This US case is of particular interest in that all parties are Hungarian immigrants. Thus the Veras case ought to be compared with the serial murder syndicates operating in Hungary up till the early 1930s. (See: Husband-Killing Syndicates)
Some news sources use other spellings “Veras, Vera,” but
“Veras” seems to be the correct spelling.
***
FULL TEXT (Article 1 of 9): Specters of nine strange deaths stalked Mrs. Rose Veres, weazened “Witch of Delray," today as detectives questioned her about the death of a tenth man in her home within the last 10 years. Mrs. Veres vigorously denied implication in the death of Steven Mak, 68,. ostensibly of a fall from a ladder.
~ REFUSES TO TALK IN ENGLISH. ~
Her denials came through a Hungarian Interpreter after the
tight-lipped woman insisted she could not answer in English, although John
Walker, negro neighbor, said she confessed to him that Mak had been slain.
The woman was to appear in court today on a habeas corpus
writ similar to one for her 18-year-old son, William, held in connection with
stories that he had participated with his mother in an alleged beating of Mak
that preceded his plunge from an attic window.
Police checking the strange death record of the woman's last
10 years learned that three of her husbands were among the 10 deaths. Her
attorney, Frank W. Kenney. Jr., said Mak was another husband. The fatal roster
included:
John Toth, carbon monoxide poisoning.
Stephen Flash, alcoholism.
John Kolachl, intestinal ailment. Garbor Veres, died with
Toth.
John Norvay, undetermined.
Louis Kulacs, undetermined. Alex Porezios, undetermined.
John Skrivan, said to have hanged himself in the home.
Steve Sebastian, supposed alcoholic.
~ Many Neighborhood Rumors. ~
Information concerning the deaths was tangled and vague,
police said, because of long-standing neighborhood rumors about strange events
in the Veres home.
Detective Lieutenant Rudolph H. Hosfelt today revealed that
Mak had been under partial police protection since July 6 when neighbors,
reported be was being beaten in the basement of the home. A week ago, Hosfelt
said, police quieted a disturbance in the Veres home upon complaint of a
neighbor and that Mak told him Mrs. Veres had given him some
"medicine," which he believed was poison, to get insurance drawn in
her favor.
A post-mortem was to be held today on Mak’s body.
[“Detroit Woman Questioned About Tenth Man's Death In Her
Home In Ten Years,” The News-Herald (Franklin and Oil City, Pa.), Aug. 26,
1931, p. 1]
***
FULL TEXT (Article 2 of 9): Detroit - A mother and her son were held by police today following the death by a fall from a window of a roomer in their home and the subsequent discovery by police that ten men, on most of whom the woman held insurance policies, had died in her rooming house during the past eight years.
The woman, Mrs. Rose Veras, 48, whose rooming house is in this city’s Hungarian colony, is held on a technical charge of homicide. Her son, William, 18, was arrested for investigation.
The death of Steve Mak, 68, a roomer at Mrs. Veras’ home opened the police investigation. Mrs. Veras told police Mak fell from a ladder while repairing an attic window, other witnesses said Mak was not at work on a ladder, and that it appeared he had been pushed from the window.
George M. Stutz, assistant prosecuting attorney, said he had learned there was one valid insurance policy on Mak’s life, for $4,000, of
which Mrs. Veras was the beneficiary. He said he had learned Mrs. Veras
recently borrowed money to make a payment on the policy.
~ Says It’s Customary ~
Mrs. Veras told police it was customary in the Hungarian colony for a landlady to insure her roomers in her behalf. Police said 75 policies
were found in her home. They expressed the belief that several of them
had been made out in her favor by most of the ten men whose deaths
occurred in her house since 1923.
Detective
Lieutenant John Whitman said he had learned Mrs. Veras paid the funeral
expenses of seven of the men who died at her house.
Police
examined their records to determine the cause of the death of the ten,
and announced that post mortems had been held on the bodies of two who
died of alcoholism, and that no evidence of criminal activities had been
found.
~ Freedom Delayed ~
Frank
M. Kenney, Mrs. Veras’ attorney, presented a writ of habeas corpus for
the release of Mrs. Veras and her son, returnable today. Instead of
dismissing the writ, as he first announced. Recorders Judge Henry S.
Sweeney extended the time to Thursday, saying he desired to give the
police “all the time they want in investigating the case.”
Kenney
declared the action against Mrs. Veras to be the result of neighborhood
gossip. He said the previous deaths had been investigated and showed no
criminal activity.
Detectives
investigating Mrs. Veras’ activities said she had a record of six
previous arrests, but no convictions. One of the arrests, they said, was
for embezzlement.
[“Detroit
Woman, Son Jailed As Suspects In Insurance Murders Ten Men Meet Death
In Rooming House Within 8 Years; Policies Named Accused As Beneficiary,
Police Claim.” Syndicated (AP), Sandusky Register (Oh.), Aug. 27, 1931,
p. 1]
***
FULL TEXT: (Article 3 of 9): Detroit – Four persons were in custody today as authorities sought to learn whether the deaths of ten men over a period of eight years in Mrs. Rose Veras’ rooming house were from natural causes or violence.
~ Find 75 Policies ~
Mrs.
Veras, the 48-year-old Hungarian immigrant who held insurance policies
on the ten who died, has been in custody since Tuesday on a technical
charge of murder. Other policies, 75 in all, were found by officers in
her home and investigators were attempting to learn the fate of the
insured.
The
list of deaths under investigation had reached 11 today, with discovery
that Valet Peterman, 68, a boarder in the Veras home, died shortly
after moving to another house.
Sam
Denyen who, police said, lived in the Veras home until two weeks ago,
was arrested in Logan, W. Va., late yesterday and a detective left last
night to question him. Mrs. Veras’ 15-year old son, Gaber, was detained
for questioning yesterday. Another son, William, 18, has been held for
several days.
~ Pushed Out of Window? ~
The
investigation was inspired by the death of Steve Mak, a roomer, Tuesday
morning from injuries received in a fall. Mrs. Veras said he fell while
working on a ladder.
Neighbors
who claimed to have witnessed his fall, told police he appeared to have
been pushed from an attic window and drugged at the time.
[“Widow
Quizzed in 10 Deaths,” “Probe Rooming House Deaths – Four In Custody As
Police Investigate Death of Eleven Men; Hungarian Woman Held Insurance
Policies,” syndicated (NEA), Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune (Wi.), Aug.
28, 1931, p. 1]
***
***
***
***
FULL
TEXT (Article 4 of 9): Detroit, Aug. 31 – Duncan C. McRae, assistant
prosecutor, announced today that Mrs. Rose Veras, rooming house
proprietor, held on a technical charge of homicide following the death
during the past eight years of 12 men in her home, had confessed to “a
party not connected with the police department,” that she pushed one of
the men from an attic window, the fall causing his death.
McCrae
said that the woman told the person whose name was not revealed by
police that she pushed Stephen Mak, the last of the 12 men to die, from
an attic window after attempts to poison him has failed.
~ Had 75 Policies. ~
Harry
S. Toy, prosecuting attorney, said he would not reveal how the
confession was obtained. He said that for reasons he “did not care to
disclose” the person’s identity, which would not be revealed at present.
Seventy-five
life insurance policies were found in Mrs. Veras’ home, when she was
arrested, on the lives of the men who died in her home. Officials said
that Mrs. Veras held at last $6400 insurance on the life of Mak.
~ Denies Others. ~
McCrae
said the woman denied any complicity in any of the other deaths in her
home, but had admitted she killed Mak to obtain insurance money of which
she was the beneficiary. She said she held seven policies on Mak’s life
and that she paid the premiums on all of them.
According
to McCrae, Mrs. Veras confessed she tried to poison Mak by putting lye
in his coffee and liquor that he drank, but when she found he was not
“dying fast enough” she lured him up a ladder, placed at the side of her
home, urging him to enter an attic window and then pushed him from the
window. Mak died the day following the fall from the window.
[“Detroit
Woman Admits Killing One of 12 Men To Collect Insurance,” syndicated
(AP), The Southeast Missourian (Cape Giradeau, Mo.), Aug. 31, 1931, p.
1]
***
***
FULL
TEXT (Article 5 of 9): Detroit. Sept. 1.—After intermittent grilling of more than 100 hours.
Mrs. Rose Veres. 48, so-called “Witch Widow.” of Medina street where her
unkempt boarding house is located, today broke down and confessed to killing one of the 12 men who
died under what police alleged were incriminating circumstances during the past
eight years. She is charged with murder and faces life imprisonment.
According
to Assistant Prosecutor; Duncan McCrea, in charge of the weird case, the widow
said:
“I
was hard up and needed the insurance money on the man. I tried to poison him
twice but he didn’t die, so I pushed him out of the attic window.”
Her
victim was Steven Mak, 68-year-old roomer, whose death led to the probe which
disclosed that other men had died “mysteriously” in her boarding house.
[“Detroit
Woman Admits Murder – Mrs. Rose Veres, Alleged ‘Witch-Woman’ Confesses To Death
Push - Sought Insurance Money On Victim, syndicated (International News
Service), New Castle News (Pa.), Sep. 1, 1931, p. 12]
FULL
TEXT: (Article 6 of 9): Detroit, Sept. 2. – Officers investigating the
death of Steve Male and eleven other lodgers in Mrs. Rose Veras’ rooming
house said tonight a witness had told them he saw Mak pushed from an
attic window of the rooming house.
“A
pair of arms” shoved Mak from the window, they quoted George Halasz,
the witness, as saying, and a moment later Mrs. Veras peered out. Mak
died August 28 of injuries suffered in the fall.
Halasz,
49, and a former lodger in the rooming house conducted by the
48-year-old woman, said he had gone to the house to see a man rooming
there and was waiting outside when he saw Mak fall to his death. Halasz
also was quoted as saying he moved out of the rooming house because Mrs.
Veras sought to take out an insurance policy on his life, naming her as
beneficiary.
Mrs.
Veras had paid premiums on $2,600 of insurance on Mak’s life and on
seventy-five other policies, many of them on the lives of lodgers who
died in her house or shortly after they moved out, within the past eight
years.
[“Witness Says Lodger Pushed From Window,” syndicated (AP), Bluefield Daily Telegraph (W. Va.), Sep. 3, 1931, p. 1]
Transfixed, by vague fears and a very definite curiosity, Marie remained, wide-eyed, squatting over her mud pies. Probably because she was a member of the more curious sex, little Marie’s curiosity was stronger than her fear. That is why she was later able to recount the entire drama as it unfolded before her young eyes.
***
FULL
TEXT (Article 7 of 9): The “Old Gray Witch of Medina Street” sits in her tiny room in the
Michigan House of Correction at Plymouth. Imprisoned fear life, far from her
native hills of Hungary, she talks to no one. All through the past Winter she
was silent, shunned and feared by her fellow-prisoners. Even now seeing from
her window the trees budding and the grass turning green, just as the Magyar
slopes came to life in the Spring in her native town of Sarud, she keeps a
seemingly mystic vigil, her strange eyes fixed upon objects which do not exist.
Perhaps
it is just as well for her that things beyond her window panes do not intrigue
her, for by the terms of her sentence she will never again be nearer them than,
she is now. Twelve men died, tragically in hear house; three were suicides. And
the other nine? In charging the “witch” with murder, the State decided to
concentrate on the case of Stephen Mak, the twelfth man to die.
It
was last August 21st.
In
the front yard of her home on Medina Street in the Hungarian colony of Detroit,
11-year-old Marie Chevalia was playing. All morning she had been making mud
pies.
It
was a warm day, but the air was heavy, and dull smoke from surrounding
factories resisted the sunlight. Against this background of haze; the house
directly across the street from the yard where little Marie was playing looked
somewhat ghostly.
The
reason, perhaps, lay in the legends of Medina Street.
Almost
from her cradle days, little Marie Chevalia had heard people say strange things
about that house and its inmates.
“Behind
those filmy curtains,” Medina Street mothers told their, .children when family
circles were gathered around the hearths, “stalks a bad witch-woman. Her name
is Mrs. Rose Veres. She bewitches factory men, they go to live in her house,
and in the cellar the witch-woman brews potions. She has the Evil Eye. When she
looks at these men, they have to do when she tells them. They want to go away,
but they can’t. She bewitches them. Then they die.
“She
was born with a full set of teeth and a veil, and if she wants she can change
herself into a wolf or a hare.”
In
the Old World, among the Magyrs, in the Hungarian hills whence most of these
people had come, so-called witches were common. Other people didn’t have to
believe in them if they preferred not to, but all the cynical sophistication in
the world couldn’t take the vampires and other evil spirits out of the darkness
which descended upon Sarud and Nagyrev every night.
These
people knew. They had seen the vampires. They had seen the wolf-men and the
wolf-women and beard their blood-curdling cries whenever anyone in the village
died.
So
Mrs. Veres, it was clear, was a “witch,” even though she lived in Detroit, in
the United States of America.
Why,
many times she had been seen growling about the alleys at might, garbed in her
long flowing garments of black flannel, a cape tucked tightly about her stooped
shoulders and her hair covered by a lace boudoir cap.
On
such occasions it was considered unsafe to be abroad in the darkness. And when
the word would go out that “The Witch of Medina Street” was on a nocturnal
prowl, every door in the neighborhood would be locked and double-barreled, and
every shade drawn.
So
little Marie Chevalia, as she fashioned her mud-pies last August 21st,
was glad that she was in her own yard, glad that it was daylight, glad that she
was in her own yard, glad that her Mamma and Papa had warned her against the
bad witch.
Soon,
as Marie watched, Mrs. Veres stopped out from behind the front door. Marie
dropped her mud pies and stared.
Mrs.
Veres, her net boudoir cap on her head, descended the steps and spoke a few
words in low tones to John Walker, a colored man who had been sprinkling the
lawn. Walker was one of Mrs. Veres’s boarders, and occupied an attic room. At
the “witch’s” direction, he dropped the hose and retired to the cellar to shut
off the water and perform some other duties.
As
soon as Walker had disappeared’ behind the house, little Marie saw Mrs. Veres
pick up a long ladder and place it against the side of the house. Then,
clutching her skirt, beneath which she was accustomed to wear five or six
petticoats, the “Old Gray Witch of Medina Street” walked back into her house
and closed the door behind her.
Transfixed, by vague fears and a very definite curiosity, Marie remained, wide-eyed, squatting over her mud pies. Probably because she was a member of the more curious sex, little Marie’s curiosity was stronger than her fear. That is why she was later able to recount the entire drama as it unfolded before her young eyes.
Presently
an old man emerged from the “witch-house.” He was unsteady on his feet. He was
carrying a small box and a hammer. Marie recognized him as Stephen Mak, one of
Mrs. Veres’s boarders. He walked toward the ladder and put a foot on it.
Hesitantly
he climbed, step by step. At the top he paused to lay his hammer and box on the
ledge. Then he opened the window, pulled himself partially through and sat on
the sill. For a full minute he remained in that position – then before the
watchful eyes of little Marie, be suddenly disappeared.
George
Halasz, a short, swarthy man who lived nearby, was strolling along
Medina Street. Up to this point, he had seen nothing unusual. From the sidewalk
he called once or twice for Mike Ludd, a friend who boarded at the Veres house.
Receiving no immediate reply, Halasz leaned against a tree and started rolling
a cigarette.
A
moment later Walker returned from the basement, rear, and began walking toward
the street. He was almost directly below the attic window when a box of nails
dropped in front
of him; then a hammer thudded. He raised his hands above his head and drew
back, then looked up. As he looked, the body of Stephen Mak hurtled through the
attic window head-first, crashed against the side of the house next door and
plunged headlong to the
ground.
Walker
raced to the back door and shouted loudly for Mrs. Veres. George Halasz removed
his newly rolled cigarette from his mouth and looked on in amazement.
Marie
Chevalia screamed and ran into her house.
Marie’s screams aroused the neighborhood and quickly a crowd gathered around the Veres home. Its gong clanging, an ambulance swung into Medina Street, and fifty-five minutes later the ‘Widow Veres” her face noticeably dirty and her head covered with cobwebs, calmly and inquiringly entered her yard from the alley beyond. Mak was taken t» the Detroit Receiving Hospital, where he died two days later.
Marie’s screams aroused the neighborhood and quickly a crowd gathered around the Veres home. Its gong clanging, an ambulance swung into Medina Street, and fifty-five minutes later the ‘Widow Veres” her face noticeably dirty and her head covered with cobwebs, calmly and inquiringly entered her yard from the alley beyond. Mak was taken t» the Detroit Receiving Hospital, where he died two days later.
Mak’s
death
went into the preliminary official reports as an accident. Mrs. Veres
told police that she had asked him to fix the window, and that he had
presumably
fallen because of his age and infirm condition. At the time, she
explained, she
had been shopping, and her elder son, William, was at a movie. Walker
corroborated this story. Police were not suspicious. Mrs. Veres’s
reputation as
a “witch” was not taken seriously beyond Medina Street.
But
rumoxs began, to get around. Mak was the twelfth man to die prematurely after a
residence in the Veres house. The first was Veres himself. The. rest were
boarders. And little Marie Chevalia kept telling her mama that “the witch
killed Mr. Mak. I saw her face in the window.” George Halasz was quite sure of
that, too.
Then
it was discovered that the window Mak went up to fix needed no fixing; that he
wore shoes when he went up and none when he came down, that he had told
neighbors he was afraid of Mrs. Veres and was sure that she was going to kill
him; that there were marks on his head which looked like blows; and something
in his stomach which might not be just liquor.
It was revealed, too, that on the morning of Mak’s death Mrs. Veres had cut a hole in the attic partition through which a man’s body, might drawn, that that she had offered Walter $500 to “keep his mouth shut” about his suspicions.
Officials of insurance companies volunteered the information that Mrs. Veres had a $5,000 policy on Mak’s life, double indemnity in case of accidental death—and that she was; still trying to make collections on policies issued to her on the lives of dead former boarders. It was revealed, too, that she owed $1,000 to her next-door neighbor, Aaron Freed, and had promised to pay him “as soon as I collect some insurance money.” Police soon found a trunk containing over seventy-five policies taken out by Mrs. Veres since she moved to Detroit.
It was revealed, too, that on the morning of Mak’s death Mrs. Veres had cut a hole in the attic partition through which a man’s body, might drawn, that that she had offered Walter $500 to “keep his mouth shut” about his suspicions.
Officials of insurance companies volunteered the information that Mrs. Veres had a $5,000 policy on Mak’s life, double indemnity in case of accidental death—and that she was; still trying to make collections on policies issued to her on the lives of dead former boarders. It was revealed, too, that she owed $1,000 to her next-door neighbor, Aaron Freed, and had promised to pay him “as soon as I collect some insurance money.” Police soon found a trunk containing over seventy-five policies taken out by Mrs. Veres since she moved to Detroit.
William,
her elder son, had testified that he was, at a movie at the time of Mak’s
“fall.” But John Veres, the widow’s younger son, frankly told detectives
another version.
“Bill
told me to say he was at the Grand Theatre,” John told officers. “But he
wasn’t. He was at home with Mother.”
William
Veres was destined to share his mother’s fate. He, too, received a life
sentence, in spite of his youth. Old Mrs. Veres sits motionless in the House of
Correction. ‘Her eyes’ seem fixed upon objects.
[“While
a Little Girl Watched the Old Gray Witch of Medina Street – The Hungarian Widow’s Twelfth Boarder Tumbled to His Death, But Marie of the Mud Pies Saw All, And Told!”
Ogden Standard Examiner (Ut.), Apr. 3, 1932, page number unknown]
***
FULL TEXT (Article 7 of 8): At lost
relentless justice has been meted out to America’s most cold-blooded woman
killer – Mrs. Rose Veres, known as the Witch of Delray. She was responsible for
the deaths of 12 lodgers – simple Hungarians whose lives she had insured.
FREEDOM’S door has been slammed on
the Witch of Delray.
The air she breathes for the rest of
her days must be screened through prison bars.
There will be no recapture of the
years when she roamed the streets of Detroit, frightening children and killing
men.
The Witch of Delray, who actually is
Mrs. Rose Veres, murdered for profit, which is why she was sentenced to life
imprisonment in Michigan.
For a time, while lawyers were
fighting desperately for a new trial for her, it looked as though she might be
free again. But now Recorder’s Judge John J. Maher, at Detroit, has denied her
appeal.
Mrs. Veres made a good thing of being
a witch. She got away with it for seven years, during which time she became a
legendary figure in black, and by the time the law caught up with her the
number of her victims was reckoned at 12. Her bank-deposits for the period
totalled £23,000.
DASTARDLY PLAN
She worked out a simple plan for
living by the death of others. She took a rooming house in the Delray section
of Detroit, where most of her lodgers were, like herself, Hungarian born. They
were simple folk and Mrs. Veres volunteered to look after their money. At the
same time she insured their lives.
When police got interested in the
goings-on in her home they discovered 75 insurance policies on her boarders, in
all of which she was the beneficiary. She had a reason why.
“I kept insurance policies on most of
my boarders,” she said, “because that is the way my people do. We want a good
funeral. There must be flowers and lodge members. I gave everyone a fine
funeral.”
The police thought too many fine
funerals were being held at the frame dwelling on Medina-street.
ACCIDENTS FAKED
They became curious when Steven Mak,
68, tumbled from a ladder out side the Veres household and died of a fractured
skull. They began asking questions and soon discovered he was the 12th man to
die at the Medina-street house since September 21, 1924, when Steven Sebastian
suffered what was described on the death certificate as a fatal cerebral
haemorrhage.
After a little inquiring in the
neighborhood, detectives found Marie Chevalia, 11, who was making mudpies
outside her home when Mak fell. “I saw Mr. Mak go up the ladder,” she said.
“Mrs. Veres was holding it for him at the attic window. He was right at the attic
window. He swayed and moaned, as if he was sick.”
Her story spun a web around the Witch
of Delray when she added:
“While he was falling, Mrs. Veres and
William (her son) poked their heads out of the window.”
Yes, that was right, Mrs. Veres remembered. She had asked Mak to repair a window. But the police said the window
didn’t need repairs.
Then there was the story of John
Walker. Mrs. Veres, he said, told him to water the ground where the ladder
rested, and the Witch herself placed it on the slippery clay.
And there was £2000 insurance on
Mak’s life.
A jury believed that Mrs. Veres and
her son pushed Mak to death and returned a verdict that provided the maximum
penalty under Michigan law for both – life imprisonment.
Responsibility for the 11 other deaths
wasn’t proved against Mrs. Veres. But the police discovered many strange
circumstances as they delved into her dusty past.
They learned that her husband, Gabor,
and Laszlo Toth, a boarder, were working on a car in the Veres garage one day
in 1927 when suddenly the door slammed. Both died of carbon monoxide poisoning
generated by the automobile exhaust.
EIGHT MEN DIED
They heard about men whose names were
known as John Nordal, Balit Peterman, Gabor Feges, Steven Faish, Alex Porczio,
Berni Kalo, John Sokivon and John Coccardi. All of them slept on wall-lined
cots in the dirt floored cellar.
All of them had casks of wine between
their beds. All of them died. Some said their deaths were caused by lye in the
wine.
While all these things were happening,
Mrs. Veres was becoming known around the neighborhood as a sinister character.
The Detroit district in which she
lived was mainly populated by native born Hungarians – simple folk who still retained many of the
customs and beliefs of the old country.
To them werewolves, human vampires
and witches were very real beings – beings that could do harm to innocent
people who crossed their path.
BRANDED A WITCH
So it is not surprising that locally
the notorious Mrs. Veres should be looked upon by these people as a witch.
That when she appeared, the pious
people should devoutly cross themselves for fear of the evil eye.
Some said she was born with a full
set of teeth and a veil. And some said:
“If she wants, she can change her
self into a wolf or a hare.”
That’s how she became the Witch of
Delray and why she was feared by both adults and children.
Although prison claims her, her spell
continues.
Almost two years after she was gaoled
John Kampfl, one of her basement lodgers, cut his throat. It was not a critical
wound. Doctors said he would recover.
“No,” he said. “The Witch cast her
evil eye on me.”
The next morning he died, which
probably isn’t the reason the courts refused her a new trial.
But who knows?
Mrs. Rose Veres murdered ruthlessly
for profit while she was becoming known as the Witch of Delray?
The way the jury figured, William
Veres was as guilty as his mother.
[Gerald Duncan, “America’s Female
Bluebeard Is in Gaol For Life,” World’s
News (Sydney, Australia), Jun. 30, 1945, p. 6]
***
FULL TEXT (Article 9 of 9): Detroit, Mich., Dec. 10 – The
“witch of Delray,” central figure 13 years ago in a murder trial which
ended in her conviction and a life
sentence after bizarre testimony linking her to 11 other deaths, was a free
woman tonight by reason of a “not guilty” verdict in a belated retrial.
She is Mrs. Rose Veres, now 64, who for many years kept a
rooming house and kept a rooming house was a two story frame building in what
was formerly the village of Delray. This community, made up for the most part
of Hungarian and middle European immigrants, is now part of Detroit.
~ Son Convicted, Too ~
At the retrial a jury of eight men and four women took eight
hours to vote an acquittal for the widely known “which,” who was convicted
originally with her son, William, of first degree murder for killing Stephen
Mack, a roomer, by pushing him out an attic window.
Mrs. Veres and her son served 13 years of their life
sentences and recently won new trials on a Supreme court ruling that their
convictions were invalid because of the absence from the courtroom of the
presiding judge when the verdict was returned.
~ Courtroom is Packed. ~
When the new trials were ordered, prosecuting authorities
released William Veres to stand trial again. The retrial began Nov. 26 before
Recorder’s Judge Paul E. Krause, and each day’s session has been in a courtroom
packed with present and former Delray neighbors and residents. Mrs. Veres
speaks no English and testified thru an interpreter.
Evidence was produced at both trials that Mrs. Veres’
rooming house had the local reputation of a “house of dreath” because of the
deaths there of 11 other persons other than Mack between 1924 and 1931.
Children feared her, it was said, because of her long hair and reported
“baleful eye,” and the name “witch of Delray” was applied to her.
When Mack died from a fall from Mrs. Veres’ attick window he
had a $4,000 insurance policy, of which Mrs. Veres was the benedficiary. Police
later found 75 insurance policies in the names of roomers.
[“’Baleful Eyed Witch’ Is Free After 13 Years – Wins In New
Trial Over Old Death Case,” Chicago Tribune (Il.), Dec. 11, 1945, p. 5]
***
EXCERPT: It had been the custom each time one of her roomers
died to have photographs made of the funeral showing her giving the corpse a
final embrace. [Curtis Haseltine, “Murder for Money – Case of Delray’s ‘Witch’
Up Again,” The Detroit Free Press, Aug. 27, 1944, Magazine Section, p. 7]
***
Here are two long, well-illustrated articles on the Veras
case:
►“The
Witch of Delray,” The Deceased of
Detroit, Jul. 23, 2010 http://peopleofdetroit.blogspot.com/2010/07/witch-of-delray.html
►“The
Witch of Delray,” Weird Detroit, Sept. 11, 2011 http://weirddetroit.blogspot.com/2011/09/witch-of-delray.html
***
***
***
***
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For similar cases, see Murder-Coaching Moms
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For similar cases, see Murder-Coaching Moms
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Wow, good for a Halloween season movie !!!
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