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President William McKinley’s assassin, Leon Czologz. Click to enlarge in new window.

Forgotten President, Forgotten Assassin

In the 1890s, Leon Czologz joined the growing American anarchist movement because of what he perceived as a great injustice to the common man by the wealthy who exploited the poor to enrich themselves. He blamed government for this inequality and after reading about the assassination of Italian King Umberto I by anarchist Gaetano Bresci in 1900, Czologz decided to take matters into his own hands by killing President William McKinley.

On Sept. 6^th, 1901, Czologz caught up with President McKinley at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York and with a $4.50 revolver shot at him twice, mortally wounding the president in the abdomen with one bullet. As the crowd pounced on Czologz, President McKinley is reported to have said, “Go easy on him boys, he could not have known.”

McKinley died eight days later from an infection.

Czologz was indicted 10 days later but refused to assist his defense attorneys in his own trial which began on Sept. 23^th, just 17 days after he shot the president. He was found guilty the next day and two days later, the jury fixed his punishment as death.

Leon Czologz was executed in the electric chair (a fairly new means of execution at the time) at New York’s Auburn Prison on Oct. 29^th, 1901, just 54 days after he shot the president.

As he was strapped into the chair, Czologz told those in attendance, “I killed the President because he was the enemy of the good people – the good working people. I am not sorry for my crime.” However, his last words before the guards flipped the switch were ones of regret, “ I am only sorry I could not get to see my father.”

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After my last post (The Andrea Yates Epidemic of 1901) I remembered reading this filicide story (a parent who kills their children) and decided to post it because it has subtle differences to it compared to the mothers in the 1901 story. The father’s excuses and story in this post seem a little “hinky.” Isn’t it always odd how the parent “tries” to commit suicide afterwards and they always seem to fail?

Chester Barrett of Sapulpa
Charged With Murder After
He Is Said to Have Made Confession.
“Family Starving,”
HIS EXCUSE FOR ACT
“I Couldn’t Bear It Any Longer,”
He Is Quoted as Saying
Five Others in Family Made Ill

[Sapulpa, Oklahoma, May 5, 1934] A father who said he “could not bear to see my family starve” was held without bond here tonight on a murder charge after three of his small children had died from poison he allegedly administered.

Sebe Christian, Creek County Attorney, said the father, Chester Barrett, 32 years old, signed a full confession after several hours questioning today. A murder charge was filed immediately. The father’s excuse for the act, which not only killed the three little girls, but endangered the lives of his wife and four of his five other children, was that he was ill and had no money.

“I have been sick for months and can’t work,” Christian quoted Barrett as saying.

Had No Money

“I hadn’t any money and my family was starving. I couldn’t bear it any longer.” The dead are Betty Jo, 6; Mary Kathryn, 3, and Wanda Marie, 2.

Mrs. Barrett and Cora Lucille, 12 Duane, 10; Mildred, 8, and Dorothy, 5, were made seriously ill, but doctors said they would recover. Barrett also took some of the poison, which was administered last night, but recovered sufficiently to be taken to the courthouse today.

He did not give any of the poison to his 7-months-old baby.

“I could not do that,” Christian said Barrett declared. “I hoped someone would find the baby and take care of her. I didn’t want her to die, too.”

The statement related, Christian said, that Barrett tried to give his family poison Monday night [April 30th, 1934], but it failed to take effect. It was administered in milk on that occasion. “Barrett said he wanted to try again Wednesday night, but lost his nerve.” Christian added.

Questioned Before Officers

Sheriff Willis Strange, Deputy Lee Snider and Police Chief J.O. Edwards sat with Christian while Barrett was questioned.

The authorities were unaware of the tragedy in the shabby little dwelling on the out skirts of Sapulpa until late last night. Barrett, staggering from the effects of the poison he took, then went to the home of a neighbor, Mrs. Clara Hugo, and told her his family was ill, apparently from food poisoning.

Mrs.Hugo called Dr. P.K.Lewis, county physician, and he hastily summoned additional medical aid.

It was too late to save the three little girls, but the others were given effective emergency treatment.

Three of the Barrett children recovered recently from attacks of measles, and Barrett said he told the family he was giving them quinine to ward off fevers. He purchased the poison on the pretext he wished to kill rats.

Editors Note: Chester Barrett was executed in Oklahoma’s electric chair on September 20, 1935.

Source: Associated Press via The Joplin Globe, May 5, 1934

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As sad as this story is, in the course of my research for other vintage crimes I come across many similar accounts of parents murdering their children (known as filicide) due to depression, religious fervor, or other reasons. In most of these cases, poverty drives their depression. With just some light searching done of newspaper archives for 1901, I found 4 different cases.

Rosa Wurzer, Pt. 1: Crazed by Poverty, Mother Kills Her Six Babes

(Uniontown, WA, Saturday, Feb. 23, 1901) Six children were murdered by their crazed mother at Uniontown, Wash., the crime being unusual in the method employed. Mrs. Rosa Wurzer, a widow, threw her six children, two boys and four girls into a well thirty feet deep and with but two feet of water at the bottom.

Then she jumped into the well herself and ‘held the little ones’ heads under the water until all were drowned.

Neighbors found Mrs. Wurzer in the well with her six murdered children, and putting a rope around her body, drew her out. She is violently insane and is restrained with difficulty.

Mrs. Wurzer’s husband died one year ago leaving her in destitute circumstances. She has been supported by the county which allowed her $15 a month and by the charity of her neighbors. Brooding over her circumstances drove her crazy and she was determined to kill her children and herself, but the shallowness of the water in the well prevented her attempt to end her own life.

Rosa Wurzer, Pt. 2: Murderess of Six Children Makes Escape

(Uniontown, Wash., Sunday, Feb. 25, 1901) Mrs. Wurzer, the insane murderess escaped the vigilance of guards Sunday night and went to the home of Peter Jacobs and broke a window, frightening the inmates considerably and then visited the residence of Mr. Koester.

All had retired but Mrs. Koester who was sitting at a table writing a letter. Upon hearing a knock at the door Mrs. Koester asked who was there. The reply came “Please let me in I want to toll yon something.” Mrs. Koester unlocked the door and the insane visitor clad only in her night drops, seized her with both hands. Mrs. Koester screamed and ran to the room where her husband was asleep. He sprang from the bed, caught the crazy intruder and called his brother. Together they led the poor woman back to her home.

She escaped from her watchers by climbing out through the window.

Coroner Mitchell and Deputy Sheriff Hamilton arrived at the scene of the Wurzer tragedy at 8 a. m. The coroner’s verdict was that the children came to their death at the hands of the mother.

Upon preparing them for burial, fingermarks were found on the throats of all, indicating that they had been strangled before being thrown into the well. The ruddy color of the skin and the absence of the flow of water from the mouths during the preparation for laying out would seem to indicate that they were dead before being cast into the water. The necks of all except one were broken. Mary, aged 6, has a deep gash in the top of the head and a two inch cut over the left ear. In addition Rosa [not the mother] has a broken shoulder and Anna a broken thigh and arm. Besides these there are numerous bruises, probably caused by the thirty foot drop into the well.

Last evening the unfortunate little one lay in six coffins in the sitting room of what was their home.

I couldn’t find any follow-up stories on a trial/punishment for Wurzer but she may have been sent to an insane asylum.

Inflamed by Religious Frenzy, A Maddened Pittsburgh Woman Throws Children Into River

(Pittsburgh, PA, Tuesday, Feb. 20, 1901) Mrs. Maggie Deithorn, aged 26 years, walked out on the Twenty-second street bridge early today with her two children, aged two and four years, and when in the cantor of the structure quickly picked up the little ones and threw them into the Monongahela  River. Before she could follow, she was arrested. Boats put out at once and rescued one of the children, but the other was drowned. The woman was evidently demented. She told the police that the act was an inspiration from heaven.

She has been under religious excitement for several weeks and has been almost constantly praying. The boy, who was rescued, was taken to the South Side hospital. It is thought he will die from exposure. The body of the girl was recovered.

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Mother Murders Children with Morphine

(St. Louis, Michigan, Monday, May 20, 1901) Mrs. Elmer Quimby, wife of a farmer living five miles south, gave her two children, a boy of 7 and a girl of 9, two large doses and both children died early today. Mrs. Quimby took 18 grams herself but it acted as an emetic [causes vomiting]. She will recover. Family trouble is the alleged cause.

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Mother Throws Her Little Ones Into a Well and Leaps in Herself

WELL LITERALLY FILLED WITH BODIES OF DEAD

Woman Had Only Recently Been Released From an Insane Asylum as Cured, But It Is Evident Insanity Returned.

(Cleveland, Ohio, Friday, Sept. 27, 1901) At Little York, 15 miles from here [Cleveland], Mrs. Perry Curtis, wife of a farmer, today drowned her three small children in a well and then committed suicide by jumping in the well. Following are the names and ages of the dead:

• MRS. PERRY CURTIS, 38 years.
• ROSA CURTIS, 2 years.
• ANNIE CURTIS, 6 years.
• HAROLD SCUDDER, 9 years.

The latter was Mrs. Curtis’s stepson. Mrs. Curtis was released from Massillon Insane Asylum recently as cured. Eugene Roberts, a neighbor, discovered the insane mother’s crime when he attempted to draw some water from the well and to his horror found It literally filled with dead bodies.

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The following story is the “confession” Cecile Valore made to Cleveland authorities before she was sentenced to prison for her part in a murder. At the bottom is link a to Google News Archive page of a Sunday Edition Full Page Story about Cecile and her husband’s gang and their crimes.

Mrs. Cecile Valore Tells Sheriff that Her Husband Killed Dr. Alfred P. Scully at Cleveland Last March —Half Dozen Other Murders Cleared up by her Confession — Her Husband in Ohio Penitentiary Serving Life Term.

Cecile Valore “Ganster Queen?”

(CLEVELAND, OHIO Feb. 18,1931) Caught flat footed by the confession of Mrs. Cecile Valore that her husband, Ross, murdered Dr. Alfred P. Scully here last March, police and deputy sheriffs made desperate but futile efforts’ today to round up a half dozen men implicated by the woman in the Scully and other crimes.

Mrs. Valore said her husband had slain six men.

“I don’t believe she told that,” Valore said last night at Columbus where he is serving a life term for the murder of R. Miller Wilkison, Princeton student, at a Shaker ‘Heights party last fall. “If she did say it, she lied.”

Mrs. Valore made her confession public to officials and newspapers men late yesterday. It developed that she had made the same Confession to County Prosecutor Ray T. Miller a week ago.

Miller said today that it was “unfortunate she made it public at this time.”

Mrs. Valore confessed to Sheriff John Sulzmann and Criminal Court Judge Walter McMahon. The judge said that detective inspector Cornelius Cody also had known the facts for several days.

She accused her husband of the following crimes:

• Murder of Dr. Scully [on March 3, 1930]: She said that Valore and a relative went to Scully’s office and that the doctor was slain when he resisted robbery.
• Killing in the county jail of Anthony Colletto who was being held on charge of murder for the killing of his wife. The coroner said lie hanged himself although his attorneys insisted it was a murder.
• Slaying of a guard at Mansfield. Another man was convicted and died in the electric chair.
• Killing of a man in the robbery of the Blue Pig Inn here. The killing was attributed to policemen.
• Killing of another man, in a crime the details of which she had forgotten.
• Bombing of the homes of two Loraiu county attorneys who failed to get Valore out of trouble after accepting a fee.

The woman pleaded guilty last week to a charge of general homicide in connection with the Windsor killing.

McMahon had deferred sentence to give her a chance to tell what she knew about other crimes.

Dr. Alfred Scully

“Honest, I never took part planning a crime,’ she cried to Sulzmann, McMahon and newspaperman.

“Everything I ever did was done because I was afraid of Ross and what his people might do to my mother.”

She admitted that she was in the auto when Valore and the Ball brothers, Mike and Angelo, went to the Wilkison residence.

The woman was alternately tearful and defiant.

She sat on a woman’s bed in the women’s ward of the county jail while she told her story.

“It all proves that humanitarianism pays,” Sulzmann exulted. “That little girl said to me, ‘Sheriff you have been like a father to me and I want to confess to you,’ so we sent for the judge.” ‘

Officials decline to be quoted but they indicated they did not accept her story at full value. Six squads policemen, however, were detailed to hunt for Joe Valore, brother of Ross [her husband] who she said “knew a lot about the Scully murder.” Police were eager to question him about it.

Source: United Press

A full newspaper page follow up story to this case can be found here. Please note that to navigate this page, place your mouse on the content, left click once, and then move it where you want to go. There are also Zoom In and Zoom Out icons at the top that are labeled – and +.

Here is another link to the same story but with different pictures.

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The following story points out that instances of rage killing in the workplace are not limited to the modern era. I searched for follow-up stories to this incident but could find nothing.

From Pig-killer to Man Killing

SOMERVILLE. MASS. July 5, 1901. With a maniacal shriek, John Murphy turned from pig-sticking to man killing in the North Packing and Provision Company’s slaughter-house today, and, driving more than a hundred of his fellow-workmen before him, slew five of them almost instantly, fatally wounding three others, and slashed several more to a lesser extent before he was overpowered.

The Dead.
Thomas Crowe, of Cambridge, forty-two years old, married, almost decapitated.
Michael Janious, of Somervllle, stabbed through the heart.
Hubert Smith, colored, of Cambridge, stabbed through the heart.
James Carter, colored, of Cambridge, stabbed through the heart.
Joseph L. Giveronia, Italian, stabbed through the heart.
Fatally lnjured.
Dr. Daniel C. Hayen, of Waltham, married, a United States meat inspector. Stabbed in the neck, breast and abdomen.
John Chicosk, knife wounds in back, breast and on arms.
John Cheevins, of Cambridge, stabbed in breast and neck.

There was a panic among the employes in the killing-room on the seventh floor when Murphy began his deadly work. All hands rushed for the doors with the maniac in close pursuit, brandishing a razor-edged knife about fifteen inches in length which he used in his work of ending the lives of pigs. He struck down two more in addition to Dr. Hayes, both the latter dying as soon as they fell.

Workmen Fled in Terror.
Down the stairs he pursued the crowd of yelling workmen, slashing viciously as he overtook first one and then another. Three more men fell victims to his deadly thrusts and expired on the landing.

An Italian grabbed an iron bar going down the stairs and knocked Murphy to the floor with it, but he was up in an instant and cut several more before another blow from the bar stretched him on his side and the knife dropped from his hand.

But he was still conscious, and staggering to his feet ran into the ham-making room on the third floor of the building. Here he was unable to breathe, and as he tried to get away from the suffocating place he was jumped upon by a dozen men, borne to the floor, and overpowered. Some of the workmen were so enraged by the fearful scene they had witnessed that they lost their heads and administered a severe beating to Murphy before the police could get him away.

Moody for Several Days.
Murphy had been acting rather queerly of late. His wife, the mother of three children, says that for some days he had been complaining that his fellow-employes were daily throwing missiles at him while he was at work, and that some of them were talking behind his back criticizing his method of disposing of the hogs.

It was noticed by the workmen in the hog-killing-room that the man was moody, and that for several days he had taken advantage of every spare moment to put a keener edge to his big knife.

Jumped on Inspector
This afternoon, when Murphy was standing at the end of a line of rollers, over which the hogs, bound by the feet, pass along to their death, he was seen to talk to himself considerably. but as he never failed in his long-practiced thrust into the jugular veins of the swine, no attention was paid to him. About ten feet away stood Dr. Hayes, attending to his usual duties.

The inspector casually spoke to Murphy, and the latter, turning like a flash, jumped at him and buried his keen knife in Hayes’s groin. Two more stabs he gave, one into the inspector’s neck and the other into his breast near the heart.

About 125 workmen were stretched along several rows of cutting benches in the room, and when they heard Murphy’s maniacal yells and saw him plunge his knife into the inspector’s body they made for the door.

Stabbed Right and Left
Murphy turned from his first victim and dashed after them, striking down the first two he came up with. They received unerring stabs in the breast and dropped to the floor, dying. Through the door and down six flights of stairs fled the panic-stricken crowd and from other doors poured out more employees. Waving his weapon over his head and shouting imprecations came the insane man stabbing right and left. He killed three more in the mad flight down the stairway and wounded several, but the blows he had received from the iron bar weakened him, and he dropped his knife to take refuge in the smoke-room from which he emerged only to be captured.

Murphy is about fifty years of age and is a powerfully built man weighing about 200 pounds. Locked up in a padded cell at the Police Station in Somerville, he dared any one to approach him.

Two Have Narrow Escape
Dr. E.W. Clark, another government inspector, witnessed the stabbing of Dr. Hayes and was chased into a side-room by Murphy, the latter blocked the doorway and seemed intent upon killing the inspector but suddenly changed his mind and sought another victim. Murphy evidently wanted to find Dr. Fred Saunders, also a veterinarian, he was heard shouting his name.

Source: The Times Dispatch, Richmond VA, June 6, 1901

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The supposedly occult powers of Prince Yogi, otherwise known as James Rollett, were not sufficient to keep the Yogi out of jail, nor once behind the bars, allay his apprehension about the future he is supposed to read like a book.

Despite protestations that he earned his living by telling fortunes, Yogi was arrested Tuesday (Nov.26, 1935) by Detectives R.B. Jones and A.A. Leitch. The arrest was made at a rooming house at 20 ½ East First Street and the charge was vagrancy.

Among Yogi’s effects were photographs, one showing him attired in a white turban and flowing cape standing before a theater where signs were displayed proclaiming that he “sees all, knows all.”

In jail Tuesday night, Yogi told of having used his hypnotic powers to put two fellow prisoners to sleep. He said he predicted future events by consulting the stars. Then he was inspired by sudden concern.

“Say,” he addressed a jailer, “what do you suppose the judge will do with me tomorrow?”

The jailer considered with some disdain before replying: “Well, it is a cloudy night and I’ll admit you can’t see the stars, but if you see all and know all, why should you wonder?”

Source: Tulsa Daily World, Nov. 27, 1935, page 1.

cuckold

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The bullet in Chester Comer’s head made it difficult for him to speak. As he lay on the floor of a mechanic’s garage in Blanchard, Oklahoma, his head bandaged with a bloody towel, state crime bureau agents and lawmen from four counties knelt down to try and make sense of his mumbling, incoherent words.

Chester Comer

“Chester, is Ray Evan’s body in the Canadian River,” agent Clint Miers asked the hitch-hiking murderer. He was desperate to learn the location of five bodies before the killer himself died on the floor.

Chester shook his head “no.”

Miers pressed the 23 year-old gunman further but yielded to Oklahoma County Sheriff Stanley Rogers who had more luck when he heard Chester mutter the words:

“North of Ada –bunch of bodies,” he mumbled loud enough to hear. “Three bodies…oh, piles of bodies.”

That would be enough information to send 100s of volunteers searching the back roads, creeks, and fields near Ada, Oklahoma, looking for Chester’s victims. But it was time for him to get to the hospital. Blanchard didn’t have the medical facilities for a man with a gunshot to the head and four other bullets in him. They needed to keep Chester alive. He was bleeding out all over the place. Oklahoma City, with specialists and the best hospital in the state, was 30 miles away but the small hospital in Chickasha was closer to Blanchard.

They chose Oklahoma City.

State crime bureau agents loaded Chester in the dead man’s car he’d been caught driving and with a police escort drove north to Oklahoma City. The devil was dying in the back seat and they needed to keep him alive long enough to find his victims.

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