A Temporary Change in Focus and A Murder Extinct

Your correspondent is about to begin her confinement (translation: I'm grossly pregnant). For the next several weeks, Clews will alas not be relaying original stories but will instead bring you intermittent dispatches that highlight the internet writings of other students of law and history and crime as I balance my keyboard on this handy shelf of flesh.

There is a vast amount of well-written material on my favorite subjects all over the world wide web and today I bring to your attention the work of journalist Evan J. Albright. This gentleman is the author of a thoroughly well done website called "Cape Cod Confidential -- Dedicated to the History of Crime and Scandal in America's Vacationland." In it, he relays some of the famous and not-so-famous murder cases in that locality.

My favorite story from this collection is How NOT To Get Away With Murder. There is a certain school of murder that no longer graduates anyone, thanks be to advances in humanity. I call this now-extinct form of homicide the "I Found Someone Better So You Have To Die" murder. Albright's essay is a good example of this type of case. It goes like this: A young and ambitious [doctor / businessman / clergyman] woos and beds a young and pretty [shopgirl / factory girl / student] but then he manages to win the heart of [an heiress / the boss's daughter] whom he then plans to marry; but when the [shopgirl / factory girl / student] reveals to the [businessman / clergyman] that she is with child, he [drowns / poisons] her. Think Carlyle Harris and Helen Potts or Chester Gillette and Grace Brown (the latter inspiring Theodore Dreiser to pen An American Tragedy). Consider the case of Rev. Ephraim Avery and Sarah Cornell, New England's infamous "Haystack Murder."

Albright brings us yet another of these cases from 1911 in Massachusetts. A young and ambitious clergyman named Rev. Clarence Richeson wooed and bedded a student named Avis Linnell but then managed to win the heart of an heiress named Violet Edmands. When Miss Linnell revealed to the reverend that she was with child -- mere weeks before he planned to wed Miss Edmands -- he poisoned her with cyanide of potassium.

Do you know of other cases from this special school? Am I correct in thinking this is a particularly old-fashioned murder scenario with no modern examples?

As always thank you for stopping by.

Comments

[J Houtved]

In as much as it is no longer imperative that a man marry a women he has gotten pregnant, I suppose you are right, and that this is a blessedly rarer and rarer type of murder; but we still see the occasional murder of someone who gets in the way of a new relationship, whether they know it or not. Mostly they are now married and often there is too much money involved for a divorce to be an option.......

Best of luck with the "confinement".

J Houtved

[Charmaine Rodrigues]

Hi!
I was looking to find some information to Avis Linnell murder case in 1911. As i research the websites it is hard to find factual information. I have a research paper due in three weeks and am really clueless can u please help me ?

[silverside]

Although there is no longer the social pressure to marry, child support requirements, coupled with a basic history of violence in interpersonal relationships, still causes death or severe injury to a significantly high number of pregnant women. Some of them are even married (the Lacey Petersons of the world), but the husband apparently finds it easier to off her than bother with a divorce.