FULL TEXT (Article 1 of 3): Lucretia
Borgia! Mrs. Lulu Johnson is just now being tried in the Oklahoma territory,
America, for systematically poisoning her husbands. Of these she had six, and all are suspected of 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 later, 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 3): 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]
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More: Champion Black Widow Serial Killers
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FULL TEXT (Article 3 of 3): Mrs. Lulu Johnson is being tried
in the United States district court of Enid, O. T., for the murder of her sixth
husband, I. R. Johnson, and is accused of poisoning many of his
predecessors.the case in progress is one of the most sensational and important
poisoning cases ever tried in the United States, and the history of the accused
woman is so strange and weird that it will forever remain illustrative of one
of Lombroso’s leading criminal types.
No one casually looking at Mrs. Lulu Johnson as she sat in
the court room being tried for her life, would have noticed anything remarkable
in her appearance. She is well preserved for a woman of 63, not too small, nor
too thin and pale, dressed in deep black, with very conspicuous widow’s weeds.
A second and closer examination, however, would fix the attention, and even a
stranger would look, and look again, and the face he gazed upon would return
and live like a haunting shadow of some dark memory.
A deadly pallor overspreads the woman’s features. The high
cheek bones, the prominent, elongated and sharpened nose; the very firm but
somewhat retreating chin; the small, half closed light gray eyes, set far
apart, with the lids drawn straight across them; the forehead seeming to fall
back from the eyebrows in a rapid retreat until stopped by the iron gray hair,
which has pushed its way down over the forehead as if trying to conceal some of
the disagreeable secrets of time, all blend into a remarkable picture and form
an easily read title page to a life filled with strange and seeming unreal
events which, in the light of her arrest and of recent disclosures, charge the
mind with suspicions of the most grewsome character.
Lulu Murphy was born in southern Illinois, and as a girl developed
a remarkable character, leading by her strength of will, in all focal events
and entirely disregarding the conventionalities. A sixteen she eloped with a
young farmer named William Kent, from whom she separated in a few months.
Her parents, proud and respectable people, smarting under
the disgrace of this escapade, removed to Ogden, Utah, hoping thus to be
forgotten, and that Lulu, who seemed deeply repentant, would become a good and
virtuous woman. In less than a year, however, at the age of 17, she married
Flavius Green, a railroad man. She lived with him three years, and two children
were born. Green died very suddenly and, it is said, suspiciously, in 1854.
Less than three months afterward she met and married Leonard
Davis Homsher, supposed to have been a private in the Tenth cavalry, United
States regular army. After the rapid experiences through which she had passed
she seemed to have settled down at this period, and apparently enjoyed military
life. She lived with Homsher fifteen years, following the movements of the
regiment, during which time nine children were born, in addition to the two by
her former husband.
Homsher died in 1869, and she went to Colorado Springs,
living an adventurous life in that then wild and lawless country.
While Mrs. Homsher was sitting in her cabin one evening
early in 1870, a man giving the name of Frank Smith came to the door and asked
for work, saying he was hungry. She told him she had no work, but asked him in
to supper. While eating he suggested that she seemed to be alone and in need of
a protector, and offered to marry her. Such a courtship was apparently
agreeable to the untamed nature of the woman, for they were married that very
night, and lived together four years, after which he disappeared, leaving a
little girl 2 years old as a remembrance.
After this she drifted to St. Joseph, Mo., then to Atchison,
Kan., where she married Elisha Ketchum, reported to be very wealthy, and became
mistress of the Ketchum home. Ketchum died of measles soon after, and
suspicions were aroused that all was not right, as no doctor had been called in
and no one but his wife had waited upon him, but no investigation was made.
In less than a year from this occurence this much married
woman is found again changing her name, this time leaping the chasm of
matrimony with D. M. Wrightman. Mr. and Mrs. Wrightman lived in different
cities along the banks of the Big Muddy for six years, when Wrightman secured a
divorce, and, it is said, married a widow at Potten, Kan., where he now lives.
Perhaps feeling that after the exciting changes and
experiences of her remarkable career a rural life had its charms, she purchased
a little farm near Barnes, Kan., and stocked it with poultry, pigs and cows,
and hired a man whom the neighbors recommended as an expert at such things. But
the quiet monotony of “jest doin’ nothin’ but raisin’ things” soon palled upon
her more aspiring appetite, and, selling the farm, she returned to Atchison and
became landlady of the St. James hotel.
Her she met a strolling peddler named George Shirley, who
was apparently very congenial, for, abandoning the hotel business, she started
on a tour of Kansas with this man, passing for his sister. At this time it was
presumed Mrs. Wrightman had made up her mind that such little preliminaries as
the marriage ceremony were mere trifles entirely unnecessary to that true
happiness which she sought and was sighing for. Then, too, Mr. Shirley had a
wife back in Indiana, who, although very poor and a wee bit of a thing, might
have become a mighty barrier to domestic felicity in case she had called to her
aid the law.
Be this as it may, Mrs. Wrightman climbed into the Sirley
huckster wagon one morning and went to Topeka. Here they seem to have formed a
kind of perpetual brither and sister copartnership, as it is recorded that she
had Shirley’s life insured for a large amount.
But little Mrs. Shirley, from far off Indiana, had heard
through friends of the conduct of Shirley, and she suddenly appeared upon the
scene, Shirley and Mrs. Wrightman fled ignominiously, leaving the worse than
widow alone in the city to find her was
back to a forsaken and loveless home.
Continuing with Shirley the wandering life which seemed to
suit them so well, the two finally made the run for claims at the opening of
the Cherokee strip. As the result of that run the lady became the owner of two
splendid farms near Renfrew, in Grant county, and the remains of George Shirley
lie buried in a little cemetary in Southern Kansas.
After Shirley’s death Mrs. Lulu located in Renfew and became
housekeeper for a doctor who was running a hotel in that thriving little city.
Here it is supposed she first met Johnson on one of his periodical trips to
Sumner county, where he formerly resided. It is difficult by any method of
reasoning to account for the attraction for the attraction which drew two such
people together.
No apparent similarity of taste or congeniality of
disposition, no compatability of age, could have had the suggestion of an
influence in the mating of this ill-mated pair. Yet there must have been potent
influences at work, for it is said, and was shown at the trial, that after no
more than two meetings this wonderful woman of 64 called this comparatively
young and lusty widower of 40 to her side by a telegram and he married her.
Mrs. Johnson was tried last December for the murder of her
sixth husband, I. R. Johnson, but after a stubborn contest was acquitted, as
the evidence did not seem sufficient for conviction. She was, however, held for
the murder of her fifth husband, Shirley, the prosecution claiming that they
are in possession of the most positive evidence that she deliberately poisoned
Shirley for the purpose of appropriating his property, among other things
asserting that her own granddaughter, Mrs. Swaggart of Bluff township, this
county, will testify that Mrs. Johnson bought arsenic and showed it to her,
stating that she was going to get rid of Shirley, and that after he died Mrs.
Johnson admitted that she had given him arsenic and outlined her method in the
most cruel and heartless manner.
Mrs. Johnson was arrested on May 30, 1898, at the
instigation of the neighbors, who became
suspicious that Johnson’s sudden death was the result of foul play.
Johnson was a strong, robust man, and on the day before his
death he took an active part in the wolf hunt that had been organized in his
township. The evening of his death several neighbors had seen him working about
the place. Naturally, therefore, the news of his sudden death spread like a
priarie fire.
Excitement ran high, and on investigation was demanded. An
inquest was held by a coroner’s jury, without any result. This did not satisfy
public sentiment, which had been worked up to a fever heat. Rumors of the most
horrible and revolting nature were started. Citizens visited the county
attorney and demanded a more thorough examination.
Yielding to popular clamor, the authorities ordered the body
to be exhumed, and the vital organs were sent to Lawrence for analysis. This
analysis disclosed the startling fact that Johnson had been poisoned, as
arsenic in considerable quantity was found in the heart, liver, kidneys and
brain.
The arrest of Mrs. Johnson at once followed, and at the
preliminary examination she was held without bail to await the action of the
grand jury. Investigation once started, it was easy to find circumstantial
evidence that tended to fasten the guilt upon Mrs. Johnson. Among other things,
it was learned that at the opening of the Cherokee strip she and George Shirley
took adjoining claims in the north part of the county and lived together in one
house, built partly on each claim, giving out to the world that they were
brothers and sister. Shortly afterward Shirley died suddenly and Mrs. Johnson
proved up on his claim as his sister and heir.
After her arrest for the murder of Johnson Shirley’s body
was taken up and the organs were sent to Lawrence where an analysis disclosed
the fact that he also had died from arsenical poisoning. The evidence for the
prosecution has been given by Professor Bartow, Ph. D., of the Kansas State
university, who made exhaustive chemical tests of the remains of both Shirley
and Johnson.
But the counsel for defence have been able to collect very
important evidence tending to rebut in a great measure the expert testimony for
the prosecution. The most important result was the complete overthrow of the
old methods of chemical analysis used in the processes of medical
jurisprudence. The defence spared no pains and expense to pass in review the
entire subject of poisoning, and was in this manner assisted by the Lewis
academy, in Wichita. This institution placed its well equipped laboratory at
the disposal of the leading counsel.
The trial now in progress, no matter how it ends, will be of
inestimable value to the science of criminologist. – New York Herald.
[“Is She An Oklahoma Lucretia Borgia?”- Just Acquitted of
Murder of Sixth Husband – Mrs. Johnson on Trial for Poisoning Her Fifth.”
(reprinted from: New York Herald) Denver Sunday Post (Co.), Apr. 9, 1899, p.
17]
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CHRONOLOGY:
Ca. 1835 – Born Lulu Murphy – southern Illinois
1854 – Flavius Green dies suddenly, suspiciously.
1854/55 – army cavalry; marries Homscher; 9 children born.
1869 – Homscher dies.
1870 – Frank Smith arrives to cabin in Colorado Springs;
marry.
1874 – Smith disappears.
Ca. 1875 – marries Ketchum; dies of “measles,” suspiciously.
Ca. 1875 – marries Wrightman; divorce later.
Dec. 1894 – husband, William N. Shirley, dies.
May 30, 1898 – arrested.
Dec. 1898 – Lulu, aged 63, tried for the murder of husband
Johnson;
Dec. 1898 – arrested for murder of Shirley. Jailed at Pond
Creek, O. T.
Dec. 24, 1898 – acquitted.
Apr. 1899 – trial for murder of Shirley.
HUSBANDS:
#1 – William Kent – farmer; Lulu, at
age 16, married; separated after few months.
#2 – Flavius Green – railroad man;
Lulu, aged 17, married; railway fettler; died 3 years after married; 2
children.
#3 – Leonard David Homsher – dies
1869; nine children.
#4 – Frank Smith – 1 child.
#5 – Elisha Ketchum – husband;
Atchison, Ks.
#6 – D. M. Wrightman – divorced after
6 years.
#7 – William N. Shirley – not married, common-law husband?;
she claimed he was her half-brother; strolling peddler; (“George Shirley”);
Atchison, Ks.
#8 – J. W. Johnson – 6th husband, died.
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More: Champion Black Widow Serial Killers
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For links to other cases of woman who murdered 2 or more husbands (or paramours), see Black Widow Serial Killers.
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[1601-12/27/20]
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