Katie and Albert.

A postmortem examination revealed that Katie Dugan was four months pregnant when her body was found beaten and slashed in an empty field in Wilmington, Delaware, in 1892. A two-year investigation led police to believe that Albert Stout, Katie’s former employer, was her killer and the father of her unborn child. But Stout was a prominent, well-connected businessman, and despite evidence that he and Katie had been together the night of the murder, the grand jury failed to indict him. The case remains unsolved.

Read the full story here: The Katie Dugan Mystery.

Baltimore Sorrow.

William James and Denwood Hinds of Baltimore were close friends who had served together in the Fifth Maryland Regiment. The friendship would have remained strong if William’s sister, Lizzie James, had not become hopelessly infatuated with Denwood Hinds. Lizzie’s love set off a chain of events that not only ended her brother’s friendship with Denwood but resulted in her own death and the murder of her father.

Read the full story here: The Baltimore Sorrow.

Betrayed and Murdered at the Reservoir.

Parental hostility drove Fanny Madison out of her home and into the arms of her cousin, Thomas Cluverius. It was not a wise decision.

Read the full story here: Kissing Cousins.                                            

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Pictures from Illustrated Police News, May 2, 1885.

James E. Eldredge.

James E. Eldredge

James E. Eldredge left his home in Canton, New York in the spring of 1856. He returned six months later with a new name and a duplicitous personality to match. All those around him soon learned to distrust anything the young man said—all except his fiancé, Sarah Jane Gould. She remained trusting to the end, when Eldredge poisoned Sarah Jane to pursue her younger sister.

The Bridgeport Tragedy.

Ellen Lucas of Bridgeport, Connecticut, was to be married on October 3, 1874. The typically happy 18-year-old was somewhat anxious, the evening of October 2, repeatedly looking at the clock as she hastily ate supper. Ellen changed her clothes and left the house at 7:00, telling her mother that she would not be gone long. Mrs. Lucas watched her daughter walk to the corner where she met her fiancé, James E. Lattin. 

Ellen never came home that night, and early the next morning, her family and friends began a search for her. The search ended when two workmen found her body, face down in a stream in a secluded spot called The Cedars, near Berkshire Pond in Northern Bridgeport.

At first, suicide was suspected, but the water in the stream was only a few inches deep, and Ellen had shown no signs of depression and had been enthusiastically preparing for her wedding. A hasty postmortem examination verified that she had not drowned, and the only mark of violence on the body was a small bruise on her forehead. The doctors also discovered that Ellen had been six months pregnant. Foul play was suspected, and James Lattin became the prime suspect.

The Katie Dugan Mystery.

A young man walking through an empty field behind a residence on the western side of Wilmington, Delaware, on Thursday, October 20, 1892, was shocked to find the body of a young woman lying in a pool of blood. Her eyes were black and blue from beating and her throat had been cut from ear to ear, nearly severing her head. On the ground next to her, lay an open razor.

She was soon identified as Katie Dugan, an attractive 16-year-old girl with long flowing hair and dark eyes who lived with her parents. Local residents were quick to place the blame on the black men who lived in the vicinity of the Dugans’ home, but this belief was dispelled after police interviewed her parents.

James Dugan, Katie’s father, had seen a white man of medium stature emerge from the shadow of the house and disappear down the avenue at about 8:00 the night before. Soon after, Katie put on her coat and went out, saying she would be back in a few minutes. She never returned. Her mother, Catherine Dugan, said that earlier in the day, Katie had received a letter; she threw the envelope into the fire and shoved the letter into her pocket. The letter was still in her pocket when her body was found. It was just a note that read: “Meet me on Wednesday night, at the same place and same time.”

Wading through Victorian euphemisms in the newspapers, it appears that Katie was not raped but had been sexually active. The Delaware Republican reported that, though she had been knocked unconscious, beaten, and slashed, there was no indication that she had been “feloniously assaulted.” The post-mortem examination revealed that Katie was “in a delicate condition” and “would have become a mother in about five months.”

Richard Riley, who kept company with Katie, was arrested on suspicion. Riley acknowledged that he had been with Katie on Tuesday night but had not seen her since. On Wednesday night, he had attended a fair at the Church of the Sacred Heart until 11:00. Police detectives were able to corroborate Riley’s alibi and he was released.

Several witnesses had seen Katie with a man on the night of the murder. Edward McGoldrick and Thomas Connelly told police that they had seen Katie with Richard Riley. Riley was arrested again.
At the inquest, James Riley— a young boy, not related to Richard Riley— testified to seeing Katie and a man sitting on a rock near Front and Broome Streets. When he passed them on the street, he saw the man had his arm around Katie and he heard her cry “Oh! My!” several times. He testified that the man was not Richard Riley. McGoldrick and Connelly testified to seeing Katie with a man but now could not identify Riley as the man. Richard Riley testified that he did not see Katie after Tuesday night, and he had never noticed or heard anything about Katie’s pregnancy.

The coroner’s jury determined that Katie Dugan was murdered by a person or persons unknown. There was not enough evidence to hold Richard Riley, and he was released again.

The city Wilmington offered a reward of $200 for the arrest and conviction of the murderer, but no new evidence came forward. Though the newspapers appeared to have forgotten the case, it never strayed far from the minds of the people of Wilmington. In June 1893, eight months after the murder, a rumor spread through the city that the police had arrested a black man and his wife for Katie’s murder. The authorities were startled; though they had never stopped investigating the case, no arrests had been made. They publicly denied the rumor and traced its source to a young man who had said it as a joke.

In August 1894, nearly two years after the murder, Katie’s mother, presented the police with evidence she had gathered implicating Albert Stout, Katie’s former employer, as the murderer. Katie had been a domestic servant, living in Stout’s home until she left several months before the murder. She never told her mother her reason for leaving. It was not revealed what evidence Mrs. Dugan had brought the police, but they had been investigating Stout as well and had come to the same conclusion.

Albert Stout was a 40-year-old businessman with a wife and three children. He was a prominent and well-connected manager at Charles Warner Company. When the police arrested him for murder, he laughed at them, and even after several days in jail remained unconcerned.

The Dugan family believed that Stout had continued to see Katie in secret after she left his home. Her sister, Lizzie, had seen the note and said it was signed “Jack,” the name Katie had always used to refer to Stout. A handwriting expert, working for the police, examined the note and declared that it was written by Albert Stout. The police also had four eyewitnesses who saw Katie with Stout together on the night of the murder. They were quarreling and appeared to be heading in the direction of the murder scene.

The theory of the police was that Stout had been trying to persuade Katie to have an abortion. She refused, saying she intended to expose him as the father of her child. Driven to desperation, Stout murdered Katie to keep her quiet.

A grand jury convened on September 20 to hear evidence against Albert Stout. But after reviewing testimony from a dozen witnesses, the jury determined that there was not enough evidence to indict Stout for the murder of Katie Dugan. Albert Stout left the courtroom a free man.

There were no more arrests, and the circumstances of Katie Dugan’s murder remain a mystery.

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Sources:
“Arrested for Murder,” Bay City Times, August 31, 1894.
“Brutal Murder of a Girl,” New York Herald, October 21, 1892.
“Closing in upon Stout,” New York Herald, September 2, 1894.
“Did He Kill Katie Dugan,” Boston Herald, August 31, 1894.
“Innocent,” Delaware Republican, September 21, 1894.
“It Was Murder,” Delaware Republican, October 22, 1892.
“The Kate Dugan Murder Mystery,” Pittsburg Dispatch, October 23, 1892.
“Katie Dugan's Murder in Deleware,” Sun, November 21, 1892.
“Katie Dungan's Slayer,” Delaware gazette and state journal, June 29, 1893.
“Murder Most Foul,” Wheeling Register, October 21, 1892.
“Murder of Katie Dugan,” Delaware Republican, September 1, 1894.
“Murder Will Out,” Evening Journal, August 31, 1894.
“News Article,” Delaware Republican, November 23, 1892.
“News Article,” Chicago Daily News, August 31, 1894.
“Riley Liberated,” Evening Journal, October 28, 1892.
“Stout Held for Court,” Delaware Republican, September 4, 1894.

Insane Jealousy.

Mildred Brewster

Mildred Brewster was the daughter of a wealthy farmer near Montpelier, Vermont. In 1897, 18-year-old Mildred decided to leave her father’s home and move to the city to make her own way. She found a job working for a tailor and took a room at a boarding house. All was going well until she met and fell in love with Jack Wheeler, a young granite-cutter who boarded at the same house. Wheeler knew of Mildred’s affections for him, but, he would later say, he did not return them.

Jack Wheeler was engaged to another wealthy farmer’s daughter named Annie Wheeler—they had the same last name but were not related.  When Mildred learned that he planned to take his fiancé to Barre, the end of May for the Decoration Day celebration she became incensed. She paid a visit on Annie Wheeler and told her in no uncertain terms to leave Jack Wheeler alone. Mildred said she had a prior claim on his affections and if Annie did not give him up, Mildred would kill him.

Betrayal and Mercy.

Little Murders

Two men walking through the woods near Dalton, Georgia, came across the body of a young woman lying in Milk Creek. Her feet were bare, she was clad in old wrapper tied with twine, her chestnut-brown hair hung over her shoulders in disheveled locks, and two deep wounds cracked her skull. No one in Dalton recognized the woman; there was no way to tell where she had come from and who had killed her. Then a liveryman, Robert Springfield, made a startling discovery while taking out one of his buggies. The seat was covered with fresh clots of blood and strands of hair. He had rented the buggy the previous night, to a man named Charles Patton.

The Mystery of Zora Burns.

Little Murders

Zora Burns

Missouri Burns, better known as Zora, was nineteen years old when she left her father's home in St. Elmo, Illinois, to work as a domestic for the family of Orrin A. Carpenter, the richest man in Lincoln, Illinois. Carpenter was a grain dealer who owned a huge grain elevator as well as a farm and other real estate in Logan County. He was fifty years old with a wife and two daughters.

In newspaper reports, Zora Burns was described as a beautiful and captivating young woman: “Abundant hair of yellow-golden tint clustered about features as perfectly regular as those which Phidias chiseled from the marble of Greece. Her form was grace and symmetry personified, and despite her lack of educational advantages, her natural tact and quickness of intellect atoned in great measure for her deficiencies.” It is not surprising that Mr. Carpenter soon became infatuated with his young servant.

 

Avenging Her Honor.

Stephen L. Pettus stepped off the Fulton ferry boat from Brooklyn, the morning of November 22, 1889 and was walking up Fulton Street when he was accosted by a nervously distraught woman. The two had angry words, then he brushed her away and continued walking. Without hesitation, the woman raised a revolver and fired five shots into Pettus’s back, killing him instantly. She was standing near the body when a police officer arrived.

“Did you do that?” he asked her.

“Yes,” she replied, “he had ruined me and dishonored my family."

The Corn Field Murder.

Sarah Alexander, a seventeen-year-old Jewish immigrant from Poland, left her home on the Lower East Side of Manhattan on December 12, 1875, to look for a job. She never returned. When she was still missing the following day her family placed an announcement in the New York Sun asking or information on their missing girl. Her uncle, Israel Rubenstein, noticed in the same edition of the Sun, a description of a murdered girl found in Brooklyn exactly matching that of Sarah Alexander. He later identified the body as his niece Sarah, but he never dreamed that her killer was his own son Pesach.

The Black-McKaig Homicide.

As children, Harry and Myra Black were playmates with William McKaig, but as adults McKaig did not view the Blacks as his equals—the McKaigs were wealthy, the Blacks were not. As events transpired, their relationships grew to resemble a melodrama where the rich but unscrupulously evil villain seduces and ruins the innocent maiden. Her betrayal is avenged by her equally upright brother. But will his goodness be pure enough to save him from the gallows?

The Baltimore Sorrow.

William James and Denwood Hinds of Baltimore were close friends who had served together in the Fifth Maryland Regiment. The friendship would have remained strong if William’s sister, Lizzie James, had not become hopelessly infatuated with Denwood Hinds. Lizzie’s love set off a chain of events that not only ended her brother’s friendship with Denwood, but resulted in her own death and the murder of her father.

"...as though he had shot her.”

Mary Pomeroy was the organist at the Prospect Avenue Presbyterian Church in Jersey City, New Jersey. In 1874 she was a beautiful young woman and an accomplished musician with a sterling reputation. Mary was renowned for her purity and virtue until she was seduced and abandoned by her pastor, the Reverend John Glendenning. She died soon after giving birth; her doctor said the cause of death was “a broken heart.” While Mary was technically not murdered, the people of Jersey City saw no difference. One newspaper story said of Reverend Glendenning: “He is as truly the murderer of Mary Pomeroy as though he had shot her.”

A Matter of Honor.

In the autumn of 1882, in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, Nicholas L. Dukes learned that his fiancée, Lizzie Nutt, had been intimate with other men. An honorable man would have confronted his betrothed and ended their engagement face-to-face. Dukes chose to break the engagement in a letter written to Lizzie’s father, Civil War hero and Cashier of the Pennsylvania State Treasury, Captain A. C. Nutt. The resulting conflict was so divisive and violent that it would take two murders and two controversial trial verdicts to restore honor to Uniontown.

Kissing Cousins

Lillian Madison’s relations with her immediate family in the 1880s were strained if not outright hostile. Her parents disapproved of her social life and kept her from the education she desired and as soon as she could, Lillian left their home in King William County, Virginia. She found comfort and support among her mother’s relatives but she also began a romantic relationship with her cousin, Thomas Cluverius, that would end in her ruin. When Lillian’s body, eight months pregnant, was found floating in Richmond’s Old Reservoir, Cousin Thomas was the prime suspect.