Paternity Fraud Rackets

1817    "London actress case" – London, England (child kidnapping)

1873    Miss Oak, aka Maria Graindorge – Paris, France (organization)

1892    Florence Miami Blood – St. Paul, Minnesota (borrowed baby, marriage fraud)

1893   Annie Wetmore – Baltimore, Maryland (career criminal)

1903    Elizabeth Starr Keefer Martin – Boston, Massachusetts (estate fraud)

1903    Johanna Smith – New York, New York (borrowed baby, marriage fraud)

1909    Mrs. Welch – Washington, D.C. (borrowed baby, alimony fraud)

1925    Lydia Locke – New York, N.Y. (borrowed baby, career vamp)

1927    Jemima Aiton – Scotland (child kidnapping)

1928    Mrs. Hunt – Marysville, Kansas (accessory to murder; suicide)

1929    Gladys Parks – New Jersey (blackmail; murdered two children)

1931    Evelyn Boell – New York, New York (estate fraud)

1937    Nellie Tipton Muench – St. Louis, Missouri (child kidnapping, adult kidnapping, other scams)

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[903-11/19/21]

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Gladys May Parks, Nanny from Hell – Paternity Fraud & Infanticide - 1929

FULL TEXT (Article 1 of 5): Camden, N. J., Nov 11 – Miss Gladys May Parks, a 35-year-old pianist, faced another questioning today in connection with the deaths and secret burial of two children committed to her care.

Detectives were frank in saying they doubted the story of the woman who surrendered in Newark yesterday and subsequently was brought here and put in jail on a charge of murder. The bodies of 4 year-old Dorothy Rogers and her brother Timothy, 2, have been recovered, the boys skeleton having been found yesterday by state troopers near Abscoon after Miss Parks had given them minute directions to its location.

The woman denied killing Timothy, and insisted he died from a fall downstairs Dorothy, she said, died after being slapped. Questioning in Newark and later by police here failed to shake Miss Parks in her story. She gave an emotionless recital of the developments since Allen N. Rogers an insurance agent of Woodbury gave her the children to care for after his wife died last April.

Miss Parks in a cousin of Mrs. Rogers.

Two other persons – Anthony Baker Miss Parks’ common law husband and George W. Parks her father – are being held here as material witnesses.

~ Alleged Blackmailing Game ~

Detective Sergeant Louis Shaw indicated that today’s questioning would seek to determine whether charges of attempted blackmail against Miss Parks could be substantiated.

“Four well known Philadelphia men, and three from Atlantic City have told us of her game,” Shaw said. We will not reveal their names because the men need not be mixed up in this affair. She used these children (Timothy and Dorothy) and others to confront the man she was trying to blackmail. She would tell them the children were theirs.”

Miss Parks was unmoved in describing the death and burial of the children. She said she was afraid she would be charged with murder. If she told police about what she apparently considered the accidental deaths of Timothy and Dorothy.

~ Miss Parks’ Confession ~

According to Miss Parks’ confession, she had been trying for some time to discipline Dorothy and slapped her frequently. On Aug. 7 she had occasion to slap Dorothy. Miss parks said the girl fell to the floor, but thinking was shamming she left the room. Returning she tried to revive her by using rubbing alcohol it was then Miss Parks said she realized Dorothy was dead.

Shortly after that Miss Parks moved, carrying Dorothy’s body from the old house to one on Burns street house she found the concrete flooring broken in several places so she said she dug a hole and placed the girl’s body under the floor. On Aug. 26 she dug up the body wrapped it in the sheet and took it to National park pouring quicklime on it and hiding it under some leaves where it was found recently by two children. It was a laundry mark on the sheet that enclosed Dorothy’s body which caused the search for Miss Parks and caused her to surrender.

During the questioning detectives told Miss Parks it was impossible to get a child’s body into a suitcase without dismembering it.

“Oh I can do it she said,” here I’ll show you.

~ Proved Herself an Adept ~

Taking 6-year old Perdita Morris, daughter of friends of the police matron Miss Parks bent the girl’s legs back, folded her arms doubled the child at the waist and closed the suitcase.

“There,” said Miss Parks triumphantly, “that’s how its done.”

Miss Parks said that three weeks after Dorothy’s death Timothy fell down stairs. She related how she held the child under the kitchen faucet trying to revive him. That failing she then forced a child’s body into a suitcase and took a bus for Absocon. Again she hid a body and sprinkled lime over it.

In a few days she received a letter from Baker in Newark. Miss Parks said, and went to live with him. She stayed there until her surrender yesterday.

[“Woman Surrenders – Is Accused of Murder of Two Children – Admits the Deaths but Says They Died After a Slight Punishment – Buried Bodies With Quick Lime. – Alleged To Have Been In Blackmailing Game – Demonstrated to Police It Was Easy to Pack Child’s Body in an Ordinary Suitcase Without Dismembering It.” syndicated (UP), Dunkirk Evening Observer (N.Y.), Nov. 11, 1929, p. 1]

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FULL TEXT (Article 2 of 5): Camden, N.J., Nov. 11 – Police today worked on a theory that four other children may have met the same fate as 4-year-old Dorothy Rogers and her brother, Timothy, 2, for whose deaths Gladys May Parks is used on a charge of murder.

Detective Sergeant Louis Shaw announce that Miss Parks, who is 35 years old, had confessed she had used the Rogers children in a blackmailing scheme.

~ Seven Men Accuse Her ~

He said he had found seven men who accused her of having demanded money of them, after showing them the children are asserting the children were theirs. Shaw said the description given by them men of the four children used in the alleged blackmailing, were “entirely different” from the descriptions of the Rogers children.

“Now” Shaw said, “we are trying to find what became of those  other children – whether they, too, have been murdered. We suspect that she may have done with them what she did with Dorothy and Timothy.”

Miss Parks ended a widespread search by walking into police headquarters at Newark, N. J., yesterday and surrendering, with her was Anthony Baka, her alleged common law husband, who is held as a material witness. Police said she admitted having killed Dorothy Rogers by a blow struck in punishment for a childish indiscretion, but maintained that Timothy was killed in a fall down the stairs at her home.

She also confessed to carrying their bodies to Absocon, N. J., in a suit case, of burying them, and then later of digging up Dorothy’s body and taking it to National Park.

The Rogers children were placed in Miss Parks’ care last June by their father, Allen Rogers, an insurance broker of Woodbury, N. J., whose wife, a cousin of Miss Parks, died about a year ago.

[“Woman Admits Using Children For Blackmail – Two Killed And Four Others Sought In Plot To Milch Seven Fathers,” The Tucaloosa News (Fl.), Nov. 11, 1929, p. 3]

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FULL TEXT (Article 3 of 5): Camden, N. J.— Gladys May Parks, also known ax Mrs. Baker, charged with killing one child and suspected of slaying another, today re-enacted how she buried the children in different parts of New Jersey and witnessed the wrath of a group of women who cried out “lynch her.”

At National Park, after Miss Parks had shown how she had disposed of one child’s body, she was startled when the women who made up a group of 1,000, surrounded the police automobile in which she was, and shouted threats against her.

“Give her what she gave those poor children,” one cried. Another with a bunch of flower’s in her hand shouted, “kill her and I’ll put these on her.”

The accused woman was well protected by policemen and detectives.

Tonight Miss Parks was again in the Camden jail, still holding to her story that Dorothy Rogers, 4. and her brother Timothy, 2, came to their deaths by accident.

The police frankly declare they do not believe her but have found no motive with which to confront her and break down her statements.
 

~ Gives Herself Up. ~

Miss Parks, who had been sought by the police for a week for questioning in connection with the finding of the skeleton of the girl in the woods at National Park on Nov. 2, walked into the Newark police headquarters early Sunday. After making her identity known she was arrested and confessed she had buried Dorothy at National Park and Timothy at Absocon, near Atlantic City, both last August. The boy’s skeleton wan found yesterday.

The woman said that the girl died after a beating in which she had no intention of seriously harming the child, and that the boy died after an accidental fall down stairs in her Camden home. Becoming frightened, she said, she hid the bodies and then buried them. The heads were found separated from the rest of the bones, but Miss Parks denies she dismembered the bodies.

Dorothy and Timothy were the youngest children of Alan Rogers, Woodbury, N. J., insurance broker, whose wife died a year ago, leaving six children. Miss Parks was a  cousin of Mrs. Rogers and the father consented to let her raise the youngest ones He never saw the children after turning them over to Miss Parks.

At Absocon today some 50 curious persons followed in Miss Parks' wake as she led detectives to the spot in the woods, where she had buried the body of Timothy.

She began to sob as soon as she bent over the shallow hole, with her hands crossed over her breast.

“Oh, I loved Timmie,” she cried, “I loved him so much.”

From the grave the party went to the morgue of Coroner B. Wilson Cunningham where Dr. Isaac Leonard, county physician, had examined the skeleton of the boy. Miss Parks was not asked to view the bones.

The doctor reported that the boy’s skull showed there was a severe fracture, but ho could not determine whether it was from a blow or a fall.
 

From the morgue the party went across the state again to National Park, where they encountered the crowd, many of them women. The people had come from all over the countryside and motor cars were parked all around the vicinity.

As the police entered the town, Miss Parks directed them to Essian Avenue, where she said she had left an automobile in August in which she said friends had taken her on the night she disposed of Dorothy’s body. She had carried the boy in a suitcase, the same which she used in disposing of the little boy’s body, but the friends with whom she rode that night believed she was returning dishes to a friend living in the town.

After showing where she got out of the motor car. Miss Parks took the detectives in the chimp of bushes among which she had laid the body of the girl. The crowd rushed about the police car so that it was impossible for her to leave it. After she indicated how she had disposed of the body the crowd became restive. The angry women pounded on the doors of the automobile. It took the driver 10 minutes to maneuver the car away from the murmuring crowd. Anthony Baka, who has lived with Miss Banks, and who is held at the county jail as a material witness, was not taken with the party. Police said they have no evidence against him.

[“Women Attempt To Lynch Accused Slayer Of Babies - Suspect Says One Child Died During Whipping; Other Fell Down Stairs - Gives Self Up - Police Unable to Find Motive for Killing Children Of Suspect’s Sister,” syndicated (AP), San Antonio Express (Tx.), Nov. 12, 1929, p. 1]

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FULL TEXT (Article 4 of 5): Camden, N. J. – Alan N. Rogers, Woodbury, N. J., insurance man and father of Dorothy and Timothy Rogers, was recalled today in Criminal Court in the trial of Gladys May Parks, charged with the murder of the two children.

Rogers, on the stand only 15 minutes, was questioned regarding two poems he wrote about children whom he permitted Mrs. Parks to raise after the death of her mother, the defendant’s first cousin.

~ One Poem Barred. ~

Two poems were the out-pourings of a widowed father’s heart. That written for little Dottie was admitted into evidence yesterday, but the one he wove around the toddling baby, Timmie, was excluded today when father could not say with certainty whether it was written before or after the child’s death.

The poem dedicated to Dorothy, which Rogers said he gave Mrs. Parks when he entrusted her with his two children follows:

If you see God, in the blue of the skies,

You should behold the love that shines in my Dorrie’s eyes.

And you’ve seen the showers come so quickly on a summer day,

Well, the tears in her eyes of blue come just that way.

And have you seen in the spring the whole world so happy and gay?

Oh if you could see the joy and dancing of my Dottie at play.

~ Praised Behavior. ~

Mrs. Lulu Johnson, temporary housekeeper for Mr. Rogers after the death of his wife in 1928, testified to the father’s excellent character and the good behavior of the children while at home.

The evidence apparently was introduced to refute Mrs. Parks’ declaration she slapped Dorothy because infuriated over the child’s bad habits and uncleanliness.

[“Father’s Verse Barred In Trial – Court Rejects Poem Rogers Wrote to Slain Baby; Other Is Admitted.” Syndicated (UP), The Pittsburgh Press (Pa.), Jan. 15, 1930, p. 2]

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FULL TEXT (Article 5 of 5): Camden, N. J., Jan. 20. –  Gladys May Parks was today sentenced to serve 25 years at hard labor for the death of Dorothy Rogers four years of age, and her brother, Timothy, two years old.

Convicted by a jury late Saturday night Supreme Court Justice Lloyd sentenced her to 25 years on the charge of second degree murder for the death of Dorothy, and to 10 years on the manslaughter charge for the death of the boy, the court directing that the sentences run concurrently.

The 35-year-old prisoner took the sentences stoically, facing Justice Lloyd at a distance of not more than three feet. She was permitted to stand before the justice because her hearing is so bad she could not hear the sentence at a farther distance.

~ Appears In Rage ~

Completely surrounded by deputy sheriffs and matrons the woman was hurried from the court room and some time during the next 24 hours will be taken to the state prison at Trenton.

As she turned away from the judge’s bench to return to her cell she apparently was in a rage. Her face was flushed, her eyes flashed and she fairly flung herself off the low platform where she stood while hearing the sentence.

[“Woman Given Long Sentence - Gladys May Parks Sentenced To 25 Years For Murder Of Dorothy Rogers, 4.” Syndicated (AP), The Gettysburg Times (Pa.), Jan. 20, 1930, p. 1]

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TO BE ADDED: [“Gladys Parks In Asylum; Slayer of Two Child Wards Taken From Jersey Prison to Hospital.” The New York Times (N.Y.), Aug. 30, 1930, p. 17]

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For similar cases see: Baby-Sitter Serial Killers

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For more cases, see: Paternity Fraud Rackets

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[3567-2/14/20]
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“That Dreadful Paris ‘Cat-Eater’” Dinorah Galou, Child Kidnapper, Torturer & Killer: 1925

FULL TEXT: Countless fathers and mothers in France breathe easier now that Dinorah Galou, known as the Cat-Eater, is safely behind prison bars.

For four years they need have no fear that any of their babies will be stolen by her and doomed to the fate that is believed to have overtaken scores of other children who fell into her clutches.

Curiously enough, although Dinorah Galou is believed to have stolen a great many young children and to have obtained for her nefarious uses many others through all sorts of false promises, it was not for these alleged crimes that she finally was convicted and sent to prison.

This artful woman had succeeded in surrounding her cruel traffic in babies and the reasons for it with mystery so deep that the police and the public prosecutor were unable to make out a strong case against her for the crimes of kidnapping and neglect. She was sent to prison for the far less serious crime of picking pockets.

But the public refuses to be shaken from the belief that the Cat-Eater was one of the worst enemies the children of France ever had to fear. It believes that her traffic in babies accounts for the vanishing of scores of little ones and it shudders to think what cruel treatment these innocent and helpless children received at her hands.

If Dinorah Galou is not one of the most monstrous women ever arraigned in a French court, certainly she is one of the most mysterious. Even the detectives who worked for months on her case were unable to agree as to just why she kept her wretched home running over with babies and to explain how she got them all and what finally became of them.

Were her stolen and ”borrowed” babies part of a crafty scheme for deceiving Fernand Galou, her husband and co-defendant, into thinking that she was a mother?

At the trial it was testified that Galou was a great lover of children and wanted a large family. But there was no evidence to show that Dinorah, the Cat-Eater, had ever borne him a child.

Did this woman systematically prey on the feelings of unmarried mothers, poor unfortunates who were torn between the desire to hide their shame and the anxiety to have they babies well cared for?

Did she induce such women to surrender their love children to her on the promise that she would give them a mother’s care?

And then did the Cat-Eater rent these babies out to wretched women from the slums of Paris, to be wrapped in their dirty shawls and carried in their arms as they sold flowers or begged alms on the streets?

What shocked the public most of all in the trial of Dinorah Galou was the prosecutor’s charge that she was quite probably one of many women who rent stolen babies at so much per hour or day to beggars and street venders of matches, flowers and other things.

The latter think there is nothing that excites the sympathy of passers by – and particularly of American tourists – more than to have a baby in their arms. So when they have no babies of their own they go to establishments like that the Cat-Eater is believed to have abducted and hire one.

As these women have learned by experience they get more alms and sell more flowers when they have a baby that cries. If starvation and other ill treatment do not make the child cry as loudly and continually as they think desirable they have many ways of increasing its wails and moans.

One of the most cruel of these, as the prosecutor explained in court during the trial of Dinorah Galou, is to let a live spider crawl back and forth over a baby’s eye and inflame the delicate tissues with its poisonous bites.

This is accomplished by putting the spider in half of a walnut shell and tying the inverted shell over the eye with a handkerchief. A child tortured in this way is sure to cry loudly and continually enough to satisfy the most avaricious beggar or flower vender.

Whether many of the babies that fell into the Cat-Eater’s hands were subjected to such inhuman treatment as this was one of the truly mystifying questions – that arose during the sensational trial recently completed at Agen, in the province of Lot-et-Garonne. The jury found Dinorah Galou guilty of larceny, but acquitted her husband on the charges of kidnapping and murderous neglect of children which had been brought jointly against them.

In the course of the trial the presiding judge asked the woman what her purposes were in assuming different names.

“On several occasions you’ called yourself Miss Maud Sanderson,” said the judge. “Then you claimed to be a relation to Pierre Loti, the novelist, and subsequently passed yourself off as the Comtesse d’Aoste, Princess of India. While in prison you told other prisoners you were a writer, a political agent, a dramatic author and a journalist.”

“I had to inspire confidence, your honor,” said the woman with tears in her eyes.

The crimes charged jointly against Madame Galou and her husband were as follows:

At Nice, in August, 1910, the seven-month-old child Jacques Beniez, stolen and taken to an unknown place.

At Toulon, in September, 1922, the theft of Pierre-Paul Lazare, a newly born infant. At Bordeaux, in June, 1924, the kidnapping of Abel Voisin and Pierrette-Marie Raymonde, infants.

At Allauch, in December, 1922, the neglect of a child under fifteen months old, causing death.

In all these cities and at Agen, where the trial took place, Dinorah Galou was further accused of having picked pockets and stolen sums varying between ten and a thousand francs. In one case she was caught stealing a layette of baby linen.

From the maze of evidence offered in the case it appears that Dinorah Coarer, as she was known before she married her lover, Fernand Galou, had a rather tumultuous career. One of the witnesses, Alfred Germot, testified that he first met Dinorah at Brussels. They decided to return to Paris together. On the way, Dinorah confided to Alfred that she was born in Algeria of French parents who had lived in America. A love liaison resulted in the course of which Dinorah told Alfred that he would be a father in due process of time.

Not overly pleased at the prospect, Alfred began a little investigation under the guidance of his father and mother who did not like the looks of Dinorah. He found that the woman had been the frequenter of some of the most notorious side street hotels and had been arrested a number of times for relieving her “friends” of their purses.

Stunned by these discoveries he went away to America, intending to stay there permanently. Burt the war called him back to the colors.

Upon his arrival Dinorah presented him two babies, twins that had been born to her, she said, while he was in foreign lands. She wept with happiness and Alfred decided to forget. Love is blind, but Alfred was deaf into the bargain. His fiends warned him, but he did not listen.

One day Dinorah announced to him that one of the twins had died, and Alfred, not being a clairvoyant, believed that the little closed coffin held the baby supposed to be his own.

It was at this time in the taking of the testimony that a letter was introduced by the prosecution purporting to have been written by Dinorah to her mother. It contained the sentence: “Gag the kid if he yells and then beat him up right.”

Then came the story of a girl whom Dinorah had put into a sailor’s suit in order to foil the efforts of the police to discover her identity. The girl herself, a pretty brunette of eighteen, said she did not know the name of her father, but that she was sure her mother was Jeanette Cordier, an opera singer of a generation ago. The girl, was called to the witness stand during the latter part of the trial and gave her name as Micheline. She referred to Dinorah as “the cat-eater,” adding gruesome details of the sense she had witnessed in the house of Dinorah and of the frequent disappearances of the neighbors’ pet cats. Eating cat meat itself and feeding it to the babies were Dinorah’s ways of meeting the high cost of living problem.

“There were always small babies in the house,” said Micheline, in depicting some of the revolting scenes in the Galou house of mystery. “They were always in a terrible condition of neglect. Once I heard her say that a great Maharajah had fallen in love with her and that he wanted a large family. She wanted go to him with a family of at least twenty children.”

The account then followed of the meeting of Dinorah with Fernand Galou when the latter was practicing medicine.

It was revealed in court that Galou and Dinorah lived together for some years before they married and that Dinorah shammed maternity to make Galou think he was the father of her children.

Several witnesses testified to the good character of Galou and to the excellence of his record as an officer in the flying corps of France during the war. Galou stated on the witness stand that he did not know anything about the conduct of his wife and that he was willing to pay back every sou she had stolen.

A number of witnesses testified to the manner in which Dinorah had obtained the infants from girl-mothers. It was shown that Dinorah had solicited them to abandon, their newly born children to her rather than face the accusing finger of gossip. One of the mothers quoted- Dinorah as saying to her:

“Now, dearie, the worst is passed and there is ho reason why you should not go home and live a life of purest virtue. Some day you will find an honest man willing to marry, you and he won’t be any the wiser for your little indiscretion. Men, as a rule, do not ask questions when they, are sincerely in love.

“Just give me that sweet little darling of yours to-take care of as if it were my own and I can assure you that you won’t be sorry.”

“What did you do with those children, Madame?” asked the court.

Instead of answering the question, the Cat-Eater simply wept. Her attorneys lauded her as a martyr to the cause of motherhood and pointed to the fact that Dinorah never had had children of her own and it-was natural for her to adopt unfortunate babies born under a cloud.

To this the public prosecutor replied with lurid pictures of misery in the slums of Paris where poor wretches hired babies to excite the commiseration of the people in the streets and bound live spiders over their eyes to make them cry.

But with all the testimony both for and against Dinorah Galou the mystery of just what she had done and why grew deeper. Alienists testified that she was not responsible for her deeds, whatever they may have been, and for a whole week the legal battle over her case was waged with great eloquence and tenacity on both sides. Dinorah Galou wept almost continuously.

She is a woman of about forty and rather plump and good looking. The jurors were deeply affected by the testimony and frequently bad tears in their eyes.

When the case finally went to the jury for a verdict there was nothing to do but acquit Fernand Galou of any crime whatever and his wife of any capital crime. For various thefts committed by her, instances where it was shown that she had picked, the pockets of unsuspecting shoppers in the public markets of Agen, Dinorah was sentenced to four years in prison. While she works in penal servitude the authorities will continue trying to solve the problem of what became of the many children who undoubtedly fell into the Cat-Eater’s clutches.

[C. De Vidal Hunt, “That Dreadful Paris ‘Cat-Eater’; Most Wicked Traffic in Stolen and ‘Borrowed’ Babies France Ever Knew Believed to be Ended by Mysterious Dinorah Galou’s Sentence to Prison,” syndicated (Jonson Features), The Ogden Standard Examiner (Ut.), Jul. 26, 1925, magazine section]

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CHRONOLOGY

Dec. 28, 1880 – Dinorah Coarer Née à Nantes, le

1901 – sentenced to 6 months in  prison.

1904 – sentenced to 2 months in  prison, Seine tribunal, , pour vol à la tire.

1910 – sentenced to 4 months, Bourges court.

Aug. 1910 – At Nice, in August, 1910, the seven-month-old child Jacques Beniez, stolen and taken to an unknown place.

1911 – elle avait été l'objet d'une inculpation d'escroquerie « au mariage », mais bénéficia d'un non-lieu.
1916 – Accusée d'espionnage pendant la guerre, elle était parvenue à échapper à la police spéciale depus 1916 en se faisant admettre comme infirmière dans une formation sanitaire à Salonique.
1919 – meets Dr. Galou in Constantinople.

1921 – moves to Marseille, afterwards to Montauban.

At Toulon, in September, 1922, the theft of Pierre-Paul Lazare, a newly born infant.

Dec. 1923 – marries M. Galou, Montauban.

Aug. 26, 1922 – afin de légitimer la naissance de deux enfants qu'il disait avoir eus d'elle: Madeleine, 9 ans, et Jacques-Fernand-Gabriel-Christian, né à Nice le 26 août 1922.

Jun. 1924 – At Bordeaux, kidnapping of Abel Voisin and Pierrette-Marie Raymonde, infants.

Dec. 1922 – neglect of a child under fifteen months old, causing death, at Allauch.

May 30, 1925 – sentenced to 4 years in prison, at Agen court. “The jury found Dinorah Galou guilty of larceny, but acquitted her husband on the charges of kidnapping and murderous neglect of children which had been brought jointly against them.”

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FULL TEXT: En attendant qu'une plus grande lumière soit faite sur les ténébreuses manœuvres du docteur Galou et de sa femme et sur le sort des petits enfants que ce conple, sinistre adoptait, une chose est dès. maintenant acquise, c'est que la femme du docteur est une aventurière capable et coupable de toutes les escroqueries.

Son passé est lourd de fautes constatées et les polices de > Paris, de Nantes, de Bourges, de Bordeaux, ont eu à s'occuper-d'elle.. :

Née à Nantes, le 28 décembre 1880, Dinorah Coarer a parcouru le monde' en dopant ses contemporains sous les vocables les plus divers dont elle avait soin de s'affubler, s'appelant tantôt Mme Ringh, ou Georgette Cœurdevey, artiste lyrique, ou Liliane Germot, ou Mlle de Presles, ou Christiane de Saint-Gilles.

Sous ces noms divers, elle avait été condamnée pour escroqueries, en 1901, à six semaines de prison; en 1904, à deux mois, par le tribunal de la Seine, pour vol à la tire; en 1910, à quatre mois avec sursis par la cour de Bourges. En 1911, elle avait été l'objet d'une inculpation d'escroquerie « au mariage », mais bénéficia d'un non-lieu.

Accusée d'espionnage pendant la guerre, elle était parvenue à échapper à la police spéciale depus 1916 en se faisant admettre comme infirmière dans une formation sanitaire à Salonique. Diplômée de l'école des langues orientales, elle parle cou- ramment cinq langues étrangères et on la dit fort intelligente.

C'est en 1919 que, se trouvant à Constantinople, elle fit la connaissance du docteur Galou et tous deux vécurent ensemble. On les retrouve en 1921 à Marseille, puis à Montauban, où le praticien avait épousé sa compagne en décembre 1923, afin de légitimer la naissance de deux enfants qu'il disait avoir eus d'elle : Madeleine, 9 ans, et Jacques-Fernand-Gabriel-Christian, né à Nice le 26 août 1922.

Peu après le mariage, les époux s'installaient, le 1er janvier dernier, à la villa des Palmiers, à Agen, et, le 3 juin, deux jumeaux étaient déclarés à l'état civil par le docteur, comme étant ses enfants, sous les prénoms de Pierre-Fernand-Raoul-Raymond et de Fernande-Dinorah-Louise-Paule.

Il est à noter que, parmi les nombreuses condamnations, dont s'émaille le casier judiciaire de Mme Galou, en figure une pour exercice illégal de la médecine, alors qu'elle habitait Bezons sous le nom de Christiane de Saint-Gilles.

Sa mère, Mme Coarer, qui habitait avec elle à la villa des Palmiers, pourra sans doute aider précieusement l'enquête si elle est habilement questionnée. La vieille dame en sait long, en effet, sur tout ce dont sa fille est capable. Au cours de querelles violentes qui surgissaient entre elles deux, on l'a entendue à plusieurs reprises lancer contre Mme Galou les plus graves accusations.

La mère Coarer reprochait à sa fille de lui avoir dérobé deux cents francs dans son tiroir. Dinorah niait effrontément. ---'

— Si tu ne me les rends pas, hurlait la mère, je dirait tout.

— Tais-toi ou je te fais taire, fit la femme Galou en courant, menaçante, vers la pauvre vieille.

Mais, devant le geste, celle-ci sentit augmenter sa colère et, oubliant toute prudence, rappela à sa fille le rôle suspect, mais bien rémunéré, qu'elle avait joué pendant la guerre.

[“Dinorah Galou, mère-gigogne artiste lyrique et infirmière,” Aug. 15, 1924, p. 3]

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For more cases of “Baby Farmers,” professional child care providers who murdered children see The Forgotten Serial Killers.

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For more cases, see: Paternity Fraud Rackets

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For more Real Life Ogresses see: Ogresses: Female Serial Killers of the Children of Others

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[12,173-1/10/21]

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Clara West (Mrs. Fred West), Child Care Provider Accused of Murder - Iowa, 1907

FULL TEXT (Article 1 of 5): Des Moines, June 4. – It is a strange web which has been woven about the lives of Mrs. Fred West, proprietress of a baby farm and Miss Anna Beattie, her head nurse, who are on trial in the Polk county court for the murder Baby Jim. There is no such baby and never has been, is the defense. But if the prosecution presses the point too hard the attorneys for the accused women intend to produce a boy and claim it is the one reported killed. The Iowa Humane Society through its State secretary Mrs. Elizabeth Baird caused the prosecution.

~  Babies in Furnace ~

“Babies have been burned at the West baby farm before they were dead --  thrown into the furnace to end their helpless cries” – is a charge which Miss Flora Goble, the chief witness for the prosecution and a former nurse at the home makes. In a sworn affidavit she declares she saw Miss Beattie give ten drops of laudanum to Baby Jim under the direction of Mrs. West.

“Mrs. West asked me to give the laudanum to the baby and brought me poison bottle,” said she. I refused. Mrs. West told me not to be foolish – that it was the they always the babies gave any trouble they them out of misery as fast as possible.”

~ Babies for Playthings ~

That there has been traffic in babies is admitted. The Infants wore bought and sold and when this was impossible, given away. Inmates of disorderly houses [bordellos], it is said bought the babies using them as one would a poodle to play with. Only girl babies were wanted by these women but they were to pay good prices. Mrs. Baird claims also to have discovered that the baby farm proprietors were running their own graveyards without legal formality.

Baby Jim is alleged to have been adopted by a family who wanted a baby to get a fortune, but he became afflicted with an eye disease and was exchanged for another. Then he disappeared. Miss Goble declares that Mrs. West ordered him put out of his misery with laudanum. Mrs. West denies this and says she will produce Baby Jim.

[“Babies Instead of Dogs Said to Be Sold in Iowa – Woman Charged With Killing Unsalable Child – Accused of Throwing Noisy Infants Into Furnace.” The Washington Times (D.C.), Jun. 4, 1907, p. 4]

Shown are two classified ads placed by Mrs. Fred West in the Des Moines Register (Iowa):

FULL TEXT (Article 2 of 5):

HOME for unfortunate girls; babies adopted; strictly first class work furnished if needed. Mrs. Fred West, 1314, 35^th.

TWELVE nice babies for adoption, inquire Mrs. Fred West, 1314, 35^th.

[Classified ad section, Des Moines Register (Io.), Jan. 25, 1905, p. 7]

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NOTE: The investigation of Mrs. West for murder stemmed from an earlier case in which Mrs. West was implicated involving a paternity fraud charge against a Mrs. Ansley.

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Article 3 of 5:

PHOTO CAPTION: Mrs. F. S. Ansley and the child which figures so conspicuously in the Ansley divorce suit. This remarkable flash-light was taken at the home of Mrs. Fred West, proprietress of the lying-in hospital or “baby farm” last night. It shows the mother with the babe, which she says is the offspring of Ansley, in her arms. This is the child which Ansley says was secured from the “farm” and offered in court as his own. He denies that it is child or that the woman was even a mother.

FULL TEXT: Who is the, father of the strange little waif that figures so mysteriously in the Ansley divorce case.

Judge, attorneys, witnesses and spectators who have listened to the weird stories told in support of the aliened mother’s claim and those told to substantiate the father’s assertion that he is the victim of a designing woman and the proprietress of a “baby farm” are as far from unraveling the mystery as they were yesterday — the week before and, in fact, slum this human tragedy began its unfolding in an equity court.

Yet there is one who knows!

Mrs. Ansley, the mother, who steadily affirms that the baby was born in honorable wedlock and that F. S. Ansley is the legitimate father, knows whether or not the little pink and white bundle of humanity marked exhibit “B” is really her own child and the offspring of the man who denies its birth.

The archives of history have been delved into in vain to find parallel to this almost uncanny litigation. Attorneys have, searched old English law in an effort to find some tangible point upon which to base a defense. The scandal of the House of Stuart in which Charles I declared to be the illegitimate child of James II — a scandal which shook an empire to its foundation — has been recalled in a vain attempt to establish the identity of father and child. Even the case of Napolean Bonaparte who, upon the testimony of his mother that he was another and older son in order to secure his admission into the military academy, and the story of Pudddin’ Head Wilson, whose thumb marks revealed the true birth of an illegitimate child, have been turned to in vain.

The mystery still remains a mystery. Who is the real father, and is F. S. Ansley being made the butt of n cruel conspiracy as he claims? Is the babe of legitimate birth or is it the product of Mrs. Fred West’s “baby farm” used as a “phoney” to secure a favorable decision in Judge McVey’s court of equity? Is Mrs. Ansley really a mother or is she at the base of a plot that has staggered the court and attorneys?

~ THE BABY IN COURT. ~

Judge McVey stated this morning that he would order the babe brought into the court room today. If this is done an effort will he made on his part of Ansley’s attorneys to secure the infant as n witness. This, how ever, will be contested on the grounds that a babe under two years is not sufficiently matured as to hear tin facial resemblance to a parent. The defense will base its contention on supreme court decision in the case of State of  Iowa ex rel Harvey in which it was sought to establish the relationship between child and supposed father. The supreme court held that insufficient development would prevent the child’s introduction as a witness. Attorneys for Mrs. Ansley will, it is understood,  object to the child’s being made an exhibit on this decision.

~ ANOTHER WAY OPEN. ~

One other way of partially solving the mystery is left open. Judge McVey may decide to order the appointment of three competent physicians for the examination of the plaintiff. Even if this is done and it is shown that Mrs. Ansley became a mother at the time alleged there still lacks evidence tending to show that the child is the legitimate offspring of F. S. Ansley or that it was not taken away from the “baby farm” as it is alleged by the defense.

Because of the Harvey case in which [illegible] is held essential in order to establish identity between father and child, the court may indefinitely withhold his decision until the alleged waif has developed such characteristics as will come within the meaning of the supreme court decision referred to.

~  MRS. WEST DEFENDANT. ~

Mrs. Fred West, proprietress of the “baby farm” from which Ansley says the alleged dummy child was taken, was this morning charged with conspiracy in a petition filed by the husband. Mrs. West is said to be a co-conspirator with Mrs. Ansley. Her motive is said to be designs on the $5.000 sought by the plaintiff in her suit for separate maintenance. Ansley asks that in view of the supposed conspiracy the case be thrown out of court and that the costs be taxed to his wife.

[“History Fails In A Parallel To Mystery Farm Waif’s Identity – Is Mrs. Ansley Playing a Deep Game Or Is She The Wronged Wife of Ansley – Babe May Not Become Exhibit in This Strange Case,” Des Moines Daily News (Io.), Dec. 21, 1906, p. 1]

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FULL TEXT (Article 4 of 5):

~ TODAY'S DEVELOPMENTS ~

Flora Goble positively identifies laudanum when shown 19 bottles containing different fluids resembling the deadly drug. Attorney DeGraff serves notice as to the state's intention of going into the details of the "baby farm" business. Miss Goble is asked illuminating questions which she does not answer and which the court sustains. DeGraff attempts to show disposition of babies in the West home. Noland declares that Mrs. West is being tried for the murder of "Baby Jim," not for any other human beings.

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Confronted with an array of bottles, each containing a liquid in appearance and odor similar to that of laudanum, and asked to decide which was deadly drug from among them, Miss Flora Goble, on the witness stand in Justice Roe’s court this morning, defeated the purpose of the prosecution and positively identified two bottles which contained the poison. Attorney Noland, for Mrs. West, attempted to show the appearance and odor of laudanum to distinguish from other drug.

Seventeen bottles were introduced into court and the witness was asked to decided on one among the number.

“This bottle, No. 17, is in appearance and smell similar in the drug which was administered in Baby Jim. I would not say positively as to its identity, its color and smell are alike.”

After the bottle “episode” and Attorney Noland had finished hid cross-examination. Attorney DeGraff produced two bottles into court marked separately with the signs “A-1” and “A-2” and with no other marks or indications of the contents.

These the witness positively identified as laudanum.

The bottles were sealed when brought into court and were accompanied by an affidavit that they contained extracts of opium in common use and commonly known as “laudanum.”

Attorney Noland in his cross-examination attempted to get the witness to give incriminating evidence, to which the state objected and which was sustained by the court. Noland asked Miss Goble as to what part she took in the poisoning of the baby. DeGraff objected and the court told Miss Goble to use her own judgment as to whether or not she would answer the question. Miss Goble did not answer.

~ DEFENSE SKEPTICAL. ~

Evidence that the prosecution believe will get into the district court was [shown?] when Attorney Noland said this morning after the “bottle episode” that he wanted them sealed and kept intact so that when they got to the district court he could prove what was in them. He brought the bottles in a sealed box, the labels on the bottles numbered, and held a list with the corresponding numbers showing what they contained.

Miss Goble's feat of distinguishing the poison, and failing to decide positively as to any in the Noland collection, the county attorney believes to be in his favor.

Mrs. West arrived early  and was one of the first lo enter the court room this morning. She had put aside the brown derby hat she wore yesterday for one of lighter color, a "girlish" creation in red. She seemed not at all discomfited at any time.

Opening the re-direct examination Attorney DeGraff asked the witness if the trips she made to Villisen and other places she testified to on the preceding day were made prior to the birth of "Baby Jim."

"Yes,"

"Have you talked with Mrs. Moses since then?"

"Until yesterday I have not seen Mrs. Moses since the day I gave her the second baby when we drove to her house."

"Did you commonly pay attention to the addresses, the place of residence of the people for whom yon nursed?”

"No."

~ BABE CALLED ''JIM" ~

 "Was this baby boy called Mm' after you returned from Carlysle?"

"Yes. he was always called "Baby Jim."

"Who was this doctor yon testified was at the West home?”

""Dr. Gray, Dr. Howard G. Gray."

"When this conversation between yourself, Mrs. West and Mrs. Beattie in the room where 'Baby Jim' was lying took place, did you see Miss Beattie leave the room?"

An objection to the question was sustained.

"State all the conversation, all that Mrs. West said in this room at the time the laudanum was administered."

She said, 'let's give him some laudanum and put him out of his misery. That is all I remember o£ her saying at that time."

Attorney DeGraff then asked the witness if any representative of the defense had visited or called upon her since the beginning of the trial, to which the defense objected..

"Yes," answered Miss Goble, "Mrs Ansley and her sister called at the house. They came to the door and rang the bell late at night. I went to the head of the stairs and Mrs. Bromfield went to the door. They said they were Mrs. Ansley and her sister. They would get a police officer and force an entrance if they were no let in. Mrs. Bromfield refused then admittance."

Miss Goble said that she did not know Mrs. Ansley.

An argument arose at this juncture in which the court and the attorneys on both sides all disagreed till the court made an order.

DeGraff continued: "Did you ever tend a boiler or a furnace in the West home. Miss Goble?"

"Yes."

"Did. you ever see anything done while you were so tending this furnace or boiler, did you ever see Mrs. West put anything into the furnace?'

~ NOLAND OBJECTS. ~

Miss Goble answered yes, when Attorney Noland objected saying that they were not trying Mrs. West for killing any other human being or putting any babies in the furnace.

"The newspapers have tried that part of it," said he, "and it is not relevant to this case at all." Objection sustained.

"Did yon know Fances, the mother of 'Baby Jim?' "

"Yes, I knew her intimately. I learned her name from she herself. Her first name was 'Nora.' "

An agreement readied between DeGraff and Noland at this point concluded bringing out any more information as to the mother of the child.

Attorney DeGraff then arose and referring to the question asked if Miss Goble had ever seen Mrs. West put anything into the furnace, said, "I wish to serve notice here that the state reserves the right to bring out in this trial the disposition of the bodies of babies at the West farm. We are not attempting to show that she killed other babies. We only want to show the disposition of certain bodies which might or might not have been dead."

Attorney Noland then took the witness and questioned her as to the description of the bottle from which it is alleged "Baby Jim" was given the dose which ended his unhappy little life. Miss Goble declared she knew the appearance and believed she could distinguish laudanum if she saw it.

Noland then asked  the witness of she attempted to stop Miss Beattie from administering the dose to the baby to which DeGraff objected and which the court ruled Miss Goble might use her own discretion.

Attorney DeGraff held that an answer to this question would incriminate the witness and the court sustained the objection.

~ NURSE'S TESTIMONY FRIDAY. ~

Hundreds again packed Judge Noe's court room upon the resumption of the West murder trial. Miss Goble was again on the stand. Her testimony Friday was the feature of the day.

“Were you ever present when Mrs. West, Miss Ana Beattie and ‘Baby Jim’ were together?"

"Yes."

"When was this?"

“It was in the first week of October and we were upstairs in a room right off the maternity ward. Mrs. West’s daughter Gretchen occupied this room.

“What was said by Mrs. West while you were there in that room?”

“Baby Jim was suffering. His eyes were matterated and he was in awful shape. Mrs. West said, “Let’s give him some laudanum and put him out of his misery. Then she looked right at me. I shook my head and said, ‘Not me.’ At this Miss Beattie, who was standing near, went into the maternity room and brought out a bottle containing laudanum. She had a spoon in her hand and counted out ten [?] drops of the liquid, when Mrs. West said, “that is enough.” Miss Beattie then poured the laudanum down ‘Baby Jim’s’ throat.”

What did you do then?”

“I went out of the room. The telephone rang down stairs and I answered it. I called Mrs. West to the ‘phone and went back into the room.”

“What did you see there?”

“I saw Anna Beattie standing over ‘Baby Jim’ holding the spoon in his mouth. I asked her what she was doing and she said she was repeating the dose.”

“How far were you from the baby when the laudanum was given him?”

“About three feet.”

“How do you know it was laudanum?”

“I saw the label on the bottle. I had seen the bottle previous to this  in the maternity room. It was kept in a drawer there.”

“Did Miss Beattie at the time she counted the drops into the spoon, count out loud?”

“Yes, when she got to ten, Mrs. West said that was enough.”

“When did you next see Mrs. West?”

“Just as she came out of the room when I called her to the telephone.”

“What did you do after Miss Beattie told you she was repeating the door?”

“I left the room. I did not go back into it again until after the baby was dead.”

“At what time did this occur?”

“About a half hour breakfast I should say shortly before nine o’clock – just what ‘Baby Jim’ died I do not know. I saw him again about an hour after he died, to the best of my recollection.

“When did you next see Mrs. Moses after this?”

“That afternoon at her home on Seventh street, 927 I think the number was. Mrs. West, Mrs. Van Meter and I drove over in Mrs. West’s buggy. I was on the front seat with the second baby in my arms with Mrs. West who drove Mrs. Van Meter sat in the back seat. Mrs. Moses came out of her house and took the baby from me. We were there just a moment. Mrs. Moses took the baby back into the house with her.”

“When Mrs. West said, ‘Let’s give him some laudanum’ and looked at you and what did you say?”

“I said, ‘Not me.’ By that I meant that I would not give the baby any laudanum.”

At this point Attorney DeGraff brought about the most dramatic point reached at any time during the hearing. He asked the witness if she saw the person in the room who suggested the laudanum.

“I do,” answered the witness.

“Point her out,” said DeGraff.

Leaning forward in her chair and gazing straight into Mrs. West’s eyes, Flora Goble stretched her arm full length and pointed an accusing finger at Mrs. West, saying. ‘That is her.’”

The defense took the witness for cross-examination.

Attorney Newburn opened the examination. He attempted to show by the girl’s history her incompetency as a witness.

After a few preliminary questions, Harry Noland took the witness and for two hours taxed the girl’s memory with every possible question as to dates, places and occurences in her life from the time she began to be able to walk down to the present day.

Attorney DeGraff and Robert Brennan objected several times on the grounds of irrelevancy and immateriality. The judge overruled the objections.

Noland went over all the ground that DeGraff had previously covered and into minor details which proved to be little or no consequence. His efforts to tangle her were to no avail.

Miss Goble hesitated and would appear to be thinking hard to remember little inconsequential happenings of her daily life, when Noland quick, “answer the question, yes or no!” would break the stillness.

Miss Goble never winched but took her time. Then when the answer came to her she would say it in a low mild tone.

Attorney Noland made a strong effort to show that Miss Goble was discharged from the West “baby farm” because Mrs. West believed her guilty of having taught the daughter Gretchen evil habits.

These things all Miss Goble denied. She testified that Mrs. West had kissed her goodbye and that she cried on leaving her home.

[“Nurse Goble Identifies Poison Which She Says Killed Infant ‘Baby Jim’ - Detects, by Sense of Smell, Laudanum, Drug in Alleged Use at West "Baby Farm." - State Secures Right To Go Into Baby Farm Facts - Defense Seeks to Incriminate Witness, But is Cleverly Side Stepped -- Nurse on Stand During Day.” The Des Moines Daily News (Io.), Feb. 9, 1907, p. 1]

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FULL TEXT (Article 5 of 5): Charges of murder against Mrs. Fred West, owner of the famous baby farm, and Miss Anna Beattie her nurse, have been dropped by County Attorney DeGraff, and the case closed.

This action was the inability of the attorney to get enough evidence against either women for conviction, in the face of the disagreement of the jury in the trial of Mrs. Fred West.

Mrs. West is living at her home on Thirty-fifth street, but has given up the baby farm.

[“Charges Against Mrs. Fred West Dropped – Sensational Baby Farm Case Comes to Close.” The Des Moines Daily News (Io.), Jan. 3, 1908, p. 3]

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Mrs. Fred West’s first name is revealed in the following publication: John Patrick Zeller, “Salvation for the Capital City,” Neighborhood Development City of Des Moines, May 18, 2010

https://www.dmgov.org/Departments/CommunityDevelopment/PDF/Salvation%20for%20the%20Capital%20City.pdf

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For more cases of “Baby Farmers,” professional child care providers who murdered children see The Forgotten Serial Killers.

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For more cases, see: Paternity Fraud Rackets

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[2005-12/29/20]

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