From the Ashes of Hannah Bradshaw

As the eighteenth century waned, the Age of Enlightenment settled over Europe, and its impact could be felt as far away as America. One of its byproducts was an explosion of literature with previously taboo themes: social upheaval, ruling class tyrannies, and supernatural influences. The American press catered to the public’s increasingly macabre tastes by printing grisly stories next to war reports and shipping news. One such tale appeared in the January 3, 1771 of the New York Journal.

The Journal informed its readers that on the evening of December 31, a young charwoman visited her employer, thirty-year-old Hannah Bradshaw, in the latter’s Division Street lodging house. Bradshaw was almost certainly a prostitute: author William Dunlap remembered her as being “a woman of large dimensions, masculine person, coarse manners, and notorious in the neighborhood for her boldness, habitual intemperance, and the vices allied to, and engendered by it.” Her nickname, ‘Man-o-War Nance’ allegedly derived from her fondness for sailors and the dives they frequented.

When the two women parted company at seven o’clock, Bradshaw was slightly drunk but otherwise in good shape. She asked her visitor to return the next day to clean her room.

The charwoman dutifully arrived early on New Year’s Day. To reach Bradshaw’s room, she trudged up a rickety wooden staircase on the outside of the building. When no one answered her repeated knocking, she presumed at first that her employer was sleeping off a spree. But when 11:00 a.m. arrived without a response, she became worried and summoned a male lodger to help her break the room’s window and climb inside. There she saw what the Journal described as “the most shocking spectacle imaginable.”

A charred and smoking hole, four feet in diameter, yawned in the middle of the wood floor. Near its edge lay a leg fragment with the flesh still attached and an assortment of bones, some of which had been reduced to ashes. A blackened partial skeleton lay in the dirt of the crawl space below. The intestines remained intact, as did some flesh on the head, shoulder, and leg. A foul-smelling, greasy matter coated the walls and ceiling, and the heat generated by the strange blaze had even drawn the turpentine from the wainscoting. A rush-bottomed chair was burned on the leg nearest the hole, but nowhere else.

Hannah Bradshaw’s bizarre death appears to be the first (recorded) American case of the phenomenon now referred to as spontaneous human combustion. Whether it exists as described (a human being bursting into flames triggered by internal causes) continues to be a source of debate. In Bradshaw’s case, authorities did not know what to think. An overturned candle holder lay a short distance away from the fragmented body, but it did not appear to be the source of the blaze: the candle burned itself out without harming the flooring. So was she murdered by a client who burned her body afterward, or did she really combust?

It’s interesting to note that Hannah Bradshaw died not long before the dawn of the Gothic novel, which used equally creepy mysteries to chill the reader’s blood. William Dunlap, who recalled her in his written history of New York City, was a close friend of Charles Brockden Brown, the American novelist and pioneer of Gothic fiction. Since the two men almost certainly discussed it, Bradshaw’s death may have been an impetus for the literary genre that made violent death and emotional alienation a staple of popular fiction.

Hope Burned Means a Future Lost

The back cover of Brent Laporte’s debut novel Hope Burned promises that the story is “at once as bleak and moving, tense and beautiful as Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.” The comparison fits: both books are emotionally provocative tales of horror and hope. I’d even venture to say that Hope Burned suggests the dangerous repercussions of child abuse with the same sinister intensity that The Road stresses the importance of a healthy ecosystem to human survival.

A nameless boy endures years of abuse at the hands of his father and grandfather, who keep him isolated and enslaved on their remote farm. The only other human being he ever encountered was a young blond girl whom his guardians / jailers lured to the property and later raped and killed. We know nothing of the boy’s mother, but one surmises that she probably met a similar fate after giving birth. The memory of the girl haunts him for the remainder of his days. When he finally escapes and stumbles into civilization, he is taken in by kind people who finally give him a name- Tom.  Although he grows into a successful and happily married adult, Tom can’t stop questioning what kind of a future he has when his past refuses to stay buried. So he returns to the farm, kills both his father and grandfather, and writes a memoir to help his young son to understand why.

Laporte structured Hope Burned so that it reads like a letter from Tom to his son. It has no chapter divisions, but in this instance such structure might hinder the flow and personality of the prose.  Because Tom presents his story as both an apology and confessional, the reader’s voyeuristic instincts are quickly aroused, making it the type of book that’s consumed in a couple of sittings.

The character of Tom reminds me a lot of Canadian-born Sanford Clark, who was abducted from his Saskatoon home by his uncle, Gordon Stewart Northcott, in 1926. Northcott took the boy to his isolated chicken ranch in California and used him as farm hand and sex slave. During that time Northcott also raped and murdered at least three young boys, setting the authorities on his trail. In 1928 they rescued Sanford Clark, whose testimony ensured his uncle’s conviction and execution. (The entire tragedy later became the subject of a Clint Eastwood film, Changeling.) Clark returned to his native Saskatoon and became a leading citizen, but the memories of Northcott’s victims stayed with him. Like Tom, he always blamed himself for his failure to save them.

This is one novel that I highly recommend to True Crime fans. The people and events have so many real-life equivalents that it’s easy to forget that Hope Burned is fiction and not a survivor’s memoir.



Documentary Fiction: the Next Frontier in True Crime

It used to make me cringe whenever I’d see the expression ‘nonfiction novel’ used. It’s a contradictory term: novels, by definition, are fictitious, even if they’re ‘based on a true story’. But Canadian author Michael Winter has convinced me that there can indeed be such a beast.

In the summer of 1993, a single mother named Brenda Young was found on the floor of her Empire Avenue apartment in St. John’s, Newfoundland.  She had been stabbed thirty-one times and her underwear was so tightly wrapped around her neck that the investigators initially assumed that it had been knotted in place. Her on-again /off-again boyfriend, Randy Druken, was convicted of murder and spent six years in prison before being exonerated by DNA evidence. In 2000 Druken received $2.1-million in compensation and a government apology.

Michael Winter intended to write a nonfiction account of Brenda’s murder and its aftermath, but felt uneasy about exploiting the death of a woman whom he later described as being “alive, really alive”. He was also concerned about the effect such a book might have on her survivors and the other people who were drawn unwillingly into the messy investigation and court proceedings. For awhile he shelved the project, but the story stayed with him, its allure becoming stronger with time. Finally Winter yielded- partly. Instead of a true crime book, he wrote The Death of Donna Whalen, a work of what he calls “documentary fiction.”

This novel takes its content and storyline from the public record, and anyone familiar with the case will recognize the real participants’ fictional counterparts. (Brenda Young is Donna Whalen, while Randy Druken becomes Sheldon Troke.) But what keeps the book from being invasive is its presentation as a fictionalized version of a real case.

The narrative unfolds primarily through the direct words of the characters, which are grouped and structured to resemble trial testimony and police witness statements. Liberal use of Newfoundland slang gives a more powerful sense of setting than any description of downtown St. John’s or the harbor. The entire presentation resonates deeply with me personally because I ‘m originally from Eastern Canada, but you don’t have to be a Maritimer to enjoy this dark and compelling drama.

By dressing up an actual murder case as a fictional story, Winter helps outsiders better understand Donna Whalen / Brenda Young, Sheldon Troke / Randy Druken, and their world, which can be incomprehensible: Donna feared for her life, but let the man who slapped her around look after her two children whenever she wanted a night out. Donna’s little girl, Sharon, knew that Sheldon pushed her mother around yet still regarded him as a parent figure, going to him for advice when she had problems with her friends. But Winter demonstrates that violence was a natural and trivialized by-product of that society, where parties could end in knife fights and a jail cell was a second home to many.

Some readers may have trouble with how Michael Winter displaces elaborate descriptions and linear plot in favor of letting the story be told via a series of participant monologues. I admit that his approach is unique. But it makes The Death of Donna Whalen “alive, really alive”, just as he wanted Brenda Young to be remembered.

The Magnificent Spilsbury and the Case of the Brides in the Bath

In the summer of 1915, the British public experienced a temporary, if morbid, diversion from the horrors of World War I. George Smith, a middle-aged serial bigamist who was accused of drowning three wives for their money between 1912 and 1914, stood trial for murder. The Fleet Street dailies christened it the Brides in the Bath case.

Smith targeted spinsters who were considered past marriageable age. Their gratitude at finding a husband in a world unfriendly to single women weakened their instincts and made them willingly give him control of their assets. After marrying Bessie Mundy (1912), Alice Burnham (1913), and Margaret Lofty (1914), he rented lodgings with a bath and had each wife make out a will and purchase life insurance, in both instances naming him as the beneficiary. Once all papers were signed, he convinced them that they were ill enough to see a doctor. Then Smith allegedly drowned them while they were soaking in the tub, using the recent doctor’s visit to suggest that the women had fainted from ill-health and died accidentally.

The inquests on all three women each absolved Smith of wrongdoing, but his use of the same modus operandi –a bathtub drowning in a boarding house- finally aroused the suspicion of Alice Burnham’s father. But Smith’s conviction was not guaranteed, especially since three inquest juries had seen fit to turn him loose. The Crown turned to eminent forensic scientist Bernard Spilsbury, whose talent for collecting and accurately assessing post-mortem evidence was unparalleled. His testimony withstood the barrages of the eminent Sir Edward Marshall Hall, who represented the defendant, and sent Smith to the gallows in August 1915.

The Magnificent Spilsbury and the Case of the Brides in the Bath skilfully intertwines the new century’s most sensational domestic murder case to date and the evolution of scientific principles in murder investigations. Spilsbury asserted that George Smith had murdered the three women by suddenly grabbing and lifting their legs, forcing their heads under water and preventing any outcry that other lodgers might hear. His medico-legal testimony at the trial likened him to the deductive literary hero Sherlock Holmes, and the awestruck jury found Smith guilty.

But was he?

Author Jane Robins points out that Smith was an undisputed bigamist, but was he actually a murderer? He had married several women between 1908 and 1914, some of whom testified at the trial, and while he maltreated and robbed all of them, only three died. While the powerful similarity between the deaths of Bessie Mundy, Alice Burnham, and Margaret Lofty make his guilt probable, Robins debates whether he would have been executed if tried today. It’s an interesting question- perhaps a skilled defense lawyer would have raised enough reasonable doubt in a modern courtroom to gain Smith a lesser sentence.

RIP Rick Mattix

On October 27, 2010, the true crime community lost one of its greatest minds, strongest supporters, and best friends. I’m talking about Rick ‘Mad Dog’ Mattix.

I haven’t fully accepted the fact that there will be no more wryly humorous e-mails from Rick, discussing his current projects and encouraging me to persist with a good idea. Even if he was having a bad day, he could reframe all the aggravating people and incidents in a way that made me tell him more than once that he should write skits for Saturday Night Live.

In 2003 Bill Helmer encouraged me to turn my long-time fascination with Dean O’Banion into a book. Rick soon took up that cause, complaining that if he saw another Al Capone biography come out, he’d apply for a bonfire permit. I soon caved in to such hilarious determination and assembled my collection of notes and photocopies into a book, Guns and Roses. When I wrote The Man Who Got Away and The Starker, Rick sent me material, suggestions, and corrections for both titles and graciously agreed to provide the forward for the former. I like to think that they are much better books because of his input.

Like Bill, Rick warmly greeted newcomers to the field of true crime writing. Some forums are zealously (or maybe jealously is a better word) guarded by gatekeepers who regard any new blood as a threat to their standing. Rick thought that was bullshit. He believed that we all stood to learn from one another. He’s right. “Today’s newbies will probably be one of your favorite authors tomorrow,” he told me once. Right again.

Rick, you’re probably having a great time right now and wondering what we’re all fussing about down here, but until we all meet again, please know the following:

Many an aching heart continues to beat for you
and many an eye continues to pay tribute
Too solemn for words.

The Missing Corpse

The theft of Manhattan millionaire Alexander T. Stewart’s corpse from its ornate vault on November 7, 1878 shocked Gilded Age New York. It triggered one of the biggest police investigations in the NYPD’s history, and inspired Mark Twain’s satiric short story, The Stolen White Elephant. But because the body was never recovered, the public soon lost interest and the case became a grotesque footnote in the city’s wilder past.

The Missing Corpse: Grave Robbing a Gilded Age Tycoon is about a crime that does not initially seem substantial enough to warrant a book. No one was murdered: the ‘victim’ was already dead. Because the police bungled the investigation and the body snatchers were never caught, the whole affair in retrospect seems like life imitating vaudeville. But attorney Wayne Fanebust’s absorbing account of Stewart’s post-mortem abduction reminds us why the case was a public and media sensation in 1878.

When A.T. Stewart, who was widely known as the ‘Merchant Prince of Manhattan’, died in 1876, he was worth an estimated $40-50 million. Although his wealth put him on a par with Morgan, Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, and other Gilded Age tycoons, New York high society snubbed him because of his common origins and he was a lonely, isolated figure. Because he and his wife failed to have children, he dedicated himself to the building of a Long Island suburb, where he wanted to be eventually buried. Pending the completion of this final resting place, his remains were interred in St. Mark’s churchyard in Manhattan. When they disappeared in November 1878, the press and public went into a speculative frenzy: would there be a fabulous ransom demanded, or was the stunt a backlash against often-tyrannical Stewart personally?

A.T. Stewart's Fifth Avenue mansion circa 1869 (Library of Congress)

Grave robbery was appalling but common in nineteenth century America, as medical schools needed cadavers to experiment on and paid well for them. The theft of a millionaire’s bones dragged the practice from its traditional arena of police blotters and private shame and put it on front pages everywhere.

The Missing Corpse: Grave Robbing a Gilded Age Tycoon is more than just an account of New York’s most macabre ‘missing persons’ case. It’s also a journey into the shadows of nineteenth century America, where ostracized millionaires, body snatchers, phoney clairvoyants, and other misfits wallowed and occasionally made history.

Hot Time in the Old Town

Summer was pretty mild in my neck of the woods this year, but I’ve lived through enough scorchers to know how debilitating hot temperatures can be. Edward P. Kohn’s Hot Time in the Old Town: the Great Heat Wave of 1896 and the Making of Theodore Roosevelt is an intense narration of a killer heat wave that tortured New York City for ten days in August 1896. By the time it lifted, an estimated 1300 people were dead, along with William Jennings Bryan’s shot at the presidency.

New York turned into an inferno on August 5th. When temperatures rose to 100-plus degrees, working men and horses dropped dead in the streets and tenement dwellers broiled in their badly ventilated apartments. At night suffering city dwellers clustered on rooftops and along the piers, trying to suck cooler air into their overheated lungs. Police Commissioner Theodore Roosevelt stepped in where city officials would not, hosing down the reeking streets to lower the temperatures and raise the sanitation levels, and campaigning to provide free life-saving ice to the poor.

Small boys cooling their heads in a public fountain

Horses being cooled off in summertime New York

As this fight for life reached its zenith, William Jennings Bryan, populist from Nebraska and Democratic presidential nominee, came into town to convince the citizens of New York that they should elect him instead of Republican candidate William McKinley. But he was so wilted by a long, hot train trip across the country that he read his Madison Square Garden speech from a paper instead of giving the same type of oratory fireworks that secured him the Democratic nomination in the first place. The heat also proved too oppressive for his audience, which left in droves.

Edward Kohn takes a well-rounded approach to this history of a forgotten natural disaster. His descriptions of a city under siege are unsettling in their specificity. He uses statistics when warranted, but prefers to put a human face on the disaster. We could forget a label like ‘victim number one’ but not the story of fifteen-month old Hyman Goldman, who had arrived with his parents from Russia nine months before and died from "exhaustion" on the heat wave's first day. Another tiny victim, Annie Botchkiss was born on August 6 in a rear tenement, and succumbed to the heat only five days later.

On the surface, a book that combines a killer heat wave and an electoral contest appears to be trying to mix literary apples with oranges. But Edward Kohn proves that not even a presidential candidate was immune to the heat’s negative impact.