Sarah Jane Whiteling was executed by hanging
in Philadelphia at Moyamensing Prison on June 25, 1889.
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FULL
TEXT: Philadelphia, June 13.—One of the most horrible poisoning cases
that this city has ever known, has been discovered and the murderers,
through the vigilance of Coroner Ashbridge, was yesterday afternoon
lodged in jail. John Whiteling, aged thirty-eight years, his alleged
wife, aged forty, his alleged daughter, Bertha, aged nine years and his
son, Willie, aged two years, lived in the rear of No. 1227 Cadwallader
street. John Whiteling died on March 20; Bertha on April 25, and Willie
on May 26. The doctors in attendance gave certificates of death
respectively for “inflammation of the bowels,” “gastric fever,” and
“congestion of the bowels.” There was an insurance on the lives of each,
ranging from $200 down to $50. The coroner accidentally hearing on the
case, and having his suspicions aroused bad the bodies exhumed and a
chemical analysis made of the intestines, and found arsenic in all.
The
woman was sent for by the coroner and after denying all knowledge of
the crime, made a full confession. She said she was born in Germany and
married a man in Iowa named Tom Brown and that Brown died in prison, and
in 1880 she married John Whiteling in this city. Her daughter Bertha
was the child of a man, named Story. Whiteling, she said, was sick much
of the time. She procured “rough on rats” and said that her husband
committed suicide.
She
gave the children the poison, and then summoned a physician, but did
not administer the medicine prescribed. She said she could not go out
washing with a baby resolved to get rid of Willie; that she was afraid
Bertha would grow up a bad woman and she had better die, and that she
was if raid if she poisoned them all at once she would be found out.
Mrs.
Whiteling came to this city just after the Chicago fire in 1872 and has
lived in houses of assignation both here and in Chicago. She is
frivolous in manner and was only brought to the consciousness of her
position when confronted with the evidence if her crime.
When
she had finished her confession she said her conscience was clear and
that she would meet her dear children in heaven. An inquest will be held
on the bodies on Friday next.
[“Horrible
Poisoning Case. - A “Wholesale Poisoning: and a Diabolical Plot
Revealed at Philadelphia.” Hamilton Daily Democrat (Oh.), Jun. 13, 1888,
p. 1]
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FULL
TEXT: Philadelphia, Nov. 28.—The jury in the case of Mrs. Sarah
Whiteling, who has been on trial for the past three days on a charge of
causing the death of her nine-year old daughter by administering poison
in April last, brought in a verdict of murder in the first degree this
evening, after being out two hours. The crime for which Mrs. Whiteling
was tried was one of a series of three with which she is charged, the
allegation being that she not only murdered her daughter, Bertha, but
also her husband, John Whiteling, aged thirty-eight, and their baby boy,
William Whiteling, aged two years, and collected insurances on the
lives of her victims amounting in the aggregate to over $350. The wife
and mother subsequently confessed her crimes, and said that she had
intended to take her own life after completing her deadly work with all
the other members of the family, but her courage failed her.
[“Philadelphia’s Borgia. - Mrs. Whiteling, the Wholesale Poisoner, Convicted.” St. Paul Daily Globe (Mn.), Nov. 29, 1888, p. 1]
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FULL TEXT: There was intense excitement up in Cadwalader
street last night when it was reported that Mrs. Whiteling had confessed that
she had poisoned her children. Many did not even know of the woman’s arrest,
and in a short time groups of excited women and men stood about the sidewalks
and discussed the woman’s horrible crime.
Mrs. Whiteling was not very well known to most of her
neighbors, but was considered “a nice, quiet woman” and the people were
startled when they learned of her confession. Everybody sympathized with her
when she lost her husband and two children, but the story of her crime as it
spread through the neighborhood last night stirred up the wildest kind of
indignation and scores of men and women said they hoped she would be bring.
The indignation boiled over when it was reported that Mrs.
Whiteling, in order to divert suspicion from her own household, tried to poison
the little ones of Nathaniel Martin, her next door neighbor, at 1229 Cadwalader
street. One of the little Martin boys is now in the country very sick from the
effects of being poisoned by candy which it is said Mrs. Whiteling gave him
just before her oldest child died.
WOULD NOT SEE HER HUSBAND DIE.
Mrs. Gilbert, of 1219 Cadwalader street, who was called into
the Whiteling home when the woman’s husband died, had just gotten out of a sick
bed last night when she said:
“I had only known Mrs. Whiteling by sight when one day her
little girl. Birdie, told me her father was sick and her mother wanted me to
come in. I found the man in the most intense agony. He was appealing for
relief, but his wife stood by and said she didn’t know what to do. I urged her
to buy some lime water and she finally sent after five cents’ worth of lime
water and hot warm irons to his stomach and back.
“The next night she again sent after me and the night he
died I was again called for. His sufferings were horrible and I did every thing
to relieve him, but it was no use, and when I saw he was dying I ran down
stairs and told his wife. She said she didn’t want to see him die. I begged her
to come and speak to him before he breathed his last, but she refused. I ran up
to the room again with old Mrs. Jarvis, who lives in the front part of the
house, and bathed his head and held his hand as he passed away.”
Mrs. Whiteling didn’t cry when I told her that her husband
was dead. She said she was almost heart-broken, but could never cry when she
was sorrow-stricken. know nothing of her children’s death, as I was men sick in
bed.”
POISONING THE MARTIN CHILDREN.
“She’s a villain,” said Mrs. Martin, the next door neighbor
of Mrs. Whiteling. “Thank the Lord for saving our children from her, though one
of my little boys is sick in the country now since he ate candy which was given
to him by Mrs. Whiteling. My boy was taken sick at the same time as her Birdie
and when her child died Mrs. Whiteling told a neighbor she was surprised that
my child was still living. My husband one night caught her giving candy to two
of her little ones, who were in a coach on the sidewalk. He was suspicious then
and he threw the candy into the street I thought it very strange that she kept
feeding our children on candy. When her husband and children died she never
cried, and she rocked herself in a chair while the bodies were washed and
dressed by kind hearted neighbors. When her first child died so mysteriously I wanted
her to have a post-mortem made, but she refused.
DID SHE KILL THE OTHERS?
“She told me that she had had eight children, but didn’t say
what had ever become of them.
While her husband was suffering Mrs, Whiteling paid little
attention to him. He was given little nourishment, and one day John Pomoroy, of
Third and Poplar streets, a boyhood friend of Whiteling, gave the woman money
and made her buy a little strengthening food for the dying man.
“Just after his funeral she was talking about her future
plans when she said to Mrs. Martin: ‘Oh, I would soon get married again it I
could got a good chance.” When her pretty little daughter Birdie was dying she
neglected her shamefully, while at the time professing the deepest sorrow. She
had received the insurance money on her husband’s death, but claimed to be too
poor to buy medicine and nourishment for the child. When Mrs. Martin asked her
where the insurance money was Mrs. Whiteling said she had put it in the Philadelphia Saving Bank, but could
only got it out on two weeks’ notice. Mrs. Martin then insisted on buying
medicine and sending it in the house, when Mrs. Martin would go to the bedside
of Birdie the child would beg for water or medicine, and say mother gave her
but little.
LITTLE BERTHA’S DEATH.
“Birdie, a sweet-laced, dark-haired child, was the favorite
of the Webster School, on Master, near American street, and when she died all
the children gave their pennies and bought a beautiful floral scythe. When it
was brought to the house the dead child’s mother was sitting on the front step
with the white crape fluttering in her face. She stayed there until a little
girl reproved her and told her it was unbecoming. After Birdie’s funeral, Mrs.
Whiteling took the floral scythe to a young girl on Cadwalader street and told
her to work the emblem over again, as she thought her little Willie would soon
join his sister, and the scythe could do service at his funeral. Willie was not
sick then. The night before the little toddler died it lay on the hard floor of
the room, while the mother lay in bed with her little niece. The next morning
she sold Willie’s rocking chair to a neighbor for a quarter. She said he was
going to die. An omen during the night had told her so. Before her husband was
taken sick she took him and the two children and the family had their
photographs taken.”
[“More About The Murderess. - Poisoning Her Neighbors’
Children With Candy to Divert Suspicion.” The Times (Philadelphia, Pa.), Jun.
13, 1888, p. 1]
Note: A very long front page article appeared
in the Cincinnati Enquirer on June 26, 1889, which includes the long text of
Mrs. Whiteling’s confession. The newspaper is available on newspapers.com.
***
Victims:
John
Whiteling, husband, 38, died Mar. 20, 1888
Bertha
Whiteling, daughter (Thomas Story, father), died Apr. 24, 1888
William
(Willie) Whiteling, son, 2, died May 26, 1888
Possibly
5 other Whiteling children, “unaccounted for”
Martin
boy, poisoned with candy, recovered
2
other Martin children, attempted to poison with candy.
***
The Whiteling
case is discussed in detail in the following book: Marlin
Shipman, The Penalty Is Death: U.
S. Newspaper Coverage of Women's Executions, U of Missouri Press, 2002
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For more cases of this category, see: Female Serial Killers of 19th Century America
[1943-1/11/21]
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