Category Archives: Facts

MFDJ 10/21/24: Dangerous Photo Ops

Today’s Perfect Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

Scrambling around the lip of a fall in Yosemite Park in search of a more “perfect” spot from which to see the water falling has been lethal at least six times. On July 27, 1970, 19-year-old Nicholas Michael Cordil from Los Angeles hiked with Donald Echenberg to the top of Upper Yosemite Fall. They arrived together but Cordil soon separated from his buddy to hoke toward the world-famous scene. Over his shoulder he told Echenberg he was “going to look at the fall.”

Cordil too never came back. Echenberg searched but could not find him. Three days later a hiker found parts of Cordil’s badly damaged body in the deep pools below the base of the waterfall.

How easily these fatal slips occur is often hard to believe. On August 13, 1989, 20-year-old John Eric Ofner from Santa Barbara, California hiked with Gretchen Rose and Celia Denig to the top of Upper Yosemite Fall. The weather was hot. All three hikers went swimming in Yosemite Creek. Now cooled off, Ofner walked to the edge of the waterfall for a better look. He tried to peer downward. He edged a little closer, looked again, and then realized that this was the best view he was going to get. He turned around to head back upstream to Rose and Denig.

Abruptly he lost his footing on the sloping rock and fell facedown into the creek. Even though the water was flowing fairly low, it instantly swept him over the brink. Ofner fell more than 1,400 feet onto granite and was decapitated upon impact.

“Maybe I can get just a little bit closer…”

Culled from: Off the Wall: Death in Yosemite

Sing Sing Death House Prisoner Du Jour!

NAME: Anthony Papa
NUMBER: 106-433
AGE: 27
OCCUPATION: Button Maker
MARITAL: Married, 1 child
PHYSICAL: 5’8″, 183 lbs.
CRIME: Saw 5-year-old girl at his wedding, was attracted to her, struck and killed her, night, premises, Mineola, 4-19-47
CLAIMS: Doesn’t remember doing it (if he did it)
JUDGE: Collins, Nassau County Court
SENTENCED: 10-22-47
RECEIVED: 10-22-47
EXECUTED: 7-1-48

Date May 29, 1945

I, ANTHONY R. PAPA, hereby request that, in the event that I am executed, my eyes be immediately removed and given to the New York Eye Bank, for whatever disposition and use they may wish.

Anthony R. Papa

I approve of the above gift.

Frances Papa
Wife

I think there’s a song by The Adverts about that… – DeSpair

I found additional information on the crime in the newspaper archive:

Former Service Man Held In Girl’s Death

MINEOLA, N. Y., April 21—AP—Anthony Papa, 27, was held today on a first degree murder charge in the death of six-year-old Rosemary Fusco, who was found dead in her home Saturday night, her throat slashes from ear to ear.

District Attorney James N. Gehrig of Nassau county said that Papa, who had been dishonorably discharged by both the army and the navy, was arrested after police followed a trail of blood from the Fusco home to the Papa home.

Gehrig said that papa, while confessing the slaying yesterday afternoon, asserted that, “I loved her like she was my own child.”

The trail of blood leading to the Papa residence resulted from Papa’s cutting his hand on the window of the Fusco home, Gehrig said.

(Belleville Daily Advocate, Monday April 21, 1947)

Child Slayer Dies In Electric Chair

OSSINING, N.Y., July 2 (AP)—Anthony Papa, 28-year-old child slayer, died in the electric chair at Sing Sing prison last night.

Papa was silent at the end. Yesterday, he had complained about the heat, saying “It’s awful hot along with my other troubles.”

He was convicted of first degree murder on Oct. 12, 1947 for slashing to death six-year-old Rose Marie Fusco in her Mineaola, N. Y., home the preceding April.

(Bangor Commercial, Friday, July 2, 1948)

Garretdom: Olde News

Why a Saloon-Keeper Was Murdered.

CLEVELAND, Ohio, Sept. 23.—The Coroner’s inquest in the murder case at Melmore, Ohio, develops the fact that Lewis C. Leidy, a saloon-keeper, was murdered by Charles Gains and Nathaniel Echelberry. The men entered Leidy’s saloon Monday morning and asked for some whisky. Leidy refused to sell to them because their wives had requested him not to do so. The men left the saloon, returning in a few minutes armed with stones. The quarrel was renewed, and Echelberry struck Leidy on the head with one of the missiles, fracturing his skull. Both men then jumped upon their victim and beat and kicked him in a most brutal manner until life was entirely extinct.

Culled from the collection of The Comtesse DeSpair
1886 Morbid Scrapbook

MFDJ 10/19/24: Charnel Houses of London

Today’s Fleshless Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

As the distinguished historian Dr. Vanessa Harding has observed, the dead were everywhere in mediaeval London, ‘neither out of sight, nor out of mind’. The Romans had feared their dead, and banished them to distant cemeteries; by the Middle Ages, Christians buried their dead close to home. Londoners were born, baptized, married and buried in the Church. Literally, in many instances, as burial within the walls and vaults was considered the most distinguished form of interment.

Although St John Chrysostom had directed Christians to continue the Roman practice in the fourth century AD, warning them that burial in the church was analogous to placing a rotting cadaver near the limbs of Christ, his caution was ignored. The custom of burying within the church derived from the concept of martyrdom. Christians revered those who had died for their faith, turning their tombs into shrines. The faithful clamoured to be buried alongside the martyrs, as close as possible to the venerable remains, a custom which, in anthropological terms, recalls Neolithic beliefs that certain human remains possessed supernatural properties. It was believed that canonized saints did not rot, like lesser mortals, but that their corpses were miraculously preserved and emanated an odour of sanctity, a sweet floral smell, for years after death. In forensic terms, such preservation is likely to be a result of natural mummification in hot, dry conditions.

The tradition of martyrdom informed a different attitude towards human remains. Corpses per se were not regarded as objects of fear. Nowhere was this more evident than in the charnel house of St. Paul’s. Built over a shrine to St Erkenwald, an Anglo-Saxon bishop of London, following a great fire, beneath its soil lay the graves of Britons, Saxons and Romans. St Paul’s was London’s principal church after Westminster Abbey. Weddings were celebrated here, sermons preached, plays enacted and burials conducted.

The institution of the charnel house was a particularly gruesome aspect of mediaeval burial. Christians then had little concept of one man, one grave, and many, of course, could not afford an elaborate burial. Fees consisted of payments to the gravedigger for breaking the ground, to the priest and to the parish church, and to the sexton who tolled the passing bell. Those who could not pay were buried “on the parish”, in pits, wrapped in shrouds. When one pit was full, it was covered in earth, and previous one reopened. The bones were dug up, and taken to the charnel house for safekeeping. The term derives from the French charnier: flesh. In France and Italy, skeletal remains were used to create artistic displays, including chandeliers, which were exhibited in the ossuary—a gallery above a charnel house.

The bone crypt at St. George’s Church in Doncaster, depicted before the fire of 1853.

Eventually, even the bodies of the wealthy, buried under the stone flags of the church, submitted to this fate. But it was not regarded as violation. The French historian Philippe Aries has observed that the significant thing was to be buried in or near the church. What actually happened to your body after that was immaterial. Tombs and headstones were reserved for the nobility. Although the faithful visited the shrines of saints, the concepts of returning to the grave of a loved one, and communing with their memory, was unknown.

The dead were also at the heart of the city. Saturated with Christian theology, the attitude of the average Londoner was, in the words of Aries, ‘et moriemur — and we shall all die’. With land at a premium, churchyards were communal spaces as the core of parish life, more like street markets than parks. Laundry fluttered above the graves; chickens and pigs jostled for scraps. Bands of travelling players enacted dramas, and desecration was inevitable, with ‘boisterous churls’ playing football, dancing, drinking and fighting on the hallowed ground. Just how rough these activities got is indicated by entries in parish registers of deaths resulting from participation in such pastimes. Church services were frequently disturbed, and the erection of booths for the sale of food and drink caused serious damage to the graves. Before condemning such irreverence, we should remember that the bond between the living and the dead was very different from today. It was an extension of the mediaeval belief that the dead were, in some sense, still close by, and probably grateful to hear the merrymaking.

Culled from: Necropolis: London and Its Dead

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!

1/4 mile north of Katella Ave.

Garretdom: Olde News

An Italian Murders Another.

NEW YORK, Sept. 23.—Frank Pieren and Antonio Fiero, Italian junk dealers, of South Brooklyn, between whom a bitter feud has existed for some time past, met this morning opposite No. 465 Carroll street, South Brooklyn. A quarrel followed, which culminated in Pieren’s death. After a war of words Pieren, it seems, snatched an iron bar, with which he struck his adversary in the face. Fiero wrenched the weapon away, whereupon Pieren seized a stick. Michaelo Daly, a brother-in-law of Piero, seeing his relative getting the worst of the battle, interfered, and with a broad-bladed sheath-knife stabbed Pieren in the abdomen, a breast, left arm and left side. He died in a little while. Daly was arrested.

Culled from the collection of The Comtesse DeSpair
1886 Morbid Scrapbook

MFDJ 10/15/24: Boys Will Be Monsters

Today’s Exciting Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

This was written by John Marr in his wonderful 1990’s era zine “Murder Can Be Fun“. I’d like to shout out what a splendid bit of writing it is! – DeSpair

The classic recreational drowning occurred in Lowell, Massachusetts in 1925. A fine spring afternoon found 9-year-old Johnny Veres and his little pal Milt, who was only 6, goofing off on the bands of the Merrimac River. Undoubtedly, by the time they answered the summons of history, the two young scamps had already run through the complete retinue of childish riverside amusements. Bare toes had wiggled in mud, stones had skipped across the water, fish had evaded improvised hooks. The lads itched for something new, something different. As they later told police, they were ready “for excitement.”

They found it by adding a new, original twist to an ancient game. For thousands of years, small boys [and girls! – DeSpair] have whiled away many a seaside hour by constructing small crude crafts of flotsam and jetsam. After setting them adrift, the youthful rascals gleefully pelt the products of their labors with stones. The game ends when the target has been smashed to kindling, or, better yet, sunk to the accompaniment of children reveling in the joy of destruction.

Johnny and Milt’s innovation was simple: a living target. Aquatic birds were out; they have an unsporting habit of flying out of range after the first volley. Adult swimmers and mariners are prone to retaliation. This left them but one obvious option.

Somehow or other, they got their hands on an 18-month-old baby. After stripping the squirming infant of her clothes, they threw her into the river and jovially pelted her with rocks as the current bore her away. Unlike their previous floating targets, it wasn’t necessary for them to score too many direct hits to sink the screaming infant. As she went down, they probably thought exultantly, This is excitement! The quick response of the police, summoned by horrified onlookers, was just an added thrill. However, it was too late for the baby. By the time her body was recovered from the river, she was dead.

In custody, Johnny and Milt corroborated each other’s stories, save for one small detail. Each admitted to his part in the kidnapping, and they had no compunction about describing how they threw the stones. But when it came to throwing the baby in the river in the first place, it was a plain case of, “He started it first!”

Milt was eligible to get away with it by virtue of his age; Massachusetts law at the time presumed that a child under the age of seven was unable to understand the nature of their act. No charges were brought against him, although he was held as a material witness. The picture for little Johnny was far grimmer. He was indicated for manslaughter. At his hearing, he put on a show worthy of his spiritual ancestor, Hannah Ocuish. As the judge, visibly moved, read the indictment that threatened to incarcerate the little boy for the remainder of his childhood, Johnny, with all the carefree innocence of his years, amused himself by playing with a handful of pennies a kindly deputy sheriff had given him. As they led the little killer away from the courtroom, he playfully ran away from the sheriff, but was quickly caught. Security was poor as there wasn’t a set of handcuffs in town small enough for his tiny wrists. When confronted with a jail cell and asked what it was for, he announced, “That’s where they put the bad men.” Obviously, not the kind of place a small boy who was only playing expected to end up. At last word, the court shipped Johnny to a local psychiatric hospital for sanity observation.

Oddly, I couldn’t find a photo of the older boy, John Veres, but I did find this photo of little Milt.

And here are a few headlines related to the murder:

Culled from: Murder Can Be Fun #17 by John Marr

Post-Mortem Portrait Du Jour!

The Twins
circa 1852
sixth-plate daguerreotype
3.75″ x 3.25″

In this highly unusual scene, a woman holds two infants, one living and the other deceased and complete hidden from the viewer in a shroud-like wrapping. The most probably explanation is that this was done in order to conceal signs of advanced decomposition, injury, or illness.

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

Garretdom!

The Scaffolding Gave Way.

LEWISTOWN, Pa., Sept. 26.—While James Banks and James Barr, two painters, were engaged in painting the cornice of the Presbyterian Church yesterday morning the scaffolding on which they were standing gave way and the men were precipitated to the ground below, a distance of fifty feet. Banks was instantly killed, his head striking on a large stone, crushing in the whole top portion of the skull. Barr’s back was hurt and his injuries are pronounced fatal. Banks was thirty-five years old and leaves a wife and three children.

Culled from the collection of The Comtesse DeSpair
1886 Morbid Scrapbook

MFDJ 10/10/24: Working at the Asylum

Today’s Highly Therapeutic Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

The Kirkbride philosophy in mental health treatment regarding employees (as illustrated at the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum), accepted only kind and gentle people who would not be keepers but attendants. The doctors and nurses were instructed to be supportive at all times, to encourage patients to take responsibility for their behavior, to suppress destructive thoughts, and, most importantly, be reassured that they were not doomed forever.

Throughout its history, thousands of people have been employed at the Asylum; some spent their entire working career there, although the majority did not. Typically, the attendants had no training in caring for the mentally ill. For many, the job was overwhelming, making the turnover rate very high. Most employees resided at the hospital. On a typical day the attendants arose at 5:45 AM, and opened the patients’ rooms at 6:00 AM. They got them up and dressed for breakfast, then acted as waiters in the dining room where they could keep a close watch while the patients ate. After everyone was fed all the knives and forks had to be collected and counted, to be certain that any potential weapons were returned before the patients were allowed to leave the dining room. Those that were physically able were then sent to work on the farm. The less able were allowed to read or take classes in sewing, knitting, and other forms of arts and crafts.

Therapy in the form of entertainment was provided in the auditorium. Concerts and plays were staged, sometimes by guest artists, but more often by patients and staff. Plays with scripts encouraging good behavior and wholesome activity were performed often, and regarded as highly therapeutic. It was thought that playing a role would stimulate a sense of normal society in a patient and would withdraw him or her from the antisocial thoughts and deeds that had landed them in an insane asylum.

Dancing as therapy was encouraged despite the irony that, in the Victorian Era, social dancing, like the stage acting, was considered by many to be immoral, and thought to induce mania and dissipation. In the Asylum such diversions were considered healthy and curative. Reverend D. S. Welling, an Asylum chaplain, believed that there was no exercise more helpful to stimulate a sedentary patient than dancing, stating, “It is very proper for lunatics in an asylum to engage in it” but also warned the sane world that “none but lunatics and sick persons should resort to it.”

Attendants were also expected to keep the patients under control at all times without the use of profanity or violence, except in extreme cases requiring self-defense. The rules made it very clear that mechanical restraints and/or isolation techniques could be employed only with a physician’s approval. However, the rules could not always be observed. Sudden violent outbursts amongst the patients occurred so often that expecting the attendants to seek out a doctor for permission to restrain or isolate was not realistic. The unruly patient had to be dealt with immediately, before the situation became dangerous.

Confinement cribs, chair cages, and isolation cells, were still an unfortunate necessity at the Asylum until the day it closed. The rusted rings to which the most violent were chained can still be seen in the isolation cells on the third floor. Attendants had to make sure that their charges bathed regularly, if able, and if not, to assist them. Bedding and clothing were changed and cleaned once a week. The wards and dining rooms were cleaned every day. At least one attendant was to be stationed wherever the patients were gathered at all times. After the patients were put to bed, employees were expected to retire to their rooms up on the fourth floor no later than 10:00 PM, unless given a special pass to be out later.

The attendants’ duties were extremely demanding considering their pay which at the end of the century came to a mere $25.00 a month [about $800 today]. Living at the hospital certainly cut costs, but it must have been quite unnerving with the constant noise, and unsettling strains of laughing and crying down the hallways.

The attendants’ lives were made somewhat easier in 1890 when electricity was installed as well as, in 1892, elevators.

Culled from: Lunatic: The Rise and Fall of an American Asylum

And Now Some Words From The Good Book!

My favorite book is Wisconsin Death Trip, a collection of 19th century newspaper articles from Black River Falls, Wisconsin accompanied by glass plate negatives taken by the town photographer in the same era. Here are some excerpts from the book, accompanied by a photo of a mother caring for a probably doomed child. Most of them were, it seems.

“Marie Sweeny, who ran away from her husband at St. Paul and has been creating trouble at Ashland with her wild mania for breaking windows, has finally been captured. Reports from St. Paul say that she was a model wife and mother, but some injury to her brain entirely changed her character. She ran away from home 2 years ago, and since then… has been in more than 100 different jails, serving short sentences for indulging in her wild sport.” [10/6/1892, Badger State Banner]

“Curtis Ricks, the ossified man, died at his home in Racine. Mr. Hicks since 1879 [has] been a helpless invalid. About 8 years ago his joints began to stiffen and his flesh turned to bone… For the past 2 years he has been traveling as a ‘freak.’ Hicks was formerly a well-known engineer on the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul road. He leaves a wife and 7 children.” [10/27/1892, Badger State Banner]

“James McDonald, a drayman, went to his barn in Eau Claire to feed his horses and found 2 of them dead with their throats cut. On the barn door was pinned a note saying that there were too many horses around and that 15 more would have to be killed. McDonald has no enemies. It is believed to be the deed of an insane man. McDonald is a poor man and had to mortgage his home to buy the horses.” [11/24/1892, Badger State Banner]

Garretdom!

And here’s another sad olde story:

Driven to Death by Family Troubles.

Mrs. Lizzie Kramer, thirty-five years old, the wife of George Kramer, a grocer, living at Mascher and Huntingdon streets [Philadelphia, PA], committed suicide yesterday at her home by taking laudanum. The woman is said to have been low-spirited for some time, caused by frequent quarrels between herself and her husband, and early yesterday morning she sent her son to a neighboring drug store and secured a bottle of laudanum. She went at once to her room, and when her mother visited her shortly after she was found lying on the bed in a semi-conscious condition, and the empty bottle was on the floor. She told her mother what she had done. Dr. Bebe was hastily summoned, but it was too late, and although everything possible was done to counteract the effect of the drug, she died soon after the doctor’s arrival. She leaves three children , the oldest being twelve years of age.

Culled from the collection of The Comtesse DeSpair
1886 Morbid Scrapbook

MFDJ 09/04/24: Doubling the Last Meal

Today’s Fulfilling Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

If the condemned wins a stay of execution after he has eaten his last meal, does he get to choose another meal when his next execution date rolls around?

Absolutely! This has happened many times. The trick is to make sure that you actually have the meal in front of you before the stay is issued. For example, Dobie Gillis Williams (Louisiana) received a stay while he was dining on his last meal. He just continued eating. However, Thomas Thompson (California) received his stay of execution after he had ordered his final meal, but before he had actually received it. The order was canceled.

I’m not sure if Dobie’s first meal was the same as his last meal, but this is an artistic depiction by Teresa Kelly of his last meal prior to his actual execution on January 8, 1999.

Culled from: Last Suppers: Famous Final Meals from Death Row

WEEGEE Du Jour!

Weegee was the pseudonym of Arthur Fellig (June 12, 1899 – December 26, 1968), a photographer and photojournalist, known for his stark black and white street photography. Weegee worked in Manhattan, New York City’s Lower East Side as a press photographer during the 1930s and ’40s, and he developed his signature style by following the city’s emergency services and documenting their activity. Much of his work depicted unflinchingly realistic scenes of urban life, crime, injury and death.

Here’s a photo from the book Weegee’s New York: Photographs, 1935-1960:

Murder suspect Alan Downs is led to jail after confessing to killing his wife, circa 1940, in New York City.

(I couldn’t find any additional information about this guy – anyone want to see if you can track the story down?)

Garretdom: Olde News!

SHOT IN HIS TRACKS.

A German Burglar Fatally Wounded While Attempting to Run Away.

During the past ten days a number of small robberies were perpetrated in the Eighth district [Philadelphia]. It was evident from the fact that the houses were all opened from the rear by the same implement, that one man or a single gang was doing the work, and the police were instructed to keep a particularly careful lookout for suspicious characters. Early on Saturday morning Policeman Ritchie saw a man in the act of scaling a fence in rear of 444 north Eighth street. He placed him under arrest, when the prisoner knocked him down and ran. The officer recovered his feet and fired after the fugitive, brining him down at the second shot.

Assistance was secured and the wounded man was taken to the station-house, where he gave the name of Frederick Glass and his residence as 910 Spring Garden street. The wound was found to be a dangerous one and he was sent to the Pennsylvania Hospital, where he died a short time after his admission.

A large chisel found in the man’s pocket was found to fit the marks on the houses which had been robbed or where attempts to force doors and shutters had been made and articles found in his room were identified as having been stolen.

Glass came to this country from Germany a short time ago and took up his lodgings at 910 Sprint Garden street with Mr. Voss. The proprietor of the house says the man had no visible means of support, and frequently remained out all night and slept during the day. The Coroner will investigate the case today.

Culled from the collection of The Comtesse DeSpair
1886 Morbid Scrapbook

MFDJ 08/20/24: Kid Dropper and Little Augie

Today’s Open and Shut Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

In the spring of 1920 Police Commissioner Richard Enright called Captain Cornelius Willemse into his office and gave him strict orders to rid the Lower East Side of a pair of notorious Jewish gangsters with long rap sheets: Nathan Kaplan, called “Kid Dropper” for his ability to knock opponents out with one punch, and Jacob Orgen, a diminutive terror known as “Little Augie.” Although the two were in all the same rackets, they were bitter rivals.

Kid Dropper

Little Augie

Among their specialties was providing muscle during labor disputes. If management hired the Kid to get scabs through the picket lines, the strikers hired Little Augie to keep the scabs out. The gangsters extorted shopkeepers and forced them to pay protection money, often from each other. They robbed merchants of their inventory and told them to file for bankruptcy. Then they would sell the stolen swag and kick back a small portion of the illicit profits to the destitute storeowner to keep him in business just so they could rob him again.

With the onset of Prohibition, they expanded their businesses into rum running and dope dealing. Neither man cared how he got his money, so long as the other did not. In the process, many innocent people fell victim to their violent gun battles.

Captain Willemse quickly discovered that his usual tactic of dragging in their henchmen to beat useful information out of them did not work. Kid Dropper had advised his underlings to take their medicine. “There isn’t a chance of you being convicted,” he assured them. “because I can fix a juror or two, and witnesses are made to order.” He spoke from experience, having beaten the rap several times himself despite strong cases against him. The best Willemse could do for the next three years was keep tabs on the gangs through a network of informants that he developed with the help from the city’s chief medical examiner, Dr. Charles Norris. Willemse convinced him to treat the poor residents in the neighborhood for free. Naturally, the grateful patients wanted to return the favor. Before long Willemse’s telephone was ringing off the hook with anonymous tips about each gangster’s doings, but there was never enough evidence to convict them.

Finally in August 1923, a call came in about a strike that Kid Dropper was contracted to break. The informant told Willemse where the gangsters were going to assemble. More than likely they would be carrying concealed firearms in violation of the Sullivan Law. Willemse and his man caught the entire Dropper gang off guard, except for the Kid. His .38 was on the floor. Willemse arrested him anyway. At a police lineup the next day, thirteen member of Dropper’s gang were identified as participants in violent crimes and remanded to the Tombs. The Kid, however, skirted the law again and was set free, but without his gang to protect him, he knew he would be killed the moment he stepped out of jail. He cut a deal with District Attorney Edward Swann and agreed to leave New York for good on a noon train out of Grand Central Terminal, as long as the police escorted him out of the city.

That night, Willemse received a disturbing phone call. Little Augie already knew about the Kid’s arrangement and was none too happy. The next morning, Willemse detailed eighty detectives to ensure that Dropper left New York alive. His men rounded up Little Augie and every one of his known associates and had them safely under lock and key. Willemse arranged to have the Essex Market Courthouse completely cordoned off as he personally ushered Dropper to a waiting taxicab. As Dropper got into the backseat, Willemse let him know what he thought of him. “If I had my way, I’d throw you out on the street and get you croaked… Don’t ever come back to New York—” Suddenly, a bullet smashed through the rear window of the taxicab and shattered Dropper’s skull. A second bullet ripped through Willemse’s straw hat. As Dropper collapsed, two more bullets pierced his backside. A final round caught the driver.

The killer was a young immigrant, Louis Cohen, recruited by Little Augie to make the hit. The police had frisked him for a weapon, but he concealed the pistol in a newspaper that he had raised over his head.

Louis Cohen

When Cohen appeared for arraignment the next day, his pockets were stuffed with newspaper accounts of his deed. Although he had no money and could not read, he was smart enough to ask the court to appoint State Senator Jimmy Walker of the Warren and Walker law firm as his attorney. Jimmy Walker would go on to become mayor, and his partner, Joseph Warren, would become his police commissioner.

To most everyone, it seemed like an open-and-shut case that would result in Cohen being sentenced to death, but Walker was a very clever lawyer. As part of Cohen’s defense, he convinced the jury that poor misguided youth had done the world a favor by killing the notorious Kid Dropper. The fact that he had nearly killed a police captain was barely mentioned. Cohen escaped the electric chair and was sentenced for murder in the second degree to twenty years in prison. After the verdict, Walker became inundated with gangsters seeking his counsel.

Little Augie also beat the charges against him. Willemse tried to convince him to go straight, but Little Augie would not hear of it. He told Willemse, “If it wasn’t for the likes of us, you wouldn’t have a job.”

For all his bravado, Little Augie met the same fate as Kid Dropper in October 1927. He and his lieutenant, Jack “Legs” Diamond, were ambushed. Little Augie took four bullets to the head. Diamond survived his wounds and went on to become a legend in his own right. Little Augie’s killers were never apprehended, but his death paved the way for Louis “Lepke” Buchalter and his notorious band of marauders, dubbed Murder Incorporated, to take over Orgen’s criminal enterprises.

Jack “Legs” Diamond survived an assassination attempt on August 15, 1927, but refused to cooperate with the police. His companion Little Augie was not as lucky.

Louis Cohen had been contracted by Little Augie to kill his rival Kid Dropper in 1923. After he got out of jail, Cohen found himself on the other end of a gun when he was rubbed out on January 8, 1939.

Culled from: Undisclosed Files of the Police

Crime Scene Du Jour!

Suicide, May 26, Hollywood Hills

Culled from: LAPD ’53

Garretdom

A Locomotive’s Boiler Bursts.

BALTIMORE, Md., Sept. 26.—The engine attached to the Baltimore and Ohio train from New York, due here at 8:30 to-night, burst her boiler about a mile outside the city limits. The engine was completely wrecked, and the baggage and smoking cars telescoped. Fireman Charles Lizer was scalded fatally, and Engineer Jeremiah Morningstar was badly injured. Two passengers were slightly hurt.

Culled from the collection of The Comtesse DeSpair
1886 Morbid Scrapbook

MFDJ 08/17/24: London’s Empty Tomblands

Today’s Honeycombed Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

Grave diggers, church sextons, and night watchmen appointed to guard the graves in 18th century England were often in the pay of the body snatchers. Fearful of discovery, the crooks took meticulous care to disguise the violation they caused by carefully replacing soil, flowers, and mementos in their original positions. The crimes were often so stealthy that a gang would sometimes burrow into a suitable-looking new grave, only to find it empty, their rivals having gotten there before them. In such cases, when one team had “trespassed” on the burial ground considered the territory of another, revenge was swift; there was no honor among body thieves. The crooks gave one another up to the authorities, raise a mob against their rivals, or left a trail of guilt, propping up coffins in their graves and leaving shrouds strewn on the ground. Ultimately, the reckless men became so adept at their trade, and the demand from anatomists so intense, that London’s churchyards were honeycombed with empty tombs. On several occasions when thefts were suspected, horrified relatives would frantically dig up grave after grave, only to find every corpse was gone.

Culled from: The Knife Man

Torture Instrument Du Jour!

Stretching Ladder

This instrument required that the victim be spread on an inclined ladder where his/her body would be stretched.

From this position, the victims were also exposed to additional atrocious torture all over their body in the form of flogging, mutilation and so on.

Culled from: Torture – Inquisition – Death Penalty

Garretdom!

A SUNDAY SUICIDE.

The Result of Domestic Unhappiness—Letters Left by the Deceased—Evidence That the Suicide was Premeditated.

“Good-bye,” were the last words spoken by Frederick Fegley to his wife before killing himself in a tragic manner yesterday in the Heiner’s Springs woods about half-past eleven o’clock. The suicide was rendered unusually appalling and tragic by the fact that the man’s young wife, whom he married only a few months ago, and his own brother were compelled to witness the self-destructing deed, which is supposed to have been caused through domestic infelicity.

Fegley was married in June last to Miss Mary E. Reed, daughter of William Reed, Nineteenth and Cotton streets. The course of their courtship did not run smoothly, and after marriage domestic happiness did not fall to their lot. Miss Reed was only a little over 14 years old when they were married, and from the evidence given before the Coroner yesterday it would seem that she married unwillingly and possibly out of fear, because Fegley had threatened several times that unless she consented to be his wife he would end his life. After the marriage they lived at the home of the girl’s parents for some time, but this did not seem to be agreeable to Fegley, and he left their home and took boarding with his brother-in-law, Henry Zuber, 1824 Cotton street. Subsequently he rented two rooms in the lower section of the city, bought furniture and asked his wife to go to housekeeping with him. The mother objected to her daughter’s leaving, but told the husband that if Mr. Reed, who was in Philadelphia, would give his consent when he returned home she would yield.

Yesterday Fegley spent the morning hours in company with some friends, and about the time above mentioned went to the home of his wife for her final answer. She again told him to be patient until her father returned home. “If you don’t live with me I’ll do away with myself,” said the husband, and he walked toward the new road which leads up into Heiner’s woods.

HE SHOWS THE REVOLVER.

When about a hundred yards from the house he drew from his pocket the revolver with which he ended his life and held it up toward his wife, who was watching him from the yard where they had been talking. Believing that he intended to carry out his threat and hoping to prevent it his wife ran after him, but he started on a brisk run up the road. Henry, a brother of the suicide, who was near by and saw him run followed by his wife also feared that he had decided upon a rash act and ran after him, but neither of the two caught up to him before he reached a grassy plot under a large tree in the woods. Turning around he faced the terrified wife and brother, put the barrel of the weapon into his mouth, while the brother, who was then only a few feet away, in a frantic shout, begged him to stop. The words came too late to be heeded. As the last one fell from the lips of the excited man the shot resounded through the woods. The wound proved fatal almost instantly. The residents of that portion of the city were greatly excited, and the lead man’s mother and sister were terribly affected by the awful and unexpected news.

Coroner Denhard was sent for, and as soon as he had viewed the body it was removed to the residence of Mr. Zuber and an inquest held. Henry Zuber, Henry Fegley, brother, MRs. Fegley and Mrs. Reed were the witnesses heard, but nothing but the facts already stated were elicited, except that Mrs. Reed said she objected to her daughter going away because she was needed at home, and that both her and Fegley had promised before the marriage that she could remain with them.

Before Fegley left with his wife, after talking to her in the yard, he gave her a letter, which, as well as another found on his person and addressed to his mother, brothers, and sisters, was produced at the inquest. He charges his wife with having deceived him, but did not intend to harm her in any way and hopes to meet her in Heaven. On the back of the envelope were written the words: “To-morrow look on the porch and you will be sad forever.” After due deliberation the jury gave as the verdict, “That the deceased, Frederick Fegley, came to his death on Sunday, September 26th, from a pistol shot wound inflicted by his own hand with suicidal intent.”

That he had fully made up his mind to kill himself is certain, because in the letter to his mother he tells her not to grieve for him, that his body will be found in a few days and that he will be better off dead than living. Besides this evidence of the fact there is still a stronger one. William Y. Lyon had sent Fegley a tax notice a few days ago and on Saturday evening he came to Mr. Lyon’s house and paid it and in the conversation which followed he told Mr. Lyon that he had trouble on account of his wife and added, “Look out for some startling reports.”

The deceased was a son of the late Joseph Fegley, who was killed a few years ago in East Reading by a runaway sleighing team. He was 24 years old, a pipe cutter by occupation, and bore an excellent reputation for sobriefty and industry. Henry, George, Mrs. Henry Zuber and Mrs. Annie Gartner are the surviving brotehrs and sisters.

A watch and chain, a small sum of money and the other person effects which were taken from the pockets of the dead man were given to his wife.

Culled from the September 27, 1886 issue of the Reading Times.

MFDJ 08/11/24: The Death of Private Mills

Today’s Freely Given Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

An account of the death of Private Albion B. Mills, Company E, 16th Maine Infantry, 1st Brigade, 2nd Division, 1st Corps at Gettysburg during the American Civil War.

Anna Morris Holstein, a volunteer nurse at Gettysburg, remembered this particular young man for many weeks after the battle. She reported their meeting:

In the (Union tent), as it was called, standing alone in a rebel row, [of tents] I found a boy of seventeen, wounded and “sick unto death,” whose wan, emaciated face, and cheerful endurance of suffering, at once enlisted my sympathy. He was the son of a clergyman in Maine; and in answer to inquiries about his wound, told me, with a feeling of evident pride, that “early in the day his right leg was shattered and left upon Seminary Hill, and he was carried to the rear; that the stump was doing badly; he had enlisted simply because it was his duty to do so; now he had no regret or fear, let the result be as it might.” I wrote immediately to his home, to tell them he was sinking rapidly; my next [letter] briefly stated how very near his end was; there were but a few days more of gentle endurance, and the presentiment of the child we had so tenderly cared for proved true—when, with murmured words of “home and heaven,” his young life ebbed away—another added to the many thousand given for the life of the nation. One week after his burial his father came; with a heart saddened with his great loss, [he] said that his eldest had fallen at “Malvern Hill,” the second was with the army at Fernandina, and Albert [sic], his youngest born, slept with the heroes who had made a worldwide fame at Gettysburg. They were his treasures, but he gave them freely for his country.

Private Mills hailed from Vassalboro, Maine. He was reported to have been wounded in his right leg on July 1. The ball caused an agonizing fracture and the limb had to be amputated at the upper third. He was seventeen or eighteen years old when he died on October 7; the burial followed the next day in the hospital cemetery at Camp Letterman, in Section 9, Grave #3, but the body was shortly moved to the National Cemetery.

2nd Corps Hospital, Gettysburg

Culled from: Killed In Action

Vintage Crime Photo Du Jour!

November 14, 1946

The woman in black—there was always one lurking around and possibly up to no good in the noir era—is Dorothy Sweeny of Shell Lake, Wisconsin, and she’s a suspect in the murder of her husband. Ellis Sweeny was ambushed and shot dead on October 9, 1946, in “the back woods in Wisconsin,” according to the Dispatch. A man named Gilbert Dickerson, described as Mrs. Sweeny’s “paramour,” was charged with the murder, which in the news shorthand of the time was invariably described as “a triangle killing.” Dickerson soon went to trial where, to the surprise of the press and prosecutors, a jury found him not guilty.

Even so, authorities still suspected Mrs. Sweeny, who in this photograph appears to have her grief well in check, of complicity in the crime. After Dickerson’s acquittal in November, she was then brought to St. Paul for a polygraph exam. Among those gathered around the table to watch a criminologist administer the test are the sheriff and district attorney from Washburn County, Wisconsin, and, at right, St. Paul Police Chief Charles J. Tierney.

Mrs. Sweeny, a blood pressure cuff around one arm, looks perfectly collected in this photograph, telling a reporter, “I am not a bit worried.” As it turned out, she had no need to be. She passed the polygraph and was later freed from jail with credit for time served after agreeing to plead guilty to being an accessory to murder. Under Wisconsin law, she could be charged with that crime even though her supposed accomplice had been acquitted. “And so,” said the Pioneer Press in a story late that November, “the 29-year-old woods man’s widow walked out of court a free woman.”

Culled from: Strange Days, Dangerous Nights

Garretdom!

Many years ago, a fascinating collection of scrapbooks containing newspaper articles from the 1880’s/90’s appeared on eBay. The scrapbooks were obviously compiled by a kindred soul, as all of the articles were Grim, and were meticulously pasted into old textbooks. I tried to purchase the collection from the lucky soul who found them at an auction, but he quickly realized what he had and started selling them on eBay where they went for astronomical amounts. I was able to talk him into making copies of the books for me before he sold them off, and I’ve been slowly using them for my vintage newspaper Garretdom collection over the years. I decided to start sharing them on a daily basis. So without further adieu, here is one of the entries saved by our 19th century kindred soul:

A YACHT DISASTER.

Four Members of a Pleasure Party Go Down With the Wreck.

ST. JOHNS, N. F., Sept 24.—A disaster occurred in the Bay of St. Johns this morning, the British schooner Mary Ann, and cutting her in two. There were twenty-seven persons on board the ill-fated craft, four of whom were drowned. Their names were Charles Weeks, Nicholas Milley, Leander Milley and Sarah Ann Fahey. The others saved themselves by clinging to the main rail of the Summerset or were picked out of the water by her boats.

The Mary Ann sank within two minutes after the collision. Fahey had hold of his wife’s hand, and was drawing her out of the companionway of the sinking vessel, when the mainmast and mainsail fell, parting husband and wife forever. Gregory Leman, another passenger, was fatally injured.

Culled from the collection of The Comtesse DeSpair
1886 Morbid Scrapbook

MFDJ 08/04/24: The Tragic Life of Bobby Driscoll

Today’s Belligerent Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

The fates of former child stars always make good media copy when they are dreadful, far juicier than reports on the few who adjust reasonably well to adulthood, like Shirley Temple or Ron Howard. One of the most tragic victims of the Hollywood studio system was talented young Bobby Driscoll. As a youngster, the industry could not get enough of him. But when he became a gawky young adult, the system cruelly shoved him aside. He was unable to cope with such bitter rejection and escaped into drug addiction, which eventually killed him.

Driscoll was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in 1937, and moved with his parents to California in 1943. A Los Angeles barber whose own boy was already in motion pictures urged Mrs. Driscoll to have little Bobby try his luck in the movies. She took him to MGM, where the pixie-faced Bobby was soon hired for a role in Margaret O’Brien’s Lost Angel (1943). By the time he was six, the cooperative Bobby was making $500 a week, remarkable money in those times—especially for a youngster. By 1946 he was being touted as “the greatest child find since Jackie Cooper played Skippy [in 1931].”

Young Bobby Driscoll

Driscoll was the first human actor Walt Disney put under contract. He and the equally young Luana Patten were paired in Song of the South (1946) and So Dear to My Heart (1948), billed as the “sweetheart team.” When asked what he intended to do with his weekly earnings, Bobby said, “I’m going to save my money and go to college, then become a G-man.” His biggest success was in the thriller The Window (1949); he was given a special Oscar as the year’s outstanding juvenile performer. Also for the Disney studio, he played Jim Hawkins in Treasure Island (1950) and provided the model and voice for the animated Peter Pan (1953).

The Sweetheart Team

By 1954, Bobby was in that awkward teenager stage, gangly and acne-faced. Finding screen jobs scarce, he performed a few TV guest appearances. Away from work, he did not fit in with his peers. “I really feared people,” he admitted later. “I tried desperately to be one of the gang. When they rejected me, I fought back, became belligerent and cocky and was afraid all the time.” He first tried marijuana when he was 16, then turned to harsher drugs, finally becoming a heroin addict. He was arrested in 1956 on a narcotics charge and on suspicion of being a drug pusher. Bobby then tried to straighten out his life, and even landed a new film role. The project, however, was a trashy study of juvenile delinquents called The Party Crashers (1958), featuring another Hollywood has-been, Frances Farmer, who was also failing to make a successful comeback.

Looks like a must-see to me!

Abandoning acting for the time being, Driscoll took odd jobs, but he either quit or got fired from every one. He married a woman named Marjorie, had a son, and was determined that his kid would never have to endure what he was undergoing. But when his wife divorced him, Bobby reverted to drugs. He was jailed as an addict in 1959, and in 1961 he was apprehended while robbing an animal clinic. He was incarcerated at Chino Penitentiary for drug addiction and remained there for more than a year. When he was paroled, he worked as a carpenter and then drifted to New York. His mother would remember, “None of the studios in New York would hire him because he had once been on drugs.”

Bobby’s last months must have been desperate ones indeed. He died penniless in an abandoned Greenwich Village tenement. His body was later discovered by two children playing there on March 30, 1968. Two empty beer bottles were found by the corpse and there were needle marks on his arms. Since no one knew who he was, he was buried in a pauper’s grave. The causes of death were listed as a heart attack and hardening of the arteries. Later that year, when Bobby’s father himself was dying, his mother tried again to find Bobby. She had no success, and she went to the FBI for assistance. Time passed, and finally, she heard from an L.A. County agency that her son was officially dead. He had been traced through his fingerprints to that unknown corpse who had been buried back in Manhattan.

Nobody could write a better epitaph to this wasted life than the victim himself. At one point in his tormented adult existence, he observed, “I was carried on a satin cushion and then dropped into the garbage can.” [That should be on his gravestone! – DeSpair]

Driscoll near the end

Culled from: The Hollywood Book of Death

Vintage Photos Du Jour!

A Student’s Dream
Photographer: A. A. Robinson, 1906

Robinson made a series of 8″ x 10″ photographs depicting students on the dissecting table surrounded by cadavers and/or skeletons. The photographs were popular images of their time and were sold to students throughout the United States. The images graphically represent one of photography’s theoretical concepts—that of “magical substitution.” Magical substitution is the phenomenon when the viewers place themselves in the depicted scene. It is one source of empathy, as one contemplates even fleetingly what it would mean to be in that situation.

Culled from: Stiffs, Skulls & Skeletons

Garretdom: Parisian Edition

What a Wicked City Paris Is.

PARIS, Sept. 27.—The city continues to furnish a singularly large number of murders and suicides. At one of the hotels yesterday the cook shot and fatally wounded his mistress and then attempted suicide, because the woman had made him jealous. A hairdresser shot and mortally hurt his mistress, because she had tired of their relationship and resolved to reform. A workman having his week’s pay in his pocket, and feeling hilarious met a pretty female organ grinder, and asked her to play him a waltz so that he might dance for her amusement while she played for his. The woman’s male companion instantly became incensed at the request of the happy-minded workman, and shot him dead.

Culled from the collection of The Comtesse DeSpair
1886 Morbid Scrapbook

MFDJ 07/29/24: The Chinese Rod of Split Bamboo

Today’s Terribly Mutilated Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

Next to Russia, for sheer love of whipping as a corporal punishment, comes China, and little less formidable than the Russian knout is the Chinese rod of split bamboo. The sharp edges of the bamboo cut into the flesh, inflicting terrible lacerations. Little wonder that deaths, as a result of these floggings, have been frequent, and that those who escape this fate are often so terribly mutilated that they remain cripples for the rest of their lives.

The stick, too, was employed in other countries besides China; and was often used as an alternative form of punishment, or for certain specific offenses, in countries where the use of the whip was customary. In some cases, especially where a stick or bastinado formed the instrument of punishment, the buttocks were not the selected points for battery. Thus, in Turkey, the soles of the naked feet were beaten with a stick.

Culled from: The History of Corporal Punishment

Post-Mortem Portrait Du Jour!

CHILD HELD BY MOTHER WITH FINGERLESS GLOVES
Ambrotype 1/6 plate in wall frame, circa 1858

Culled from: Sleeping Beauty III

Garretdom!

Violently Ill from Poisoned Victuals.

MEXICO, Mo., Sept. 26.—Mr. and Mrs. H. L. Miller and Mr. and Mrs. F. I. Gibbs, who live ten miles southwest of here on the Hilt farm, became violently ill yesterday morning from the effects of poisoned victuals eaten at breakfast. The two men when they became sick were at work on the highway and were both overcome at the same time with griping pains and violent vomiting. They were taken home by the men who were working with them. When they reached home they found their wives in the same condition, both of them being in bed and unable to move. A physician was sent for, and he pronounced the symptoms poisoning. An antidote was administered, and all are now out of danger. The general supposition is that an eleven-year-old colored girl, who is employed in the capacity of nurse to Mrs. Miller, administered the poison. She was punished a few days ago, and was in bad humor about it.

Culled from the collection of The Comtesse DeSpair
1886 Morbid Scrapbook