FULL TEXT (Article 1 of 2): Lucretia
Borgia! Mrs. Lulu Johnson is just now being tried in the Oklahama territory,
America, for systematically poisoning her husbands. Of these she had six, and all are suspected bf having met their end by means of
arsenic, administered by their wife. Mrs. Johnson
was born in Illinois, and as a girl was remarkable for net strength of will. At
sixteen she eloped with a farmer named Kent, and at seventeen, being free
again, married a railway fettler named Green. Three years Inter, the fettler
not having iron enough in his constitution to stand poison, went out suddenly,
and his blushing widow espoused a soldier named Homsher, who managed to survive
the shock for just twelve years. Then came Mr. Frank
Smith, who saw and conquered, but was eventually himself vanquished and sent to
interview his predecessors in the churchyard. Mrs. Johnson’s sixth husband was
Mr. Ketchum, a wealthy man in one of the capitals, and he lasted just long
enough to settle up things and leave her a fortune. Then, tiring of matrimony,
the lady became a kind of free lance, eventually going off with a strolling
player in his gilded caravan. This last was her one fatal step, as the player,
having a wife living, the latter turned up at one of the performances and
openly accused Mrs. Johnson of having murdered her former husbands, partly out of
deliberate sin and sometimes for gain. The accusation being made in public,
someone got the authorities to exhume a few of the deceased husbands, and to have their
remains examined. As arsenic was found in every one of them Mrs. Johnson was
arrested, and is now being tried for murder.
[“She Poisoned Six Husbands.” Clarence and
Richmond Examiner (Grafton, NSW, Australia), May 30, 1899, p. 4]
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FULL
TEXT (Article 2 of 2): Enid., O. T., March 23. – The jury tonight brought In a
sealed verdict, which is believed to be for acquittal. In the case of the
Territory of Oklahoma against Mrs. Lulu Johnson, charged with poisoning her
alleged husband, William N. Shirley, in December, 1894, taken on a change of
venue to Enid and which has been In progress before Judge John L. McAtee here
during the past week. The territory was represented by Samuel Ridings, county attorney,
and Judge Mackey of Pond Creek, and the defense by O. G. Eckstein of Wichita
and W. H. C. Taylor of Pond Creek.
Mrs.
Johnson having been acquitted the murder of her last husband, J. W. Johnson,
alleged to be her eighth husband, the present charge of murdering her alleged
seventh husband has given the case a wide reputation, and is the leading murder
case in the annals of Oklahoma Territory, to date.
The
prosecution were well prepared, having as an expert chemist Professor Bartow of
the University of Kansas, who is regarded as one of the most eminent chemists
west of the Missouri river, and who has testified as such in the leading
poisoning cases in the west.
The
questions involved in the case were of a very scientific nature, treating of
different poisons and their effects upon the human system. The prosecution
claiming that the deceased died of arsenic administered by the defendant, the
body having been exhumed four years after death, opened up a wide field of
scientific investigation; the defense claiming that the deceased was a morphine
fiend, and that death may have resulted from other causes than arsenic, though
two and a half grains was found in his body. The cross examination of the
experts covered a wide range, and was enough to mystify a professional man, let
alone a jury.
The
prosecution proved that the deceased and the defendant lived together as
husband and wife, and that they had frequently quarreled and that she had often
threatened to take his life and had sent away for poison. Other than this the
testimony was purely circumstantial.
The
defense claimed by numerous witnesses that deceased was addicted to the
morphine habit, and that he was in a dying condition from the result of the
same and would have died whether arsenic was administered to him or not.
A
better prepared case was never tried in the territory, and Judge McAtee, who
presided, sustained this well earned reputation in his rulings when the
difficult problems presented.
The
case went to the jury yesterday. The summing up by the attorneys on both sides
showed great research and study, the speeches of the attorneys for the defense
causing many a tear to flow in the densely packed court room, and closing with
a peroration describing the pathetic death-bed scene and the gray-haired
defendant smoothing the pillow of the dying man.
[“In
the Case of Mrs. Lulu Johnson, Tried at Enid - For Husband-Poisoning - It Is
Believed That She Has Been Acquitted.” The Wichita Daily Eagle (Ka.), Mar. 26,
1899, p. 2]
***
For links to other cases of woman who murdered 2 or more husbands (or paramours), see Black Widow Serial Killers.
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