Crime Stories of the Century
The awful acts of the past 100 years forced America to look at itself in the mirror
THE 1900S
When Harry shot Stanford
By 1906, the Victorian era was over, but it was still a strait-laced time. Even so, people couldn't get enough of a juicy sex story, especially one about the rich and famous. Stanford White was the country's leading architect, a celebrated visionary and man about town. White designed splendid homes and grand buildings. But he was also a cad who had affairs with young showgirls and threw wild bashes with women popping out of huge pies.
On June 25, White was shot three times by Pittsburgh railroad scion Harry Thaw in front of dozens of theatergoers watching the musical Mamzelle Champagne on the roof of Madison Square Garden, which White had designed. "You deserve this," Thaw cried angrily, after pulling the trigger. "You have ruined my wife." Some 20 years younger than White, Thaw was insanely jealous of the 54-year-old architect. Five years earlier, White had seduced Evelyn Nesbit, the comely chorus girl Thaw eventually wed. In seducing the fetching 16-year-old, White had her pose half-naked in a kimono and slipped her a glass of spiked champagne in a mirrored room in his apartment.
Thaw's revenge, then, was justified, at least in his mind. But he was no Prince Charming. A notorious playboy, he was known for whipping girls in a room he rented in a brothel. He whipped Nesbit, too, before they were married. The details tumbled out at the trial, the public's thirst unslaked by the endless stream of tawdriness. Thaw, meanwhile, seemed unconcerned, passing the days in his Tombs prison cell munching squab and sipping champagne from Delmonico's restaurant.
The newspapers had a field day. At the trial, Thaw's lawyer, Delphin Delmas, told the jury his client suffered from "dementia Americana," a form of insanity "that persuades an American that whoever violates the sanctity of his home or the purity of his wife or daughter has forfeited the protection of the laws of this state." The trial ended with a hung jury. A year later, Delmas tried another tack, saying Thaw was just plain crazy. The second jury bought it, finding Thaw not guilty by reason of insanity. The onetime playboy was shipped off to an asylum, but he escaped a few years later, fled to Canada, and was finally returned to New York to face conspiracy charges for the escape. After two trials, he was acquitted, and a jury pronounced him sane in July 1915. Harry Thaw was a free man. He died in 1947. Twenty years later, facing her own death, Evelyn Nesbit made a pronouncement. Stanford White, she said, had been her true love all along.
THE 1910S
The ballad of Joe Hill
Things couldn't have been better--for the rich. The economy was roaring. Corporations were fat and happy. But workers felt left out of the good time. Soon they began striking. Corporate chieftains responded swiftly. Company goons and, often, cops weighed in with fists and clubs.
Enter Joe Hill. A member of the Industrial Workers of the World, Hill had drifted from job to job, garnering a small measure of fame as an IWW songwriter. Around 10 p.m. on Jan. 10, 1914, two men strolled into the Salt Lake City grocery of John G. Morrison and fatally shot him and his son. Three days later, Hill was arrested. The prosecution's case was thin, based on Hill's having been treated by a doctor for a gunshot wound shortly after the killings. Hill insisted he was innocent. He had been shot, he said, during a spat over a woman. The explanation didn't wash: A jury convicted Hill, and he was sentenced to die.
advertisement
