MFDJ 06/16/25: Mrs. Devlin’s Dirty Deed

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