No. 706
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
June 30, 2025

A Human Vampire.

April 28, 2014
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Dagworth Hall as it looks todayAs I believe I’ve mentioned before, medieval chronicles are a gold mine for those of us who like our history to be laced with a bit of the bizarre.  In between descriptions of wars, plagues, and other notable events, you are apt to suddenly find deadpan accounts of events that can be best described as barking mad.  Ralph of Coggeshall was a monk in
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Strange Company - 6/30/2025
Wouldn’t you love to have interviewed Lizzie’s physician, Dr. Nomus S. Paige from Taunton, the jail doctor, ? He found her to be of sane mind and we can now confirm that he had Lizzie moved to the Wright’s quarters while she was so ill after her arraignment with bronchitis, tonsilitis and a heavy cold. We learn that she was not returned to her cell as he did not wish a relapse so close to her trial. Dr. Paige was a Dartmouth man, class of 1861. I have yet to produce a photo of him but stay tuned! His house is still standing at 74 Winthrop St, corner of Walnut in Taunton. He was married twice, with 2 children by his second wife Elizabeth Honora “Nora” Colby and they had 2 children,Katherine and Russell who both married and had families. Many of the Paiges are buried in Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Taunton. Dr. Paige died in April of 1919- I bet he had plenty of stories to tell about his famous patient in 1893!! He was a popular Taunton doctor at Morton Hospital and had a distinguished career. Dr. Paige refuted the story that Lizzie was losing her mind being incarcerated at the jail, a story which was appearing in national newspapers just before the trial. Mt. Pleasant Cemetery, Taunton, courtesy of Find A Grave. 74 Winthrop St., corner of Walnut, home of Dr. Paige, courtesy of Google Maps Obituary for Dr. Paige, Boston Globe April 17, 1919
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Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 5/24/2025
How did New Yorkers get through sweltering summer days before the invention and widespread use of air conditioning? Well, a lot of it depended on your income bracket. If you were wealthy, you likely waited out the summer at a seaside resort like Newport or on a country estate cooled by mountains or river breezes. […]
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Ephemeral New York - 6/30/2025
Youth With Executioner by Nuremberg native Albrecht Dürer … although it’s dated to 1493, which was during a period of several years when Dürer worked abroad. November 13 [1617]. Burnt alive here a miller of Manberna, who however was lately … Continue reading
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Executed Today - 11/13/2020
A boatman working near the foot of Little Street in Brooklyn, on October 3, 1864, saw a package floating on the water. Thinking it might contain something of value, he took it into his boat. He unraveled the enameled oilcloth surrounding the package, and inside, covered in sheets of brown paper, was the trunk of a human body. The head, arms, pelvis, and legs had been cut off with a saw or sharp
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Murder By Gaslight - 6/28/2025
Soapy Smith STAR NotebookPage 20 - Original copy1884Courtesy of Geri Murphy(Click image to enlarge) oapy Smith's early empire growth in Denver.Operating the prize package soap sell racket in 1884. This is page 20, the continuation of page 19, and dated May 6 - May 29, 1884, as well as the continuation of pages 18-19, the beginning of Soapy Smith's criminal empire building in Denver, Colorado.&
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Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 6/1/2025
  [Editor’s note: Guest writer, Peter Dickson, lives in West Sussex, England and has been working with microfilm copies of The Duncan Campbell Papers from the State Library of NSW, Sydney, Australia. The following are some of his analyses of what he has discovered from reading these papers. Dickson has contributed many transcriptions to the Jamaica […]
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Early American Crime - 2/7/2019
A Pointer. | Clubbed by a Wronged Wife.

A Human Vampire.

Human Vampire

A Woman’s Fiendish Assault upon a Neighbor, Which May Result in Murder, in Columbus, O. [more]

A frightful assault, which may develop into a murder was committed by a woman in the southeastern part of Columbus, Ohio, recently. Living at No. 459 Parsons avenue is Frank Richter, a contracting teamster, with his wife and several children.

Among their nearest neighbors are James Claprood and wife. Claprood is a laborer and lives just across from the Richter home. On Monday Mrs. Richter heard that Mrs. Claprood had been slandering her and, accompanied by several other women of the neighborhood, went to Mrs. Claprood’s home for the purpose of demanding a retraction. Mrs. Claprood, armed with a large pair of tailor’s sheers, drove them from her house. Following them into the street she sprang upon Mrs. Richter like a tigress, and imbedded her teeth in Mrs. Richter’s face. She chewed Mrs. Richter’s left cheek into a jelly and then grabbing the poor woman’s right cheek mutilated it in a similar manner. Not satisfied with this barbarous treatment, Mrs. Claprood sucked the blood of her victim from first one cheek and then the other, as voraciously as a wild beast of the field.

The poor victim’s screams were heart-rending, but so ravenously did Mrs. Claprood in her frenzied rage bite and tear the flesh and suck the blood of her victim that the other women seemed paralyzed by the horrible spectacle and were powerless to rescue her.

Mrs. Richter finally made a desperate effort to escape, and, grabbing her assailant by the throat, tried to force her off. Mrs. Claprood then loosened her teeth from Mrs. Richter’s blood besmirched cheek and sank them into the screaming woman’s hands. In the meantime she grabbed a handful of Mrs. Richter’s hair and tor it out by the roots. Finally Mrs. Richter, exhausted form loss of blood, sank into unconsciousness.

Mrs. Claprrod arrived home at this juncture, and with difficulty tore his wife from her prey. Mrs. Richter is in a critical condition, and it is feared where will die. Mrs. Claprood is under arrest.


Reprinted from the National Police Gazette, December 9, 1893