Murder of Jane Daley

On December 29, 1902, a blacksmith was walking down a private path next to a canal in Wolverhampton, England. He would stumble over something and strike a match to see what it was. It was the body of Jane Daley. Jane had been kicked about and her face was badly bruised. Her legs had been tied and her clothes were torn in several places.

Jane was a middle-aged woman who lived on Strafford St. in Wolverhampton.

SOURCES:

Unsolved Murders UK

Unsolved Murders by Pat Finn

INFANTICIDE: December 27, 1902 Newent, England Baby Doe

 On December 27, 1902, a woman would go to a well for water on Botloes Green in Newent, England. She would look inside the well and thought she had seen her cat. She would ask a man to help her retrieve it from the well. Instead of a cat, it was the body of a 10-day-old baby girl.

The coroner stated that the girl had breathed and was 10 days old. She had died from neglect and want of care at birth.


SOURCES:
Unsolved Murders UK

UNIDENTIFIED: September 14, 1902 Siskiyou County, California Jane Doe

 On September 14, 1902, two people would go on a hunting trip in Siskiyou County, California near Hornbrook. During the morning they passed by a basket but paid no attention to it thinking someone would come for it or was near. When they walked by again later seeing the basket there they investigated it. They would find items belonging to a woman, some clothing including a nightgown, a woman's purse with three one-cent pieces, and nickel and another purse having $ 1.50 in small change.

About 50 feet away was a tree. This would be where a gruesome discovery would happen. A woman's body was hanging from the tree but it was obviously not a suicide, but a brutal murder. The woman had a brutal death. It was obvious she fought for her life before her killer shot her in the right eye partially blowing away some of her skull. After her death, the killer would tie her to the large branch of the tree. She was found with one foot double under her and the other hanging down the hill. She was tied with a light rope.

It was obvious from the scene that the woman had greatly fought for her life. The area she was killed was trampled pieces of her clothing had were ripped from her. Her dress sleeves were torn off, her underclothing was disordered and her cape was ripped to shreds. Fur pieces from the cape were found some distance from where she was killed.

From the description of her clothes, she was seen in Hornbrook Around two weeks before she and a man were seen eating at Day's restaurant. The two were strangers to town and were also seen driving a span of yellow horses after the meal.

Jane Doe was between 40 and 45-years-old when she died.

SOURCES:
Find a Grave
Evening Sentinel September 24, 1902

INFANTICIDE: December 27, 1902 Marylebone, London, England Baby Girl

On December 27, 1902, a baby was found wrapped up in a parcel beside the Great Central Railway at Rossmore Road Bridge in Marylebone. The infant had been born alive and healthy. It was found that she had a bruise over the right eye and her nostrils flattened. It's believed that something was pushed onto her face to cause suffocation leading to her death. 

The coroner added that the baby may have been a victim of baby farming and was part of the illegal disposal of infants at the time.


SOURCES:
Unsolved Murders UK

UNIDENTIFIED: September 19, 1902 Detroit, Michigan Unknown Man

At 7:10 p.m. on September 19, 1902, an accident would happen on Jefferson Avenue in Detroit, Michigan. No 176 Woodward car heading west hit an unknown man was leaning over the side of the platform of a Rapid Railway car that was heading East. 

He was still alive and would lay on the road in the rain. He had been bleeding from his ears and had internal injuries. It was said that medical help for him was overlooked, and would soon die. The coroner arrived he was in the same place he died. Angry at the crowd that was watching the spectacle he asked why no one took him off of the road. This caused the crowd to go silent. 

In the man's pocket was an article from the Toledo Blade, the article was about a similar accident. It is possible he was recently in Ohio City. A jury found that the man's death was an accident from his own carelessness. 

The man was a white male and was around 35-years-old. He had black hair and a sandy almost red mustache. He had the tattoo J.M.C. on the upper part of his right arm. He was 6 ft and 190 lbs. He was wearing a black worsted coat, light striped trousers, a black topcoat, black flannel overshirt, black lace shoes, black socks, and a black fedora. 

It's unknown if he had been identified or not, but his grave is still marked as "Unknown Man". 

SOURCES:

Find A Grave

Detroit Free Press September 20, 1902

Detroit Free Press September 26, 1902

UNIDENTIFIED: July 14, 1902 Sheridan County, Wyoming

 

On July 14, 1902, an unknown person (gender not stated) died in Sheridan County, Wyoming. They are buried at Sheridan Municipal Cemetary. There is little information in this case. 

SOURCES:

Find a Grave

Unidentified Wiki

Murder of Bertha Schippan

A photograph of the Schippan family, with Matthes (second from left) and Mary (to his right), Bertha is not in the photo.  

The Schippan family was a German immigrant family living in Towitta, South Australia, Australia. They were living in a small German farming community. Among the family was 13-year-old Johanne who went by Bertha and 24/25-year-old Mary.

Their parents Mattes and Johanne left on the day of  Jan. 1, 1902 to travel to Eden Valley that was 20 km away. They left the younger children to be watched by their oldest daughter Mary. By 8 p.m. that night both girls went to bed in the cottage while the boys slept in a galvanized iron room connected to a farm shed.

Around 10 p.m. Mary awoke to something heavy on her chest. She claimed that it was a bearded man that was on top of her. She was able to break free and run to the farm shed her brothers were sleeping in.

She told them of the man and she sent one of the boys to a neighbor for help. Bertha was still in the house with the man. The neighbor the boy ran to declined to help the family so he had to run 1 km to the house of Constable Lambert. When they returned they found Bertha laying in a puddle of her own blood. She didn't get to make it to her 14th birthday that was only 15 days away.

There was no bearded man in the home. There was also no evidence of anyone breaking in to harm the girls. So the police did not believe Mary's story of what had happened that night and two months later she was put on trial.

The evidence against Mary was circumstantial. She pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors brought up the fact that Mary and 21-year-old Gustave Nitschke had been in a secret relationship for the last year. They believed Bertha knew of the relationship and threatened to tell their father. Who was described as a nasty piece of work. They believed it was possible that Gustave could have also helped with the murder, but there was no evidence.

Some believed that their father was the perpetrator of the crime. He was a mean man. He once fired a shotgun at a Nitschke boy leaving the boy to pick pellets out of his leg. But it wasn't possible with the time to travel that far by horse and be where he was that day.

Mary eventually came back to town and was known as the grey lady. She would wear a grey dress and bonnet when walking around town. She would keep her head down and didn't talk to anyone. She would eventually die in 1919 from tuberculosis

It isn't for sure known who the murderer was. Maybe it was a member of the family, but maybe there was an unknown perpetrator. Maybe Mary was able to escape a terrible fate and was left to be called a liar. No one will ever really know what happened in the home that New Years Day.


SOURCES:
Wikipedia
ABC
Find a Grave

The Peasenhall Murder: The Murder of Rose Harsent

On the night of May 31, 1902,  Peasenhall, Suffolk, England was dealing with a dark and stormy night. It was remembered as a particularly bad storm.

On the morning on June 1, 1902, 21/22-year-old Rose Ann Harsent's father came to visit her at her home in the Providence house. He found her lying on the ground in her kitchen with her throat slit. It was initially thought of being a suicide until it was found that Rose was 6 months pregnant and a closer look at the scene.

It was believed that she was killed around 1 to 6 a.m. She had been attacked and her chest and throat stabbed and her arms showed signs of defensive wounds. It seemed that the murderer failed to burn her and the home as her arm had been burnt, her nightgown had been partially burned, and there was a newspaper under her head that had burnt edges. Paraffin from a broken lamp was used to try start the fire, and a medicine bottle was smashed and left at the scene. It seemed like she hadn't slept in her bed that night.

No one had known that Rose was pregnant. It seemed as if she had tried to induce a miscarriage at one point, but it failed. She then kept her pregnancy a secret and never revealed who the father was.

There was a letter found in her home.

"Dear Rose, I will try to see you tonight at twelve o'clock at your place. If you put a light in your window at ten o'clock for about ten minutes then you can take it out again. Don't have a light in your room at twelve o'clock as I will come round to the back."

It's believed that whoever sent this letter may have been the killer. 

William Gardiner became the main suspect soon. The locals knew he was having an affair with her in 1901. It was assumed that the baby may have been Gardniers. There was other evidence that seemed to point towards him also. Such as bootprints in the wet ground seemed to have matched a pair of his boots. A handwriting expert stated that the letter was in his handwriting and that the paper came from his workplace. The smashed medicine bottle was also 

William denied all of this. He also had spent a lot of time that early morning with his wife and another neighbor with visiting. But he lived in eyesight of Rose's home and wouldn't have taken much time to get there to murder her and come back.

William Gardiner was arrested and tried twice once in 1902 and 1903 but was acquitted. His trial was said to have been 11 to 1 for guilty in the first trial and 11 to 1 for not guilty for the second.

Was there a misjustice in this case where the murderer couldn't be tried. Maybe the real murderer was someone no one suspected due to the main focus being on William. Some speculate that William's wife was the perpetrator of the crime and her motive was because she was jealous.

But the world will never truly know what had happened that stormy morning.


SOURCES:
Revolvy
Wikipedia
Strange Company 
Press Reader
Unsolved Murders

Missing: Elijah Gresham Cravens

In 1902 Elijah Gersham Cravens was a farmer who lived outside of Okmulgee, Oklahoma. He had left on horseback sometime that year to go to a Woodmen of the World meeting. He was never seen again and little information in this case. He may have been around 30 to 40 years a possible birthday for him was 10/20/1867 which would have made him 35 if that was correct.

SOURCES:
NamUs