Decidedly Grim

Today’s Unmarked Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

John Wilkes Booth might have been a successful assassin, but he was a largely ineffectual escape artist. Just 12 days after murdering President Abraham Lincoln, Booth was shot in the back of the neck and killed. His body was (eventually) buried in an unmarked grave at Baltimore’s Green Mount Cemetery. His third, fourth, and fifth vertebrae, however, were removed during the autopsy so investigators could access the bullet. For a peek at those bits of Booth’s spinal column, just check out the display at the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington, D.C.

Culled from: Neatorama
Generously submitted by: Reno Dave

I went to the museum back in 2001 but my shot of the vertebrae didn’t show up. You can see photos of some of the other goodies at my travelogue though:

American Freaks!

Facts

Today’s Bawdy Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

For at least a year after the beginning of the Gold Rush, the population of women in San Francisco probably did not exceed 300. Of this number, perhaps two-thirds were harlots from Mexico, Peru and Chile. Together with male natives of these and other Central American countries they were known as Chilenos or, contemptuously, “greasers”. These pioneer prostitutes occupied tents and board shanties in the vicinity of Clark’s Point, about where Broadway and Pacific Street run into the Bay, and on the eastern and southern slopes of Telegraph Hill. Sometimes as many as half a dozen Chileno women used the same rude shelter, receiving their visitors singly or en suite, with no regard whatever for privacy, and no furniture excepting a wash-bowl and a few dilapidated cots or straw pallets. A few made pretense of operating wash-houses, but there were scarcely any who did not devote the nights to bawdy carousal and to sexual excesses and exhibitions. And the days, also, if there was opportunity. Many of the men who had brought them to California had gone on to the goldfields, but others had remained in San Francisco, where they dwelt promiscuously with the harlots. They lived off the earnings of the women and what they could steal from the men who frequented the district. They also operated a few small, crooked gambling houses.

Culled from: The Barbary Coast

Just reading that paragraph makes me feel like I may have contracted an STD. Shudder…

Facts

Today’s Desperately Ill Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

Bellevue Hospital in New York City was built on land that once nourished a farm called Belle Vue, for its beautiful prospect on the river. The first hospital building had been constructed there in 1811; only 8 years later Bellevue became the first U.S. hospital to formally require a qualified physician to pronounce a death (after a desperately ill man had been discovered among the corpses stacked on the morgue wagon). Its ambulance system started in 1869; its children’s clinic (the first in the nation) in 1874; its chest clinic, to combat tuberculosis, in 1903. It was from the start a public hospital – in the winter of 1915, nearly a thousand people were treated at Bellevue every day. “It gathers the dead and dying from river and streets and is kept busy night and day with the misery of the living,” wrote one New York Times reporter, attempting to capture the rather ominous mystique of the place.

Culled from: The Poisoner’s Handbook

Of course, I always think of the lovely Bruce Springsteen line, “They’re waiting for you at Bellevue with their oxygen masks” when I think of this place… Ah, romance.

Facts

As promised, here’s my review of…

All God’s Children: Inside the Dark and Violent World of Street Families
by Rene Denfeld
Fascinating book about Street Families living in Portland. Street Families are basically gangs formed by homeless and disaffected youth that center around a male and female leader (known as the “street father” and “street mother”). Most of the kids are homeless youth, but some of them are kids who have homes to go back to, but who decide to live on the streets because it’s much more exciting than living at home. These kids live for The Dramas – basically, hunting down and punishing kids who disobey any of the rules and regulations of the families. Sometimes the kids don’t even have to disobey the rules to be a target: if someone doesn’t like them for whatever reason they can just say that they broke a rule and that’s enough to get the bored family members fired up for retaliation. And to call these kids merciless is an understatement. Torture, murder, relentless cruelty, whatever it takes to earn “street cred” is fine by them. By the end of this book, I was longing for the simplier days of runaway teenage junkie prostitutes like Christiane F. And I don’t think I’ll ever view Portland the same again… or, actually, any street kids at all. (4/5)

Library

Today’s Greasy Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

Eric C. Gottschalk was at the bottom of the pecking order in the Portland apartment he shared with a “street family” of young adults. The band’s matriarch and its enforcer had the 23-year-old sign a contract in which he agreed to do whatever they said and gave them permission to beat him if he didn’t. The contract was marked with Gottschalk’s blood. The band of mostly 18- to 25-year-olds didn’t allow Gottschalk to sit on the apartment’s furniture. Members punched him with brass knuckles and — in one of the more violent incidents — put him in the bathtub and poured hot cooking grease on his genitals. A few days later, on July 9, 2005, Gottschalk’s tormentors beat and stabbed him to death out of fear that he would report the hot-grease incident to police.

Nicholas Alexander Thompson, 27, the so-called enforcer of the band’s rules, poured the hot grease on Gottschalk while Raymundo Angel Dominguez, 35, held him down. After that, Gottschalk left the apartment for a few days. The night before the murder, Thompson made plans in front of other members of the band. When Gottschalk resurfaced by calling and asking to be picked up, Thompson, Dominguez and a few others drove out to get him. But instead of returning to their Parkrose apartment, they drove to the Thousand Acres recreation area east of Troutdale, marched Gottschalk about a mile into the brush and told him to kneel. Dominguez hit Gottschalk with a large stick and punched him. Thompson slashed his torso numerous times and stabbed him in the head, neck and lung.

Thompson pleaded guilty to aggravated murder and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of release. Thompson also was sentenced to the Oregon State Hospital for stabbing and wounding his girlfriend months before the murder. He will start his sentence at the state hospital, where he will receive psychiatric care, then will move to the state prison system when he’s deemed fit or at the end of 20 years. Dominguez was sentenced to 25 years in prison after pleading guilty to kidnapping, assault and conspiracy to commit aggravated murder.

Culled from: Oregonlive.Com

I just recently finished a fascinating book – All God’s Children: Inside the Dark and Violent World of Street Families by Rene Denfeld – that details other horrific crimes committed by these Portland Street Families. I’ll post a full review a bit later… Suffice to say, that I’ll never look at street punks in Portland in quite the same way again!

Facts

As promised, here’s my review of…

The Murder Of Helen Jewett
by Patricia Cline Cohen
Immaculately researched book about an infamous 1836 prostitute murder that was a sensation in New York tabloids. The most interesting part of the book was its exploration of 1830′s New York brothel culture, and Miss Helen Jewett (a.k.a. Dorcas Doyen) herself – who was a bit of 19th century feminist. She was educated, intelligent, manipulative, and independent – the ultimate threat to an insecure 19th century man (which explains her doom). There’s a tendency in society to feel sorry for women who have to “resort to prostitution” to support themselves, but this book does an excellent job of explaining just how well off high-end prostitutes like Helen Jewett were during their time – receiving $5 per “visit” (and an average of 2-3 visits per day) at a time when highly skilled working men were earning $10-12 a week.  Unfortunately, the second half of the story – of murderer Richard Robinson and his maddeningly biased trial (the judge suggested the jury can disregard the testimony of Jewett’s fellow prostitutes who saw Robinson leave Jewett’s room the night of the murder) - is less compelling than the first, causing me to lose interest and take forever to finally finish the book.  (3/5)

More Murderous History is available to peruse at The Library Eclectica‘s Maniacal Monsters aisle.

Library

Today’s Whitewashed Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

Helen Jewett’s real name was Dorcas Doyen and she was born in 1813 in Temple, Maine to a working class family. Her father was an alcoholic and her mother died when Jewett was young. When she was 12 years old, Helen found work as a maidservant in the home of Chief Justice Nathan Weston of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. As the years passed, Helen grew into a true beauty. At 17, she was ruthlessly seduced by an unscrupulous bank cashier, thus despoiling her “reputation”. At 18, she changed her name to Helen Jewett and moved to New York City. It was not long before her great beauty attracted notice. She found work in a bordello and earned a very comfortable living as high class courtesan. One day, while she was accosted by a ruffian outside a theatre, a man by the name of Richard Robinson came to her rescue. A bond developed and Robinson soon became a regular patron. However, it was a rocky relationship and the couple broke up. Some said that it was because Helen learned that Robinson was planning to marry another woman, and she threatened him. Others said it was caused by the fact that Robinson had been embezzling money to lavish on Jewett, and he became worried that Jewett would expose him.

On an April night in 1836, another woman in the brothel heard a loud noise followed by a moan. She peered out into the hallway and saw a tall man hurrying away. When the Madame of the brothel looked into Helen Jewett’s room, she discovered a small fire and Helen who lay dead in a pool of blood from a large wound in her head. She was struck three times in the head. Her killer fled from the house by a back door and climbed over a whitewashed fence to escape. The women of the brothel named Robinson as their primary suspect. Police found him in his rented room, in bed with whitewash stains on his pants and they charged him with Helen’s murder. Robinson was charged with the murder of Helen Jewett.

On June 2, 1836, Robinson’s trial for murder began. The media sensationalized it. Because most of the witnesses were prostitutes, the judge ordered the jury to disregard their testimony. The rest of the evidence was all circumstantial. As a result, the jury returned a verdict of not guilty. Jewett’s murder excited the press and the public, with strong supporters for Jewett as well as Robinson.

Culled from: History and Women

So, if your name was Dorcas Doyen, what would you change it to? I think this will be my new pseudonym. Goodbye Comtesse DeSpair, Hello Dorcas Doyen! Hmmmm… maybe not…

Anyway, the story of Jewett’s murder and its subsequent press coverage has been retold in a book by Patricia Cline Cohen entitled, sensibly, The Murder Of Helen Jewett which I completed recently. My review will be forthcoming. You hang rapt with anticipation.

Facts

Today’s Young Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

Probably the youngest child executed in England was John Dean who was convicted of arson at the Abingdon Assizes on the 23rd of February 1629. His age is given in “The Annals of Windsor” as between eight and nine years and he had set fire to two houses in Windsor. It would appear that the judge, Mr. Justice Whitelock, found evidence of malice, revenge and cunning and therefore did not recommend a reprieve for the boy.

Culled from: Capital Punishment U.K.

Facts

Fascinating, harrowing, extremely well-written suicide note from a child rape victim which also highlights how religious fundamentalism is, at its root, nothing more than another form of abuse.

Bill Zeller, Princeton Grad Student And ‘Brilliant’ Programmer, Dies In Apparent Suicide

Sundry

Today’s Almost Imperceptible Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

In 1831, a painter of pottery had the dubious distinction of becoming the first person in Britain known to have contracted cholera. He suffered with vomiting, chills, fever, and diarrhea. His face was covered with cold sweat, and his lips were blue, while his voice and pulse became so weak as to be almost imperceptible. Amazingly, he recovered, but a few days later another worker in the same area collapsed with identical symptoms and died. Doctors called the quickly spreading malady “summer diarrhea.” Actually, it was just the beginning in Britain of what became a devastating cholera epidemic throughout Europe. Millions in Britain and other European nations eventually died of the disease.

Culled from: The Pessimist’s Guide To History

Facts