Twenty Years a Detective in the Wickedest City in the WorldWooldridge, Clifton R. (Clifton Rodman)
History
Twenty Years a Detective in the Wickedest City in the World
Wooldridge, Clifton R. (Clifton Rodman)
Crime -- Illinois -- Chicago; Police -- Illinois -- Chicago
Wilson Schufelt, a real estate man, said that he had rented the
matrimonial headquarters to "Mrs. A. M. Harvey" for a mail order
house business. Mrs. Harvey got her mail under the names of Glinn and
Hill, and when the postal authorities became interested in her she
told Schufelt that her name was Jennie Scott. At her home, 214 East
Thirty-second street, she is known as Mrs. Jennie Call.
She was indicted under the name of Glinn. It was testified by E. J.
Beach, superintendent of the Twenty-second street sub-postal station,
that the matrimonial agency received from 50 to 200 letters every day.
She was arraigned before Judge Bethea and found guilty, on April 25,
1908, and was sentenced to one year in the House of Correction, and
was fined $500.
THE HORRIBLE GUNNESS FARM.
THE RIPENED FRUIT OF THE MATRIMONIAL AGENCY.
But the giant blossom of this plant of hell is not bigamy, not
swindling, not desertion; it is murder, wholesale, ghastly murder.
For it is the matrimonial agency, nothing else, which is directly
responsible for the unbelievable horrors of the Gunness Murder Farm,
at Laporte, Ind., the revelation of the existence of which shocked the
entire civilized world as it has not been shocked since the time of
the Borgias.
This wholesale murderess invariably lured her victims to their fate
through advertisements in a "matrimonial paper," or through an agency.
She would insert the usual stereotyped "ad." of the wealthy widow lady
who desired a mate, but always a mate with money.
Always being able to produce proof that she was well-to-do, it was
an easy matter for her to persuade her victims to visit her at the
Laporte farm. She invariably stipulated that they should bring a
substantial sum with them.
Arriving at the Gunness farm, the prospective suitors were invariably
impressed with the evidences of wealth and luxury. After a stay of a
few days, during which time the cunning murderess would find out how
much money her victim had, and whether he could immediately procure
more in the form of cash, the victim would be invited to supper and
his food drugged.
He would then be escorted to his room, where he would soon become
unconscious. Chloroform was then administered, the body hurled through
a chute to the basement, where it would be dismembered and placed in a
gunnysack.
The sack would then be taken out and buried in a convenient spot on
the farm. It was an inquiry from the brother of one of the victims,
Andrew Helgelein, which revealed the whole horrible affair.
[Illustration: THE DEATH HARVESTER.
A Crop on the Gunness Farm.]
It is estimated that this woman, through the aid of the matrimonial
agencies, murdered more people than any other human being that ever
lived. She exceeded the records of the Benders, Holmes, and even those
arch-assassins of the middle ages, the Borgias.
LOMBROSO DISCUSSES MONSTER.
Dr. Cesare Lombroso, of the University of Milan, the world's greatest
criminologist, in discussing this woman, said:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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