Category Archives: Criminal History

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Terror Comes to New York: The Wall Street Bombing of 1920

Few of us are likely to forget the 2001 September 11 terrorist attacks, when two planes crashed into the Twin Towers in Manhattan and into the Pentagon. I was a 14-year-old schoolboy at the time, and I remember watching it unfolding live on television.

But how many of us have heard of what happened on September 16th? Not September 16th 2001…but September 16th, 1920.

This date commemorates one of the first big terrorist attacks in United States history, a criminal act which has since drifted off into the fog of history. In this posting, we’ll be looking at the first time that terror came to New York: The Wall Street Bombing of 1920.

What was the Wall Street Bombing?

The Wall Street Bombing was just one of several terrorist attacks which took place in the USA in the early 20th century. Until the Bath School Disaster of 1927, it was also the most deadly terrorist bombing in the United States at the time, and the first terrorist attack on New York soil.

In the early 1920s, the United States was enjoying the coming boom years of the Roaring Twenties, brought on by post-WWI prosperity. Nowhere was this prosperity more evident than on Wall Street, in Lower Manhattan, the center of the financial world. It was in this bustling nook of trade and commerce, that the attack happened, killing and injuring dozens of people during the midday rush, all in a matter of seconds.

What Happened during the Bombing?

These days, we’d probably call it an “improvised explosive device”, or to use the common parlance, a ‘car-bomb’; or more specifically, a ‘cart’ bomb. Just before noon on the morning of the 16th of September, 1920, a horse and cart, loaded with 100lbs of dynamite and 500lbs in sash-weights (those small, metal weights used to operate sash windows), pulled up outside No. 23 Wall Street, the J.P. Morgan Bank. A minute after midday the dynamite was detonated, destroying the cart, killing the horse, and sending hundreds of pounds of metal shrapnel flying through the crowded, lunchtime rush on Wall Street!

The bomb-blast could be felt right across the narrow thoroughfare. Its victims were mostly messengers, couriers, stenographers and stockbrokers, moving between their various places of work. The blast killed thirty-eight people and wounded over a hundred and forty other people! The exterior of the J.P. Morgan bank, which the cart was parked outside, was severely damaged by broken glass, chips of masonry and flying shrapnel.

Several other buildings on Wall Street were significantly damaged. Cars, trucks and other vehicles nearby were flipped over and smashed from the force of the exploding dynamite, as you can see in the photograph above. Within minutes, emergency services were on the scene to clear up the wreckage and treat the injured.

The injuries sustained in the blast were horrific. A stockbroker was decapitated by the flying debris, his headless body found in the street, a packet of work-papers and stocks still clutched in his hands. One man was blinded in the explosion and lost the use of his eyes. Dead bodies lay everywhere. Initially, the death-count was low, but the appalling injuries soon caused it to rise to the number of 38, which was the official number of deaths caused by the blast.

Some of the bodies of victims killed in the blast

The police were quick to respond to the explosion, and within minutes, they’d cordoned off the blast-area and had commandeered all operational motor-cars within the radius of the explosion, using them to transport the injured to hospital. One 17-year-old messenger-boy packed thirty people into one of these cars before driving it to safety.

The Aftermath of the Explosion

Terrified and furious New Yorkers were quick to condemn the blast that killed over three dozen people and horribly maimed and injured up to a hundred and forty or more of their friends, colleagues, family-members and just plain fellow New Yorkers. The BOI (that’s the Bureau of Investigation, the forerunner to the current FBI) immediately launched an investigation into the attack. Business-owners and the Board of Governors for the New York Stock Exchange were anxious to start trading again as soon as possible. The street was cleaned up overnight (literally) and trading resumed the next morning.

The front page of the New York Times, September 17th, 1920. The day after the bombing.

Investigators theorised that the bombers might have been communists or anarchists. Why else would they wish to attack America’s centre of wealth, business and finance? The noted newspaper, the Washington Post, declared the bombing an “act of war”.

While the BOI theorised about possible foreign terrorist groups, or the possibility of a group of Italian anarchists, the police started investigating the source of the horse and cart. Despite checking dozens of stables, they were unable to find out who had purchased, or perhaps stolen, the horse and cart which was used to transport the dynamite to Wall Street. While investigative authorities came up with many theories and leads, officially, at least – the case was never definitively solved.

Never Heard of the Wall Street Bombing?

Don’t worry! Not many people have!

Check these out if you want to find out more…

https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/wall-street-bombing-1920

https://www.britannica.com/event/Wall-Street-bombing-of-1920

 
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Operation Bernhard: The Nazi Counterfeiting Ring

During the Second World War, Britain worked tirelessly to undermine the German war-effort through epic feats of deception and cunning. Everything from the “Magic Gang” with Jasper Maskelyne, to General George Patton and the imaginary First United States Army Group (“FUSAG”), and the infamous “Operation Mincemeat”, where a dead body was dressed as an officer, filled with “sensitive documentation”, and then dumped off the Spanish coastline by a British submarine.

The majority of British deception-plans against the Nazis during the Second World War are well-known, and are rightly famous – the story of Operation Mincemeat was even turned into a major motion picture – in colour! But what is less well-known by the general public is the almost-forgotten German counter-effort against Britain, to pull off one of the greatest feats of forgery ever witnessed in human history.

This is the true story of the German attempt to produce millions upon millions of FAKE British banknotes during the Second World War, and to bring about the collapse of the British economy through hyperinflation. A story known as ‘Operation Bernhard’.

The Beginnings of Bernhard

The origins of Operation Bernhard came to fruition on the 18th of September, 1939, just a few days after the start of the Second World War, and the German invasion of Poland. The original idea was formulated by Arthur Nebe and Reinhard Heydrich, two architects of the famous “final solution” that would eventually lead to the Jewish Holocaust. The original plan was to produce hundreds of millions in forged, British banknotes and to distribute them throughout the United Kingdom. This would cause economic collapse, and destroy the world’s confidence in the Pound Sterling as a globally-accepted currency, which it was in the early 1900s.

Looking for any way to cripple the British war-effort, Hitler gave the plan his official approval, although for obvious reasons, it had to be kept as secret as possible…something which didn’t last very long, because before too much time had passed, Sir Michael Palairet, British Ambassador to Greece, had already been tipped off about the potential Nazi counterfeiting scheme, and forwarded full details, such as they were known at the time, to the government in Whitehall, and to the Bank of England, to be on the lookout for potential forgery of British currency. The warnings were heeded, even though the Bank of England believed that existing anti-counterfeiting measures already in place should be more than sufficient to thwart any potential forgery efforts.

Planning the Deception – Operation Andreas

Operation Bernhard was comprised of several different elements, all of which had to be as perfect as possible for the plan to proceed. The first element of making the fake banknotes was, of course, to make the notepaper upon which the denominations of currency would be printed. This first stage of the plan was known as Operation Andreas, and involved finding the right combination of cloth rags and old paper and the right manufacturing processes to make the paper (or as close as possible) which British banknotes were printed on. Following steps were the engraving of the printing plates, the making of the ink, the forging of banknote serial numbers, etc.

The Germans were very confident in their ability to replicate British banknotes. The type of banknote (and the design printed upon it) used in the UK during WWII had been designed nearly 100 years before, in 1855. The banknotes were printed in black ink on large sheets of white paper – smaller sheets for five-pound notes, and larger sheets for 10, 20 and 50 pound notes.

To guard against forgery, every single plate used to print the notes had numerous little imperfections (up to 150 of them in total!) worked into the designs. These were usually imperceptible to the naked eye – but if they were perceived, then they would simply be passed off by the general public as minor printing-errors – the result of plate-wear, and of printing thousands of banknotes a day. Only bank officials would know what the marks and imperfections were, how many there were, their significance, and where these could be found on the various notes in circulations. As the imperfections were put down to wear-and-tear, the idea was that any forger making a banknote would try and make it even better than the original. A forged note with perfect printing would therefore stand out against a genuine note with small, but deliberate imperfections worked into the design.

Making the paper was surprisingly difficult, and the German forgers encountered several roadblocks along the way. The type of cloth and rags used, whether they’d been cleaned and bleached, how they were pulverised, how the paper was formed, and even the chemical composition of the water used to make the paper-mass, all had to be carefully examined and tested so that the notes looked perfect.

In the end, the decision was made to try and counterfeit five-pound notes. Being the most common notes in circulation, they were less likely to be scrutinised, and would more easily blend in with genuine British banknotes, becoming too widely dispersed too quickly for the Bank of England to pick up on the deceit until it was too late. As the war progressed, ten, twenty and even fifty-pound notes were also added to the list of fraudulent banknotes.

Early attempts at producing these forged five-pound notes proved highly problematic, and one of the biggest issues with trying to create accurate forgeries came from trying to reproduce the image of Britannia printed on every five-pound note. The engraving was so intricate that try as they might, a 100% accurate copy just wasn’t possible. It became so difficult that in 1942, the forgery plan was abandoned.

The Start of Operation Bernhard

While German forgers had given up trying to forge British banknotes, the German SS had not, and later in 1942, the plan was revived under the direction of Heinrich Himmler, and SS Major Bernhard Kruger – after whom the operation was named.

Major Bernhard Kruger

The original plan with the forged banknotes was to flood Britain with fake fivers so that confidence in the British Pound Sterling would collapse, or to cause hyperinflation. Spies and contacts had alerted the Bank of England about the possibility of this German plan as early as 1939, and first evidence of these forged notes started popping up in 1943. Fears that high-quality forged German notes could flood Britain, bringing down its economy started to rise.

Fortunately, this didn’t happen (or at least not on a large scale) because of a quirk of the Bank of England.

What none of the forgers or their controllers knew was that the Bank of England kept gigantic ledger books – some of them hundreds of years old – in which they laboriously recorded literally every single British banknote in circulation! See – every banknote issued by the Bank of England was a promissory note – a note which promised to pay the bearer five pounds – as in, five pounds sterling worth of gold or silver – upon presentation of the note.

To stop forgeries, every note had a serial number – this much, the Germans knew. What they did not know was that every single serial number, without exception – was recorded in a ledger before it was issued to the public. When a note was worn out or required replacement, it was returned to the bank. The serial number on the note was then crossed out of the ledger and the note was destroyed.

The problem was that several of the forged banknotes that the Germans produced had serial numbers on them which, when they were compared against the Bank of England ledgers – showed that they were fake! The genuine notes had already been turned in and canceled. So why were there suddenly notes showing up with identical, canceled numbers? They had to be fake! It sounds stupidly simple, but it really was that easy to find out which notes were forgeries. To catch the forgers out, the Bank of England had to do just one thing:

Stop making banknotes! Any other banknotes that were found in circulation would therefore obviously not be printed by the bank and could only be forgeries! So they did!

When they realised that their grand scheme for destroying the British economy had just gone out the window, Himmler and his S.S. confederates had to figure out some other use for their millions in forged fivers. This was when they got the idea that the banknotes could be used to fund the German war-effort. The pound sterling being a globally-accepted currency, it would be easy to pay for arms and materiel using the fake banknotes, and pass them off as genuine to unsuspecting arms-dealers or German allies, who, presumably, wouldn’t look too closely at the notes.

And this is exactly what happened.

To ensure that their plan was as foolproof as possible, Major Kruger started looking for more forgers, and eventually gathered up a group of Jewish prisoners from Auschwitz who had the necessary skills – engraving, artistry, calligraphy, and so-on, and set them up in their own barracks in Sachsenhausen concentration camp. In the end, 140 men were chosen.

Because the prisoners were essential to the German war-effort, they were treated much better than other prisoners. Guards were forbidden to harass them, and they were given regular food, proper shelter and care. Of course the prisoners knew that all this relied on them producing the most perfect forgeries ever. This would be the only thing that kept them in the good graces of the SS.

Between 1942-1945, the prisoners (with their bases of operations constantly moving to keep them from escaping, or from being bombed by the allies) produced millions upon millions of pounds of British banknotes, along with a healthy dose of American dollars. These funds were then laundered and exchanged to secure Swiss Francs, genuine British banknotes, or genuine American dollars, with none of the other parties ever being any the wiser. In total, the prisoners were believed to have forged up to three hundred MILLION pounds!

The End of the Operation

Operation Bernhard came to a juddering halt in 1945 with the gradual collapse of Nazi Germany. The prisoners responsible for the forgeries were shifted continuously from place to place to try and keep them from escaping to allied lines. They were constantly broken up, reformed, separated and reunited. In the end, the SS decided that they were too much of a liability – that they knew too much – and would have to be “silenced”.

However, in typical German efficiency, the order given was that all the prisoners involved in the forgery operations had to be executed together – this way there was no chance of one or two of them escaping, or of there being any sorts of mix-ups. It was this strict adherence to this rule that actually saved all their lives!

In early May, 1945, the prisoners were moved yet again – this time to Ebensee Concentration Camp. The men had been broken up into three groups and were transported to the camp by truck separately. Two groups arrived, were sent into the camp, and then their guards fled to try and save their own necks. The order that the prisoners had to be killed together meant that they could not yet be executed – delays in transportation (the truck broke down!) meant that the third group had not yet arrived. Instead, they had to be marched to Ebensee, which took the better part of two days. This delay only increased the group’s survival.

When the third group did arrive, they too were simply dumped into the camp before their guards also fled from advancing U.S. troops. It would be impossible to pick out 100-odd specific prisoners from the thousands within the camp, so the SS guards who had escorted the forgers there simply didn’t bother. They had more important things to do – like try to get out of Europe! In this way, the prisoners were left in the camp on the 5th of May to await an uncertain future.

On the 6th of May, 1945, Ebensee camp was liberated by American soldiers, and against all the odds, the Jewish forgery prisoners had survived the entire war – and with an incredible story to tell!

The Fate of the Fake Fivers

So much for the fate of the forgers, but what about the forgeries?

When the war ended, Major Bernhard Kruger was arrested by the British, but they soon discovered that there wasn’t much that they could hold him on. While certainly illegal at any other time in history, forging an enemy’s currency in wartime was not actually a war crime! With nothing to hold him on, the British interrogated him extensively for two years during his denazification process, and then released him to French authorities, with whom he stayed with for one year. Some of the liberated forger-prisoners, after being interviewed by British officials, agreed to sign testimonies in Kruger’s favour, stating that he had been nice to them, had looked after them, had protected them and seen to their welfare as best he could during the war.

Eventually, Kruger was released from custody in 1948 and got a job at the Hahnemuhle Paper Mill…ironically, one of the places responsible for making the paper he used in his forging operations! He died in 1989 at the age of 84. The Hahnemuhle Paper Company is still operating today.

So much for Kruger. What about the banknotes?


Most of the leftover funds ended up here – Lake Toplitz in Austria, where crates of banknotes and equipment were dumped in the dying days of the Second World War. Expeditions and dives in subsequent decades hauled up some of the estimated 100,000 pounds sterling of forged banknotes which had been disposed of in the lake, and today, these forged banknotes are highly collectible as historical artifacts.

Want to Know More?

Most of the information for this posting came from the excellent documentary film “The Great Nazi Cash Swindle”, from 2004, which you can find on YouTube.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/operation-bernhard

 
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Whistle-Blower: An 1887 Metropolitan Police Whistle

The chilly winter air, the flurries of snow, the heaving, choking smog, the hissing, flickering luminescence of gas-fired streetlamps. Footsteps in the distance. Somewhere, a clock-tower chimes midnight.

Suddenly, a scrambling of feet! A struggle! The sound of a body falling, and the distant ‘splash!’ of something heavy hitting the water.

A moment of silence. And then the crisp midnight air is sliced in half with the shrill, discordant screeching sound of a whistle…

The Victorian era was obsessed with four things: Crime, death, standardisation, and modernisation. In sixty years, technology advanced by leaps and bounds unheard of in previous lifetimes, and one object encapsulated all these things in one – one of the most iconic items associated with the Victorian era: The humble Metropolitan Police Whistle.

The Origins of the London Metropolitan Police

Established by Sir Robert Peel in 1829, the “New Police” or to give it its proper title: The London Metropolitan Police, was the world’s first modern police force – a state-run organisation of paid, professional officers, designed specifically to detect, deter, and solve crimes.

Prior to this time, ‘policing’ was often carried out by the civic guard, soldiers, parish constables, or the night watch, as in Rembrandt Van Rjin’s famous painting…

“De Nachtwacht” (“The Night Watch”) by Rembrandt Van Rjin

Here, you can see the men of the night watch, armed and protected with pikes and halberds (in the background), helmets, and muzzle-loading muskets (on the left and right).

The whole concept of the police was so new that Peel wasn’t even sure how it was supposed to operate. For example, police were originally expected to be on duty at all times, and to wear their uniform at all times. Then they changed it so that an armband on the sleeve of the uniform indicated whether the officer was, or was not, on duty. Finally, they decided that officers would only be on duty when they wore their uniforms, and did not have to wear them when they were not on duty!…things were very confusing! And it only got even more confusing when they actually had to fight crimes in progress.

The new London police service patrolled the streets day and night, working in timed shifts which covered specific quarters of the city (known as ‘beats’). If a policeman did one thing more than any other – it was walking. In the days before telephones and emergency-service numbers, a physical, visible police presence on the streets was the best way to detect and deter crime.

But what happened when crime was detected? A constable might try and combat the criminal himself, but if this wasn’t possible, then he would need to call for backup. This was usually done by beating his truncheon against fence-railings or along the pavement, or by swinging a heavy, wooden rattle round and round and round. The blades of the rattle snapped and clapped back and forth along the ratchet inside, making an almighty racket!

The problem was that the rattle was bulky, difficult to carry, heavy (it had to be large enough to make a loud-enough noise to be heard over the traffic, don’t forget), and it could easily be taken by a criminal and used as a club to attack the officer, if he so desired. On top of that, despite the rattle’s size and weight, it was not always distinguishable over the sounds of a busy city – thousands of pedestrians, horses, carriage wheels, market cries and the sounds of industry could easily drown it out.

This was why, in the 1880s, the police, finally fed-up with this inefficiency, decided to rethink the equipment issued to constables on the beat.

Enter a man named Joseph Hudson.

Joseph Hudson & Co – Whistle Makers

Joseph Hudson was a Birmingham toolmaker and whistle-manufacturer who had established his business in 1870. Moderately successful, Hudson was quick to see that what the police needed was not a heavy, bulky rattle, but something small, lightweight, easy to carry, and which could produce a deafening noise!…They needed whistles! And by gum, he was going to be the fellow who was going to provide them!

A competition was announced in the London Times newspaper, and competitors were encouraged to submit their entries, which would be compared and tested. Hudson started manufacturing his whistle, trying to find a design which would be loud, distinct, and portable. The story is often told that he got the idea for how the whistle should sound when he knocked his violin off his workbench. The twanging, reverberating strings gave him the idea that the whistle should be two-toned – one blow by the user should produce two different notes. Combined, they would not only be louder, but also very distinctive – anybody hearing the whistle would know at once that it was a police whistle.

The Original Metropolitan Police Whistle

Hudson’s whistle performed admirably in tests conducted by the police. It was loud, had a long audible range, was compact, lightweight, robust, and distinct. The police liked it so much that they asked Mr. Hudson to start manufacturing these new whistles at once! Joseph Hudson was so eager to fulfill his enormous new contract that a lot of the earliest whistles came with manufacturing faults, and had to be sent back to the factory for repairs – awkward…

The whistle and its chain

But eventually, they got the manufacturing processes and quality-control up to snuff, and in 1883, the London Metropolitan Police started carrying the new whistles. Rattles were to be handed in as soon as possible, and the new whistle was to be introduced to the force to replace it. Originally, the whistle was hooked onto the uniform tunic with a chain, and the whistle hung straight down the front. This proved to be less than ideal – the whistle and chain would flop around if the officer had to engage in a foot-pursuit, or a suspect could grab the whistle and pull it away from the officer.

Later, police regulations were changed so that the whistle was stored in the breast-pocket of the uniform tunic, with the chain-hook going through the buttonhole of the nearest available button. The chain hung out of the pocket in a “U” shape. This arrangement allowed for inspectors to see that their officers were carrying their whistles, while also keeping them out of sight. The hanging chain also made it easy for the officer to pull his whistle out quickly in an emergency, but wasn’t so long that a suspect could grab hold of the chain during a scuffle. This arrangement is still used today with police dress-uniforms.

The hook at the end of the whistle-chain

Police whistles were largely made of either nickel-silver, a nickel-alloy, or else were made of brass, and later plated in nickel. Which whistles were made of which material changed over time, depending on which metal was more available.

During the First World War, for example, J. Hudson & Co. actually had to make its whistles out of steel (donated by the Cadbury Chocolate Co. workers over in Bournville!) because the British government decreed that brass (the usual whistle-material) was required for the war-effort! But nobody needed the steel used to make chocolate-boxes and biscuit-tins, so it was used to make whistles, instead!

Dating Antique Police Whistles

As police whistles started becoming more and more popular, both in London and then further afield in the UK, and then around the world, mostly following the British model, manufacturers rushed to meet the demand. Other industries such as railroads, insane asylums, prisons, and countless other institutions and organisations suddenly realised how useful whistles could be, and they too, started putting in orders.

The earliest Metropolitan police whistles, as made by J. Hudson & Co., were produced in the company’s factory on 84 Buckingham Street, in Birmingham, starting in 1883. Within two years, demand was vastly outstripping supply, and Joseph Hudson was forced to close his original factory, and move to larger premises at 131 Barr Street, in 1884-85.

Even as the company moved manufacturing facilities, it also changed manufacturing processes, styling, stamps, and marks. This is what makes antique whistles so easy to date. Knowing how long and between what dates a company remained at a particular address helps you to date when a whistle was made.

The address of 131 Barr Street, on the whistle barrel

While changes in barrel markings and addresses can give you a date-range for when the whistle was made, more subtle changes in the whistle’s manufacturing can help to narrow down the date to an actual year. Variables such as the shape of the loop on the top of the whistle, the shape of the mouthpiece, and even the style and spacing of the branding-stamps on the barrels all changed over time as manufacturing techniques changed or improved. This is how it was possible to date this particular whistle to 1887!

How were the Whistles Used?

So far, I’ve covered why the whistles were created, what they were made of, and how they were dated, but how were they used?

The whole purpose of the whistles, like the rattles which they replaced, was to raise the alarm and call for assistance. In Victorian times, the only way for the police to respond to crime was to literally be there on the spot when it happened. There was no such thing as telephone or police radios in those days. Officers walked beats (timed patrol-routes) around their city, town or village, usually in shifts of one hour, after which they could return to the station-house for a break, a drink, a rest, and either go back out on patrol, or go home, if their shift had ended.

While out on the road, officers had no way of communicating with each other. If they spotted a crime in progress – a mugging, burglary, theft or even a murder – it was up to the officer on the scene to take charge of the situation. If the situation was more than he could handle, or if it suddenly went out of control – that’s what the whistle was for. Blowing the whistle as long and loud as you could would alert other officers on nearby beats that immediate assistance was required, and they would respond by rushing in the direction of the last whistle blast.

In this way, the whistle acted as both an instrument for calling backup, and as a siren, to alert people to what was going on. It also acted as a physical marker, so that people could hurry to the location where a policeman needed assistance, by following the sound of the whistle.

Police whistles remained in regular use from the 1880s up until the 1970s, when factors like improved portable communications devices, cars, and better electronics finally rendered them obsolete. They’re manufactured today largely for tourists, collectors, police dress-uniforms, and for historical reenactments or as movie- or television-props.

Collecting antique police whistles is a big hobby, and high prices can be paid for whistles which are particularly old, or which have rare stamps on the barrels, indicating that they were manufactured for, or issued to, different police forces or organisations.

Of the original J. Hudson whistles, probably the rarest or most collectible are the first-generation ones marked “84 Buckingham St.” on the barrels, because these were only made for two years. Even rarer than that are the handful of whistles from this time with even rarer markings on them. Rarer, because they were manufactured specifically for the various lunatic asylums around the UK at the time, and bear markings of the asylums to which they were issued. These whistles are among the most expensive, costing several hundred or even thousands of dollars each.

The second generation whistles, from the 1880s and 1890s, such as the one featured in this posting, are a little easier to find, although they are a bit more expensive than the average price for an antique whistle, due to their age.

I hope you found this glimpse into the history of whistles interesting. More postings along a similar theme are planned for the future, so keep an eye out for them!

 
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Stop Thief! The History of the General Service Metropolitan Police Whistle

What’s the most important piece of equipment an officer might carry? Truncheon? Handcuffs? Sidearm? Pepper-spray? Taser? Notepad and pencil?

In older times, the answer might surprise you. From the 1880s until the 1970s, almost all over the world, policemen, and later, policewomen, had one piece of equipment which was arguably just as important as all of those things, and yet which was tiny, and seemingly, insignificant – the police whistle!

Why Are You Looking At This?

Why not?

Oh okay seriously…why?

The Police whistle was one of the first pieces of equipment specifically made for the police to try and make communications easier between officers. Despite the fact that they haven’t been used operationally in at least 40 years, the police whistle has remained one of the most powerful symbols of law and order to this day. Even now, we still have the term ‘Whistleblower‘, meaning to expose some sort of injustice or corruption which was previously hidden from the public.

Before the Police Whistle

The earliest forms of policing were local watchmen, constables and nightmen who patrolled the streets of cities and towns at night. (think “Ten o’clock and All’s Well!“) Their only form of protection or defense was a wooden staff, or truncheon, or a dagger or sword of some description. To raise the alarm, they had to rely on their lungs, or on heavy wooden rattles. These heavy, bulky rattles were swung around on a central handle. Centrifugal force caused the whole thing to swing around, and the rattle blades struck against the ribbed surface in the middle of the rattle, producing a loud clattering sound.

From as far back as the 1600s, right up to the 19th century, this was all they had to raise the alarm.

And it was hardly ideal, for reasons I’ll explain later.

The Rise of the Police

In the 1800s, the Industrial Revolution in Britain was forcing towns and cities to grow. Major population-centers like Birmingham, Sheffield, Edinburgh, Glasgow and London were bursting at the seams. Impoverished rural workers flooded into cities to find work. And when there wasn’t any work, they turned to crime.

In the 1700s, this was already a major issue, and by the early 1800s, it had become so ultra-extreme that even old standbys like transportation and execution were ineffective as deterrents.

In the early 1800s, the first police-forces as we’d recognise them today, were established in Glasgow, in Scotland, and London, in England. These forces were unlike anything seen before. They were designed to be civilian forces keeping the peace, preventing or deterring crimes, and arresting criminals when crime took place. But the equipment issued to policemen had hardly changed since Stuart times.

A typical officer, in his dark blue uniform (dark blue instead of red, which was used by the Army – the famous British Redcoats), strengthened top hat, and boots, was equipped with handcuffs or manacles, a cutlass, a baton or truncheon, and a rattle for raising the alarm. And for nearly 100 years…that was all they had.

The Introduction of the Police Whistle

Truncheons were used by early police officers because they were easily held in one hand, unlike rifles or muskets, which required both hands to operate. And rattles were used to sound the alarm if backup was required. But the problems with rattles were significant.

As early as the 1860s and 70s, police in Britain were looking for replacements for rattles. And in some smaller police-forces, whistles had been suggested, and were being trialed. It was not until the 1880s, however, that whistles actually became standard-issue.

The General Service Whistle, as it was called, had a number of benefits over the old-fashioned rattle. In its hundreds of years of use, the rattle had shown that it had a number of shortcomings:

1). The rattle was bulky and heavy. It took up space in the uniform. It slowed the officer down. Its odd shape caught on clothing and snagged.

2). The rattle was made of wood. This could crack, warp, chip or break if the rattle was used too rigorously, or if it was dropped and broken.

3). The rattle’s size and weight meant that if it was taken from an officer, it could be used as a bludgeon! A desperate criminal could smash it into an officer’s face or head and knock him out. It was therefore, a safety-hazard.

4). The rattle was not loud enough to be an effective means of communication. And on top of that, the rattling sound it produced would be drowned out or mistaken for something else in the din of traffic – the rumbling of barrels. The clatter of horse-hooves. The grinding of carriage-wheels…Useless!

The whistle on the other hand, was far superior in a number of ways:

1). It’s extremely small. The General Service Whistle is about three inches long. You can put into a pocket and forget it’s there. Less space taken up on a uniform.

2). It’s tough. They’re made of brass. If you drop it, it won’t break.

3). It cannot be used as a weapon against the officer.

4). It’s distinct sound meant that it was impossible for it to be mistaken for anything else.

5). Its loud noise and long range meant that it could be heard better, and further, than rattles, making it effective when calling for backup.

A General Service “Metropolitan”-style police whistle. This one was stamped for the Birmingham City Police

Although some forces did use different whistles in the 1870s, if the police whistle was going to be used throughout Britain and the world, it had to be ONE type of whistle, with ONE distinct sound which EVERYONE would recognise. For this to work, they had to find, or design and make ONE whistle which would be better, louder, and more distinct than any other!

The classic, tubular “General Service Whistle” came about in 1883. The London Metropolitan Police (Scotland Yard) put out advertisements in newspapers around Britain, to find a suitable whistle, and a suitable replacement for the heavy wooden rattles which officers were STILL using in the early 1880s!

Up came Mr. Joseph Hudson, toolmaker and whistle-manufacturer, from Birmingham.

Popular folklore will tell you that Mr. Hudson was an amateur violinist. One evening while fiddling with his fiddle, he walked around, musing over the problem which the police had put to the public. Perhaps distracted by this, he put down his violin and accidentally knocked it off the table. It fell to the floor and shattered at his feet! As the strings snapped in front of him, he heard the twanging, humming sound echoing around the room. He realised if he could recreate that trill, discordant sound, it would be unique, loud and far-carrying! He hurried to his workshop to try and make this a reality.

The result was the “The Metropolitan” police whistle.

The Classic Police Whistle

My two police whistles. The one on the right is a modern ceremonial Metropolitan police whistle; this style has been produced since 1972, and continues to be made to this day. It’s barrel-stamping is: “THE Metropolitan” – “Made in England”. The whistle on the left is an early 20th-century antique (with almost all the nickel-plating gone). Its barrel-stamping is: “THE CITY WHISTLE – PATENT”

Tubular, easy to hold, small, loud and unique, it was ideal for the Metropolitan Police, and could be heard over a MILE away on a good day. More then sufficient for the needs of the police!

The tubular ‘General Service Whistle‘ was not just manufactured for the police. It was used by everyone. Hence the name ‘General Service’. Although originally manufactured for the police, its loud, authoritative shriek became the classic sound of alarm. It was therefore ideal for services where such a whistle might be required. More about that later…

The whistle was used all over the world. From New York City to London, to Toronto, to Melbourne and Bombay. If you had a police-force in the early 20th century, it almost certainly carried this whistle, or at least, had it as an option from a selection of whistles.

The whistle officially replaced the heavy, bulky wooden rattles in February of 1884, when the Metropolitan Police Service’s initial order of 21,000 whistles was finally completed! Police regulations stated that all London police constables on duty had to carry one, and have it easily accessible in case trouble should arise.

The General Service ‘Metropolitan’ police whistle was worn with a pocket-chain and hook-clasp. Uniform guidelines for British police stated that the whistle-chain should be affixed to the second button from the top of the tunic-jacket, and that the chain be draped down the front and the whistle tucked inside the jacket, between buttons. As this was not always comfortable, an alternative method of carrying the whistle was to attach the chain to the second button of your uniform tunic-jacket, and place the whistle in the left-hand breast-pocket, with a couple of inches of excess chain hanging free. In an emergency, an officer could easily grasp the chain, pull out the whistle and blow it!

But what were the guidelines for using the whistle? How did it fit into the policeman’s duties? And what happened when it was sounded?

The Whistle in Action

The heyday of the classic police whistle was from the 1880s-1970s. A period of almost 100 years. The whistles were originally introduced in 1883, and from then until about 1970, remained part of police-uniforms around the world.

To patrol streets, keep the peace, deter or detect crime and uphold the law, police-officers used to patrol in ‘beats’, some forces still do, although these days it’s not as common as it once was.

A ‘beat’ was the area of an officer’s patrol. Typically he circled a set location (typically one or two blocks) for a set period of time (say, one hour). At the end of his beat, and during his beat, a police constable or patrolman would meet with his sergeant, who would note down that he had seen the officer, and therefore, that he was ‘pounding his beat’ and patrolling his area of their jurisdiction properly.

General Service Metropolitan whistles were used to call for backup in emergencies, to alert the public of danger and get their attention, or to direct and control people and traffic.

If a policeman on the beat spotted a crime in progress, he would intervene, as was his duty. If the situation went outside of his control, such as a thief fleeing the scene of a robbery, the officer would give chase. To sound the alarm and give the robber fewer places to run to, the constable blew on his whistle. The far-carrying sound would alert all officers on similar beats within hearing-distance. The policeman in-pursuit would continue blowing his whistle so that other officers could get a fix on his location, and so that they could tell which direction the pursuit was headed.

The whistle was used in any situation where an ordinary shout was insufficient. Directing traffic, gaining attention, raising the alarm, calling for help, or simply telling someone without words, that the game was up!

The whistle lasted a surprisingly long time. It wasn’t until the advent of handheld radios in the 1970s that it was finally replaced. Today, the Metropolitan whistle is still issued to ‘Bobbies’, but its role today is largely ceremonial. It’s worn with dress-uniforms, it’s purchased from shops as a souvenir, or it’s used to direct traffic. Some whistles are presented to senior officers upon retirement. Officers are still issued with these whistles today, although it’s mostly for the sake of tradition.

The whistles manufactured today by the Joseph Hudson ACME Whistle Co. are a lot less ornate than the whistles they used to make. Actual police-whistles which saw service were elaborately marked and stamped. The whistle-barrels were marked with words like “J. Hudson & Co”, the company’s address in Birmingham, “The Metropolitan”, “The City”, and the name of the police-force for whom the whistles had been commissioned. Each city and town had its own whistles with their own city marked on them.

Mr. Joseph Hudson and His Whimsical Whistles

Prior to the 1880s, Mr. Hudson was a struggling Birmingham tool-manufacturer and tinkerer, who liked creating all kinds of things. Whistles were one of his passions, but he built and fiddled with all kinds of things to do anything to get a few extra shillings in his pockets.

After his Eureka Moment in 1883, Mr. Hudson’s life changed forever. As by far the largest provider of whistles to the various British police-forces, Hudson stood to make a fortune! Every officer in every police-force in the British Isles, as well as colonial forces overseas, needed HIS whistle. He would have to produce millions of them to meet demand! The whistles became cheap, and he became rich! By the time he died in 1930, Joseph Hudson’s whistle company was producing whistles for all kinds of things!

Need to train your dog? Hudson made dog-whistles. Need to referee a sporting-match? He made sporting whistles, too! How about calling a taxi-cab in a crowded London street? No need to shout! Just buy the Joseph Hudson taxi-call. A couple of sharp toots and the nearest cab would come chugging up to take you away. What if you’re a ship’s officer at sea? Joseph Hudson’s company also produced the whistles carried by sailors and naval-officers – he even produced the whistles used on the R.M.S. Titanic!


How It’s Made: General Service Metropolitan Police Whistles

The company became so successful that it remained in the Hudson family until after WWII, that’s three generations! The company’s main factory in Birmingham was flattened during the War thanks to German air-raids, but it continues to produce whistles in Birmingham today. Its most popular models are the Thunderer, the Mate’s Whistle, and of course, the General Service Metropolitan.

The Whistle in General Service

Although it’s called a Bobby’s Whistle, Metropolitan Police Whistle and dozens of other variations along those lines, this classic whistle is actually called the ‘General Service Whistle’. The key word being ‘general’.

The whistle was used everywhere. The United States, Canada, Britain, India, Europe, Australia, Africa and all corners of the British Empire. Almost every country in the world would’ve heard its familiar shrill shriek at one point or another. And it was used by a lot more than just the police. Firemen carried them to pass orders or get attention in an emergency, because the shrill blast of the whistle could be heard over the crackling of flames or the crashing of collapsing masonry.

In the two world wars, British officers carried these whistles to pass commands and orders. Specially-marked ‘Trench Whistles’ were manufactured by the ACME Co. and distributed to field officers. They would blow their whistles before going ‘over the top’ during the First World War, to indicate that it was time to attack!

The whistles were also used on the home front. General Service Whistles were also manufactured for Air Raid Precautions, and you can find whistles marked “ARP”. These would’ve been used to direct and control crowds of panicked Londoners during the Blitz in the Second World War. They were more effective than shouting over the explosions of thousands of bombs and the constant wail of the air-raid sirens.

Apart from these more expected roles, the General Service Whistle was also used in hospitals, psychiatric wards and mental asylums, where they were carried by orderlies and hospital attendants. Just imagining the kind of events for which these whistles would’ve been used for in such places is unnerving!

The Whistle in Film and Television

The Metropolitan Whistle was used a lot in film and television, its sound was distinctive and unique. In “Casablanca” (1942), it’s heard in the opening scenes, and later on when Captain Renault closes down Rick’s Cafe. In “The Hound of the Baskervilles” (1939), Basil Rathbone blows the whistle at the end of the film, to alert the village constabulary of Stapleton’s escape. In crime TV series taking place during Victorian times or the early 20th century, the whistle is heard everywhere. “Ripper Street“, “Murdoch Mysteries“, “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes” and “Agatha Christie’s Poirot” have all used it at least once.

The General Service Metropolitan Whistle Today

The whistle as a practical piece of police-kit ended in the 1970s. In the postwar era, the rise in motorcar ownership meant that louder traffic reduced the audible range of the whistle. It was no-longer effective as a means of communication, and the Victorian answer to a centuries old problem died with the birth of handheld radios.

These whistles are still manufactured, and still by the same original company – Joseph Hudson’s ACME Company, but their use today is almost entirely limited to souvenirs, ceremony, tradition, or novelty. Some are still used for their original purpose, but this is rare. Most people who own them today do so for the historical connection, whistle-collecting, or because they require a whistle on a regular basis and have selected it because of its unique sound and long range.

Want to Hear More About Whistles?

The Whistle Shop – Lots of information about old police whistles and general service whistles here.

The Whistle Gallery – HUGE collection of whistles and information!

There’s also a website called the Whistle Museum, but I think it’s currently offline (or it was at the time of this posting).

 
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Crimes of the Century – Theft of the Crown Jewels

Crime of the Century? Stealing the English Crown Jewels

Century of Crime?  17th Century. May, 1671.

Criminal of the Century? Col. Thomas Blood.

Criminal Facts: 

In late April, or early May of 1671, Colonel Thomas Blood, an Irishman, planned to steal the Crown Jewels of England, stored in the Tower of London, easily one of the most audacious robberies in the history of the world.

In preparation for his robbery, Blood and a female companion who pretended to be his wife, entered the Tower of London to check out the proposed target of their robbery – The Jewels! In the 1670s, the jewels were on display in the tower and, with a small fee paid to the official custodian, they could be viewed by the public.

While scoping the place out, Blood’s lady-friend feigned a stomach-ache and collapsed on the floor. This distraction served to keep Talbot Edwards, custodian of the jewels, and his wife, occupied, while Blood checked out the jewels.

Did he steal them?

No. He wasn’t that stupid! He waited for days! He visited the Tower several times, slowly winning over the confidence and trust of Mr. and Mrs. Edwards.

Eventually, on the 9th of May, 1671. Blood figured that the jewels were ripe for the picking. Along with some accomplices whom he passed off as his nephew, and some friends, he revisited the Tower of London and convinced Mr. Edwards to let him actually hold the Crown Jewels!

The Jewels were stored in the Jewel-Keeper’s Apartment in one of the towers, in a special basement strongroom. While anyone could go into the strongroom to check out the jewels and drool over them, to actually TOUCH them, you had to unlock a security-cage to gain access to them. Feeling trustworthy of Blood and his companions, Mr. Edwards, already an old man at nearly eighty years of age (77 to be precise), led the men downstairs and opened the jewel-cage.

Immediately after unlocking the gate, Edwards had a cloak thrown over his head! He was struck on the skull with a mallet, knocking him out. He was then bound and gagged, and Blood and his partners in crime removed the Crown Jewels from their protective cage.

The thing was…they didn’t have a bag with them. And they couldn’t be seen CARRYING the jewels out of the Tower, so they had to get creative.

Using a saw, they cut the royal sceptre in half to fit it into their clothing. They smashed the crown flat using the mallet, and stuffed it into their coats. Blood even took the Royal Orb and shoved it down the front of his pants to hide it! Then, they made their escape!

Depending on which accounts you read next, one, two, or a combination of the following events occurred:

The first version is that old Mr. Edwards managed to fight out of his bonds and managed to raise a cry of treason. Tower guards were alerted and arrested the men.

The more colourful version goes like this…

On his way home to his parents house at the Tower of London, young Wythe Edwards, a soldier recently back from a foreign posting in Belgium, happened upon the one member of Blood’s gang, who was standing outside the apartment, keeping watch.

In the confusion that followed, Wythe’s father fought out of his bonds and raised the cry of treason and theft! Wythe, realising what had happened, tried to stop the robbers from escaping!

Whether or not young Wythe was present at the theft of the Jewels, what happened next was that the men in Blood’s company escaped with the jewels. They ran across the courtyard to their horses, firing on the tower’s warders (the famous Beefeaters), with pocket flintlock pistols, when they tried to arrest them!

Blood and his companions were home and free!…almost! If not for yet another member of the Edwards family!

Nearly to the gate, and the main exit of the Tower, Wythe Edwards’ brother-in-law, Capt. Beckham, tackled Blood to the ground! Blood tried to shoot him with his musket, but missed! He tripped on his cloak and fell over and before he could get up, Beckham had jumped on top of him to hold him down!

Surrounded, outnumbered and out of ammunition, Blood and his companions, in total, a party of four men, were arrested by the tower guards for attempting to steal the Crown Jewels.

What Happened Next?

Despite the fact that he was clearly guilty, Blood refused to be sentenced by just anybody! He demanded an audience with the king!

Amazingly, his request was granted! And he was dragged in chains to Whitehall Palace, London residence of Charles II. Here, he was questioned and interrogated, not only by the king, but by almost the entire royal family!

After much consideration, the king asked Blood:

“What if I should give you your life?” 

Or in other words, grant a royal pardon.

“I would endeavour to deserve it, sire!”, was Blood’s reply, and the colonel was duly pardoned of his crime.

Along with a pardon, the king gave Blood land…and money! His own noble estate in Ireland, from which he could earn up to five hundred pounds (a tidy sum in those days) every year!

Exactly WHY Charles let Col. Blood off the hook is anybody’s guess! The reason that is often cited is that Charles kinda liked the fact that Blood was a cheeky blighter who had the balls to try and steal the Crown Jewels, and own up to it! In fact, when he was being interrogated, Blood was told that he had stolen jewels worth up to a hundred thousand pounds sterling!

Blood promptly replied that he would happily sell them back to the king for the sum of six thousand pounds, for that was, he believed, all they were worth. This so amused King Charles that he let him go.

After his pardon, Blood turned over a new leaf. He became a favourite of the king, and regularly visited the royal court at Whitehall, where he managed to secure a job in the court staff.

Later on in life, Blood insulted George Villers, Duke of Buckingham, one of Blood’s patrons. Villers demanded a hefty fine be paid (up to 10,000 pounds, a monumental sum of money in those days) as settlement for the insult. The matter ended up in court as a defamation case, and Blood was sent to prison!…The duke never did get the ten thousand pounds…

Blood’s stay at His Majesty’s Pleasure did not last very long. And within a year, he had been released from jail. However, he fell ill shortly afterwards, and died on the 24th of August, 1680, at the age of 62.

Although Blood’s life was one of a scallywag and thief, his descendants enjoyed a rather more respectable reputation in the eyes of history. One of them was Gen. Bindon Blood, a respected British Army officer during the Victorian Era and the First World War, who died at the ripe old age of 97, in 1940!

 
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Heads Will Roll: The Hangman & Headsman’s Trades

You read about it in crime-novels. You see it in movies or in historical dramas. You maybe even play-acted it in school or on the stage somewhere in a theatrical production of some kind. For centuries, hanging and decapitation have been the two main methods of capital punishment.

But have you ever wondered how it was done? Despite the old saying that “everybody dies easy”, it’s not something that might be said by the men who have the unique and rather unenviable task of actually doing it for a living. The headsman and the hangman, the two men who traditionally carried out these two most common methods of civil execution, actually had to approach each execution from a highly scientific point of view.

Execution by Beheading

Beheading someone as a form of execution is not easy to do. In ancient times, it was done with swords or axes. These weapons, though sharp, did not always do the job very well. The human neck is surprisingly strong and considerable force is required to break it. In medieval times, specially-crafted execution-axes were used, that look similar to the one pictured here:

Axes such as this did not so much ‘cut’ the head off as they simply bashed their way through the neck-bone. They were crude at the best of times and useless at the worst of times. Most medieval executioners also carried a dagger with them called a ‘slitting knife’, with which they would have to literally slice the head off, using the slitting-knife to cut away the remaining muscles and flesh so that the head would fall off the corpse and land in the basket below…all the while, the severed neck would be pumping out blood onto the scaffolding.

During the 1700s, reformers were looking for a more effective way to decapitate people. Axes and swords were inefficient. They did not always work and death was neither swift nor painless. In the early 1790s, the French came up with the answer. The Guillotine.

Named for Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, a French physician, the guillotine was first put to use in 1792. It remained the only legal method of execution in France for the next 189 years (capital punishment in France was abolished in 1981). It was designed to take the human error out of the equation of death by beheading. The angled blade of the guillotine was developed so that the head would be severed cleanly from the body in one swift, sweeping stroke, instead of being hacked off like with an axe.

So much for the guillotine. That was the easy part.

Execution by Hanging

Ah. Execution by Hanging. The favoured method in Asia and in most of the Western countries where capital punishment was (or still is) legal. Anyone can chop a man’s head off. Raise the guillotine, slot him in the hole and let go of the rope…done! But how many people can hang a man? Believe me, it’s not that easy.

The job of hangman is very unique. Not because he’s an executioner. Not because he might be depised by society (I’m sure lawyers are also despised by society), but because there’s a lot more to this job than meets the eye. Not just anybody can hang anybody, not just because of the emotional toll, but simply because not just anybody can hang any body. You see, the thing that makes the job of hangman difficult is that there is a high level of mathematical skill required in this job. You may not see it, or even believe it, but it is true and it is there.

In older times, you hanged a man thus:

You threw the rope over a tree or a hanging-post, got the condemmed man to stand on a chair, then you slipped the noose around his neck, hopped down, kicked the chair away and let him dangle around for five…ten…fifteen…twenty…thirty minutes…however long it took, until he eventually strangled to death. Yes. It could take that long.

This was unacceptable. It was unsightly and it took far too long; another way of hanging the condemned was required. The old method of hanging was called the ‘short-drop’ method. String him up, kick the bucket away and then let him choke to death after a short drop. This by the way, is where we get the phrase ‘kick the bucket’ (meaning to commit suicide). It comes from when the suicider, after looping the noose around his neck, kicks away the upturned bucket that he was standing on.


Almost synonymous with the ‘Short Drop’ hanging method is the Tyburn Tree in Tyburn, London, a famous, triangle-shaped gallows on which up to two dozen people could be executed at one time. The Tree was erected in 1571 and wasn’t taken down until 1783! A plaque stands where the Tree was once located

The new method of hanging was very different from the old, even though on the surface they look the same. And it was this new method, called the ‘long-drop’ method, that was so scientific. And this is why not anybody can hang anybody, or any body, if you get my drift.

Hanging a body using the ‘Long Drop’ method is a tricky process. In the short-drop method, the aim is to strangle the condemned until they die from suffocation. The long-drop method aims to break the victim’s neck, providing swift and painless death, specifically, to break the neck at the C2 vertebra; the second vertebrae down from the head. Achieving this is difficult because no two persons are exactly alike. Some weigh more than others. Some weigh less. Some are taller than others, some are shorter. Some might have thin, scrawny necks. Some have thick, bulldog ones. How on earth are you going to figure out how much rope to use and how long a drop you need to break a given person’s neck? Because if you don’t have the right amount of rope, things can go horribly wrong.

See? It’s not so easy now, is it?

The long-drop method was developed by an English hangman named William Marwood in 1872. In time, a table was drawn up that took all the complexity out of how to carry out a good hanging. It was called Marwood’s Table of Drops. Published in 1888, the Official Table of Drops may be found about three-quarters the way down the page provided in this link. So, how did a long-drop hanging take place?

As I’ve explained, hanging changed over time. By the late 19th century, it was a pretty scientific undertaking that required care and deliberation. A typical long-drop hanging is done in the following manner:

1. The day before the hanging, the condemned prisoner is taken out of his (or her) cell. He or she is then weighed (while clothed) and the weight is recorded.

2. The hangman consults the Table of Drops, which specifies length of drop (and therefore, length of hangman’s rope) required for that weight, such that the drop will produce a clean, quick break of the neck.

3. The rope is measured and marked at the correct length, either with a painted lne or a length of metal wire wrapped around the rope at the correct point. A noose is tied at the end and then the rope is affixed to the gallows.

4. Sandbags equal in weight to the prisoner to be hung, are tied to the noose and the trapdoor is opened. The sandbags drop, stretching out the rope. This is done a full 24 hours before hanging, to take the elasticity out of the rope to prevent recoil later on.

5. On the day, the prisoner is marched out to the gallows. The noose is put around his neck and slightly off-center so that when the rope pulls tight, it breaks the neck. A prayer is said and the prisoner is allowed last words. He may or may not choose to have a black hood placed over his head.

6. The lever is pulled. The trapdoor falls open and the prisoner falls through. If the hanging is successful, the momentum of the body draws the noose tight and the sudden deceleration causes a quick and painless break of the neck.

7. The body is then cut down and prepared for postmortem examinations. In older times, a body was left hanging on the rope for up to an hour after death. This was eventually deemed unnecessary when a physician could just check the body and announce whether death had or had not occurred.

8. The rope is removed from the gallows and stored. This is in case it might be required later by law-enforcement or prison officials.

The hanging is done.

The Hangman’s Calculation

If you do a bit of research, you’ll find out that Tables of Drops changed markedly over the years. Starting in about 1888, they changed at least twice in the next 30 years, once in the 1890s and once again in 1913, with differing weights and drops for each new table. How do you figure out how much rope is needed for any given drop?

Remember that the tables are a guide. They only give the suggested drop-length, the length calculated to be most effective. But as I explained, not everyone is the same, so there are variables that might make the Table of Drops ineffective for any number of reasons, from a person being over the maximum weight in the Table of Drops, to their neck being particularly thick or the rope being thinner or thicker than usual. So how do you figure out the drop?

You use a piece of mathematics called the Hangman’s Calculation. It’s set up in the following manner:

(1260 / W ) + 1.5 = D.

1260 foot-pounds of force (the amount considered sufficient to cause neck-breakage), divided by the prisoner’s WEIGHT (W), with an added 1.5ft (18 inches or 1’6″) of rope for the noose itself, equals the optimum drop-length for a given person.

Despite all the maths and calculations, hanging remains a bit of a trial-and-error way of execution. Even when the Tables of Drops were well-established in society, it wasn’t unknown for bungled hangings to occur, and the condemned could still strangle to death or have their heads ripped off during botched hangings. Although no longer widely practiced in the Western world, hanging is still a very common method of execution in Asia in countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Bali, where there are significant drug-trafficking problems.

 
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X Marks the Spot: Being a Brief & Concise Examination of the Popular Views of the Golden Age of Piracy

Ah, pirates. We love pirates! I love pirates! Don’t you love pirates? We all love pirates!

But like me…you probably don’t know a damn thing about them. So that’s what this article is for. It’s a look into what pirates were and when they existed. It’s an examination of the times in which they lived, how they lived, what they did and how they did it…during the Golden Age of Piracy.

What do we ‘know’ about pirates?

Pirates have existed for centuries, even the 21st century, what with Somalian pirates being in the news of late, attacking ships and holding their captains and crews hostage and with the navys of the world’s superpowers trying to put a stop to their felonious, maritime activities. But when most people think of pirates, we think of the classic pirate – Peg-leg, eyepatch, hook-hand, bandana, boots, buckles, belts, striped shirt, waistcoat, neckerchief, pistol and cutlass. We think that pirates sailed around attacking ships, killing their crews or stealing them of their cargoes, which they would later bury on tropical island paradises, going back there later with maps to dig up their hordes of booty and then sail off into retirement.

But how much of this is true? What were classic pirates really like? A lot of what we think of pirates comes from popular fiction, like Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Treasure Island” and “The Pirates of the Carribean” or “Hook” and the stories of Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie. We think that pirates drank rum and that they spoke a strange language full of phrases that nobody else would understand, like “Pieces of Eight” and “Avast” and “walking the plank”. They say that all myth has a basis in fact. But which facts and how many of these ‘facts’ are actually real?

Pirating Times

The ‘Golden Age of Piracy’ ran, with stops and starts, from about 1620 until about 1780, a period of roughly a hundred and sixty years. Pirates came from all countries, including Great Britain, Colonial America, France and Spain. During this era, which was occasionally interrupted by wars, outbreaks of disease or fantastic natural disasters, pirates sailed around attacking ships, stealing their cargo and either killing the crews and sinking their ships or marooning them on an island and sailing off their newer, much better ship (the one with central heating and surround-sound home-theater).

What kind of people were Pirates?

In many cases, pirates were actually privateers. A privateer was a bit like a ‘government pirate’. You were given a letter of authority (officially, a “Letter of Marque”) that said you could hunt down, attack, capture or sink any ships bearing an enemy flag. Privateers were often spawn during warfare as an easy way to deprive the enemy of its weapons, foodstuffs, ammunition and other essential wartime supplies. But what happened when the war ended? Privateers were out of a job! So the natural thing to do was to put your seafaring skills to good use and turn into the oceangoing version of a highway robber, sticking up ships on the open seas and stealing their treasures. In the days before government social security, this was pretty much the only way a sailor out of work could ensure his own ‘social security’. Like most desperate criminals, pirates had a lot to gain and nothing to lose and plenty of time to do one and not the other.

As I mentioned earlier, pirates came from all over what was then the known world, although the majority of pirates (about one third, according to my research) were English, probably not surprising when you consider that the Royal Navy was the most powerful in the world at the time. Indeed, one of the main reasons why people became pirates was to escape the harsh realities of naval life. You didn’t have to be flogged, you could get better food and you could sail to where-ever it was you wished to go.

Common Pirate Stereotypes

Pirates have been so swamped in literary and filmic fantasy that it’s sometimes hard to determine fact from fiction with piracy. So how many of the famous aspects of piracy are actually true?

The Jolly Roger is the classic pirate flag. A black rectangle with a skull and a pair of bones in a diagonal ‘St. Andrews’-style cross. It’s believed that this flag was probably created in the late 17th century, but it was by no means the only pirate flag that existed. Variations of black flags with skulls, skeletons or swords existed throughout the Golden Age of Piracy and each pirate ship and captain had his own particular design. In general, a black pirate flag (with or without its morbid artwork) was used as a sign to the enemy that the crew onboard would fight to the death and were beholden to no laws other than their own.

Peglegs and hook-hands really were part of pirate folklore. Sea-battles were fierce and dangerous affairs and it wasn’t uncommon for pirates to lose limbs or to have them so badly injured that they’d require them to be amputated later. Most pirate ships had absolutely no professional medical help onboard at all, except for the ship’s cook (the only person around with any experience with knives). The ship’s cook would perform the amputation, after which the bloody stump would be bandaged and cauterised using blackpowder. Pouring gunpowder on a bleeding stump and lighting it was a quick and dirty way to stop bleeding. The intense heat from the burning powder would sear the wound shut and prevent continued bleeding and eventual infection. Afterwards, a prosthetic limb such as a hook-hand or a peg-leg would be fashioned out of whatever spare wood, metal and leather (to act as a securing strap) that the pirates could lay their hands on.

Eyepatches were used, both for covering an eye-socket when someone lost an eye in a fight, or, as was actually more common, to preserve sight when moving around the ship. It was often dark inside ships and very bright outside. Due to the extreme contrast between the different light-levels, wearing an eyepatch was a way of ensuring that a pirate’s eyes could adapt quickly between extreme brightness and extremely low light.

“Pieces of Eight” refers to money. Traditionally, prize-money at sea was divided up into eighths and shared out among the crew accordingly. ‘Pieces of Eight’ were also Spanish dollars, Spanish gold being a popular target of English pirates during the 17th century.

Parrots are as commonly associated with pirates as dogs are with the blind. Pirates travelled all over the world so it is possible that they picked up parrots and kept them as pets during their travels.

Tropical Locations are always associated with pirates. And you can hardly blame them. After all that pirating, you would want to relax in a tropical island paradise for a few years. And the Johnny Depp film franchise would have us believe that pirates loved hanging out under the Carribbean sun when they weren’t doing anything else. But is this true? Probably yes. Pirates preyed on ships sailing around the equatorial Atlantic Ocean, sailing along the “Triangle of Trade”. Ships sailed from England to Africa to pick up slaves (stop one), then across to the southern reaches of North America (stop two) to drop off slaves, before provisioning their ships, picking up spices and cloth and other goodies, like the latest bootleg DVDs, and then sailing back to England (stop three). Hanging around in waters like these, it’s not hard to see why pirates are associated with tropical locales such as the Carribbean.

Pirates love Drinking Rum! It’s well-known that pirates (and maritime types in general) loved drinking rum and grog! Is this true? The answer is probably yes. Rum, an alcoholic beverage created from molasses, has been distilled since the mid 1600s, right around when pirates were rocking the waves. It was produced in sugar-growing areas of the world such as the southern areas of North America and the Carribbean, where pirates were known to hang out.

Rum started being given to British seamen in 1655, replacing their previous tipple, brandy, so successfully that by the 1740s, rum had to be watered down, creating the slightly less alcoholic beverage…grog. The introduction of rum was directly linked to the British colonisation of Jamaica. Sailors took such a liking to rum that when they turned into pirates, they kept rum around them at all times. Attacking ships is thirsty work, after all.

Buried Treasure! Everyone knows that pirates buried their treasure! They parked off of a tropical island, dug a hole, chucked in their gold, buried it, drew a map to its location and then sailed off, coming back years later when it became a necessity to access their little nest-egg. But is this true?


“Treasure Island” as drawn by Robert Louis Stevenson

Sorry folks. No it isn’t. History (and reliable records) says that only ONE pirate…Captain Kidd (Capt. William Kidd; 1645-1701) ever buried any treasure at all (the location is believed to be Long Island, New York). But this was hardly a widespread practice, so for all intents and purposes, no, pirates did not bury their treasure, and as Indiana Jones said: “X never, ever marks the spot”.

Pirates were all ruthless cutthroats and indeed they were. At least, to other seafarers. In actuality though, pirates were a pretty disciplined bunch. Surprising, huh? Below, you will see a partial list of rules and regulations from various Pirating Codes that existed throughout the 17th and 18th centuries.

Walking the Plank was a pirate’s favourite way of getting rid of troublesome people. Again, not nearly as common as we’d like to think. Although instances of walking the plank have been recorded throughout history, it appears that it wasn’t a widespread practice and was rarely used by pirates. It was most likely glamorised by writers and Hollywood.

There was such thing as a Pirates’ Code In “Pirates of the Carribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl”, we are told that there is a ‘Brethren Code’. Did such a code ever exist? Research suggests that a code (or more likely, several codes) did exist, and that these codes were the rules that pirates were obliged to follow. Sadly, no original written documents of such codes from the 1600s survive, but copies stated that among other things…

    – Fighting was forbidden onboard ship. Any such arguments or disagreements that might arise were to be settled onshore in the prescribed gentlemanly manner (ehm…duelling).
    – Fighting onboard ship was punishable by flogging.
    – Smoking tobacco or using a naked flame without also using a protective cover was punishable by flogging (fire was a big hazard on wooden sailing-ships).
    – Thievery was punishable by marooning or death.
    – In instances of marooning, a pirate would be given a bottle of water, a charge of blackpowder, a single shot and a flintlock pistol.
    – Rape was not to be tolerated. Any pirate caught raping (or even having consensual sex) with a female faced death by shooting.
    – It was against the rules to stay up past a certain hour. All lights to be doused at 8:00pm SHARP.
    – Gambling was strictly forbidden.
    – All members of the crew were expected to have their pistols and swords (and any other appropriate weaponry) in good repair and in working order for battle at all times.
    – Any members of the crew who provided entertainment through the playing of musical instruments were allowed every Sunday off, as was their right.
    – The right of an enemy or rival captain to demand Parley (‘negotiations’) with the master of the ship and his expectation not to be harmed, was to be upheld at all times.
    – A pirate injured in the course of his duties was entitled to compensation! Loss of an eye or a finger was 100 pieces of eight. Loss of the right hand was 600 pieces of eight. Loss of right leg was 500 pieces of eight. Loss of left arm was 500 pieces of eight. Loss of left leg was 400 pieces of eight. Most pirates who fulfilled the job of ‘Ship’s Cook’ was usually a pirate who had been injured and was unfit to do any other kind of meaningful (and more phsyical) labour.

Pirates of the Carribbean

What is Port Royal?

Port Royal was a city located in British Jamaica. It was built and colonised during the second half of the 1600s. It was a safe haven for pirates during this time and pirates were even called upon by the Port’s governor to help defend the city in the case of Spanish or French naval attacks. In its time, Port Royal was famous for whoring, boozing, drunken brawls and alcoholism…charming place. There was said to be a public house, tavern, bar or other less-than-reputable drinking-establishment for every ten people that lived in Port Royal. When you consider that Port Royal was once home to about 6,500 people, that’s a hell of a lot of drinking. In 1687, Port Royal tried to clean up its act and passsed Anti-Piracy laws. Dozens of pirates were arrested and hanged for their crimes. The Port was destroyed in 1692 by a powerful earthquake, which many believed was God’s punishment for all the prostitution, drinking, gambling and vice that existed in the city. Port Royal barely exists as a city today. It was destroyed again by earthquake in January of 1907 and the city has struggled ever since.

Where is Tortuga?

Ilsa Tortuga, the Island of Turtles, is located off of the coast of Haiti, northeast of the Jamaican city of Port Royal. Colonised in 1625, it was a notorious pirate hangout during the 17th century. French and English pirates existed in an uneasy harmony here for several years. It was attacked in 1654 by the Spanish and by 1670, pirating connections with Tortuga were in serious decline. Pirates who used Tortuga as a home-base began to turn to legitimate work in the years that followed since piracy wasn’t exactly bringing in the gold anymore.

Were Pirates Really Marooned on Desert Islands?

Yes indeed they were. As mentioned above (although not in great detail), marooning a pirate on a desert island was a genuine pirate punishment of the 17th century. The offending party was lowered on a ship’s boat, rowed ashore and then the rest of the pirates rowed back to the ship and sailed off. The marooned party was given a bottle of water (or rum; whichever was more readily available), a flintlock pistol, a round of pistol-shot and a charge of blackpowder. The decision was simple, really. You could drink the water and ration it out and see how long you survived until you starved to death…Or you could load the pistol and commit suicide and have it all over in a heartbeat.

What is the ‘Black Spot’?

Jack Sparrow is given the Black Spot in one of the PotC movies. In the film, Jack Sparrow has the mark on the palm of his hand, but in real life, the Black Spot was either a black, filled-in circle on a sheet of paper, or the Ace of Spades out of a deck of cards. The Black Spot was given to someone suspected of being a government informer or a traitor to his pirate brethren.

Some Famous Pirates

So, who are some famous pirates that we know of? Captain Jack Sparrow? Long John Silver? Captain Hook? Captain Feathersword!? Pffft. Here’s some real pirates for yah…

Blackbeard!

Real Name: Edward Teach.
Born: Ca. 1680, England.
Died: 22nd Nov., 1718, of twenty sword-wounds and five bullet-wounds sustained in battle.

Notes:

– Blackbeard is believed to have had over a dozen wives!
– Blackbeard blockaded the city of Charles Town (Charleston) South Carolina and threatened to open fire on it with his ships and kill hostages (prominent city officials) unless his ransom (a chest of medical supplies) was met. The supplies were produced and Blackbeard set sail without firing a single shot.
– Always ready for action, Blackbeard carried no less than three braces of pistols on him during battles (‘brace’ is an old term for a pair. So in all…six pistols).

Captain Kidd

Real Name: William Kidd.
Born: 1645.
Died: 23rd May, 1701.

Notes:

– One of the few pirates who actually buried treasure.
– Was once a privateer for the English government.
– Tried to bribe his way out of the charge of piracy.
– Eventually arrested, brought back to England from Colonial America.
– He was found guilty of five counts of piracy and one count of murder. He was hanged in London.

Black Sam

Real Name: Samuel Bellamy.
Born: 23rd February, 1689.
Died: 27th April, 1717.

Notes:

– Called ‘The Prince of Pirates’ for showing mercy to prisoners.
– Ammassed one of the greatest pirate fortunes ever.
– His flagship, the Whydah Gally sank off of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. It was rediscovered in 1984.

The End of Piracy

To be fair…piracy never really ended. The classic, romantic, Hollywood swashbuckling pirate is still alive…in classic, romantic Hollywood films. And piracy is still a big threat today in the waters around the African continent. But classic piracy of the kind we associate with ‘Treasure Island’ did eventually peter out as the 18th century progressed. In 1717, King George I of England issued an amnesty to all pirates, basically saying that all their crimes would be absolved, on the condition that they stopped being pirates. Some pirates were glad to give up the life and took advantage of His Majesty’s mercy. Others stuck their tongues out at the king and went right on pirating.

 
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“A Boy’s Best Friend is His Mother…” – Ed Gein, the Butcher of Plainfield

Running water. Shadows. Screams. Dark, dark, red, red, rich, strong, running, dribbling, gushing blood. Screeching violin music. Clasping fingers. Shower-curtains. Broken rings. Curtains falling. Crumpled in a heap…

In 1960, famous British film-director Alfred Hitchcock created one of the most amazing horror films in history about a woman and a man and an isolated, family-run motel in the middle of nowhere. The ‘Shower Scene’ from the film ‘Psycho’ and its infamous high-pitched, screeching violin music is known the world over and has been parodied in countless TV shows, cartoons and movies. Norman Bates, a deluded, psychotic young man slashes a young woman in the bathroom of her motel cabin and leaves her to bleed to death.

While “Psycho” has gone down in history as one of the most famous horror films of all time, few people today would guess that the character of Norman Bates was actually based on a real person. Robert Bloch, the author who wrote the original novel “Psycho” which Hitchcock adapted to film, based the character of Norman Bates on a man which the press called the Butcher of Plainfield.

Ed Gein: The Butcher of Plainfield

Plainfield, Wisconsin is a small, quiet little village. So small that in 2000, just under 900 people lived there. It was the Plainfield of the early 1950s that caught the world’s attention with a series of crimes that shocked the world and which made the murderer, a man named Edward Gein, a household name throughout America and the world, inspiring countless horror films, TV series and books to be written about him, based on him or which alluded to him over the next sixty years.

So who was Ed Gein and why was he called the Butcher of Plainfield? What was it that he’d done? Those with weak stomachs should not continue. Those with hardier constitutions…read on…

The Gein Family

Edward Theodore Gein was born on the 27th of August, 1906. His parents were George Gein and Augusta Gein. Ed had one older brother, Henry Gein. As is typical of stories of this kind, Mr. Gein was a violent father. He frequently abused his two sons Henry and Edward and was constantly drunk and often unemployed. George’s wife and Henry and Ed’s mother, Augusta, was a strong Christian. The only reason their marriage survived as long as it did was because they didn’t believe in divorce.

Augusta supported her family through the grocery store that she ran. Before long, the family decided to move from LaCrosse County to Waushara County in Wisconsin and a small village called…Plainfield.

In Plainfield, the Gein family lived in a primative farmhouse where Augusta sought to control her two sons’ every movement. Apart from school, the Gein brothers were not allowed to leave the farm. They spent their time doing chores and working the land. Augusta kept her boys in line by reading them passages from the Old Testament of the Bible, usually passages dealing with murder, immorality, forgiveness, retribution and the fact that all women (sweet, loving Mother Gein, of course, tactfully excluded from this mire of immorality and filth) were sluts, prostitutes and whores.


The Gein family farmhouse, on the outskirts of Plainfield, Wisconsin

Augusta’s domination over her sons had highly damaging affects. Constantly abused by their parents, the two Gein brothers became silent, introverted and mentally unbalanced. Edward was often picked on in school because of his strange behaviour which included bouts of random and totally unexplained laughter.

In 1940, George Gein died from a heart-attack. Because of the necessity for money, Augusta gave her sons a limited degree of extra freedom, which they used to become handymen, helping out around the village. Ed occasionally did some babysitting for the local villagers while Henry helped in various labourer-type jobs around Plainfield. Edward, probably due to the constant abuse he received at home, wasn’t able to relate to adults and appeared to bond better with children. It was at this time that Henry started getting detatched from his mother, wanting to leave the farm and make his own way in life. He feared the connection that Edward and mother had with each other and considered it unnatural. He began to speak out about this relationship to Edward, who refused to hear a single bad word against their mother, despite the fact that she once poured boiling water over Edward’s genitalia after she caught him masturbating…

In mid-1944, Henry and Edward were busy putting out a grass-fire near their farm. The story goes that Edward and Henry got separated as night fell. Apparently worried for his brother’s safety, Edward contacted the police who sent out a search-party. Edward led the police-officers through the shrubs and trees right to Henry’s body, despite claiming not knowing where he was. Although it was strongly suspected that Edward had murdered his brother, due to the head-injuries found on Henry’s skull, probably inflicted by Edward after another argument about their mother, the police wrote the death off as an accident. Cause of decease: Asphyxiation.

By now, alone and fully under the influence of his dominating mother, Ed’s mind began to become increasingly warped. As the months passed, he became more and more unstable until on the 29th of December, 1945, Ed’s mother Augusta finally died from a stroke.

Ed Gein: The Butcher of Plainfield

The death of his beloved, abusive and highly-controlling mother was the last straw for Ed. Traumatised, brainwashed and abused since birth, isolated from people his own age and living on a mental diet of lies and deciet, Ed Gein’s mind finally snapped. Once Augusta had died, Gein lost the last tiny and weak grip that he had on any sense of the term ‘normality’ and he descended into a twisted and obsessive world of his own making and entrapment.

Such was Gein’s attachment to his mother, as well as the state of his incredibly warped, damaged and degenerated mind, that shortly after 1945, Gein, by now 39 years old began to unravel, taking on the persona which we would now readily identify with Norman Bates.

Augusta’s death shattered Gein in ways that many people can only imagine. The perverted relationship that they shared together meant that, despite everything she had done, Gein missed his mother. He started expressing a desire for a sex-change operation…which never happened…and he also tried to remember his mother in other, more macabre ways. Still living in the house which he had barely left since he was a boy, Gein closed off the upstairs living quarters as well as the downstairs parlour…rooms which his mother frequently used…and retreated into the kitchen and a small room adjacent to it. The Gein farmhouse was so primative that even by now in the late 1940s, it was probably one of the very few dwellings in or near Plainview that did not have electricity in it. The only lighting was provided by candles, oil lamps or sunlight in the daytime.

As the years progressed, Gein developed an interest in darker subjects such as taxidermy and death-cults. He shot and killed two Plainfield women, Bernice Worden and Mary Hogan, because they resembled and reminded him of his mother, whom he missed so dearly, and whom he wanted back with him again. Wanting to make himself a “woman suit”, Gein went on nightly graverobbing excursions, exhuming the corpses of recently-dead women who resembled his mother’s physical appearance. These bodies were variously butchered, skinned and dismembered for various purposes over the next few years.

Arrest and Trial

In a small town like Plainfield Wisconsin, news spreads fast. The deaths of Mary Hogan, a local tavern-owner, and Bernice Worden, owner of the Plainfield hardware store prompted swift police-action. Investigators questioned, requestioned, examined and cross-examined every single person in town. They even questioned Gein himself, but they deemed Gein…who was seen by the villagers as being something of a weirdo and oddball…to be too mentally deranged and timid to actually do anything as horrible as kill two big, strapping women such as Hogan and Worden. If they’d known the kinds of things that a mentally dranged oddball like Gein could do, they probably would have arrested him on sight.

As it turned out, policemen raided the Gein farm in 1957, searching for clues. In a shed near the house, officers discovered the body of Mrs. Worden, tied by her ankles to the ceiling and gutted and dressed out like a butchered game-animal.

Forcing entry into the Gein house and using flashlights to light the way, police officers were in for the shock of their lives.


A photograph of the kitchen in the Gein house, showing the squalor and disarray in which Ed Gein lived his life

Apart from the upper floor and a couple of rooms downstairs which Ed had sealed off as a memorial to his mother, the rest of the house was filthy. Body-parts, bits of body-parts and bits of bits of body-parts lay all over the house. The fridge was full of human organs, skulls were cut open and used as bowls, Gein’s bed had a bedframe with skulls on it for decoration. Furniture was upholstered with human skin, face-masks were made from actual faces, the skins of which had been tanned to prevent rotting.

The police were appalled by what they saw, and arrested Gein soon after. Gein confessed that he had killed Worden and Hogan and that he regularly went to cemetaries nearby to exhume recently-deceased women so as to skin their bodies and live out his transvestite dreams.

Gein was tried and found guilty of First Degree Murder. He entered a plea of Insanity and was thereafter and for all the days of his life, until he died in 1984, confined to a series of mental hospitals. In 1958, the Gein farmhouse “mysteriously” burnt to the ground. Police were pretty sure it was arson and that furious Plainfield townsfolk had torched the Gein house out of disgust and anger at what Ed had done, not only to their residents, but also to their deceased…but they conveniently turned a blind eye and pretended that they didn’t know who had started the fire.

Edward Theodore Gein died on the 26th of July, 1984, from respiratory and heart-failure due to complications from cancer. He was 77 years old. He was buried in Plainfield Cemetary.

Impact on Popular Culture and Society

Gein’s impact on popular culture is undeniable. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the various ‘Pyscho’ books and films and movies of perverted killers who skin their victims and wear their flesh all have their roots in the demented mind of Ed Gein.

Unlike Albert Fish or Jack the Ripper, Ed Gein did not kill a vast number of people. He murdered a grand total of two women. What makes him so infamous is what he did with human bodies, how he butchered them, how he used their body-parts and skins to craft all kinds of gruesome objects and decorations and how he tried constantly to find things or do things or wear things or create things…that would remind him of his mother, the one woman he ever knew and ever loved and who had so traumatised his life ever since he was a boy.

After all, as Norman Bates famously says…

“A boy’s best friend is his mother”.

B

 
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Albert Fish: The Original Bogeyman

Albert Fish,
Albert Fish,
Children were,
His favourite dish!

Not many people would remember that rhyme today. And probably even fewer people would remember the fellow named Albert Fish…which is probably just as well, considering who he was.

Growing up, all children are invariably taught never to talk to strangers, never to wander off, never to take candy from people they don’t know and never to follow someone they don’t know to somewhere they don’t know, or to get into a car with a driver they’ve never met.

Well. Albert Fish was living proof (if ever any was needed), that such rules aren’t just around to scare kids out of their wits at night, and if you’ve any naughty kids who aren’t listening to their parents about keeping away from strangers…the story of Mr. Fish might bear repeating.

The Man Behind the Monster

Hamilton Howard Fish was born in 1870, the son of Randall Fish, who was old enough to be his grandfather (at age 75!). Considering that Hamilton Howard Fish’s first and second names were the same as a pair of famous watch-companies (The Hamilton Watch. Co. and the Howard Watch. Co), it’s probably not surprising that soon after his birth, he changed his name to Albert. Okay seriously, he wasn’t named after a pair of watch-manufacturies (The Hamilton Watch. Co. didn’t exist when Fish was born). He was actually named after Hamilton Fish, a distant relation who was the 16th governor of the State of New York.

Albert Fish’s life was miserable at the best of times. His family had a history of mental illness; a branch of medical science generally misunderstood in the 19th century. How severe was his family’s mental instability? Well…one of his uncles was a maniac, one of his brothers was locked in a lunatic asylum, another brother of his died from the condition commonly known as “Water on the Brain”, his mother was prone to hallucinations and a sister of his was also diagnosed with an undisclosed “mental affliction”.

All in all…not a happy family.

Young Albert was a homosexual masochist (a person who derives pleasure from pain); something that he discovered about himself from a very young age. When in school, he discovered that he enjoyed being caned. He had affairs with other boys and even got a job at a local bathhouse, just so that he could see other boys undress!…and he wasn’t even twenty yet!

Fish’s sexual experimentations grew more and more extreme as the years continued. By his early twenties, he became a prostitute, a homosexual rapist and had developed a highly disturbing fascination with castration. Amazingly, despite all this, he did actually get married and produced six children of his own!

Not surprisingly, Fish’s marriage did not last, and his wife soon left him. His mental state went spiralling out of control as he continued raping and molesting boys from as young as five years old and upwards. He developed a fascination with self-harm (the less said about that, the better) and began to suffer from hallucinations, claiming that God told him to do things to children. Doctors diagnosed Fish with religious mania.

The Attacks Begin

By the 1920s, by which time Fish had already served two jail-terms for molestation, he had well and truly started the actions for which he became infamous: Abucting, torturing and killing children. He often selected younger children, African-American children or those with mental retardation. His most famous kidnap-and-murder victim was Grace Budd.

Grace Budd lived with her parents, her sister and older brothers. She was just ten years old.

It all started one day in 1928. Edward Budd, one of Grace’s brothers, put an advertisement in the local newspaper (the now defunct ‘New York World’). He said that he was an 18-year-old lad looking for a job on a farm somewhere in the country. Interested employers should come to the Budd home to see if Edward was suitable for work on their properties.

If young Edward knew who was about to show up on his father’s front doorstep, he probably would’ve burnt down the building where the New York World was printed! On the 28th of May, 1928, Albert Fish came calling. Only, he wasn’t Albert Fish, the infamous rapist and sexual deviant…he was Frank Howard, a farmer living in New York state. Edward Budd wasn’t home, but Fish met young Grace and became very interested in her.

The next time Fish called, he met Edward and agreed to hire him. He also met Mr. Albert Budd I, Edward and Grace’s father. Fish asked if he could take Grace to his sister’s house. There was a birthday party there that the girl might like to attend. Once the party was over, Fish could return Grace back home. Mr. and Mrs. Budd thought this was a wonderful idea, and agreed to let Fish take their baby girl to his sister’s ‘birthday party’.

It was a trap, of course. There was no birthday party. And Mr. and Mrs. Budd would never see Grace again.

Once the Budds realised that Grace had been abducted, they contacted the police, but despite frantic efforts, the child was not found. Nothing more was heard until one day in 1934, a full six years later. On that day, Mrs. Budd received a letter which was unsigned. Not being able to read due to her illiteracy, she left the letter alone, until one of her sons returned home to read it for her. The text of the letter is written below (with original spelling retained). It is not for faint of heart…

    Dear Mrs. Budd.

    In 1894 a friend of mine shipped as a deck hand on the Steamer Tacoma, Capt. John Davis. They sailed from San Francisco for Hong Kong, China. On arriving there he and two others went ashore and got drunk. When they returned the boat was gone. At that time there was famine in China. Meat of any kind was from $1–3 per pound. So great was the suffering among the very poor that all children under 12 were sold for food in order to keep others from starving. A boy or girl under 14 was not safe in the street. You could go in any shop and ask for steak—chops—or stew meat. Part of the naked body of a boy or girl would be brought out and just what you wanted cut from it. A boy or girl’s behind which is the sweetest part of the body and sold as veal cutlet brought the highest price. John staid [sic] there so long he acquired a taste for human flesh. On his return to N.Y. he stole two boys, one 7 and one 11. Took them to his home stripped them naked tied them in a closet. Then burned everything they had on. Several times every day and night he spanked them – tortured them – to make their meat good and tender. First he killed the 11 year old boy, because he had the fattest ass and of course the most meat on it. Every part of his body was cooked and eaten except the head—bones and guts. He was roasted in the oven (all of his ass), boiled, broiled, fried and stewed. The little boy was next, went the same way. At that time, I was living at 409 E 100 St. near—right side. He told me so often how good human flesh was I made up my mind to taste it. On Sunday June the 3, 1928 I called on you at 406 W 15 St. Brought you pot cheese—strawberries. We had lunch. Grace sat in my lap and kissed me. I made up my mind to eat her. On the pretense of taking her to a party. You said yes she could go. I took her to an empty house in Westchester I had already picked out. When we got there, I told her to remain outside. She picked wildflowers. I went upstairs and stripped all my clothes off. I knew if I did not I would get her blood on them. When all was ready I went to the window and called her. Then I hid in a closet until she was in the room. When she saw me all naked she began to cry and tried to run down the stairs. I grabbed her and she said she would tell her mamma. First I stripped her naked. How she did kick – bite and scratch. I choked her to death, then cut her in small pieces so I could take my meat to my rooms. Cook and eat it. How sweet and tender her little ass was roasted in the oven. It took me 9 days to eat her entire body. I did not fuck her tho [sic] I could of had I wished. She died a virgin.

The Budd Family was horrified and disgusted at the letter and demanded police-action. By examining the envelope which carried the letter, and its postmarks, the police were eventually able to track down Albert Fish to an address at 200, East 52nd Street, Manhattan. Officers and detectives waited for Fish in his bedroom until he arrived home. William F. King, the arresting officer, confronted Fish with the evidence and the accusation of murder. Fish agreed to be taken in for questioning, however at the last minute, he tried to slash King with a straight-razor! King successfully disarmed Fish and arrested him, taking him off to be questioned.

Under questioning, the police soon discovered the true barbarity that bubbled away inside Fish’s head. He had not actually intended to kidnap Grace, but had actually wanted to kidnap Edward (and a friend of his), take them to the woods, strip them naked, tie them up, castrate them and leave them to bleed to death.


Albert Fish, shortly before his death

After the initial questioning was over, Edward Budd and his father Albert, were driven to the police-station by investigators, to positively identify Fish as the man who had kidnapped their sister and daughter. When Edward spotted Mr. Fish, he threw himself on the old man, screaming out: “You old bastard! Dirty son of a bitch!” and had to be physically restrained by police!

Trial and Execution

For the kidnapping, murder and cannibalisation of Grace Budd (amongst others), Albert Fish was sentenced to death. The court-case was one of the most amazing ever seen, and it took some pretty extraordinary pieces of evidence from the prosecution (such as an x-ray photograph of Fish’s pelvis, with nearly thirty nails permanently embedded in it!) to show the court that Fish really was the sick and twisted manical lunatic who would, and did, kidnap, rape, butcher and eat children and teenagers.

The trial of Albert Fish lasted all of ten days. On the last day, the jury, who had seen such morbid pieces of evidence such as x-rays, photographs and even Grace Budd’s skull and who had heard testimonies from both the Fish and Budd families took less than an hour to find Fish guilty of murder. The judge promptly sentenced Fish to death. Obviously, Fish was not pleased about this…but he livened up a bit when he discovered he was going to be electrocuted in the electric-chair, and thanked the judge for the sentence and opportunity.

In 1935, Fish was sent up the river to the state penitentiary, Sing Sing Prison, New York where, on the 16th of January, 1936, Albert Fish was executed by electric-chair. He was sixty-five years old.

 
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“She Gave Her Mother Forty Whacks”: The Guilt or Innocence of Lizzie Borden

All countries have their famous criminals: Jack the Ripper, John Wayne Gacy, Joseph Fritzl, Ned Kelly and Dr. Joseph Mengele are just a few of these. But what about those people who might have committed a crime, but got off because of a lack of evidence and were declared innocent, and who were hounded by the judgemental public, who had already slapped down the sticker that said ‘Guilty’? These are people we don’t always hear about, or if we hear about them, we don’t always remember them.

Probably the most famous of these people, who got off scott-free in a famous crime where people thought she should have hung, was the chief suspect in one of the United States’ most famous murder-investigations of all time. The crime? Killing her father and stepmother. Her weapon? An axe. Her name? Elizabeth Borden.

One Big Happy Family


Lizzie Borden, 1889

Known to all as “Lizzie” Borden, Elizabeth Andrew Borden (no, that’s not a mistake, ANDREW is her middle name, presumably named for her father, also named Andrew) was born on the 19th of July, 1860. Her father was Andrew Jackson Borden and her mother was Sarah Anthony Borden (maiden name ‘Morse’). Lizzie had one older sister, Emma Lenora Borden, born 1851 and who died in 1927. Lizzie would’ve had two older sisters, but her mother’s second child, Alice, died in 1858, two years after her birth.

Apparently, the Borden family didn’t have much luck in keeping a family together. Mirs. Sarah Borden had three daughters but lost one. Three years after Lizzie was born, Mrs. Borden herself would also die. As a result of this, Lizzie, her sister Emma and her father, Andrew, grew up alone. Alone apart from a lady named Abby Gray, who was Andrew Borden’s second wife, and therefore Emma and Lizzie’s stepmother.

Andrew Jackson Borden was a wealthy man. One of the wealthiest in the town of Fall River, Massachusetts, where the Borden family lived on 92, 2nd Street. 70-year-old Andrew was a successful landlord and bank-director. He was able to buy a nice house for his two daughters, his wife, his second wife when the first one died, and his family’s maid. He might have been a bit tight-fisted, but he was fairly generous to his family, giving them enough money to lead comfortable lives with. To him, life was wonderful…but not to everyone else.


Andrew Jackson Borden, Lizzie’s father

The truth was that the Borden Family was probably the kind of family you’d find on Jerry Springer, Maury Povich or on Dr. Phil these days. It was about as harmonious as the Battle of the Somme. While Emma and Lizzie probably loved their father dearly, they were not pleased at all with several of their father’s decisions in life. Andrew’s new wife, Abby, caused all kinds of problems in the house and she and her new stepdaughters just never managed to get along with each other. The family argued frequently and the two Borden sisters often took long vacations to get away from their stress-inducing stepmother.


Abby Borden, Andrew’s second wife, and Lizzie and Emma’s stepmother

Apart from their stepmother, however, the two daughters were also not happy with other things that their father had done. In the years after their mother’s death, Mr. Borden had been dividing up the family fortune, giving away various properties under the Borden name to Abby and her family. This was something which the two Borden sisters did not agree on. They wanted the fortune kept together for them, not given out to strange women who had nosed their ways into their family’s private lives! In the weeks leading up to the murders, things finally exploded. Lizzie and her sister Emma had a terrific quarrel with their father, either about his new wife, or about his handling of the family’s funds and properties. Whatever it was, it caused both sisters to pack their bags and leave home for another one of their ‘holidays’ to get away from their stressful home-lives.

Lizzie Returns Home

The year was 1892, it was July when Lizzie and her sister Emma packed up their bags and left home to get away from their infuriating father in the latest of their escapades. While both sisters had decided to stay away for several weeks, Lizzie decided to cut her trip short. She returned home at the end of the month, returning to the family’s home at #92, 2nd Street, Fall River, Mass, to this house, which still stands today, as the Lizzie Borden House, a bed-and-breakfast which occasionally gives tours:


The Lizzie Borden House, Fall River, Massachusetts

The house was just as it was when she had left it, except there was an addition to the family, John Morse, or “Uncle John” to Lizzie and Emma, their dead mother’s brother, had come to visit his brother-in-law, nieces, and relatives from his side of the family, who also resided in Fall River.

The Murders

August 4th, 1892. Lizzie has been home a few days now. Her sister Emma is still in a neighbouring town, visiting friends. Her Uncle John, though staying at the Borden house at the time, was not actually at home. The Borden family’s maid, Bridget Sullivan, a young Irish immigrant, was upstairs in the attic when she heard Lizzie scream and call out her name. Bridget (called “Maggie” by the family), ran downstairs to find Lizzie standing in the doorway to the living room, staring at the dead body of her father, lying on the couch.

On the 4th of August, Andrew Borden had gone to work as usual. He had returned home at about 10:45 and had been lying on the couch, presumably having a nap. Shortly after, Lizzie found her father’s dead and mutilated body in the living-room.


Andrew Borden, photographed as he was found, lying dead on the couch in his living-room

Lizzie would not allow Bridget to enter the living-room, presumably because she thought the maid would not be able to take the shock of the sight of her dead employer. Lizzie ordered Bridget to run for the family physician, Dr. Bowen. Dr. Bowen lived across the street from the Borden family, but was not at home at the time. Mrs. Bowen agreed to notify her husband at once, when he got home, to visit the Borden house.

By now, word of the murder of Mr. Borden began to spread. Another neighbour, Mrs. Adelaide Churchill heard about the news. She called from her house to Lizzie’s to ask what was wrong. Lizzie responded by saying: “Oh, Mrs. Churchill, please come over! Someone has killed Father!”

Mrs. Churchill hurried over and asked Lizzie where her stepmother, Abby Borden was. Lizzie replied that she did not know. She also told Mrs. Churchill of Bridget’s inability to find a doctor. Mrs. Churchill suggested sending her handyman to try and find a physician and to call for help. At 11:15am, the police-station about 400 meters from the Borden House, recieved a telephone-call to the effect that officers were dispatched to respond to the murder of Mr. Borden.

While the police were on their way, Dr. Bowen had returned home. He went straight to the Borden household to examine the body of the dead Mr. Borden whereafter Lizzie asked Bridget to find a white sheet to cover the corpse. The whereabouts of Mrs. Abby Borden were still a mystery. Bridget the maid suggested that Abby had gone to visit her sister, but Lizzie was sure that her stepmother was home, and asked Bridget to search the house. Nervous to go upstairs by herself, Bridget enlisted the help of Mrs. Churchill and together, they headed upwards.

To understand what happened next, you need to understand how the Borden house was constructed. Upon entering the front door of the house, you are confronted by the front staircase. Beyond the staircase was the living-room where Mr. Borden’s body was discovered, lying on the couch. On the second storey, the bedrooms are situated on the left side of the house, opening onto a central landing, with the staircase, leading down to the entrance-hall, on the right. After heading up the stairs only halfway, Mrs. Churchill and Bridget were able to look through the ballustrades around the stairs and through the open door of the guest bedroom, the door of which opened so that the two women could see directly into the room beyond, without even reaching the landing.

From their position on the stairs, both women were able to see the bedroom with the bed in it, but more importantly, they were able to see under the bed and beyond, to the far wall of the guestroom. Between the far wall and the bed, lay the dead body of Mrs. Abby Borden.


The photograph of Mrs. Borden as she was found in the guestroom. To the right, you can see the bed. Beyond the bed was the door, which opened onto the landing. From the bed, you would have a direct view of the head of the staircase


Another photograph of Abby’s body. You can see the tripod and camera reflected in the mirror of the dressing-table. Between the camera and the table is the bed and behind the camera is the door leading into the landing and the head of the staircase, beyond

Mrs. Churchill ran back downstairs, crying out “There’s another one!”

A few minutes later, Dr. Bowen, who had left the house momentarily to send a telegram to Lizzie’s sister, Emma, returned to the Borden house to resume his examination of the dead Mr. Andrew Borden. His initial examination led him to conclude that Mr. Borden had been struck in the head and face at least a dozen times by a heavy weapon, possibly an axe. Mr. Borden’s wounds were horrific: His nose had been hacked off in the attack, his left eyeball had been cut in half and stuck out a bit from the rest of his body. The corpse was still bleeding slightly when Dr. Bowen examined it. Blood-spatter was everywhere; on the floor, the couch, the walls and the painting that hung above the couch. Dr. Bowen believed that if Mr. Borden had been napping, his attacker had snuck into the room and had attacked Mr. Borden from behind, swinging the weapon downwards onto his face, in order to kill him and inflict the injuries that were present.

Shortly thereafter, Dr. Bowen headed upstairs to examine the corpse of Mrs. Borden. He concluded that she too, had been struck by a weapon similar to an axe or a hatchet and was attacked from behind, with at least a dozen blows to the back of the head.

By this time, policeman George W. Allen of the Fall River Police Department had arrived at the house, it was now approaching 11:30am. After ordering a passer-by, Charles Sawyer, to stand guard over the crime-scene, Allen ran back to the police-station and resturned to the house shortly after 11:35, with seven more police-officers. At 11:45, medical examiner Dr. William Dolan, passing by the house, had his curiosity aroused by the number of policemen milling around, and entered the crime-scene to assist Dr. Bowen in his examinations.

The Investigation

After the flurry of excitement regarding the murders had settled down, police and detectives started their official murder-investigation. They interviewed townsfolk, members of the Borden family, shopkeepers who had interacted with the Borden family and Dr. Bowen, the Borden family’s neighbour and family physician. The following facts were established:

August 3rd

1. Abby Borden had gone to visit Dr. Bowen on the 3rd of August, one day before the murder. She alleged that she and her husband, who was not a particularly popular man in town, were being poisoned. They had both been violently sick during the night. Dr. Bowen listed her symptoms and examined them, but did not believe that it was a murder-attempt. Bowen attempted to speak to Mr. Borden, who sent him away, insisting that he was perfectly fine. It’s surmised that the Bordren’s illnesses were not due to poisoning, but rather to bad or poorly-prepared food.

2. Lizzie had visited Smith’s Drugstore, a druggist’s shop in Fall River, and had spoken to Eli Bence, a clerk there, asking to buy 10c worth of prussic acid, which she claimed was for killing insects. Mr. Bence refused to sell the acid without a prior prescription. Witnesses at the store identified Lizzie as the woman who tried to buy the acid.

3. Uncle John Morse had come to visit the Borden family. John Morse was the brother of Sarah Morse Borden, Andrew’s first wife and Lizzie and Emma’s deceased mother. Both John and Lizzie testified that neither had seen each other until the afternoon of the murders, but Lizzie said she was aware that her uncle had intended to pay the family a visit that day.

4. Miss Alice Russell was a friend of the Borden family. According to Russell, Lizzie had come to visit her on the 3rd. She seemed agitated and worried about something. When Miss Russell pressed the point, Lizzie confessed that she was worried for her father’s safety and feared that someone had really tried to poison him.

August 4th

6:15am. Bridget Sullivan, the Borden maid, wakes up. Uncle John Morse also wakes up for the day.
7:05am. Abby and Andrew come downstairs for breakfast.
8:45am. John leaves the house for the day. Shortly after his departure, Lizzie comes downstairs.
8:55am (approx). Abby asks Bridget to wash the downstairs windows. Abby goes upstairs to straighten out the bed in the guestroom, which John occupied.
9:00am. Andrew leaves the house for work. Mrs. Adelaide Churchill, the Borden family’s neighbour, observes Mr. Borden leaving the house at this time.

Sometime after 9:00am. Abby is killed, struck on the head repeatedly from behind.

10:40am. Andrew Borden leaves a shop which he owns, and heads home. Carpenters working at the shop see him leave. He arrives home a few minutes later. The front door is locked and Bridget unlocks it to let him in. Lizzie says that she was in the kitchen at the back of the house, at this time. Mr. Borden goes through the house, passes his daughter Lizzie in the kitchen, who is ironing handkerchieves. He heads upstairs via the back staircase and heads into his bedroom. He returns a few minutes later by the same way and heads into the living-room.
10:55am. Mr. Borden lies down for a nap. It is shortly after this time that he too, is struck repeatedly on the head from behind, killing him and mutilating his face. Bridget is upstairs in her room at this time. Lizzie goes to the barn (more of a shed in the back yard) to search for fishing equipment. She had intended to visit her sister and go fishing with her.
11:10am. Lizzie returns to the house and finds her father beaten to death on the couch. She calls for Bridget, still upstairs in her room, to come down and to go for Dr. Bowen across the street.
11:15am. The local police-station recieves a telephone-call asking officers to respond to an incident at 92, 2nd Street. Within minutes, eight policemen, a passer-by, Dr. Bowen and medical examiner, Dr. William Dolan, are at the crime-scene, taking down witness-statements and examining the bodies.

Over the next few hours, all persons in the house are questioned. Lizzie is asked if there are any tools such as axes or hatchets in the house. Lizzie tells the officer that there are plenty and instructs Bridget to show the officer. A total of four hatchets are found. One had blood and hair on it, which was later determined to be animal blood and hair, and therefore not the murder-weapon. One hatchet had a blade which didn’t look like it could have inflicted the injuries seen. Two other hatchets were covered in dust and probably hadn’t been touched for several months. One of these had its handle broken off at the end. The break looked recent and policemen surmised that this was the murder-weapon and that the handle had been broken during the murders. This hatchet was collected for evidence and was photographed.

Uncle John was accosted by police-officers after arriving home shortly after the discovery of the hatchets. He told policemen that he wasn’t sure if the doors to the cellar (where the hatchets were stored) was opened or closed when he left the house that morning.

Policeman Sergeant Harrington and another officer examined the barn where Lizzie claimed to have been, searching for fishing-sinkers. They saw no evidence (disturbed dust, for example) to suggest that someone had been in the barn recently.

3:00pm. The bodies of Abby and Andrew Borden were laid out on the table in the dining-room where Dr. Dolan carried out autopsies on the two corpses.

Upstairs, Deputy Marshal John Fleet interviews Lizzie about everyone’s actions and movements that day. Lizzie, like her sister, held little love for her stepmother, and she reminded Fleet throughout the interview that Abby Borden was no mother of hers.

Over the next few months, police and detectives continue chasing down leads. Eli Bence, the clerk at the drugstore, is interviewed by Sergeant Harrington regarding Lizzie’s attempted purchase of prussic acid.

On the 6th of August, the funerals of Abby and Andrew Borden were carried out. On the 7th of August, Lizzie’s friend, Alice Russell, noticed Lizzie burning a dress in the stove in the Borden house.

The next several months was filled in by the police investigation. Witnesses were interviewed, statements were taken, the bodies of Abby and Andrew Borden (which had not actually been buried on the 6th of August), were retained for further medical examinations. Preliminary hearings before the big trial resulted in Lizzie being arrested and charged with the murder of her father and stepmother.

The Big Trial

These days, big criminal trials have news-reporters out the front of the courthouse, there are journalists, cameramen, photographers, curious townsfolk and police-officials all over the place, either milling in the streets outside, or jammed into the courtroom to witness the “Crime of the Century”.

Remove the camera-men and the suited, microphone-wielding TV-reporters, and this was pretty-much the scene during the Borden trial. The trial was big news all throughout the town of Fall River, and people hurried to grab seats in the courthouse to witness this historic event. The Borden family was one of the wealthier families in town and therefore, one of the most well-known. The deaths of Mr. and Mrs. Borden, and the suspicion that fell on their daughter caused everyone to be hanging on tenterhooks to find out what a judge and jury would think.

Of course, the crime’s impact spread a lot further than just Fall River. The New York Times, in an issue dated August 7, 1892, stated on its front page:

    “The Fall River Mystery”.
    ——————–
    Looking for the assassin
    of Mr. & Mrs. Borden
    ——————–

In interior pages, the paper continued to report…

    “Lizzie Borden’s Triumphs”
    The Evidence Chiefly Relied on for Con-
    victing the Prisoner Ruled Out by the
    Court – The Case of the Commonwealth
    Weakened by Blow after Blow – Lizzie’s
    Friends Very Hopeful of an Acquittal
    And sure that the Jury will
    Not Convict Her.
    – The New York Times, August 7th, 1892; original spelling, typesetting & grammar retained

The Borden trial was phenomenal. It went on for fourteen days, and over those fourteen days, the case put forward by the prosecution was hacked to pieces by the defence. The prosecution put it to the jury (made up of farmers and tradesmen) that Lizzie had killed her father and stepmother because Andrew Borden had thought of, or had written up a new will. No such recent document was found, the defence said. The hatchet found by police could not be proven definitively by the prosecution, that it was indeed the murder-weapon. Furthermore, the defence alleged, the prosecution could not definitively say that Lizzie had used the hatchet to bludgeon her parents to death, even if it was the murder-weapon. The Fall River Police Department was skeptical of the then, brand-new forensic technology of taking fingerprints, and thus had no definitive proof that Lizzie had even touched a hatchet.

Another pillar of the prosecution’s case against Lizzie Borden was her attempt at purchasing prussic acid from Smith’s Drugstore. Clerk Mr. Eli Bence was called forward to give evidence to the effect that Lizzie had tried to buy the acid without a prescription, but the defence objected on this point, and the judge ruled Mr. Bence’s testimony as inadmissable evidence.

The trial ended on Monday, the 19th of June, 1893. The jury took just an hour and a half to find Lizzie Borden Not Guilty of the crime of Murder. The New York Times reports it thus:

    Lizzie Borden Acquitted
    ——————–
    Jury declares her guiltless
    of the crime of murder
    ——————–
    – The New York Times, Wednesday, June 21, 1893; original spelling, typesetting and grammar retained

The Aftermath

With the trial over, Lizzie and her sister Emma moved out of their house on 2nd Street and moved into 306 French Street, a large, Victorian house which Lizzie named “Maplecroft”. While the two sisters were close before the trial, their relationship gradually broke down over the next few years. In 1897, Lizzie was charged with the theft of two paintings, in an incident that was settled without scandal. Lizzie became friends with an actress, Nance O’Neil, in 1904. This, it seemed, broke the Borden sisters’ relationship forever. They separated and didn’t see each other again. Elizabeth Andrew Borden died on the 1st of June, 1927, age the age of 67…her sister Emma did not attend her funeral. Emma herself died on the 10th of June, that same year. Their former maid, Bridget Sullivan died in Montana in 1948.

The Borden Legend

Your mother or your grandmother or your GREAT-grandmother might know this old-time jump-rope rhyme. It goes like this:

    Lizzie Borden took an axe,
    She gave her mother forty whacks,
    When she saw what she had done,
    She gave her father forty-one!

While certainly not the kind of thing you wanna hear your daughters jumping-rope to, this little rhyme is proof of the “legend of Lizzie Borden”. The Lizzie Borden murder-trials was one of the biggest trials and crimes in the USA, indeed, in the world. It ranks up there, in the annals of great crimes, along with the Lindburgh Baby Kidnapping, Jack the Ripper and Madame Daphne LaLaurie. The Borden killings happened at a time of change, when newspapers were beginning to spread the news and when investigative techniques were beginning to fit into the mould we recognise today. A stereotype of criminal history is the judge or jury convicting an innocent person of a crime that he or she didn’t commit, based on mostly circumstantial evidence. The Borden trial was a complete reversal of this, of a person being acquitted based on the evidence gathered by several months’ investigating by Fall River law-enforcement authorities. Did Lizzie Borden really take an axe to her father and stepmother? Some people believe the answer is ‘Yes’ and that she really did murder her parents by bashing their heads in, while others say ‘no’, and that she was innocent all along. I would like to think that she was genuinely innocent, but that’s not the point of this article, which is in fact, merely to bring to light, one of the most famous crimes in American history.