weapon was too short. The fifth shot from Paine struck Hubbard in the chin, and he fell to the ground dead. Aiken then whipped up the horses, but they had gone only a short distance when one of them fell dead from a rifle wound. Young Paine made his escape. The old man as he was dying confessed to Aiken that when he bade his wife good bye he told her to tell their son to rescue him, even if he had to kill the officers.

Culled from the collection of The Comtesse DeSpair
1886 Morbid Scrapbook