Historical Crimes

The Papin Sisters: France's Crime of the Century Sticky

June 19, 2010

the Papin sisters

The Papin sisters

The strange case of the Papin sisters is notable not only for its shocking violence but because the gender of both the perpetrators and victims was female. The case became a media sensation in France with its lurid undertones of lesbianism and incest; the motive for the crime was never quite clarified – was it simply raving madness or was it the calculated (and some would say righteous) revenge of two working-class girls against their oblivious employers?

by Jessica Mason

The Papin Family

Even by the hardscrabble standards of early 20th century French peasant life, Christine and Léa Papin experienced a particularly dismal childhood. Their father Gustave was an abusive alcoholic and their mother Clémence was a flighty and promiscuous woman with little maternal instinct who, in 1901, was forced to marry their father only because she was pregnant with their first child, Émilia. After her second child Christine was born in 1905, Clémence decided that she could not handle two children and sent the baby off to live with Gustave’s sister. In 1911, Clémence bore a third child, Léa. Soon after the birth of Léa, Clémence discovered that her husband had raped their eldest daughter, Émilia, who at the time was only 10 years old.

Clémence immediately sought and obtained a divorce from Gustave. Her actions, however, were not taken out of concern for her daughter's welfare, but a desire to punish her husband for his infidelity. Clémence apparently believed that Émilia had seduced her father and in order to discipline her, sent her to an orphanage, run by the convent of Le Bon Pasteur, that was known for its harshness. In addition, she pulled Christine out of the care of her aunt and also placed her in Le Bon Pasteur. She also relieved herself of the burden of caring for Léa, who was but a toddler at the time, by giving her over to the care of a great uncle.

Émilia and Christine grew very close to each other in the orphanage and when Émilia became a nun as soon as she was old enough Christine had every intention of following in her sister’s footsteps. However, Clémence, who was depending on her daughters to help support her as soon as they were legally able to work was furious with Émilia for denying her a third of that potential income and forbade Christine from doing the same. She immediately pulled Christine out of Le Bon Pasteur and found her work as a maid in the bourgeois households of Le Mans. Because the sisters of Le Bon Pasteur had tutored her in cleaning, mending and cooking, she was very well-suited to the life of a domestic worker. However, Christine changed employers many times in the first years of her career because the wages they paid were never enough to suit her mother. Like her older sister, Léa was taken from the care of her relative and put to work as soon as she was able and the two sisters, who though they had been separated, were still very fond of each other and attempted to work together whenever possible.

How Lizzie Borden Got Away With Murder Sticky

Lizzie Borden

When Lizzie Borden axed her stepmother and father to death in 1892 it was unthinkable that a woman of such upbringing could commit such vicious crimes. The savagery of the murders set her free.

by Denise M. Clark

The New York Times headline for Aug. 5th, 1892 read: "BUTCHERED IN THEIR HOME: Mr. Borden and His Wife Killed in Broad Daylight." The first paragraph of the stunning article read:

FALL RIVER, Mass, Aug. 4 -- Andrew J. Borden and wife, two of the oldest, wealthiest, and most highly respected persons in the city, were brutally murdered with an ax at 11 o'clock this morning in their home on Second Street, within a few minutes' walk of the City Hall. The Borden family consisted of the father, mother, two daughters, and a servant. The older daughter has been in Fair Haven for some days. The rest of the family has been ill for three or four days, and Dr. Bowen, the attending physician, thought they had been poisoned.

The horrific axe murders of Andrew Borden and his third wife, Abby, would have been shocking in any age, but in the early 1890s they were unthinkable. Equally unthinkable was who wielded the axe that butchered them an hour or so apart in their own home. The idea that the murderer could possibly be Borden's 32-year-old daughter Lizzie took days to register with the police – despite overwhelming physical and circumstantial evidence that pointed only at her. Nine months later a jury, unable to fathom that a woman could commit such vicious crimes, would find a way to ignore the evidence and set Lizzie free.

By no means had Lizzie Borden committed the perfect crime. The police were quickly able to dispense with the possibility of an outside intruder carrying out the murders. Lizzie – her alibi fraught with inconsistencies – was the only suspect. She alone had both the motive and the opportunity. What would end up saving her was the remarkable violence of the murders: The murders were simply too grisly to have been committed by a woman of her upbringing.

The Borden mystery is captured within a web of falsified statements, suppositions, assumptions and public opinion, all of which revolve around a missing weapon that actually never was missing, a blood-stained dress that was never found, and a young woman's previously impeccable character.

Jesse James: The Baddest Outlaw of Them All

May 2, 2013

“Surrender had played out for good with me…” Jesse James.

When the Ford brothers assassinated Jesse James on April 3, 1882, the longest-running outlaw saga in American history was over.

by Robert Walsh

Confederate bushwhacker, desperate outlaw, bank robber, political terrorist, gang leader, multiple murderer, folk hero. Jesse James was all of them. One thing he wasn’t (as much as his latter-day apologists like John Newman Edwards would like you to think) was some sort of Robin Hood who stole from the rich and gave to the poor. While he made great play of continuing to fight for the Confederate cause (when he wasn’t claiming to represent poor, dispossessed Missourians against rich Northern carpetbaggers) he was out for himself.

There was certainly an element of political thought behind his actions (Northern banks and businesses often being prime targets) but most of what he stole stayed in his pocket and, while violence was always going to be a part of his life and career, he also killed even when there was no need for bloodshed.

The Ethnic Cleansing of Native Americans

April 5, 2013

From George Washington through Ulysses S. Grant, U.S. presidents followed a relentless policy of removing Native Americans from their lands. President Andrew Jackson codified ethnic cleansing into law when he signed the Indian Removal Act in 1830.

by David Robb

In 1830, it was called “The Indian Removal Act.” Today it’s called “ethnic cleansing,” which is considered a crime against humanity by the International Criminal Court. But for nearly 100 years it was the stated policy of every U.S. presidents from Washington to Grant – including Lincoln.

Ethnic cleansing was codified into U.S. law in 1830 when President Andrew Jackson asked Congress to pass the Indian Removal Act. This allowed him to legally relocate all Native Americans who were then living east of the Mississippi to the west side of the river. The result: The Trail of Tears, in which as many as 10,000 Indians died during the forced march westward.

To this day, many Native Americans will not carry $20 bills.

Before Lizzie Borden

Feb. 25, 2013

Five months after the author’s grandfather was sentenced to only 10 years for the shooting death of his father in Fall River, Massachusetts, Lizzie Borden was acquitted of the axe murders of her father and stepmother in Fall River, Massachusetts. Was Lizzie inspired by the public sympathy and light sentence meted out to her townsman?

by Thomas D. McDougall

When I retired in March of 2011, I finally had the opportunity to complete several projects that I had put aside for many years. The first and most important to me personally was the completion of a family history that I had started in the 1980’s. The advancement of genealogy information and its availability on the Internet afforded me an opportunity that I had never been able to utilize in my earlier search for information.

My parents had both been born and raised in Fall River, Massachusetts, a city rich in history that had been a magnet for immigrants from the British Isles and Europe during the mid and late 1800’s. They flocked to the area in search of employment in one of the city’s many mills and supporting industries. Consequently I was familiar with the city and the story of Lizzie Borden. What I never knew and was probably never known by family members was our own peripheral connection to the Lizzie Borden case.

My mother’s family had emigrated from England in 1910 and there was a wealth of information available from personal recollection and subsequent research t hat filled in the gaps. I began to think that my family history project could be finalized in short order. As I turned to my father’s side of the family I realized just how little I knew and how wrong I was with respect to my projected finish date. The other fact that began to emerge from my research was the wealth of surprises and skeletons that come out in the open during an in-depth genealogy project. In my case, it was the murder of my great–grandfather, James McDougall, by the hand of my grandfather, James McDougall Jr.

The Murder of the “Beautiful Cigar Girl”

Dec. 10, 2012

Mary Rogers

The disappearance and murder of Mary Rogers in 1841 became a major tabloid story for the New York newspapers. Edgar Allan Poe wrote a mystery story about it, but Mary’s murderer was never identified.

by Doug MacGowan

Sunday, July 25, 1841, was a hot day in New York City. That morning 20-year-old Mary Rogers left the boarding house owned by her mother to attend services at her church. She returned home later that morning and talked briefly with her mother and with one of the residents, Daniel Payne, who happened to be her fiancé. Payne would later testify that Mary had outlined her plans for the day: visiting her aunt until evening and then returning home. The aunt lived nearby, only a quarter of an hour trip by horse-drawn carriage. Mary asked Payne to meet her at the nearest carriage stop that evening and escort her home.

That afternoon, the city was crippled with a severe thunderstorm. When Payne went to meet Mary at the carriage stop, he found that she had not returned from her aunt's. He surmised that she had wisely stayed at her aunt's in order to avoid the storm, and would return the following morning.

By Monday morning the weather had cleared up, but Mary did not return home. This caused her mother and Payne and Alfred Crommelin (another boarder and, coincidentally, a former beau of Mary's) to set up a search plan. The natural starting place was the home of the aunt Mary had visited on Sunday. But the aunt stated she had not seen Mary on Sunday nor had she expected a visit from her.

The three continued their search Monday afternoon, but with no success. Believing the necessary search needed more than three people, they placed an ad in the New York Sun newspaper asking if anyone had seen "a young lady (wearing) a white dress, black shawl, blue scarf, Leghorn hat, light colored shoes, and parasol light-colored." Anyone who had seen a young woman matching this description was asked to contact her mother because "it is supposed some accident has befallen her."

Mary had disappeared once before. In October of 1838, she went missing for several days. Upon her return, she vaguely stated that she had gone to visit relatives in Brooklyn, although she did not explain why she had not told anyone of this journey beforehand. Her mother now wondered if her second disappearance was a similar episode. Perhaps she would reappear soon.

Billy the Kid – Young Gun

Nov. 26, 2012

Billy the Kid

Of all the infamous outlaws of the Old West, none has quite the notoriety of “Billy the Kid.”

by Robert Walsh

John Wesley Hardin. Jesse James. Cole Younger. “Curly” Bill Brocius. Gunslingers, killers, thieves, icons of the Wild West. Of all the infamous outlaws of the Old West, none has quite the notoriety of “Billy the Kid.” Questionably accused of killing 21 men (one for each year of his short, violent life), Billy is as much a Wild West icon as Wyatt Earp or “Wild Bill” Hickok in spite of being firmly on the other side of the law. Ask people to name the first outlaw that springs to mind and Billy is often their first choice even now. Well over a century after his controversial shooting by buffalo hunter-turned-lawman Pat Garrett and, in spite of being a New Yorker, he’s still marketed to the tourists as New Mexico’s most infamous son.

Like so many Old West outlaws, Billy’s public image is a constant blurring of fact and fiction. The man and the myth so intertwined as to be almost indistinguishable. To start with, nobody has ever provided his accurate date of birth, we don’t know who his biological father really was, there’s no accurate body count of his victims and stripping fact from fiction is difficult to say the least. We don’t even know for certain what his real name was.