Category Archives: Garretdom

Today’s Eccentric Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

On January 6, 1947, readers of the Newark (Ohio) Advocate were exposed to one of the most gruesome stories to ever hit the front page. Two weeks earlier, Mrs. Laura Belle Devlin of King Avenue murdered her husband of 40 years.

Postman Wilford D. Butcher normally saw Mr. Tom Devlin, 72, while making his rounds. Both Mr. and Mrs. Devlin were considered eccentrics by neighbors, but Mr. Butcher thought it was strange that he hadn’t seen Mr. Devlin during his deliveries.

Mrs. Devlin claimed that he had gone to Philadelphia to visit relatives. She showed a neighbor a letter that was supposedly from her husband’s cousin in Philadelphia; she later showed it to the postman, who noticed that there was no stamp and the postmark was drawn by hand. Mr. Butcher ended up escorting her to the police station himself.

After she arrived, the letter was examined. It read that Mr. Devlin was dead, had already been buried, and the rest of his family was returning to Ireland, where Mr. Devlin’s family was from originally. Soon Mrs. Devlin was recounting her story; she was very cooperative with officials and easily told her version of what she had done and why.

She told authorities that she pummeled Mr. Devlin to death with her fists after he threw a dish at her. She dismembered his body with a sickle and saw, throwing pieces in both the kitchen wood stove and the living room coal stove to dispose of the evidence. In defense of her actions, Mrs. Devlin claimed that her husband had threatened to kill her time and time again.

When taking her fingerprints, she asked them not to hurt her hands by pressing too hard. She also didn’t want to take off her stocking cap for the photos as her “hair was a mess” (she eventually relented).

“That’s the last dish you’ll ever break!”

After the confession, Coroner G. W. Sapp returned a verdict of “homicide due to senile dementia.” On March 11, Mrs. Devlin was committed to Lima State Hospital, where she was declared insane. She died at Lima from pneumonia in March, just seven days after she was committed and approximately two months after she killed her husband.

Culled from: The Newark Advocate

If I were a transwoman, I’d be changing my name to Laura Belle Devlin for sure!  Also, I like the following newspaper article – it summarizes the murder in fine style!

Old Lady Who Collects Lace Admits She Butchered Mate

NEWARK, O.—Laura Belle Devlin, 72, who collects old lace, was held without charge today in the handsaw slaying of her husband whose dismembered body was found scattered in the backyard of their home here.

Police Chief Gail Christman said the mild-mannered little woman told him she cut up 75-year-old Thomas Devlin last week in the parlor of their modest two-story house.

“He tried to kill me so many times that I decided to end his life,” Mrs. Devlin was quoted as saying calmly.

Describes Slaying

“And now can I go home” she asked the police chief after describing in detail how she first pounded Devlin into unconsciousness with her fists and tried to break his bones with a sickle. She then used the saw to dismember the body, Christmas quoted Mrs. Devlin as saying. Burned parts of the body also were found in a stove, Christman stated.

Told she must remian in the Licking county jail, Mrs. Devlin shook her head but made no protest.

Clad in a stocking cap and an old coat, Mrs. Devlin went to police headquarters yesterday with a letter reporting that her husband had died in Philadelphia. Signed “Tom’s cousin,” the letter said: “We are going to Ireland” to bury him. The envelope bore no stamp and had a postmark which was drawn in black ink.  [She tried her hardest. – DeSpair]

Christman and Coroner George Sapp went to the Devlin residence to investigate. There they found parts of a body in the backyard and in an adjoining field. In six other places, they discovered piles of human ashes, including several pieces from a human skull.

Readily Admits Slaying

Confronted by the findings, Mrs. Devlin readily admitted the slaying, Christman said and quoted her as telling this story:

She first tried to kill Devlin with a small kitchen knife, then beat him senseless. As she hacked at his body with the sickle, the blade broke. She found the saw and began dissecting the body on the living room rug. She tossed parts into the coal stove.

Asked why she didn’t call an undertaker, Mrs. Devlin told Christman:

“I’m awfully sorry I didn’t do that.”

Old age pensioners, Mr. and Mrs. Devlin lived in the small house for 20 years. He had come here from Pittsburgh.

Police found the old lace collection, several barrels of sugar and many articles of unused clothing in the house.

The Ann Arbor News, January 6, 1947

Vintage Crime Photo Du Jour!

The scene is a coroner’s inquest in Hutchinson, Minnesota, convened after a 26-year-old farmer named Arthur Melichar went berserk one morning and started shooting people. His lethal weaponry — two shotguns and a rifle — lie atop a desk where the McLeod County coroner and attorney are seated. They’re questioning a young witness to the mayhem as the Hutchinson police chief and county sheriff stand in the background.

Everyone in this photograph looks grim, and with good reason, since the crime was one of the worst in the county’s history. By the time police cornered Melichar in a granary and lobbed in tear gas to subdue him, he’d killed his mother, his bedridden brother, and a 16-year-old boy who — by a stroke of terrible luck — happened to be driving past the farm on his way to school. Melichar also critically wounded another man and set fire to buildings and vehicles on his farm before he was finally taken into custody after a brief gun battle with authorities.

As with so many news photographs of the time, what is remarkable here is how close the viewer seems to the workings of the criminal justice system. Even today’s televised coverage of court proceedings rarely achieves the sense of intimacy this photograph provides.

Justice moved swiftly in the 1950s. Less than a month after the murders, Melichar was declared legally insane and committed to the state hospital at St. Peter.

Culled from: Strange Days, Dangerous Nights

Garretdom!

Both Officer and Prisoner Will Die.

ATCHISON, Kan., Sept. 13.—Officer Basket, a colored policeman, was sent yesterday afternoon to arrest a negro, Henry Harrington, who was creating a disturbance on Santa Fe street. On reaching the spot Basket found his man on a four foot bridge over a gully, and he resisted arrest. In the struggle which ensued Harrington was knocked off the bridge into the gully, and Basket started after him. Harrington shouted, “If you come down here I’ll shoot,” and as Basket pressed on Harrington fired, the ball striking the officer in the left side. Basket then drew his revolver and fired at Harrington, shooting him in the right nipple. Basket then closed with him and struck him several times on the head with his pistol. At this juncture Superintendent Carpenter, of the street car line, and W. C. Moxie were attracted by the firing, and arrived just in time to catch Basket, who fell to the ground from the effects of his wounds. Harrington was also lying ont eh ground insensible. Bsket was taken to a drug store and thence to his home, where an examination showed that the ball entered below the heart and ranged upward into the left lung. He cannot recover. Harrington was taken to the calaboose, where it was found that in addition to the wound in the breast the skull had been fractured by the officer’s revolver. The doctor pronounced his wounds mortal. Basket has a large family. Harrington is a drunken and shiftless character.

From what I can tell, they both survived. – DeSpair

Culled from the collection of The Comtesse DeSpair
1886 Morbid Scrapbook

Today’s Necrotic Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

The Radium Girls were female factory workers who contracted radiation poisoning from painting radium dials – watch dials and hands with self-luminous paint. The incidents occurred at three factories in United States: one in Orange, New Jersey, beginning around 1917; one in Ottawa, Illinois, beginning in the early 1920s; and one in Waterbury, Connecticut, also in the 1920s.

After being told that the paint was harmless, the women in each facility ingested deadly amounts of radium after being instructed to “point” their brushes on their lips in order to give them a fine tip;  some also painted their fingernails, faces, and teeth with the glowing substance. The women were instructed to point their brushes in this way because using rags or a water rinse caused them to use more time and material, as the paint was made from powdered radium, zinc sulfide (a phosphor), gum arabic, and water.

Five of the women in New Jersey challenged their employer in a case over the right of individual workers who contract occupational diseases to sue their employers under New Jersey’s occupational injuries law, which at the time had a two-year statute of limitations, but settled out of court in 1928. Five women in Illinois who were employees of the Radium Dial Company (which was unaffiliated with the United States Radium Corporation) sued their employer under Illinois law, winning damages in 1938.

Here is the sad story of three of the Radium Girls.

It was the Roaring Twenties – but Grace Fryer wasn’t in the mood for dancing. It was odd: she had this slight pain in her back and feet; nothing major, but enough to make it uncomfortable for her to walk. Dancing definitely wasn’t on the agenda, even though the girls at the bank were still throwing their parties.

She tried to put it to the back of her mind. She’d had a few aches and pains the year before, too, but they came and went; hopefully, when these latest aches cleared up, they would simply go for good. She was just run-down, she reasoned: “I thought that this was merely a touch of rheumatism and did nothing about it.” Grace had far more important things to think about than an achy foot; she’d been promoted at work and was now the head of her department.

It wasn’t just an achy foot troubling her, however. Back in January, Grace had gone to the dentist for a routine checkup; he’d removed two teeth and, although an infection had lingered for two weeks, her trouble had then cleared up. But now, six months on, a hole had appeared at the site of the extraction and was leaking pus profusely. It was painful, and smelly, and tasted disgusting. Grace had health insurance and was prepared to pay to get it sorted out; the doctors, she was sure, would be able to fix her trouble.

Grace Fryer

But had she known what was happening just a few miles away in Newark, she might have had reason to doubt her faith in physicians. Grace’s former colleague Irene Rudolph was still paying doctor after doctor to treat her—but without relief. She had by now undergone both operations and blood transfusions, but to no avail. The decay in Irene’s jaw was eating her alive, bit by bit.

She could feel herself weakening. Her pulse would pound in her ears as her heart beat faster to try and get more oxygen around her severely anemic body—but although her heart was drumming faster and faster, it felt to her like her life was inexorably slowing down.

In Orange, for Helen Quinlan, the drumbeat suddenly stopped.

She died on June 3, 1923, at her home on North Jefferson Street; her mother Nellie was with her. Helen was twenty-two years old at the time of her death. The cause of it, according to her death certificate, was Vincent’s angina. This is a bacterial disease, an agonizing and progressive infection that begins in the gums and steadily spreads until the tissue in the mouth and throat—swollen and ulcerated—finally sloughs off, dead. Her doctor said he didn’t know if the disease was confirmed by laboratory tests, but it was written on her death certificate, nonetheless.

The “angina” in its name is derived from the Latin angere , meaning “to choke or throttle.” That’s what it felt like when the decay in her mouth finally reached her throat. That’s how Helen died, this girl who had used to run with the wind in her skirts, making boyfriends gaze and marvel at her zest for life and her freedom. She had lived an impossibly short life, touching those who knew her; now, suddenly, she was gone.

Six weeks later, Irene Rudolph followed her to the grave. She died on July 15, 1923 at twelve noon, in Newark General Hospital, where she’d been admitted the day before. She was twenty-one. At the time of her death, the necrosis in her jaw was said to be “complete.” Her death was attributed to her work, but the cause was given as phosphorus poisoning, a diagnosis admitted by the attending physician to be “not decisive.”

Culled from: Radium Girls

Torture Implement Du Jour!

Maiming Stork

Its name is probably suggested by its shape, which resembles that of a stylized stork, its bottom portion being larger than the top, which was used to immobilize the head of the victim.

This was a device of bondage and restraint that inflicted suffering by immobilizing the victim’s neck, wrists and ankles, all at the same time. Without any possibility of movement, the victim suffered a far greater and quicker escalation in psychological damage compared to the actual damage inflicted on the muscles, due to numbness of immobilized limbs.

The name “crippling stork” is attributed to Lodovico Antonio Muratori, an historian and a very important figure in Italian Enlightenment, who mentioned it in the “Annali d’Italia”, in the mid-1700s. The base of the triangle consisted of a rod that acted both as a support to constrain the victim’s wrist and as a means of constraint for the legs, which were completely immobilized, with bent knees, thus making any movement impossible.

Culled from: Torture – Inquisition – Death Penalty

Garretdom!

A Notorious Moonshiner Killed.

NASHVILLE, Sept. 14.—A notorious moonshiner named Chenault was shot and instantly killed at Etna Sunday morning. A party of men employed at the furnace were having their Saturday night spree, and several of them had gone to Chenault’s place and bought half a gallon of liquor. When this was disposed of they bought another gallon and drank that. As they did not return, Chenault came to the cabin where they were and offered to sell them more, which H. McKey, as spokesman of the party, declined, asserting that the last lot was not as good as the first half gallon and made them drunk. Chenault responding that the truth was they were just too poor to buy any more, turned to leave, when McKey drew a revolver and shot him through the brain. He died without a word. McKey fled to the woods and has not been seen since. Both were young men, neither over twenty-five. The verdict of the Coroner’s jury was murder. Neither had any family . Chenault was regarded as a leader in the gang of moonshiners in that wild section.

I couldn’t find out whether McKey was ever captured.  

Culled from the collection of The Comtesse DeSpair
1886 Morbid Scrapbook

Today’s Zombie-like Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

The New London School explosion occurred on March 18, 1937, when a natural gas leak caused an explosion and destroyed the London School in New London, Texas, United States. The disaster killed more than 300 students and teachers. As of 2021, the event is the third-deadliest disaster in the history of Texas, after the 1900 Galveston hurricane and the 1947 Texas City disaster.  The following is an account of the aftermath of the disaster.

Preston Crim saw a man emerge from the ruins carrying a schoolboy. “Evidently he was one of the first on the scene and he found his son the first thing,” Crim said. “I could see [the son’s] feet dangling—turned different directions like his legs were crushed. His abdomen was opened up and his intestines were hanging and he was still alive, begging his daddy to kill him. His daddy was just walking like a zombie in a trance.”

Culled from: Gone at 3:17

Morbid Portrait Du Jour!

Philadelphia Medical Student
1/6 Plate Ambrotype, circa 1858

Classic photographic background used in Philadelphia.

Culled from: Stiffs, Skulls & Skeletons

Garretdom!

TWO BROTHERS DROWNED.

And Their Mother, Who Saw Them Go Down, Becomes a Raving Maniac.

LITTLE ROCK, Sept. 15.—A most sad case of drowning occurred in this county, near the residence of Joseph Morse, yesterday afternoon. The twelve-year-old son of Mr. Morse was bathing in a pond near the house at the time, when he was suddenly taken with cramps, and called to his brother Henry, who was standing upon the bank , to save him. Henry sprang into the water to aid his brother, but the latter’s weight in addition to that of his own clothing proved too great, and they both sank never to rise again. Mrs. Morse had run from the house when the first warning was given, and witnessed the death of her two sons. She fainted at the sight, and when restored to consciousness it was found that she had lost her reason, and had become a raving maniac.

Culled from the collection of The Comtesse DeSpair
1886 Morbid Scrapbook

Today’s Eliminationist Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

The Nazi war against the Soviet Union was waged from the beginning as a war of extermination. The “Commissar Order” authorized, in contravention of international law, the murder of the Red Army’s “political officers.” Of 5.7 million Soviet prisoners of war, approximately 3.3 million died in German custody because the Wehrmacht intentionally let them perish of hunger, cold, and illness.

With the Nazi invasion of the USSR, National Socialist “Jewish policy“ assumed a clearly eliminationist character. The systematic mass murder of the Jews in the occupied territories took place as part of the Nazis’ war of extermination under gruesome circumstances, primarily in the form of mass shootings. By March 1942, SS and police killing squads had murdered over 600,000 Jews in the occupied Soviet territories.

During the Second World War, more than 18 million Germans served in the army. In 1943 alone, over 13 million people served in the German armed forces. Most of them served for at least some time in the Polish and Soviet territories where by far the greatest number of Holocaust victims were murdered. Not just the police and the SS, but frequently also members of the Wehrmacht, participated in mass shootings of Jews and “Gypsies,” including women and children. The extent of the Wehrmacht personnel’s involvement in crimes against the civilian population and the murder of Jews depended on several factors: the unit to which they belonged, where they were at what time, what their official rank and title was, as well as their personal behavior.

Liepaja, Latvia, December 1941 – Women before they were executed

More than a few of the soldiers who served “in the East” participated directly in genocidal acts. The majority of soldiers did not assist physically in the mass shootings of Jewish men, women and children, but they often witnessed the scenes of cruelty and murder that accompanied the clearing of ghettos and Jewish residential districts as well as mass shootings. Even those soldiers that became involuntary witnesses to such acts, or were accidental witnesses, learned sooner or later of the murders. As perpetrators and eyewitnesses sat together in full train cars for days on their way home for a furlough or convalescent leave, they told frequently boastful stories and passed around photographs that made the systematic character and extent of the shootings of Jews increasingly obvious. Little by little, most of the Wehrmacht learned one way or another about the murder of the Jews, and this information about the genocide was transmitted through them to the “home front“.

Culled from: Topography of Terror

Prisoner Du Jour!

Prisoners: Murder, Mayhem, and Petit Larceny is a collection of seventy portraits of turn-of-the-century prisoners in the town of Marysville, California and the fascinating contemporary newspaper and prison accounts describing the crimes of which they were accused. The photos themselves are more fascinating than most of the crimes. There’s something magical about glass plate negatives that you just can’t reproduce with modern photography.  And I think people just had more character back in the day – or at least it seems that way.

EUGENE ROBAGE

NEWS EPITOMIZED

Deputy Sheriff Anderson arrived from Wheatland last evening and returned this morning with Eugene Robage, where he will answer in Justice Manwell’s court to a charge of petit larceny. He has admitted the theft of some tools from a Horstville barber.  [September 2, 1902]

NEWS EPITOMIZED

Eugene Robage, sentenced to 30 days for petty larceny, was delivered at the county jail by Deputy Sheriff Anderson last evening. [September 3, 1902]

Garretdom!

There’s no racism in this article at all.  None whatsoever.  

HOW HE WAS CUT.

Frederick Steward Tells the Story of a Fight on a Street Corner.

Frederick Steward, a colored man twenty-six years old, whose home is at 1209 Kater street, was admitted to the Pennsylvania Hospital last evening suffering from a wound in the abdomen, received during a quarrel at Eleventh and Locust streets, in which several men were interested.

“‘Twas Abe Scott cut me,” said Steward after his wound was dressed. “Me and Bill Auter had some talk, but it all blowed over, an’ then Abe Scott cum ovah to whar I was an’ he wanted to fight. I told him to ‘way, fur I didn’t want anything to do with him, an’ then Charlie Polk he cum up an’ mashed me in de jaw. While I was attendin’ to him Abe he cums up behind me an’ throwed his arms around me jist so so an’ cut me. Then him and Charlie both run away.”

Auter was arrested and held as a witness but neither Scott nor Polk had been secured up to a late hour last night. The wound is a severe one, but is not considered of a dangerous character by the surgeons, although they were unwilling last night to give an opinion as to the probable result further than that the chances were favorable for his recovery.

Steward is said to be a quiet, peaceable fellow, while neither of his assailants bears a good reputation.

Culled from the collection of The Comtesse DeSpair
1886 Morbid Scrapbook

Here’s another article (from the September 20, 1886 issue of the Philadelphia Times) that presents the story in a less sympathetic light to Mr. Steward:

STABBED ON LOCUST STREET.

One of a Gang of Colored Roughs Receives a Knife-Thrust in the Abdomen.

A gang of colored roughs were standing on the corner of Eleventh and Locust streets last night. One of the number, Abe Scott, who lives in Brier place, offered to fight Frederick Steward, of 1209 Kater street. The latter told his belligerent companion that he didn’t want to fight. Scott, however, became so anxious to show the crowd how Sullivan knocked out Hearld that Steward attempted to walk away. Charles Polk, another one of the loungers, stopped him and called him a coward, and he and Steward clinched. Scott watched the altercation until he saw that Polk was being worsted, and then he sailed in to his assistance. Steward’s back was turned and Scott pulled out a formidable jack-knife and opened the blade. Steward heard the warning cries of his friends, but before he could turn around he received a knife-thrust in the abdomen, which sent him to the ground. A Fifth district officer was seen approaching and the entire gang took to their heels, except William Anter, who lives in Poplar court, and he was arrested on suspicion of having been implicated in the stabbing. Scott and Polk escaped, though the police are looking for them. The injured man was conveyed to the Pennsylvania Hospital. The wound is serious.

I could find no confirmation of whether Steward lived.

Today’s Explosive Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

Mine Inspector’s Report for HOUGHTON COUNTY, MICHIGAN FOR THE YEAR ENDING SEPTEMBER 30, 1903.

ACCIDENT No. 4—November 10. Henry Ninnes lost his life by a premature explosion at the 4th level south of No. 3. Shaft at the Trimountain Mine. The deceased and his partner, James Ingman, drilled three holes in the cutting out stope and prepared them for blasting. Henry Ninnes lit the fuse of two holes on the foot side of the stope and crossed over to the hanging side and fired the third fuse, when the explosion occurred, killing Ninnes and badly injuring Ingman. No inquest was held.

Trimountain Mine

Culled from: Some Fatal Accidents in the Atlantic, Baltic, Champion, Trimountain and Winona Copper Mines

Vintage Crime Photo Du Jour!

MURDERED A GOOD SAMARITAN
FEBRUARY 21, 1940
Daily News Photo

Annie Beatrice Henry held for press photographers by Sheriff Henry W. Reid of Calcasieu parish.

Joseph Calloway paid for his life for playing the good Samaritan. Spotting a dreary woman and a male companion trudging wearily along the roadside outside Lake Charles, Louisiana, on Valentine’s Day 1940, he stopped to offer a ride. The Houston salesman was led into a field, stripped of his clothes, and killed as he knelt begging for his life. Although her companion, Horace Finon Burks, was also indicted, Mrs. Annie Beatrice (Toni Jo) Henry confessed that she fired the shot that killed Calloway. She robbed him, she said, in an effort to get money to finance her murderer-husband’s appeal. Instead, she landed herself on death row. After being found guilty twice in verdicts that were overturned, she was convicted a third time and became the second white woman to be executed in Louisiana, on November 28, 1942.

Culled from: New York Noir

Garretdom!

How a Farmer Met His Death.

READING, Pa., Sept. 22.—Joseph G. Miller, a farmer aged twenty-nine years, of Lazarette, Chester county, was awakened during the night, got up, and in searching for a match knocked a revolver off the mantelpiece, discharging it and sending the ball into his abdomen. He exclaimed: “I’m shot!” and died.

Culled from the collection of The Comtesse DeSpair
1886 Morbid Scrapbook