Upstate New York's True Crime Storyteller

If you're a fan of true crime and haven't yet heard of Mark Gado, then you will soon. For the better part of three decades, Mark Gado has been a part-time writer and a police detective in New Rochelle, New York. Since he retired, Gado has kept pen to paper and produced several historic true crime books and essays. His work appeared in the 2004 anthology Famous American Crimes and Trials and he also wrote several essays for Court TV's Crime Library before its plug was recently pulled.

Now he's endeared himself to this true crime fan again by releasing a book examining the six notorious women who died in Sing Sing's electric chair. Photo: Martha Beck, "Lonely Hearts Killer," the woman whom the press said "dominated" Raymond Fernandez "body and soul and he was as helpless to get away from her as a rat from a snake. She held him fast by carnality, greed and fear and she taught him the terrifying pleasures of murder."

I read and enjoyed the author's first book: Killer Priest: The Crimes, Trial, and Execution of Father Hans Schmidt. The murderer was a Roman Catholic priest - the only one ever executed in the U.S., though his collar had little to do with the crime. Or the motive, in any event. He met his Maker in an electric chair for killing his pregnant lover and butchering her remains. Undoubtedly it was the incongruity of a man of the cloth wrapping a lady's pieces in cloth that led to the infliction of the ultimate penalty in the particularly cruel manner that they used at Sing Sing.

The author had access to vast transcripts from two trials and drew on them to paint a very detailed and hair-raising account of Hans Schmidt's childhood. I was gripped by Gado's description of the  development of Father Schmidt's bizarre personality. The book is worth reading for this alone. 

His story is also a reminder that the Catholic church can take "see no evil" to the extreme, and this appears to have been true for quite a long time....

(Author photo via)

Gado has just come out with his second book, and this book too carries the faintest whiff of burning hair. His new book is Death Row Women: Murder, Justice, and the New York Press. As the publisher explains:

During the 20th century, only six women were legally executed by the State of New York at Sing Sing Prison.

In each case, the condemned faced a process of demonization and public humiliation that was orchestrated by a powerful and unforgiving media.

When compared to the media treatment of men who went to the electric chair for similar offenses, the press coverage of female killers was ferocious and unrelenting. "Granite woman," "black-eyed Borgia," "roadhouse tramp," "sex-mad," and "lousy prostitute" are just some of the terms used by newspapers to describe these women. Unlike their male counterparts, females endured a campaign of expulsion and disgrace before they were put to death.

I certainly agree with the author's premise that women on death row were subjected to horse-whippings from the press. Women were hardly ever convicted of murder in those days, so when they were, the evidence had to be quite overwhelming and the woman herself beyond hope of redemption. When such a female was found and tried, the newspapers responded accordingly. I'm looking forward to this new book and many more from this author.

Comments

[steve knauer]

trying to get stats on major crime in the upstate NY area over the last 20 years...not tech savy...not a lot of time...please pass along suggestions...thanks