Centenaries - whole and half

[sdreid]

100 years ago - 1911 July 18 - The top of Louise Beattie's head is blown off in what her husband, Henry Clay Beattie, says is an early carjack attempt. Virginia authorities mount an extensive search for the murder weapon which they eventually find and trace back to an H. C. Beattie. The 27-year-old is convicted of murder and will go to the electric chair later this year. He made a full confession the day before meeting his fate.

[sdreid]

100 years ago - 1911 July 23 - Now a third victim dies mysteriously in an English castle with another to repeat the pattern next month. Margaret Bingham follows her father and a sister to the grave with a brother the next to go. Suspicion is finally aroused after the fourth death and arsenic is found in the last three victims. The first death must have been by some other means if it was another murder. Edith Bingham, the sister and daughter of all the victims was charged with the slayings but was found not guilty. She was sent to an asylum in 1914 and died there in 1945. The case is officially unsolved.

[sdreid]

100 years ago - 1911 August 4 - In Michigan, Dr. John MacGregor poisons Scyrel Sparling for insurance money. Scyrel's father and two brothers had already died under similar circumstances and authorities finally realized that something was amiss. Carrie Sparling, who was the wife and mother of the the four dead, was also suspected since she seemed to have more than a professional relationship with the doctor but wasn't convicted. MacGregor was sent to prison for life in 1912 but was pardoned after only four years and died in 1928.

[sdreid]

100 years ago - 1911 August 9 - As she crosses a field to catch a Denver streetcar home from a student's residence, music teacher Signe Carlszen is strangled and beaten to death. Some will suspect that a serial killer is about when an additional set of murders occur next month. All these slayings are still unsolved.

50 years ago - 1961 August 9 - Little four-year-old Michelle Morgan is held under water and then stomped to death by her stepmother Mary Morgan. This was all over a lie that the girl supposedly told and it was not the first such occurrence of abuse in the Illinois farmhouse. At the time, the death was inexplicably given as natural causes. In 1996, Michelle's brother George told what he had actually witnessed and an exhumation corroborated his story. Mary was then apprehended and indicted in 1997. She was however allowed to plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter and received only a 5 year prison term.

[Mayerling]

100 years ago - 1911 August 4 - In Michigan, Dr. John MacGregor poisons Scyrel Sparling for insurance money. Scyrel's father and two brothers had already died under similar circumstances and authorities finally realized that something was amiss. Carrie Sparling, who was the wife and mother of the the four dead, was also suspected since she seemed to have more than a professional relationship with the doctor but wasn't convicted. MacGregor was sent to prison for life in 1912 but was pardoned after only four years and died in 1928.

Well, I guess good doctors (or even evil ones) were a hard to find comodity in the backwoods of Michigan in 1911.

[sdreid]

50 years ago - 1961 August 11 - The body of William Jackson is found inside a car trunk. He had been hung up on a meat hook in Chicago and tortured with a cattle prod and blow torch then beaten to death with a ball bat. It is believed that the slaying was Mob connected and it is still officially unsolved.

50 years ago - 1961 August 11 - In Carlsbad, New Mexico, Mattie Restine, 13, and Patty Pritz, 14, disappear while walking home in the evening. On the second day of the search, the bodies of the girls are found outside of the city. The victims had both been sexually assaulted and shot in the head. It is still an unsolved case.

[sdreid]

100 years ago - 1911 August 15 - And now a fourth victim dies in an English castle following a mysterious illness. This time it's James Bingham who is following his father and two sisters to the grave. The authorities finally get the picture and arsenic is found in the remains of the last three victims. They are unable to make a determination in the first case. The daughter and sister of the victims, Edith Bingham is put on trial for murder but is acquitted. She did go to an asylum in 1914 and died there in 1945. The murders are still officially unsolved.

[sdreid]

100 years ago - 1911 August 21 - Rose Render, 18, is stabbed in the heart and killed. She was a waitress but had been reportedly forced into prostitution by her boyfriend Charles Ellsome, 22. A witness stated that he heard a woman scream, "Don't, Charles, don't!" at about the time and in the area of the murder. Ellsome was charged, convicted and sentenced to death for the slaying. In England, the newly formed Court of Criminal Appeal took up the case on a technicality and Ellsome was released. He was the first person to be saved by this court but most thought that he wasn't innocent. As far as the law is concerned, the murder case is unresolved.

[sdreid]

50 years ago - 1961 August 22 - Michael Gregtsen and Valerie Storie are accosted as they sit in a car along an English roadway. Gregsten was a married man who was having an affair with his companion. Eventually he was shot and killed. Ms. Storie was raped and shot but survived with crippling injuries. They were found the next morning. James Hanratty was convicted of the crime and hanged under a cloud of controversy in 1962. Another man, who resembled Hanratty, actually confessed to the crime but was seen by some as an attention seeker.

[sdreid]

50 years ago - 1961 August 31 - Eight-year-old Ann Marie Burr vanishes from her bedroom in Tacoma, Washington. A window in the living room was ajar and a bench beneath it overturned. Ann has never been found and the case is unsolved although some think this could have been the first slaying of Ted Bundy.

[sdreid]

100 years ago - 1911 September 1 - North London resident, Eliza Mary Barrow, 49, is poisoned with arsenic and will soon die. She had recently signed her assets over to her landlord, Frederick Henry Seddon, in lieu of rent for life. Originally, Miss Barrow's cause of death was found to be from natural causes but the truth was eventually discovered and Seddon, along with his wife, was arrested. Mrs. Seddon was acquitted but her husband was hanged for murder in 1912.

[sdreid]

50 years ago - 1961 September 2 - A California teenager named Burney Archerd dies from an insulin overdose. Eventually, William Dale Archerd, his uncle, was arrested for the murder. William was also suspected of killing at least 5 others, 3 wives and 2 "friends", between 1947 and 1966. In some cases, the motives seemed unclear. The suspect was convicted and sentenced to die in the gas chamber but that was later commuted to a life sentence. William was the first person in America to be convicted of using insulin as a murder weapon.

[sdreid]

200 years ago - 1811 September 17 - Anna Maria Zwanziger is beheaded in Germany for being a serial killer. She had murdered people in homes where she worked as a servant with poison either for revenge or hoped for gain.

100 years ago - 1911 September 17 - An ax wielding maniac enters the Colorado Springs home of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Wayne killing all six present. The victims, in addition to the Waynes and their two-year-old daughter, were Mrs. Alice Burnham, her daughter, 6, and son, 3. The three Burnhams were house guests at the time. Another woman had been battered to death in the area 39 days before and this led some to wonder if there was a serial killer in the region. All seven murders remain unsolved.

[sdreid]

50 years ago - 1961 September 18 - Serial killer Hugh Bion Morse enters the St. Paul, Minnesota home of Carol Ronan then rapes and strangles her. She is believed to be his last murder victim. In the next month, he will be captured and given a term of life in prison. He died in 2004 while still incarcerated.

[sdreid]

100 years ago - 1911 October 1 - William Dawson, his wife Charity and 12-year-old daughter, Georgia, are axed to death in the middle of the the night. These Monmouth, Illinois murders are still unsolved but suspected serial killer Henry Lee Moore has been mentioned as a person of interest.