The Fall of the House of Windham

William Frederick Windham was always, to put it politely, a bit odd.  From an early age, he became both a puzzle and a worry to his family, all of them wealthy and respectable members of English society.  From boyhood on, he was anti-social, ill-mannered, headstrong, and bad-tempered.  After his unruly behavior got him kicked out of Eton, “Mad” Windham, as he was known, ignored his social equals, preferring to spend his time with servants and other members of the working class.  He was obsessed with trains, bribing porters and guards into letting him turn the railway into his own personal playground.  Wearing a guard’s uniform, he would parade the platform, herding passengers, blowing a whistle, and generally having a grand time.  He also enjoyed impersonating the police.  Some nights, he would dress as a constable and go about London “arresting” prostitutes.

And then, an event took place that turned his story from farce to tragedy.  For the first time in his life, Windham showed an interest in a woman.  Unfortunately, his choice was a beautiful and highly successful young courtesan named Agnes Willoughby.  When in 1861 he inherited the immense Windham family fortune, he decided that she would make the ideal lady of the manor, and proposed marriage. 

Willoughby was personally repelled by this unkempt, socially inept boor, and she never hesitated to say so in his presence.  However, she had no compunction about selling herself when the price was right, and she knew that in this dotty train-fancier she had hit the jackpot.  She agreed to marry him—in return for fifteen hundred pounds a year and nearly twenty thousand pounds’ worth of jewelry.  The happy couple wed on August 30, 1861.  Three weeks later, the new Mrs. Windham ran off to Ireland to join her lover, the famed opera singer Antonio Giuglini, leaving her husband with a pile of bills she had rung up that amounted to nineteen thousand pounds.

Agnes Willoughby

Windham sought consolation for his romantic difficulties by blowing through the family fortune at a truly astounding rate.  He also executed a deed where an uncle—who stood to inherit what was left of the estate if Windham died without issue—was prevented from succeeding to any of it.  This uncle became so alarmed at the trail of ruin his nephew was leaving behind him that he decided there was nothing for it but to haul him in front of a lunacy commission.  He reasoned that if it could be formally established that young William was of unsound mind—something that none of his relatives had ever doubted for an instant—his marriage could be annulled and this hemorrhage of Windham cash stopped.

The inquiry, which took place in December of 1861, ruled that while William Windham may have been strange and generally unpleasant, he was legally sane. However, the court ordered that he pay twenty thousand pounds in costs.  His uncle’s efforts to save the family fortune backfired dismally.

Windham filed for divorce, which proved as disastrous as every other action of his life.  Agnes asserted she had left her husband on the grounds of his cruelty to her.  Her descriptions of his threats to kill her and overall violently frightening behavior only increased Windham’s already notorious reputation.  There were two hearings on the divorce and a third scheduled.  Before this last court meeting could take place, however, Agnes had lured her cash cow husband back to her side.  This so annoyed the judge that he dismissed the case and ordered Windham to pay not only his costs, but Agnes’ as well.

Before long, the once fantastically wealthy William Windham was completely bankrupt.  In 1864, Agnes had somehow persuaded him to sell his remaining assets to her, not to mention take out no less than five insurance policies on his life where she was sole beneficiary.  The family manor, Felbrigg Hall, which had been theirs for generations, was put up for sale.  It was bought by a merchant named Kitton, which led to a popular music hall song featuring the refrain, “Windham has gone to the dogs, Felbrigg has gone to the Kittons.”  

Predictably, Windham’s reunion with his wife did not last long.  When Giuglini’s star began to fade, Agnes tossed him aside as well and moved on to other wealthy admirers.  The former musical idol eventually entered a private lunatic asylum.

Windham ended up living in utter destitution in a Norwich flophouse, where, after a night of heavy drinking in a round of pubs, he died on February 1, 1866, aged only 26.  After his demise, a London newspaper asked how “a British Jury could have been led into the insane belief that Mr. Windham possessed a sound mind.”

As for Agnes Willoughby, her sins reaped a spectacular reward.  In 1864 she gave birth to a son, Frederick, with the highly dubious assertion that it was her husband’s, and therefore, the rightful Windham heir.  After a great deal of legal brawling with the Windham family, she managed to have this claim legally established.  In 1870, she married the agent of the Windham estate of Hanworth, and settled down to a life of prosperous respectability.  Having grown prematurely plain and dowdy, she turned to good works, becoming a pious, prim Lady Bountiful.  She died in 1896.

Frederick Windham—who proved to be as feckless as his ostensible father—died childless only a few months after the death of his mother, and the venerable Windham line became extinct.

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

Stories about ghosts returning to haunt someone because their earthly wishes had been ignored are a dime a dozen, but this is among the more eccentric examples.  The “Saint Paul Globe,” January 19, 1889:

A refusal of a husband to cremate the remains of his wife has, according to his story, entailed upon him a haunt by her disappointed spirit. Mrs. V. was a vivacious brunette and an esthetic woman, always abreast of the times. The idea of cremation won her most enthusiastic support in a moment, and, being a society lady, with little else to do but gratify her whims, she allowed the new scheme for disposing of the dead to enthuse her. It took so much of her attention from her devoted husband that he grew jealous, as it were, of the innovation. He grew to hate it more on the ground of its divorcing his wife's devotion from him than aught else. 

Suddenly she died, and on her deathbed made him promise to cremate her corpse. She talked until the last moment of how her spirit would delight in watching the urn containing her ashes on her husband's mantel, but vowed she would haunt Mr. V. if he was untrue to his promise. It was even said that her longing to become a subject for the furnace actually hastened her death. The husband, however, spurned the thought of giving all that was mortal of his adored wife to the cause that he believed had robbed him of his darling, and, placing the remains in a costly casket, he had her quietly buried. He kept their chamber, where the urn was to have been, sacred to her memory and his own use. Two negro servants were employed to live in the basement and take care of the house.

After a few nights the colored man's wife awakened him with the exclamation: “Mrs. V.’s upstairs." He laughed at it at first, but, after listening a little while, was convinced she was right. Mrs. V. seemed pouring out a torrent of invective and reproach against him, which was varied by a smart controversy. In the morning he appeared with a haunted look in his eyes, and face pallid.  The spook kept getting worse every night, until finally they heard a struggle and a sound as of glass breaking. They rushed up, and, breaking into the room, found him struggling with an imaginary foe.

The debris of a lot of vases that had stood on the mantel were strewn about the floor. The next day he complained to a friend of his trouble, stating that his wife haunted him every night. He was advised to have her remains taken up and cremated, but says he would rather have the company of her spirit than none if the phantom would only desist from pulling hair and breaking furniture. 

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

This creepy little account of a malevolent spirit appeared in the “Sandusky Register,” February 15, 1895:

A Hancock street woman is suffering from a strange hallucination. She imagines that her deceased husband makes daily and nightly visits to her. Her departed spouse, who died a year or so ago, was not one of the kindest men to his wife during his earthly career, and as may be expected is not a spirit every one would care to have as a visitor, even at midday. 

The woman, who is nigh onto three score years and ten of age, showed great joy on the death of her husband, but her happiness was of short duration, as the third night after his death he paid the wife of his bosom a midnight visit. His wife was not at all pleased to see him, and as the visits became of nightly occurrence she became greatly worried and asked advice of her neighbors. They did all in their power to rid her of her strange imaginations but she continues to fret and worry over the spiritual visitations and great fear is felt for her reason, as she already shows signs of mental derangement. 

She says that at first the spirit of her too devoted spouse would awaken her nights by stroking her forehead, as one who was troubled with headache would do. He also talks to her, upbraiding her for feeling so relieved when he died and promises that he will not leave her as she wished but would visit her nightly.

The spirit comes to the home every afternoon at 4 o'clock. He enters the house through a pantry window and then through a door into a side room. Now, every afternoon, iust before 4 o'clock, the room is darkened in expectation of the arrival of the eternal husband. He immediately goes to that room and remains there until night. It is a curious fact but the woman affirms that in the past few months the spirit has taken the form of a large serpent and nights when she goes to bed she has to draw the covers over her head to prevent her serpentine other half from putting his fangs in her face. 

Just before the spirit's departure every night it breaks up dishes, making noises plainly audible to the only occupant of the house. Mornings this poor deluded woman finds broken dishes scattered about. Cans of fruit have been thrown to the floor, the contents being spilled about everywhere. Chairs are moved about from one place to another and eatables are taken. One peculiar trait shown by the spirit is that it is very fond of coffee, as the coffee pot is always emptied of its contents. The deceased, to whom this article alludes, was a veritable coffee fiend during his existence on earth and was always doing everything in his power to make life miserable for his wife, and he is evidently following the same course since his death. 

Some of the neighbors who have visited the house say that they have felt the presence of the spirit. One woman affirms that some fancy work at which she was engaged was torn from her hands and destroyed before her eyes by some invisible power, and that she has heard the spirit cursing and jumping around in an adjoining room, as the master of the house was wont to do. The neighborhood is and has been really worried over the affair and the house is already becoming known as the “haunted" house.

I couldn't find any further reports, but I'm guessing this is one of those ghost stories which did not end well.

Why Senator Brown Should Have Left the Ladies Alone

Arthur Brown, via Wikipedia

As all regular readers of this blog know, I am a sunny optimist who likes to showcase the bright side of life and human nature at its inspiring best.  So you can imagine how thrilled I am at the opportunity to introduce you to Utah Senator Arthur Brown, a worthy whose personal life can be most charitably described as “lively.”

So, buckle up: his story is a very bumpy ride.

Arthur Brown first made his name as a successful attorney in Kalamazoo, Michigan.  His marriage, unfortunately, was less rewarding.  When his wife found out that he had a mistress, Isabel Cameron, (who was enjoying a fine house provided by Brown,) Mrs. Brown cornered Mr. Brown in his office and made a nearly-successful attempt to shoot him.  (Spoiler: this is the first time, but far from the last, that Brown’s lady loves used him for target practice.)  After this event, Brown thought it best to get out of town.  In 1876, he moved to Salt Lake City.  Cameron soon joined him there.  After a few months, Brown divorced his wife, and he and Isabel wed.  They had one son.

Isabel Cameron, via Wikipedia

Brown’s scandalous personal life had surprisingly little effect on his professional success.  He became one of the city’s top lawyers, and soon entered the political world.  He served as a Utah senator from 1896-97.  At the 1896 Republican National Convention, which was held in St. Louis, Isabel introduced her husband to a friend of hers, Anna Bradley, a married mother of two children.

Isabel obviously never heard the truism, “If he cheated on her, he’ll cheat on you.”  Before too long, Mrs. Bradley was Brown’s new mistress.  In 1900, Anna gave birth to a son, whom she named “Arthur Brown Bradley.”

She made no direct announcement who the child’s father was, but with that name, I suppose she thought it wasn’t necessary.

"Washington Times," July 12, 1907, via Newspapers.com

Not long after the boy’s birth, Brown and Mrs. Bradley eloped to Los Angeles.  Believe it or not, this seems to have been Isabel’s first clue that her husband might not be a model of fidelity.  At the same time, she learned that Brown had secretly been keeping an apartment which he used as a love nest.  Isabel broke into the apartment to do a bit of sleuthing.  There, she found a large stack of love letters written to Brown from Mrs. Bradley.  They were in code, but Brown had helpfully left a paper containing the key.  Isabel got to work deciphering the letters.  And the more she read, the more she seethed.

Isabel sent Brown a collect wire message, one so long it cost him ten dollars.  For connoisseurs of vituperation, it was worth every penny, although I doubt the recipient saw it that way.  According to news reports, she called her husband every name in the book, a few that the book would have blushed to include, and vowed revenge.  As an exquisite touch, Isabel wrote the message in Brown’s secret code.  Then, she had Brown and Mrs. Bradley arrested for adultery.  These charges were eventually dropped, but Isabel successfully sued Arthur for $150 a month spousal support.  (He refused to pay, which led him to be imprisoned for contempt of court until he gave in.)

This lawsuit also included the agreement that Brown would part from Mrs. Bradley.  However, the adulterous pair soon violated these terms by running off together to Pocatello, Idaho.  When Isabel heard of this, she went to Pocatello--accompanied by her lawyer--to confront them.  

This meeting went as well as you would expect with this crowd.  Arthur haughtily told Isabel that as she had broken up his first marriage, she was hardly in a position to cast stones at Anna.  Isabel responded by trying to kill Mrs. Bradley, and might well have succeeded if her lawyer hadn’t intervened.  The melee ended with Isabel announcing she never wanted to see either Arthur or Anna again (a sentiment they surely heartily endorsed) and stomped back to Salt Lake City.

A few months later, for whatever inexplicable reason, Brown and Anna also returned to Salt Lake, taking up residence at the Independence Hotel.  Isabel immediately sicced detectives on them, and when the pair were caught together in Brown’s hotel suite, had them charged with adultery.  Mrs. Bradley pled guilty, but she was released on her own recognizance.  Brown, who pled not guilty, was acquitted.  The jury’s verdict looked even quainter when some weeks later, Anna gave birth to their second son.  Isabel celebrated this happy event by following Anna to Brown’s office, where she beat Mrs. Bradley with a lasso.  (Arthur himself was present, but apparently did not get involved with the fight.  Perhaps he was hiding under the desk.)  After this incident, Brown gave Anna a gun to protect herself from his wife.  He would eventually greatly regret this act.

Isabel still wanted this exemplary spouse back, thus proving that people are weird.  She blackmailed Arthur by threatening to publish Anna’s letters if he didn’t return to the marital home.  Arthur moved back in with his wife, but the marriage was soon ended for good when Isabel died of cancer in August 1905.

After Isabel’s death, Arthur proposed to Mrs. Bradley, although she was still legally married.  After she got a divorce, she naturally assumed that Brown would follow through with his promise to finally make her an “honest woman.”  But, as usually happens with men of Arthur Brown’s type, matrimony was more appealing to him in theory than in reality.  Whenever Anna brought up marriage, he dithered and tried to change the subject.

Arthur’s history had an odd way of repeating itself.  Mrs. Bradley did a secret search of Brown’s hotel room in Washington D.C.’s Raleigh Hotel, where she found a cache of love letters written by one Anna C. Adams.  (A side note: she was the mother of popular actress Maude Adams.)  And they weren’t written in code.

We do not know the precise contents of these letters, but they were enough to make Mrs. Bradley get out her gun.  On December 8, 1906, she went to Brown’s room and, without much ado, shot him through the abdomen.  When she was arrested, Anna dismissed the matter as just another lover’s tiff.  “Everything will come out all right,” she blithely told reporters.  “Senator Brown will recover and I will never be placed on trial.”  She added, “I abhor acts of this character, but in this case it was fully justified.”  Her hospitalized victim showed an equal disinclination to take the matter seriously.  He flatly refused to give a statement on what had happened.  (To be fair, the situation demanded a lot of explaining.)  Brown died two days later, refusing to the last to say a word about why he had been shot.

It soon became evident that he really didn’t need to.  The newspapers soon happily revealed every sordid detail.  Brown and his paramour provided material that most reporters just dream about covering.  The press coverage of the pair’s many peccadillos had a positively ecstatic tone.

Journalists were even happier when they learned that Brown had left this world true to form.  His will, dated August 24, 1906, was a masterpiece of--in the words of one reporter--”post-mortem revenge.”  He asserted that neither of Anna’s illegitimate children were his, and even if they were, they would not get a dime of his $70,000 estate.  He added that he never had any intention of marrying Anna, and if she tried to say otherwise, his executors were to fight those claims.  All of his money was left to his two legitimate children by his two wives.

Anna stood trial in November 1907.  If you’re going to be accused of murder, it helps enormously if your victim has been publicly revealed to be a consummate stinker.  And then, of course, there was the “unwritten law.”  In those pre-feminism days, when a woman reacted to her lover’s betrayal by pumping him full of lead, many saw this as simply taking a stand in favor of Noble Womanhood.  Despite the open-and-shut nature of the case, the prosecution had good reason to be nervous.

Anna’s attorneys gave a plea of temporary insanity.  In short, they argued that being involved with the likes of Arthur Brown would drive any woman crazy.  Anna herself gave tearful testimony about the cruelty, the neglect, the emotional abuse Brown had heaped upon her.  She had sacrificed so much for him, only to be repaid with heartbreak and broken promises.  (The defense also hinted that Brown had performed an abortion on her.)

The jurors were wowed by her performance.  Some of them wept.

"Washington Post," November 20, 1907. This is typical of the sort of prose inspired by the trial.

An attorney friend of Brown’s, Maurice Kaighn, testified that Brown had, in writing, admitted to being the father of Anna’s children.  He added that he believed Brown’s refusal to marry Mrs. Bradley had indeed left her mentally unbalanced.  The defense read some of Brown’s many letters to the court.  In them, he repeatedly assured her that they would wed...one of these days.  A parade of Anna’s friends and relatives gave testimony about her delicate mental state in the days leading up to the murder, adding that “eccentricity” ran in her family.  An “expert on nervous diseases” stated that Anna had been suffering from “puerperal insanity” at the time of the shooting.  

The prosecution’s case was much less baroque.  They stated that Anna was not insane when she shot Brown, just angry as hell.  It was, they said, a premeditated murder.  She had followed Brown to Washington to spy on him, and when she discovered proof of his infidelity, she decided he had to die.  They produced a witness who said that a few months before the murder, Anna had said that if Brown didn’t marry her, she would kill him.  (During a previous fight, it was revealed, our damsel in distress had knocked her lover’s teeth out.)  The prosecution also argued that just because Brown was a louse, that didn’t give Anna the right to send him to his grave.

Essentially, the trial was a contest between rational argument and melodramatic sentiment.  Guess which side won.  Yes, on December 2, the jury voted for acquittal.

Anna returned to Salt Lake City, only to find that old friends were leery of being around a woman who got away with murder.  She and her children attempted to have Brown’s will overturned, without success.  Anna lived in poverty and obscurity until her death in 1950.

The last public footnote to this case was in 1915, when Arthur Brown Bradley murdered Anna’s legitimate son Matt. He stabbed his half-brother to death over an argument over who would have to wash the dishes. (The coroner's jury--perhaps influenced by Bradley's youth--ruled that the killing was accidental.)

One is tempted to call him a chip off the old block.

Portrait of a Bluebeard

"The Age," December 30, 1960, via Newspapers.com

At the resort town of Scarborough, England, sometime in the mid-1860s, a remarkably handsome and extremely charming Frenchman, Count Henri de Tourville, made the acquaintance of a well-to-do Englishwoman, Henrietta Brigham. A romance quickly developed, and the two were married. After a honeymoon touring Europe, the pair went to live with Henrietta's widowed mother at the family home of Foxley Hall, in Cheshire. They eventually had a son, William Henri.

Unfortunately, the couple did not live entirely happily ever after. The Count proved to be one of those aristocrats who were big on keeping up a glamorous lifestyle without the glamorous income to back it up. He habitually "borrowed" large sums of money from his mother-in-law. She had even paid for the honeymoon. Before long, Mrs. Brigham became weary of dispensing cash, and came to the very reasonable conclusion that the Count was merely a golddigger. She not only announced that he would get no more money out of her, but that she was going to insist he repay the substantial sums he owed.

This uncomfortable family situation found a tragic resolution one morning in July 1868. Tourville later told police that as he was cleaning a gun in the breakfast room of Foxley Hall, Mrs. Brigham asked to see the revolver. While she was examining it, the gun somehow accidentally went off, killing the poor woman instantly.

She had been shot in the back of the head.

Unsurprisingly, many people entertained some very ugly suspicions about this "accident," but the coroner's jury returned a verdict of "death by misadventure." Scotland Yard was brought in to examine the case, but DCI George Clarke, unable to find any solid evidence suggesting foul play, allowed the inquest verdict to stand.

Henrietta de Tourville did not long survive her mother. Distraught at this family tragedy--and, very likely, tormented by fears over what might really have happened that fatal morning--her health gradually declined until she died in 1871.

The Count now had Foxley Hall all to himself. To his chagrin, however, he was unable to exercise similar control over his late mother-in-law's fortune of £40,000. Shortly before her death, Mrs. Brigham made a new will that left her entire estate to her only grandchild, William Henri.

Soon after Henrietta died, a mysterious fire broke out at Foxley Hall. De Tourville easily escaped the conflagration, but his son and his nursemaid were very nearly burned alive. The Count congratulated himself on having had the foresight to heavily insure the house against fire.

It began to occur to the trustees of the Brigham estate that with a father so prone to "accidents" that happened to always benefit him financially, the odds of little William Henri making it to adulthood were small. They put the boy in the custody of a French couple who would bring him up in that country. His father was not allowed to know his whereabouts.

This was the first of a number of setbacks for de Tourville. The insurance company, muttering some unkind suspicions about the Foxley Hall fire, refused to pay up. De Tourville also learned that the will of Henrietta's father William Brigham, who died in 1864, decreed that if Henrietta died childless, the estate would pass to the children of William's brother. As Henrietta's son was out of the country, these Brigham cousins insisted on taking possession of the inheritance.

It finally began to occur to the Count that he had worn out his welcome in Cheshire, and he left the area for new pastures.

He soon met a widow named Madeleine Miller. Miller was considerably older than the Count, but she possessed a fine house in London, a number of valuable possessions, and a private income of £7,000 a year.

De Tourville found her irresistible. After they had known each other for only a few weeks, he persuaded Madeleine to marry him. His next step was to have her make out a will leaving him nearly everything she possessed. After that, he sweet-talked her into taking out a substantial life insurance policy in his favor.

I trust you will not be particularly shocked by what happened next. In July 1876, the Count took his bride on a romantic tour of the Austrian Tyrol. On July 16th, while the newlyweds were staying in the village of Trefoj, near the Stelvio Pass, they hired a carriage so they could take a tour of the famed mountain scenery. The hotel staff strongly urged them, for their own safety, to take along a guide, but the Count cheerfully waved off their warnings. He and Madeleine set out with their driver.

When they reached a secluded spot high on a narrow mountain pass, the Count told the driver that they no longer needed the carriage. He and his wife would walk the rest of the way.

An hour later, de Tourville returned to their hotel...alone. Alas, he sighed, while standing on the edge of a cliff, his wife had taken a bad step and fallen to her death. A search party found her body the following morning.

The police officer in charge of this latest tragedy was no fool. He did not like how the Count's face and hands were covered with deep scratches, suggesting de Tourville had been in a violent struggle.

Despite the suspicious nature of this latest addition to the Count's remarkable number of personal losses, the inquest into Madeleine de Tourville's death ruled that she had merely been the victim of a terrible accident.

After he had buried Madeleine, the Count wasted little time returning to claim the house and money he inherited from her--not to mention the life insurance money. Within only a few days of his arrival in London, he was participating in the social circuit, charming one and all and undoubtedly keeping a private list of all the wealthy and unattached women he encountered.

De Tourville was oblivious to the fact that at long last, Nemesis was on his trail. Soon after he left Austria, a Herr Markreiter, an avid mountaineer who was very familiar with the area where Madeleine was killed, went to the police. He had read about the tragedy in the newspaper and was convinced it was impossible for her to have died in the way described by her husband. The slope from the roadside where she allegedly fell was a very gradual one. If she had fallen on it, she would merely have rolled for a short distance, sustaining no serious injuries. The staff at the hotel where the de Tourvilles had stayed stated that the couple had clearly been on bad terms. It was also noted that the Count had given different people completely differing versions of how Madeleine had died. When the Austrian police recalled how the not-so-grieving husband hit the financial jackpot by her death, they--a bit late in the day--realized they very likely let a murderer go free. They immediately applied for his extradition from England. When DCI Clarke learned of the request, he was more than happy to track de Tourville down and arrest him. The Count was attending a high society dinner party at the time, which must have made it a memorable meal for all present.

During his fight to avoid extradition, a curious detail was revealed: The suave "Count de Tourville" was, in reality, a former Parisian waiter named Henri Perreau. Despite the fact that Madeleine's money enabled her widower to hire the finest lawyers money could buy, a magistrate ordered his extradition. In January 1877, de Tourville/Perreau unwillingly sailed to Austria.

After his exit from Foxley Hall, Perreau had improved his leisure time by training as a barrister. He evidently reasoned that the more he knew about the law, the easier it would be for him to break it. With his usual brash self-confidence, he insisted on representing himself at his trial.

There is that old saying about lawyers who represent themselves having fools for clients, but given the evidence against him, it is doubtful that the greatest barrister in Europe could have saved Henri Perreau. By the time DCI Clarke showed up in the courtroom--carrying Mrs. Brigham's skull--in order to argue that her death had been not accident, but murder, it was all over for the self-made Count. Perreau was found guilty and sentenced to death. However, the sentence was commuted to eighteen years with hard labor. After an attempt to escape his first prison, he was transferred to the severe, high-security Karlau Prison in Graz, where he was put to work in the local salt mines. By the time Perreau died there in 1890, he was very possibly regretting that they had not quickly hanged him. His son, William Henri was about twenty at the time his father died. Contemporary news reports stated that he took his mother's surname and, when he reached his majority, inherited her property.

"Saint Paul Globe," February 21, 1890, via Newspapers.com

After Perreau's conviction, it emerged that the law had probably underestimated his body count. It was said that shortly before his first wife Henrietta died, she had swallowed ground glass. Her husband had been alone with her at the time. Some years earlier, while working as a waiter in Paris, Perreau befriended a rich Englishman named Cotton, who was unwise enough to hire him as his manservant. During a visit they made to Istanbul, Cotton mysteriously disappeared. No trace of him was ever found. Immediately after Cotton vanished, Perreau unaccountably had enough cash to return to England and adopt his persona of "Count de Tourville," sophisticated aristocrat.

The story of this now-forgotten Bluebeard has a curious postscript that gives him a notable place among the ranks of serial killers. It is a story related by Agnes, Lady Goring in "Lord Halifax's Ghost Book" (1936)

One night, Lady Goring had a peculiar and vivid dream. She saw an old house that was unfamiliar to her. She sensed that she was visiting this house for an important purpose, but she did not know what it was. She fixated on one room,that was decorated in a striking and unusual style. Lady Goring saw an elderly woman dozing in an armchair by the fire. Then, she saw a man quietly enter the room. He crept up behind the woman, and shot her through the head. After the woman collapsed, he tried to arrange the pistol so it would look as if it had fallen from her hand. After arranging the gun and the woman's body to his satisfaction, the man left the room. Lady Goring saw this room and the face of the murderer so clearly that they became fixed in her memory.

Some time after that, she and her husband sought to rent a house in the country. They visited various properties, including an old manor in Cheshire. The minute Lady Goring entered the house, she realized it was the house in her dream. The dining-room, she knew, was the place where she had seen a murder. When she asked the caretaker about the house, he said that the previous owners had been a man, his wife, and his mother-in-law. Sadly, the older lady had accidentally shot herself, after which the house was vacated.

Unsurprisingly, the Gorings did not take the house, and Lady Goring does not appear to have sought any more details about her "dream house." However, months later, she was walking down Regent Street, when she was shocked to see a man's photograph in one of the shop windows. She recognized him as the man she had seen commit a murder. When she went into the shop to ask who he was, she learned that he was "Tourville, who was then being tried for the murder of his second wife in the Tyrol."

One way or another, murder will out. Sometimes.

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

via Newspapers.com

This tale of love-gone-wrong--seven times!--appeared in the Salinas "Californian," November 23, 2009:

Marie Prieto was perhaps the most beautiful woman in California in her time. Starting in the late 1870s, men fell at her feet, pledging their eternal love to the San Juan Bautista woman.

Even in her later years, she retained her striking beauty and suitors were literally dying to marry her. They should have known enough about Marie Prieto to resist Cupid's tugs. Between 1880 and 1895, Marie Prieto was married seven times. And all seven husbands died premature, and gruesome, deaths.

Marie considered herself cursed and those men who would offer their affections to her as fate-tempting fools. And she finally resolved never again to send another man to an early grave by marrying him. She suspected some of her later beaus of courting her for the sole reason of defying the curse.

"San Francisco Examiner," February 12, 1899, via Newspapers.com

No one ever accused Marie of contributing to the demise of any of her seven spouses. In most of the cases she was nowhere near the scene of a husband's death. And the variety of the means of death that made her a widow seven times suggest a random pattern no human serial killer could conceive of. So there really must have been some sort of curse on Marie Prieto.

In 1880, a man named Jose Casella married Marie. Two years later, he was thrown from a wagon and landed on his head. The brain damage was fatal.

In 1883, Marie Prieto Casella married Manville Harris. Harris suffered a broken leg. It was not treated properly and became infected. Eight months after the original injury, Harris died of blood poisoning.

In 1886, Marie Prieto Casella Harris married Felipe Helmuth. Five weeks after the marriage, Helmuth was killed when a mine tunnel collapsed.

In 1891, Marie Prieto Casella Harris Helmuth married William Storey. Storey, while exploring the territory around San Juan Bautista, discovered a "talking" canyon, his way of describing a place where the echoes spoke before you did. He became convinced evil spirits were speaking to him through the echoes. Six months after marrying Marie, the echoes told him to shoot himself in the head. He did.

In 1892, Marie Prieto Casella Harris Helmuth Storey wed George Prouter. Six months later, Prouter accidentally shot himself to death while hunting.

In 1894, Marie Prieto Casella Harris Helmuth Storey Prouter married Beam Campbell, who, like husband No. 3, worked in the mines. Two months after the marriage, he fell down a mine shaft to his death.

Her seventh and final marriage also was the shortest. And the death of husband No. 7 was possibly the most macabre. In 1895, Marie Prieto Casella Harris Helmuth Storey Prouter Campbell married Rey Costillo. Only 28 days after marrying Marie, Costillo was caught in quicksand and suffered a slow, terrifying death.

After this seventh tragedy in her life, Marie swore off marriage for good. She still had plenty of suitors, however, and practically had to chase them away with a stick.

In 1899, Marie was interviewed by a reporter for the San Francisco Examiner who also seemed to fall under her spell. "She is still a beautiful woman," he wrote. "Her age has become uncertain and unreadable."

But Marie was adamant that the curse would claim no more lives. "Since my seventh and last husband got caught in quicksand and suffered a horrible death by suffocation, I have resisted several insistent demands for my hand in marriage," she told the reporter. "Some of the suitors seem to woo me expressly to defy fate and prove an exception to the gruesome fate by which seven of their fellow men had already been done to destruction with an innocent woman. To none of them would I listen, nor will I ever listen.

"Men call me beautiful, and I am accounted a companion worthy of seeking. But if I were as beautiful as Cleopatra and the only marriageable woman in California, I would denounce the man as a fool who would ask to marry me.

"No, I shall never send an eighth man to an untimely grave."

And you can take it from Marie Prieto Casella Harris Helmuth Storey Prouter Campbell Costillo that she never did.

Some people are just better off enjoying the single life.

The Admiral Faces a Mutiny

The most puzzling murderers are not necessarily the ones who are never caught. They are often the ones who are caught, put on trial, and then, thanks to some quirk of fate, get clean away with it.

A prime example is the peculiar death of Rear Admiral Joseph Giles Eaton—a case now completely forgotten, but which, for a brief period early in the 20th century, was the “crime of the century” du jour.

Eaton was born in Alabama in 1847. A graduate of the Naval Academy at Annapolis, in 1867 he served as part of Farragut’s fleet, and went on to many other naval assignments around the world. After his long and distinguished career, he was made commandant of the Charlestown Navy Yard in 1905.

Joseph Eaton, via  Dracut Historical Society

In 1871, he married Mary Ann Varnum. Their only child died at the age of thirteen. Early in 1906, Mrs. Eaton fell ill with what was diagnosed as “cerebral apoplexy.” After her death in February, her nurse, a Mrs. Jennie May Ainsworth, took up residence in the Eaton household, along with her two children. The Admiral had been led to believe she was a widow, but in fact she was still married to a D. G. Ainsworth. In July, Mrs. Ainsworth obtained a divorce from her husband, (it was only then that Eaton learned she was married,) and two weeks later she and Joseph Eaton wed. The newlyweds settled down in Assinippi, Massachusetts.

Jennie Eaton, via Library of Congress

Eaton’s second marriage was troubled almost from the start. If the new Mrs. Eaton was to be believed, this highly-respected, accomplished Admiral was in reality a first-rate monster. In August of 1909, the couple announced the birth of a son. It did not come out until later that the child was not biologically related to either of the parents, but was an illegitimate newborn whom the Eatons had secretly adopted. The baby suddenly died a few months after his birth, and Mrs. Eaton publicly declared her husband had poisoned him. Her assertions were so loud and insistent that a police investigation was made into the baby’s demise. An autopsy showed no signs of poison or any other foul play, and the matter was dropped.

Unsurprisingly, this caused a rift within the Eaton marriage. Mrs. Eaton moved out of the family home, but although one would think accusations of child-murder would be difficult to forgive or forget on either side, some months later the couple was reconciled. At this time, the household also consisted of Jennie Eaton’s mother, Mrs. George Harrison, and Jennie’s two children, June (whose husband had recently divorced her on the grounds that the child she had recently delivered was not his,) and Dorothy.

As soon as the Eatons had patched things up, Mrs. Eaton was back spreading horrifying stories about her husband’s iniquities. She told the family doctor that her husband was insane, a drug addict who was plotting her murder, and a fiendish womanizer who held orgies in their home and made advances to her own daughters. Oh, and she fully expected him to burn their house down. Eaton himself tried passing all this off as “a joke,” but he once sadly admitted that “they now represent a terrible tragedy.”  When asked his address, Eaton took to replying, "a lunatic asylum."

Little did he know that the lunacy was just getting started. On March 7, 1913, Eaton began suffering terrible stomach pains and vomiting, which he attributed to some fresh pork he had eaten the night before. Early the next morning, his wife called their doctor to announce that the Admiral was dead. He was so startled by the news that he immediately brought in the Medical Examiner to do a thorough investigation. While doing the autopsy, the medical men noticed a number of bottles in Eaton’s room, which the widow told them was probably poison. Before they left, Mrs. Eaton pulled the doctor aside and said “I do not know anything about poison. I never made a study of it,” and asked if he found signs of “homicidal insanity” in her late husband. She went on to state calmly that the Admiral had been a drug addict for years, and had an extensive knowledge of poisons.

After an enormous amount of arsenic was discovered in the dead man’s body—at least eight times the amount that could kill—Mrs. Eaton found herself arrested for murder.

"Washington Post," March 23, 1913, via Newspapers.com

The defense argument was simple: Admiral Eaton had been an insane drunkard and drug addict who finally chose to end his utterly worthless existence. Their witnesses included a doctor who in 1909 had received a letter from Mrs. Eaton stating that her “dangerous, insane” husband had murdered their child, and was now plotting her own poisoning, as well as men who “had heard” allegations that Eaton had been “intemperate in his habits.” Their star witness was an eighty-three year old doctor who testified that he had sold the Admiral 45 grains of arsenic. The force of this man’s assertions was greatly weakened when it was revealed he was a regular guest of the prison system, and was, in fact, currently serving a stretch for performing “illegal operations.”

One of the trial’s most curious moments was when a friend of the Eatons testified that, about eight months before the Admiral’s death, Jennie May confided to her that she had a “wealthy lover” in Chicago who wanted her to leave her husband and marry him. The prosecution presented this as a probable motive for her to turn poisoner, but this rich Chicagoan—who was never identified—was very likely imaginary.

Mrs. Eaton took the stand with the same smiling, unruffled demeanor she had displayed ever since her husband’s death. During her six hours of testimony, she defended her actions and deflected all damaging insinuations with remarkable poise and adroitness, causing one lawyer to describe her as “the most wonderful witness I have ever heard.”

There was conflicting testimony about when Eaton ingested the arsenic. A doctor testifying for the defense opined that there was only one large dose of the poison, which the victim swallowed directly after the mid-day meal the day before his death, at a time when it was established that Mrs. Eaton was not at home. Under cross-examination, however, he admitted that it was also possible that Eaton first took the poison late the following day, and that he could have swallowed several other doses between that time and his death.

In his closing argument, Mrs. Eaton’s attorney described her as a sterling character with no motive to murder her husband. In contrast, the District Attorney portrayed the defendant as a “paranoiac,” whose hallucinations led her to murder. He strongly urged a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity.

Instead, after deliberating for nine hours, the jury returned a verdict of “not guilty,” period. As a result, a hitherto highly-respected Naval officer not only suffered an agonizing death, but was posthumously branded a libertine, a drunkard, a drug addict, a murderer, and finally a suicide.

Seven months after Jennie was acquitted, she remarried her first husband. About a year later, her daughter June startled their community with the announcement that a “secret son” of the late Admiral was stalking the family. No one else ever saw any signs of this sinister prowler, and considering that soon afterward, June was committed to a mental hospital, it is safe to assume that she was being harassed by nothing more than a guilty conscience.

In 1918, Jennie May Ainsworth again found herself under arrest, this time for abandoning June’s four-month-old baby in an apartment building. I have been unable to find how this case was resolved. In the 1920s, she and her family were managing a boarding house in Washington, D. C., but after that, this peculiar household disappeared from history.

The Baker: Baked?

With some disappearances, it is a complete mystery whether it is a case of foul play, suicide, or a simple desire to start a new life. With others, you can make a fairly educated guess what happened, but lacking a body, it is impossible to have any definitive resolution. This week, we will be looking at a notorious example of the latter, centering around a baker who rejoiced in the impressive name of Urban Napoleon Stanger.

Stanger was born in Germany circa 1843. Some time around 1870, he and his wife Elizabeth emigrated to London, where he started a bakery in the East End. Stanger was frugal, hard-working, and a dab hand with the breads and pies, to boot, so his little business was an almost instant success. The stolid, mild-mannered baker may not have been the most interesting of men, but he was a prosperous and worthy citizen.

Elizabeth Stanger was another matter. Mrs. Stanger was a flashy, indolent sort who spent money as assiduously as her husband earned it. She was also a quarrelsome, demanding woman who henpecked her meek spouse unmercifully--particularly when, as so often happened, she had had a bit too much to drink. She was even known to attack her husband with his own loaves of bread. The Stangers may not have been the ideal couple, but for some years they were a quite ordinary one.

This changed when Franz Felix Stumm entered the picture. He too was a native German who had opened his own bakery. However, his business was not nearly as successful, and he was deeply in debt. Fortunately for him, Stanger was willing to offer a helping hand to his fellow countryman, and often hired Stumm to work around his bakery. Although Stumm was married, he and Elizabeth Stanger also became friends--according to scandalized neighborhood gossip, very, very good friends indeed. Urban, preoccupied as always with business affairs, was either unaware of or indifferent to the rumors involving his wife and his chum. Even more curiously, Mrs. Stumm also seemed perfectly content with the relationship.

On the night of November 12, 1881, Stanger went out to the pub with Stumm and another of his employees, Christian Zentler. All seemed in the best of spirits. Shortly before midnight, Stanger said an amicable good-night to his friends and entered his home.

When Zentler arrived at the bakery the next morning, he was met with a surprise. Instead of being greeted as usual by his boss, he found a "little put out" Mrs. Stanger. She ordered Zentler to immediately go fetch Franz Stumm. Mr. Stanger had suddenly taken it into his head to return to Germany, she explained, and he wanted Stumm to manage the bakery in his absence.

It was soon clear that Stumm was taking Mr. Stanger's place in more ways than one. Within a few days, he completely abandoned his own home in favor of Stanger's. His creditors were paid off with checks purportedly signed by the absent Urban. Franz and Elizabeth were often seen parading through the streets arm-in-arm. Then Stumm painted out Mr. Stanger's name from the front of the bakery and substituted his own. When asked about Mr. Stanger's whereabouts, the pair blandly stated that he "was in hiding somewhere."

The neighbors began saying some very unpleasant things about Franz and Elizabeth.

In April 1882, one of Mr. Stanger's executors, John Geisal, offered a £50 reward for any information regarding the missing baker. He also applied for warrants against Stumm and Mrs. Stanger on the charge of forging checks and conspiring to defraud Urban's executors. Geisal obviously shared the universal suspicions about Mr. Stanger's mysterious "trip to Germany."

Stumm was the first of the accused to stand trial. He was sullen and uncooperative throughout the proceedings. He continued to maintain that Stanger had gone abroad to escape creditors, blithely ignoring the fact that the missing man had left plenty of money in the bank.

Mrs. Stanger, in her role as chief witness, did a bang-up job of blackening the name of her absent husband. Like Stumm, she painted Urban as a hopeless spendthrift who only managed to keep in business thanks to loans from his dear friend, Franz Stumm. She also insisted that her husband had abandoned her. She stated that they had quarreled over his money-wasting ways, which ended with Stanger declaring, "I have often told you I would leave you, and now I will go." She burst into tears and went upstairs to bed. And that, she said defiantly, was the last she ever saw of Urban. Unfortunately, until someone found Mr. Stanger--alive or dead--her story could not be proved or disproved.

As for those fraudulent checks, she stated that she, not the defendant, had signed them. She was accustomed to signing documents for her husband, so she had thought there was no harm in it. She admitted having also forged letters that her husband had purportedly sent from Germany. She only did that, she claimed, to stave off his creditors.

After a three-day trial, the jury had little trouble convicting Stumm. When Stumm heard the verdict, he erupted into a fiery storm of abuse against everyone in the courtroom. He was innocent, he shouted. His lawyers had completely bungled his case. There was, he snarled, "no justice in vile England for a foreigner."

Judge Hawkins--who was known by the charming nickname of "'Anging 'Awkins"--responded to this tantrum by fixing a cold eye on the prisoner and slapping him with the maximum sentence: ten years hard labor.

"Thank you," Stumm sneered. "I am very much obliged to you." He wanted to speak more, but warders quickly hauled him out of the courtroom. He was still muttering vile imprecations all the way back to his cell. Meanwhile, Elizabeth Stanger was also convicted of forgery. She was given a year in prison. It was universally felt that justice had been very incompletely done.

Unsurprisingly, Stumm was such a violent and troublesome prisoner he forfeited any hope of parole, and served his entire sentence. When he was freed, Stumm was reunited with his wife and his lady friend (the two women had been rooming together since Mrs. Stanger's release from prison.) This sinister menage a trois returned to Germany, and disappeared from the pages of history.

So that was that. No trace of Urban Napoleon Stanger was ever found, or even any clue indicating what became of him. Crime historians are generally of the opinion that the baker was done away with--and, as you can imagine, they are not very coy about hinting who was responsible--but if such was the case, the question of what happened to his body will never be answered.

His neighbors, however, had few doubts about what became of Stanger's remains. They noted the fact that his bakery had a nice, large oven--so handy for various purposes--and they came to distressing conclusions about where the poor man wound up.

Suffice it to say that it was a long time before East Enders felt completely at ease about eating a meat pie.

[Note: Sherlock Holmes scholar Michael Harrison believed that the Stanger mystery was the inspiration for "A Study in Scarlet."]

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

This Strange Company-worthy scene of domestic bliss comes from the "New Castle Herald," May 16, 1914

It is not often that real life supplies the peculiar sort of plot required in the hair-raising plays which have made the Theatre Grand Guignol of Paris, famous the world over. Yet a divorce case just tried in Stockholm, Sweden, presented evidence that shows a faithless wife and her male accomplice to have figured in scenes that could hardly be improved upon. 

Divorce court records reveal many ingenious ruses whereby wives and husbands have secured evidence of the faithlessness of their wedded partners; but this appears to be the first instance of a husband accomplishing such a feat by having himself pronounced dead and placed in a coffin ready for burial. 

That is the feat that was successfully performed by Karl Petersen, a well-to-do citizen of the Swedish capital. Upon evidence thus obtained the court granted him a divorce from the handsome woman to whom he had been married barely a year. 

Owing to her beauty and many charming accomplishments, Mrs. Petersen’s former suitors and admirers were not altogether discouraged by the fact of her marriage to one of the wealthiest merchants of Stockholm. Several of them became frequent guests at the Petersen home. One in particular–a certain dashing young society man named Swen Egstrom. 

Several months ago Petersen became suspicious that Egstrom was exceeding his duties as bundle-carrier and general utility man about the house. In fact, he more than half believed that the bond between his charming bride and Egstrom was of a nature that was reflecting upon his own honor. Petersen vainly endeavored to prove or disprove his suspicions, and then resolved upon spinning the strangest web in which an erring wife ever was entangled. 

He feigned illness and made that an excuse to go to his country house for a few day’s rest away from the business and social whirl of the metropolis. He was accompanied only by two or three old and confidential servants. 

The day after his arrival in the country, Petersen took to his bed and quietly summoned his confidential physician, to whom he stated his suspicions and outlined the details of his plan. The physician’s sympathies were with the husband. 

“For a beginning,” said Petersen, “I want you to telegraph to my wife, saying that I am dying.” 

“I will do that, willingly,” said the physician. “And I will manage to make you appear as dead as you are supposed to be, when the time comes. But I can’t see my way clear to signing any death certificate.” 

“How long can you defer your official report of my death?” inquire Petersen. 

“Will forty-eight hours be long enough?” 

“Ample,” said Petersen. “I have reason to believe that within twenty-four hours after you have pronounced me dead my wife’s paroxysms of grief will have subsided sufficiently to allow her to give me all the evidence I need.” 

The physician sent the telegram in the afternoon, and a few hours later received Mrs. Petersen’s answer that she would take the first train and reach her husband’s bedside on the next afternoon. 

Petersen’s “illness” had an alarming change for the worse at midnight. At dawn the physician announced to the sorrowing servants that their master had passed away. The butler alone was in the conspiracy, for reasons that will become obvious. But he was naturally melancholy and, therefore, needed to add merely a touch more of solemnity to his features. 

Petersen being of spare build and entirely without color in face or hands, it was a simple matter for the physician to add the corpse-like chill and rigidity that would deceive any ordinary beholder. He also undertook the “setting” of a scene in the library that would give the suspected wife every opportunity to betray herself. 

A handsome burial casket had been timed to arrive before noon. This was placed on trestles in the library within a yard or two of a desk, on which was a telephone.
The physician took upon himself the duties of undertaker. Aided by the undeceived butler, he prepared Petersen’s corpse-like body for burial and placed it in the casket, Mrs. Petersen arrived escorted by the faithful Egstrom. The physician met them at the door. 

“My poor, dear husband!” said the wife. “Do tell me that he is better.” 

“Your poor husband suffered very little,” said the physician. 

“Oh, he’s dead! My darling husband is dead!” exclaimed Mrs. Petersen. 

The physician conducted the sorrowing wife into the library. He received her fainting form in his arms–for one glance at the white face in the coffin assured her that fainting was now in order. 

Mrs. Petersen did not leave her room that night. Egstrom retired early to the chamber allotted to him. 

The butler busied himself in the kitchen behind closed doors preparing a nourishing broth that could be safely taken by a dead man without bringing any tint of life to his cheeks. 

The physician watched beside the coffin. Toward midnight he was awakened by a loud yawn. For a moment, confused by drowsiness, he was startled at the sight of Petersen sitting up in his coffin and drumming impatiently on its lid with his fingers. 

“Did she come?” asked Petersen, who, in the interests of the conspiracy, had lain all this time unconscious under the influence of a drug. 

“She came,” said the physician. “When she gazed on your dead face she fainted. We took her to her room, and she hasn’t left it since. Egstrom was with her, of course.” 

“Did the fellow stay?” asked the “corpse,” eagerly. 

“He did. We dined together and he recalled all your excellent qualities.” 

“Good,” said the corpse. “There won’t be any more attention paid to me–not until I play my little joker.” 

Petersen was restless in his narrow quarters, and to get out to stretch his legs and to get back in again would disarrange the coffin’s upholstery. So he suggested a game of cribbage. 

“I’ll play you for the amount of your bill,” he said with a grim smile. 

“Which bill? Doctor or undertaker?” 

“Both, in their natural order,” Petersen came back at the facetious physician. 

In the morning, the butler entered noiselessly and whispered; 

“Mr. Egstrom is up, ready for breakfast. Mrs. Petersen has ordered her breakfast in her room, sir.” 

The corpse bobbed down into its coffin, white hands folded across his breast. The doctor threw himself into an easy chair, puffing furiously on a fresh cigar to account for the unfunereal atmosphere of the room. 

But these precautions proved unnecessary. The Petersen country house being isolated, there were no callers. Mrs. Petersen and Egstrom went out for a drive immediately after breakfast. Mrs. Petersen was sure that the doctor would make all arrangements. She was “too overcome to be of any use.” She and her “kind escort” probably would not return until evening. 

“Good Lord!” sighed the corpse. “Another night of it.” 

But he stuck to his resolution not to risk anything by getting out of his coffin. 

Mrs. Petersen and Egstrom took breakfast together the following morning in the small breakfast room adjoining the library. Petersen could hear their cheerful conversation.
After breakfast the unsuspecting couple entered the library, carefully closing the door after them. They barely glanced at the coffin, never once looking inside, where Petersen lay with a most undeathlike flush of exasperation on his countenance. 

Mrs. Petersen went directly to the telephone. Petersen heard her call up one of his most intimate business associates in tones that were so cheerful as to be almost gay she announced the joyous fact of her husband’s death. 

“The will leaves everything to me, you know,” telephoned Mrs. Petersen. “I shall be rich–and you know what that means, naughty boy!” 

Petersen could hardly restrain himself. It was lucky he did, for now he heard the vice of Egstrom tenderly rebuking Mrs. Petersen for holding out false hopes to the “fool at the other end of the wire.” 

“La, la! Let me have my little joke with the old reprobate,” said Mrs. Petersen. “You know, Duckie, that I love no one but you, and never have.” 

“You darling!” 

These two words were uttered in the voice of Egstrom. 

Petersen sat up in his coffin. Mrs. Petersen and Egstrom, not two yards away, were clasped in each other’s arms. 

At that instant the butler entered. The exposure was complete, witness included. 

“Caught!” thundered the corpse, with bony finger pointed at the deceitful couple. 

Mrs. Petersen, beholding the fearsome spectacle of her departed husband sitting up in his coffin and so justly denouncing her, fainted in dead earnest. 

Egstrom was so scared that he let her fall to the floor. Then he ran from the room and dashed, hatless, from the house. 

Petersen crawled out of the coffin and carried Mrs. Petersen to her room and sent for a physician–for truly she needed one. 

When Petersen had regaled himself with a bath and a large steak with plenty of fried potatoes, he went back to the city and started divorce proceedings. 

The divorced Mrs. Petersen is living in strict retirement. It is reported that the shocking scene of her departed husband sitting up in his coffin to accuse her had transformed her from a beauty into a nerve-racked old woman.

So, ladies, the moral is clear: Before you start in on your merry widowhood, make very, very sure your beloved husband is not just dead, but safely six feet under. Otherwise, nasty surprises may be in store.

Hero Takes a Fall

"How long, O Lord, how long shall we have to listen to all this tripe about commercial arsenic? Murderers learn it now at their mother's knee.”
~Dorothy Sayers, "Strong Poison"

In March of 1894, a handsome 26-year-old named George Dean married a pretty 18-year-old named Mary Seymour. That is the first and the last normal thing detail about their story.

The couple's household in Sydney, Australia quickly became an unhappy one. Dean, a ferryboat captain, was away from home much of the time, and when he was around he and his mother-in-law, Catherine Seymour, quarreled frequently. After Dean banished Catherine from his home, he and his wife fell on increasingly bad terms. When Mary gave birth to a daughter in December of 1894, Dean even began sullenly insinuating (on no good grounds) that he doubted the child was his. On March 1, 1895, Mrs. Dean had a "scrap" with her husband, which ended with him making the ominous comment that he would marry someone else as soon as he "got rid" of Mary. On March 2, she noticed that the lemon cordial she habitually drank had an oddly bitter taste to it. She had noticed a similar bitterness in beef tea she drank several months before. Soon afterward, she fell ill.

Mrs. Dean's health continued to decline, and the strange taste of her food and drink, coupled with some very suspicious behavior on the part of her husband, led to George Dean being arrested in April on a charge of poisoning his wife.

The evidence against Dean looked quite damning. His wife and her mother testified how Dean had suggested Mary drink some porter. He brought her the glass himself. She saw a white sediment at the bottom of the drink, and refused to take it. On another occasion, he served her tea that had the same white substance in it. Before he gave her medicine her doctor had prescribed, she saw him stir a white powder into it, which he assured her was part of the prescription. After taking it, she immediately became violently ill. The doctor later denied that he had ordered any such powder for her. During Mary's illness, her vomit and the remains of her medicine were analyzed and found to contain arsenic and strychnine. The defense argument was simply that Mrs. Dean must have poisoned herself in an effort to frame her husband for attempted murder. Given the evidence, it is a bit surprising that the jury had a hard time reaching a decision. After much wrangling, the jury finally came up with a verdict of guilty, but with a "recommendation to mercy," tacked on to win over those jurors less certain of Dean's culpability. The judge, William Windeyer, remarked that he "had never in his experience tried a clearer case than this," and that he "was as well convinced of his guilt as though he had seen the attempt to poison his wife, not once or twice, but on every occasion on which she fell sick." Windeyer condemned the prisoner to be hanged.

Normally this would have been the end of George Dean, but fortunately for him, Windeyer's comments backfired dramatically. His Honor already had a reputation as a "hanging judge," and his obvious bias against the defendant created a great deal of adverse comment. It was widely suspected that he had pressured the jury to convict the defendant. This quickly snowballed into a general sentiment that this convicted poisoner was an innocent martyr who fell victim to an "outrageous miscarriage of justice." Public meetings were held in favor of the prisoner which drew thousands of indignant citizens. Money was raised for his defense. Petitions were sent to the government. The true villains, public opinion soon determined, were Mrs. Dean and her mother. Rumors spread that Mrs. Dean was a habitual arsenic eater and a woman of the worst possible character. (These rumors were hardly quieted by the embarrassing disclosure of the fact that Catherine Seymour had a background that included pickpocketing, receiving stolen property, and brothel-keeping.) It was even bruited about that Catherine had poisoned her daughter in order to incriminate her despised son-in-law. The public support for George Dean, and corresponding fury against everyone who had a role in convicting him, reached such a level that on April 17 his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.

That did little to subdue the uproar over the case. One of Dean's solicitors, William Crick, was an MP, and on April 18 he gave an address before the assembly where he vigorously denounced Judge Windeyer as unfit to sit on the bench, and he demanded that royal commissioners reopen the case. His client, he declared, had been convicted on "utterly unreliable evidence."

In response to this public outrage, the government appointed a commission of three highly-regarded men to review the case. It was, in essence, an informal trial of Mary Dean and her mother, who were now generally regarded as black-hearted witches who had tried to send an innocent man to the gallows. On June 28, this commission released a report stating that they had "grave doubts" about Dean's guilt, and recommended that he be released. It is difficult to determine if this decision was reached solely due to an objective view of the facts of the case, or if they were influenced by the government's anxiety to placate a large, angry populace.

George Dean was freed, and for some time afterward was quite the popular hero. Large numbers of people, mostly women, rode his ferry simply for the privilege of gazing at his "manly brow" and contemplating his courage and virtue in the face of his horrible ordeal. His most outspoken solicitor, Richard Meagher, won a seat in Parliament simply for having defended Dean.

Happy endings all around! Well, not quite. On September 18, a member of Parliament asked the Attorney General, John Want, about rumors that there had been a "confession" in the Dean case. He received the enigmatic reply that Want "must decline to answer, as whatever communication he had was of a confidential nature."

These words brought the Dean controversy, which everyone thought had been finally settled, roaring back to life. A suddenly-nervous Meagher had the "heroic ferryman" issue a statement denouncing his "persecutors." Dean asserted his innocence and demanded that Parliament clear his name from the Attorney General's slanderous insinuations.

By way of reply, Attorney General Want presented to Parliament a statement from Sir Julian Salamons, the lawyer who had conducted the prosecution of Dean before the royal commission. Salamons said that in the previous July, Meagher admitted to him that after Dean had been convicted, the ferryman fully confessed his guilt to the solicitor.

In July 1895, the "Daily Telegraph" published an editorial suggesting that Meagher's ineptitude had been responsible for the innocent Dean being sent to jail. Meagher was so infuriated by this that he wished to sue the paper for libel. He asked Salamons to represent him in this proposed lawsuit. Salamons told him he had no grounds for complaint. After all, he said, Dean was innocent, but had been found guilty. It would be different, of course, if Dean had been guilty...

It was then that Meagher blurted out the truth: Dean was guilty. His client had admitted to Meagher that all the charges against him were true. In other words, Meagher had stirred up public opinion and blackened the characters of two helpless women all to set free a man he knew was a cold-blooded poisoner.

Salamons said he tried to persuade Meagher to make Dean's confession public, but the solicitor refused. This left Salamons with a great dilemma on his hands: He felt that what Meagher told him fell under the category of "lawyer/client privilege," which decreed that he stay silent. On the other hand, if he kept Meagher's revelation to himself, Mary Dean and her mother would continue to be publicly vilified, while a would-be murderer remained a public idol. He finally shared his secret with the Attorney General.

Meagher angrily called Salamons' statement "a base and cruel fabrication," and asserted that Sir Julian was suffering from "the demon of mental affliction." Crick made a thoroughly disgraceful speech in parliament, describing Salamons as "a cunning little Jew," "a wily Jew" who was simply inventing his entire story. Dean himself denied making any such confession to Meagher.

Meagher and Crick picked the wrong target. In his forty years at the bar, Salamons had not risen to the top of his profession for nothing. He responded to Meagher's attack with a Parliamentary speech that was a brilliant and utterly damning condemnation of Dean and his solicitors. By the time he finished speaking, there was not an impartial soul left in the country who still believed George Dean was an martyr. When a chemist who had sold Dean arsenic finally came forward, the public revulsion towards the ferryman was as strong as their former adulation.

On October 5, Dean, Crick and Meagher were arrested and charged with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. Dean also faced perjury charges. Three days later, Crick rose from his seat in Parliament, and made a stunning announcement. He read a full confession from Meagher, where the solicitor admitted the truth of every word Sir Julian had said. Meagher followed that up by resigning from the parliamentary position he had won only a month before. The following day, the Attorney General read before Parliament a statement from Dean, admitting not only his guilt, but that he had indeed told Meagher of his crime.

By that point, it was far from clear who was the most hated man in Australia--Meagher or George Dean.

The charges against Crick were dropped when it was established that Meagher had never told him of Dean's confession. Meagher was found guilty, but his sentence was later overturned on a technicality. Meagher's law career was over, but he became a successful real estate agent, and, rather remarkably, won a seat in the Legislative Assembly. He also served a two-year term as Mayor of Sydney. In 1920, he even managed to use his political connections to get reinstated to the roll of solicitors.

Dean was found guilty of perjury, and sentenced to fourteen years hard labor. Thanks to his good behavior in prison, he was released after nine years and lived a quiet life until his death in 1933. Mary Seymour Dean obtained a divorce in 1896. She remarried four years later. Hopefully, her second husband was a better bargain than her first.