"I hated to kill the boy, but I wanted to make his father wretched.”: Anna Gades' Revenge - 1905

FULL TEXT: New York. July 19. – Believing the loss of his son would be the cruelest blow she could inflict upon her husband. Mrs. Anna Gades, thirty-four years old, of Williamsburg, to-day, in a fit of jealousy and anger, stabbed and killed her nineteen months’ old child, Hans. The woman clapped the child in her arms as she lay on the bed, suffering from heat. Grasping a long knife in her hand, she ran it through the child and it penetrated her own breast, inflicting a wound which was so serious that it was necessary to remove her to the Eastern District Hospital.

For several weeks the woman had acted strangely. She quarreled often with her husband and openly accused him of paying attention to her sister, who lives in Bronx. She imagined that her husband and sister were conspiring to steal her son from her.

When Gades returned home from his work last evening, his wife and child were missing. He searched for them and about midnight found them in a nearby park. He persuaded his wife to return. Gades sat by a window and his wife went to a bedroom in their little flat. He fell asleep and it was nearly morning when he was awakened by groans. Running to the bedroom, he found the woman crouching beside the bed on which lay the body of his only child. Grasping his wife by the arm, Gades attempted to take the knife from her. She turned upon him and in a struggle for the weapon his hands were severely cut.

Gades ran into the street and called for help. Policeman Costello responded and called an ambulance. The babe’s body was taken to the station-house and the mother was locked up. There it was found that she was wounded.

“There was no reason to kill Hans,” she told the sergeant, “but when I could not get a chance to kill my husband, because he watched me so closely, I had to kill his son for revenge. I hated to kill the boy, but I wanted to make his father wretched.”

[“Kills Child For Revenge - “Woman Stabs a Nineteen Months Old Baby to Inflict Pain Upon Husband - Crazed By Jealousy - Knife Driven Through Infant’s Body So Forcibly That Mother Is Wounded,” The Call (San Francisco, Ca.), Jul. 20, 1905, p. 2]

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SEE:  Maternal Filicide: Spousal Revenge Motive

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