The Mysterious Death of Annie Mooney

"San Francisco Chronicle," August 27, 1870, via Newspapers.com

One day in August 1870, 13-year-old Annie Mooney she left her home in Brooklyn, California to attend her high school in neighboring Oakland.  When she failed to return that evening, her parents were immediately alarmed, as this was the first time she had remained away from home without their consent.  When there was still no sign of her by the next night, they went to the police, and a search was instigated.

Two days after her disappearance, a young girl registered for a room at San Francisco's Cosmopolitan Hotel.  The clerk noted that she tried to avoid his gaze, and generally acted nervous and peculiar.  She gave her name as Emily Hewitt.  She said she had no money, but that her father, Henry Hewitt, would come by later to pay for the room.  In those more trusting days, this promise evidently sufficed for the moment, and she was shown to room 227.

A short time later, she came down to the dining room for lunch.  After the meal, she asked to see another guest at the hotel, George W. Woods, who was a conductor on the Central Pacific Railroad.  When Woods was told of this request, he was rather puzzled--he knew of no "Emily Hewitt"--but he obligingly went to her room anyway.  When he opened the door, he found her sitting in a chair, writing. 

Woods immediately realized that he did indeed know the young woman--and she was the missing Annie.  "What are you doing here?" he asked in amazement.  

She replied, "Well, I am stopping here: mother thought I had better stop here all the time than be coming over."  When he asked here again why she was at the hotel, she hesitated and avoided giving an answer, although she insisted that her parents knew she was there.  He asked why she had summoned him.  

She fell silent.

Puzzled, and not a little exasperated, Woods turned to go, saying that he would tell her parents she was there.  A short time after he left, she again rang the clerk, saying that she wished to see Woods again.  However, when he returned, Miss Mooney refused to let him into the room.  He told the clerk that the young lady was acting very strangely.  From behind her door, Mooney was heard to cry, "Are you a constable?  Don't let them take me away."

A policeman named Poolewas called in.  He found Mooney so weak that she was unable to stand.  He believed she had been drugged.  Poole later stated that there was a strong smell of gas in the room, but Woods testified that he noticed no such thing.  He and Woods managed to bring her home, where she "stared wildly" at everyone, seemingly too out of her wits to explain herself, and vomited frequently.  A doctor was summoned, but he was at a loss what to do for her.  It appears she may already have been beyond medical assistance, in any case.  By midnight, she was dead.  It was immediately assumed that she had been drugged, likely for a nefarious sexual purpose--by some "inhuman monster."

Curiously, the autopsy was vague about what killed Annie Mooney.  Aside from the medicines given her just before her death, no poison was found in her body, or any evidence that she had inhaled gas.  She had a tubercular right lung, along with "an apparent congestion of the brain," but the doctors who examined the body could not state the cause of death with any certainty.  They were, however, careful to note that the dead girl had been a virgin.

The inquest revealed some curious information.  James Mooney, the dead girl's father, stated that on the evening Annie disappeared, a girl came to the house saying she had a message for Annie.  When told she was not in, the girl left.  James subsequently learned that this girl was a Fanny Woods.  (No relation to George.)  When he went to her house and asked what message she had for his daughter, Fanny denied ever going to his house, claiming that someone must have impersonated her.  However, James later learned from one of his sons that the day Annie vanished, the boy had seen Annie and Fanny Woods on a streetcar headed for the ferry boat.  James Mooney also said that his daughter had been "intimately acquainted" with George Woods, and had often ridden in his train.  "He once invited her to go to Sacramento with him."

Fanny Woods' testimony was suspiciously shifty.  She stated that she saw Annie on the morning of her disappearance at the train station, presumably on her way to school.  Annie told her that George Woods had given her a writing desk.  Fanny went on to say that she had never been to the Mooney home; did not, in fact, even know where it was.  However, two of Annie's siblings contradicted her, saying that on the day Annie vanished, they had met her near their home, and that she had asked them if Annie was at home.  It was established that there was an "acquaintance and intimacy" between George Woods and both the girls.

Fanny Woods was recalled the following day, when she admitted that she had indeed called at Annie's home.  She claimed that the only purpose of her visit was to see her friend "about going a fishing."  Later, she saw Annie at the train station, when she heard of the "very pretty philopena present" from Mr. Woods.  This was, she said, the last time she ever saw her friend.

All of this information was considered sufficient reason to arrest Conductor Woods, that friend and generous benefactor of pretty underage girls, and he was taken into custody.  We are told that courtroom onlookers could be heard uttering "the most unwarrantable remarks" against Woods, but the inquest testimony suggests that they were very warrantable, indeed.

When the principal of her school testified at the inquest, he revealed that the day before Annie disappeared, she was "ill or in a very singular mood."  When the noon recess bell rang, instead of leaving with the other girls, she simply put her head on her desk and remained still until the reassembling bell rang an hour later.  When he asked her if she was ill, she made no intelligible reply. Instead, she walked out of the classroom, and never returned.  She did not appear in school the next day.

A stage driver testified that on the day Annie vanished, he saw a young girl he identified as the deceased walking along the road between Oakland and Pacheco.  He stopped and offered her a ride.  She gave her name as "Emily Hewitt," and told him that she had no money, but wanted to go to Martinez to see her uncle.  He good-naturedly gave her a lift as far as Pacheco, after which he brought her to the Martinez stage-driver.  He found out later that the girl had been making inquiries about how to get to Benecia.

From there, Annie somehow made her way to San Francisco.  She went to an employment office and applied for a job as a copyist.  The proprietor offered her a position as a nursemaid instead.  She rejected the suggestion, and left after a few minutes.  She then went to another agency, where this time she agreed to apply for a post as a nurse to the children of a Mr. and Mrs. Block.  She then went to the  Block home and asked to be hired.  She said she was an orphan.  She had been trying to find an uncle of hers, the girl explained,  but as she had been unable to locate him, she needed to find a job.  Mrs. Block thought she was rather too young for the position, but allowed her to remain overnight in her house.  Soon after that, Annie checked into the Cosmopolitan.

Annie's parents told the inquest jury that they had no idea why their daughter left home.  They described her as a mature, well-behaved girl who seemed happy with her life.

The coroner's jury returned what the "Alta California" justly described as a "most extraordinary verdict."  Even though the doctors all testified that they found no sign that Annie had been poisoned or drugged, they ruled that she came to her death "by narcotic poison, administered by the hand of some person to the jury unknown."  As the jury declined to name any particular person as being responsible for her death, George Woods was released from prison.

And that was that.  The multitude of questions surrounding the mystery--Why did Annie leave home? Why did she want to see George Woods?  What, exactly, was going on between the girl and the conductor?  Fanny Woods obviously knew far more than she revealed at the inquest.  What was she hiding?  What killed Annie?--were all quickly forgotten.