Minnie Dean

Williamina "Minnie" Dean (September 2, 1844 – August 12, 1895) was a New Zealander who was found guilty of infanticide and hanged. She was the only woman to receive the death penalty in New Zealand, although several others were sentenced to capital punishment, but had their sentences commuted to either life or long duration imprisonment.

Early life

Minnie Dean was born in Greenock, in western Scotland. Her father, John McCulloch, was a railway engineer. Her mother, Elizabeth Swan, died of cancer in 1857. It is unknown when she arrived in New Zealand, but by the early 1860s, she was living in Invercargill with two young children. She claimed she was the widow of a Tasmanian doctor, although no evidence of a marriage has been found. She was still using her birth name, McCulloch.

In 1872, she married an innkeeper named Charles Dean. The two lived in Etal Creek, then an important stop on the route from Riverton to the Otago goldfields. When the goldrush died down, the couple turned to farming, but were soon in dire financial straits. The family moved to Winton, where Charles Dean took up pig farming. Minnie Dean, meanwhile, began to earn money by taking in unwanted children in exchange for payment. In an era when there were few methods of contraception, and when childbirth outside marriage was frowned upon, there were many women wishing to discreetly send their children away for adoption – as such, Minnie Dean was not short on customers. It is believed that she was responsible for as many as nine young children at any one time. She received payment either weekly or in a lump sum.

Infant mortality was a significant problem in New Zealand at this time (as it was estimated to run to about eighty to one hundred infants out of one thousand colonial births). As such, a number of children under Dean's care died of various illnesses. In March 1889, a six-month-old child had died of convulsions, while in October 1891, a six-week-old baby had perished from cardiovascular and respiratory ailments, while a boy allegedly drowned under her care during 1894. She hid the body in her garden, arousing further suspicions. A coroner's inquest was held, and Dean was not held responsible for the deaths, due to universally poor standards of hygiene, even at childbirth itself. Nevertheless, Dean came to be distrusted by the community, and rumours of mistreatment circulated. Additionally, children under Dean's care allegedly went missing without explanation. In the public's mind, this linked Dean to cases of infanticide or baby farming in the United Kingdom and Australia, where women killed children under their care to avoid having to support them. At the time, lax childcare legislation meant that Dean did not have to keep records of the children she agreed to take in, and so proving that the children had disappeared was difficult.

Before Dean's trial and execution, three other women had been tried and sentenced to death- Caroline Whitting (1872), Phoebe Veitch (1883: d.1891) and Sarah-Jane and Anna Flannagan (1891). In each case, those sentences were commuted to life imprisonment. In each case, child murder was the culpable offence. Thirty years later, in 1926, Daniel Cooper was also convicted of baby farming and also executed for the offence, although Martha, his second wife was acquitted. In a broader, international context, Dean's misdeeds may also have been viewed in the same light as late Victorian contemporaries and fellow "baby farmers" such as Amelia Dyer in the United Kingdom (CE 1896) and John and Sarah Makin and Frances Lydia Alice Knorr in New South Wales (CE 1893/4)during the same historical period, as well as previous New Zealand historical instances of ostensibly deliberate child deaths. Certainly, given the proximity of New South Wales, the Makin case featured in New Zealand newspapers during the same period as the Minnie Dean controversy and trial.

Murder case and execution

In 1895, Dean was observed boarding a train carrying a young baby and a hatbox, but observed leaving the same train without the baby and only the hatbox. As railway porters later testified, the object was suspiciously heavy. A woman, Jane Hornsby, came forward claiming to have given her granddaughter, Eva, to Dean, and clothes identified as belonging to this child were found at Dean's residence, but Dean could not produce the child herself. A search along the railway line found no sign of the child. Dean was arrested and charged with murder. Her garden was dug up, and three bodies (two of babies, and one of a boy estimated to be three years old) were uncovered. An inquest found that one child (Eva) had died of suffocation and one, later identified as one-year-old Dorothy Edith Carter, had died from an overdose of laudanum (used on children to sedate them). The cause of death for the third child was not determined. Dean was charged with their murder.

Hatboxes containing baby dolls, such as this one, were sold outside the courthouse during Minnie Dean's 1895 trial.

In her trial, Dean's lawyer Alfred Hanlon argued that all deaths were accidental, and that they had been covered up to prevent adverse publicity of the sort that Dean had previously been subjected to. On 21 June 1895, however, Dean was found guilty of Dorothy Carter's murder, and sentenced to death. Between June and August 1895, Dean wrote her own account of her life. Altogether, she claimed to have cared for twenty-eight children. Of these, five were in good health when her establishment was raided, six had died whilst under her care, and one had been reclaimed by her parents. Apart from her two adopted daughters, that left fourteen or so children unaccounted for, according to her own record.

On 12 August, she was hanged by the official executioner Tom Long at the Invercargill gaol, at the intersection of Spey and Leven streets, in what is now the Noel Leeming carpark. She is the only woman to have been executed in New Zealand, and as capital punishment in New Zealand has been abolished, it is likely that she will retain that distinction. She is buried in Winton, alongside her husband, who died in a house fire in 1908. Her crimes led to the belated passage of child welfare legislation in New Zealand—the Infant Life Protection Act 1893 and the Infant Protection Act 1896.

In popular culture

In 1985, Dean's trial was the subject of In Defence of Minnie Dean, the first episode of the Emmy-nominated Hanlon New Zealand television drama series about the career of Dean's lawyer. The episode won the Best Director, Best Drama Programme, Drama Script, and Performance, Female, in a Dramatic Role categories at the 1986 Listener Television Awards (also called the GOFTA Awards), and "contributed to a re-evaluation of Dean's conviction".

Minnie Dean is referenced in Dudley Benson's 2006 song "It's Akaroa's Fault" ("I don't want to meet Minnie Dean at the end of my life/If I were to meet her I'd keep her hatbox in sight"). Authors Lynley Hood and John Rawle wrote posthumous accounts and reconstructions of the case as the centenary of her apprehension and execution occurred, in 1995.

On Friday 30 January 2009 the Otago Daily Times reported that a headstone had appeared mysteriously on Dean's grave. The headstone reads "Minnie Dean is part of Winton's history Where she now lies is now no mystery". It is unknown who placed the headstone there. Her family had been considering it but claim that this was not their doing.

The Southland Times reported on 23 February 2009 that the family laid a headstone to honour Dean and her husband's grave.

At the 2012 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, a play titled "A Cry Too Far From Heaven" was performed by a Southland (NZ) theatre company and featured Minnie Dean as one of the title characters on her last night before execution.

In 2013, the New Zealand musician Marlon Williams wrote a song inspired by Minnie's case, entitled "Ballad of Minnie Dean". 

See also

• Phoebe Veitch and Caroline Whitting, earlier convicted of New Zealand child murders and sentenced to death, but reprieved.
• Winifred Carrick and Lillian Fanny Jane Hobbs, acquitted of child murder in New Zealand.
• Sarah-Jane and Anna Flannagan, convicted of New Zealand child murders and sentenced to death, but reprieved.
• Daniel Cooper (New Zealand murderer), also convicted of child murder, sentenced to death and executed (1923).
• Amelia Dyer, convicted of child murder in the United Kingdom (1896), sentenced to death and executed.
• John and Sarah Makin; he was convicted of child murder in New South Wales and executed in 1893, while she was acquitted of acting as an accomplice.
• Frances Lydia Alice Knorr, also convicted of child murder in New South Wales, Knorr was executed in 1894.
• Infanticide in Nineteenth Century New Zealand

Bibliography

• Lynley Hood: Minnie Dean: Her Life and Crimes: Auckland: Penguin: 1994: ISBN 0-14-016763-3
• John Rawle: Minnie Dean: One Hundred Years of Memory: Christchurch: Orca Publishing: 1997: ISBN 1-877162-03-5

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Joseph Vacher

Joseph Vacher (November 16, 1869 – December 31, 1898) was a French serial killer, sometimes known as "The French Ripper" or "L'éventreur du Sud-Est" ("The South-East Ripper") owing to comparisons to the more famous Jack the Ripper murderer of London, England, in 1888. His scarred face, accordion, and plain, white, handmade rabbit-fur hat composed his trademark appearance.

Life

The son of an illiterate farmer, young Joseph was sent to a very strict Catholic school where he was taught to obey and to fear God. Seeking escape from the intense poverty of his childhood as the 15th child of a peasant family, he joined the army in 1892. Frustrated by slow promotion and no recognition, and infused with the grandiose belief that he was not receiving the attention he deserved, Vacher attempted to kill himself by slicing his throat. This would prove to be the first of two unsuccessful suicide attempts.

While Vacher had been in the army, he fell in love with a young maidservant, Louise, who was not attracted to him and spurned his advances. After his attempted suicide led to his dismissal from the military, he again tried to woo her, even going so far as to propose. Bored by him and uninterested in his offer, she mocked him and his proposal. This second slight also motivated violence: in a rage, Vacher shot Louise four times and then tried to commit suicide. Both attempts at homicide were unsuccessful—Louise was badly injured but survived the shooting, and Vacher severely maimed himself. Shooting himself twice in the head, Vacher succeeded in paralyzing one side of his face, deforming him severely. One of the bullets remained lodged in his ear for the remainder of his life, and the damage to his brain likely exacerbated his existing mental illness. He felt that the shooting damaged him more than physically: he would later claim, after his arrest, that the reactions of strangers to this self-inflicted deformity drove him to hatred of society at large. This second suicide attempt put him in a mental institution in Dole, Jura. Despite a one-year stay and a pronouncement from his doctors that he was "completely cured," Vacher began murdering his victims shortly after his release at the age of 25.

During a three-year period beginning in 1894, Vacher murdered and mutilated at least 11 people (one woman, five teenage girls, and five teenage boys). Many of them were shepherds watching their flocks in isolated fields. The victims were stabbed repeatedly, often disemboweled, raped, and sodomized. Vacher became a drifter, travelling from town to town, from Normandy to Provence, staying mainly in the southeast of France and surviving by begging or working on farms as a day laborer. By most accounts, he was unkempt and frightening, wandering from town to town as a vagrant in filthy clothes, begging in the streets and surviving on the scraps he received from anyone who spared him a kindness.

In 1897 Vacher tried to assault a woman gathering wood in a field in Ardèche. She fought back and her screams soon alerted her husband and son, both of whom came rushing to her aid. The men overpowered Vacher and took him to the police. Despite their belief that they had apprehended the man responsible, the authorities had little evidence that Vacher was responsible for the series of murders. However, and with little apparent prompting, Vacher confessed to committing all eleven murders, saying, "I committed them all in moments of frenzy."

Insanity plea

After his arrest, Vacher claimed he was insane and attempted to prove it in a variety of ways. He claimed that a rabid dog's bite had poisoned his blood, causing madness, but later blamed the quack cure he received for the bite. He also claimed he was sent by God, comparing himself to Joan of Arc. Despite his protestations, he was pronounced sane after lengthy investigations by a team of doctors that included the eminent professor Alexandre Lacassagne. He was tried and convicted by the Cour d'Assises of Ain, the county where he had murdered two of his victims, and was sentenced to death on October 28, 1898. Vacher was executed by guillotine at dawn two months later, on December 31, 1898. Possibly insane, he refused to walk to the scaffold under his own power and was dragged to the guillotine by the executioners.

In popular culture

In 1976 French filmmaker Bertrand Tavernier made a film called Le juge et l'assassin (The Judge and the Murderer) that was inspired by Vacher's story. The name of the murderer, played by Michel Galabru, is slightly changed into "Joseph Bouvier" (in French, the words bouvier and vacher describe the same profession, herdsman).

In the episode "Probable Cause" of the TV series Castle, serial killer 3XK uses Vacher's name as an alias.

In the film Psychopathia Sexualis Vacher is the first case study of a sexual mental illness presented.

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Johann Otto Hoch

Johann Otto Hoch (also known as The Bluebeard Murderer) (1855 – February 23, 1906) is the most famous and last-used alias of a German-born murderer and bigamist, John Schmidt. He was found guilty of the murder of one wife but is thought to have killed more, perhaps up to 50 victims. He was hanged.

Early life

Hoch was born John Schmidt in 1855, at Horrweiler, in the Grand Duchy of Hesse (present-day Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany). He immigrated to the United States as a young man in the 1890s and dropped his surname in favor of assorted pseudonyms where he began to marry a string of women, frequently taking the name of his most recent victim. He would swindle all their money and either leave them or kill them with arsenic and then begin his pattern all over again. Chicago police would dub him "Americas greatest mass murderer," but statistics remain vague in this puzzling case. We know that Hoch bigamously married at least 55 women between 1890 and 1905, bilking all of them for cash and slaying many, but the final number of murder victims is a matter of conjecture. Sensational reports credit Hoch with 25 to 50 murders, but police were only certain of 15, and in the end he went to trial (and to the gallows) for a single homicide. Hoch's first and only legal wife was Christine Ramb, who bore him three children before he deserted her in 1887.

Timeline of swindles/killings

A turn of the century account partially reports on many of Hoch's victims, except where noted:

• 1881, Austria – marries Annie Hock {alleged}
• 1883, New York – Hoch arrives with wife Annie an invalid who dies several years later {alleged}
• 1888, New York – After arriving from Wurtemberg, Hoch said to have married an immigrant servant girl who "died" prior to two months passing {alleged}. At the time of his 1905 New York arrest it was also alleged Hoch had married and either left/killed women in Vienna, Austria; London, England and Paris, France.
• 1892 Chicago-Mrs. Hoyle Hoch died {alleged}
• 1892, Chicago – May: Hoch under name C.A. Meyer rents flat and has a new wife {wife reportedly died after three weeks} alleged
• 1892, Chicago – June: Hoch under name H. Irick rents flat and has a new wife {wife reportedly died a month later} alleged
• 1893, Milwaukee – Hoch under name "Dr. James" marries Lena Schmitz-who died {alleged}
• 1893 Milwaukee-Hoch marries Lena Schmitz sister Clara {died} {Alleged}
• 1894 Chicago_under a new alias Hoch rents flat with a new wife {wife reportedly died after two months} alleged
• 1895 Chicago-arrested under alias "C.A. Calford" and charged by Mrs. Janet Spencer with having eloped; married and deserted her with a few hundred dollars of her money; he is identified as abductor of a Hulda Stevans and a participant in a diamond robbery {alleged}
• 1895 April: Under the name Jacob Huff, Hoch marries Karoline/Caroline (Miller) Hoch, widow, Wheeling, WV. She died June 15, 1895. He faked his death, took her surname HOCH and went to Chicago.
• 1895 July 5: arrives in Chicago
• 1895, July 15: Buys a saloon in Chicago
• 1895, August 5: Aka Jacob Hoch he marries Mrs. Maria Steimbucher of Chicago-she died four months later; Hoch sold property for $4,000. Before dying she makes declaration that she has been poisoned but no notice is taken of her statement.
• 1895 November: Hoch marries Mary Rankin of Chicago; Hoch disappeared with her money the next day. {It is also alleged that about 1895 Hoch a.k.a. Schmidt went back to Germany but fled from a warrant charging that he was not only bankrupt but also owed 3,000 marks}
• 1896 April: Hoch a.k.a. "Jacob Erdorf" marries Maria Hartzfield of Chicago; Hoch disappeared with $600 of her money after four months.
• 1896 September 22: Hoch a.k.a. "Schmitt" marries widow Barbara Brossett of San Francisco. "Schmitt" disappeared 2 days later with $1,465 of her money; she is so affected by the losses, she dies afterward.
• 1896: Hoch proposes to landlady Mrs H. Tannert of San Francisco, who refuses him.
• 1896 November: Hoch marries Clara Bartel of Cincinnati Ohio; she dies three months later.
• 1896 a Mrs. Henry Bartel dies in Baltimore {Bartel being a Hoch alias. It is also alleged that Hoch married two other times in Baltimore-to a Mrs. Nannie Klenke-Schultz; Mrs. Henrietts Brooks-Schultz; an unnamed Boston woman married to a "Louis/Charles Bartels" came to Baltimore and seized his furniture}
• 1897 January: He marries Julia Dose of Hamilton Ohio-in Cincinnati; Hoch disappears same day with $700 of her money.
• 1897 July 20-Hoch a.k.a. "Henry F. Hartman" marries in Cincinnati {alleged}
• 1897 December 6-Hoch marries a woman in Williamsburg New York and disappears with $200 {alleged}
• 1898 January 16-Hoch a.k.a. "William Frederick Bessing" marries Mrs. Winnie Westphal in Jersey City-Hoch disappears with $900.00 {alleged}
• 1898 Buffalo-New York-a Mrs. Wilhelmina Hoch died {alleged}
• 1898 March-Chicago Hoch appears a.k.a. "Martiz Dotz" with a wife who died June 1898 {alleged}.
• 1898 June: Hoch a.k.a. Adolf Hoch a.k.a. Martin Dose arrested Chicago for selling already mortgaged furniture; gets one year in jail.
• 1899 Milwaukee: Hoch marries an unnamed sister of Mrs J.H. Schwartz-Marue; bride dies and Hoch disappears with $1,200 {alleged}
• 1899 Norfolk Va-A Mrs Hoch died suddenly {alleged}
• 1900: Claimed to married a Mary Hendrickson
• 1900: Allegedly Hoch a.k.a. "Albert Buschberg" married Mary Schultz of Argos, Indiana; Schultz, her 15-year-old daughter Nettie and $2,000 "disappeared".
• 1900, A "Jacob Hoch" married Anna Scheffries of Chicago (LDS record).
• 1900, December 12 – Hoch a.k.a. "John Healy" marries Amelia Hohn of Chicago; deserts her after getting $100.
• 1901, January: - Hoch a.k.a. "Carl Schmidt" marries in Columbus, Ohio; after two weeks he deserts her-along with $400.
• 1901, Hoch marries Mrs. Loughken-Hoch in San Francisco; she dies "suddenly"
• 1901, November: Hoch marries Anna Goehrke; he deserts her.
• 1902, April 8-marries Mrs Mary Becker of St Louis; she dies in 1903
• 1902 May-Hoch a.k.a. "Count Otto van Kern" marries Mrs Hulda Nagel; husband persuaded wife to convert real estate into cash; while wife is shopping, her trunk containing $3,000 is robbed on contents and "Kern" deserts wife
• 1903 June 18-Hoch a.k.a. "Dr. G.L.Hart" flees after trying to poison Mabel Leichmann-a bride of three days; Hoch flees with $300 worth of diamonds and $200 of her money {alleged}
• 1903 Dayton Ohio-Hoch marries Mrs Annie Dodd {deserts her}
• 1903 Dayton Ohio-Hoch marries Mrs Regina Miller Curtis (deserts her)
• 1903 Milwaukee-Hoch courts Ida Zazuil but leaves her after a quarrel
• 1903 December-Hoch uses marriage license for Zazuil engagement and marries Mrs. T.O'Conner of Milwaukee-deserts her and absconds with $200 of her money {Alleged}
• 1904 January 2: Aka "John Jacob Adolf Schmidt" marries Mrs Anna Hendrickson of Chicago in Hammond Indiana, and disappears January 20 with $500 of her money.
• 1904 June: Hoch marries Lena Hoch of Milwaukee; she dies three weeks later leaving Hoch $1,500.
• 1904 September 21: South Haven, Michigan, young woman's body washes ashore; is she a wife of Hoch? {alleged}
• 1904 October 8:Hoch alias "Leo Prager" marries Bertha Dolder of Chicago-he disappears after buying $1,200 of rugs from $3,500 she gives him for a furniture store.
• 1904 October 20: Hoch alias "John Schmidt" marries Caroline Streicher of Philadelphia-he disappears October 31, 1904.
• 1904 November 9: Hoch appears in Chicago.
• 1904 November 16: Hoch alias "Joseph Hoch" leases a cottage in Chicago from a bank from November 16, 1904 to January 1, 1905; buys $120 worth of furniture.
• 1904 December 10: Marries Marie Walcker of Chicago-who sells her candy store for $75.00 and gives Hoch her life savings of $350.
• 1904 December 20: Marie Walcker becomes ill.
• 1905 January 12: Marie Walcker-Hoch dies.
• 1905 January 15: Hoch marries Marie's sister Mrs. Fischer in Joliet Ill, who gives Hoch $750 [$500{?}; Hoch leaves after Mrs. Fischer sister denounces Hoch as a murderer and swindler. Note Hoch married Fischer under the alias of John "Hock"; he is also alleged to haved married; swindled and desertered Anna Frederickson in 1904
• 1905 January 30: Hoch alias "Harry Bartells" proposes to his landlady Mrs. Catherine Kimmerle of New York City; she refuses and Hoch is arrested; Hoch claims alias of "John Joseph Adolf Hoch."
• 1905 February 1: Two indictments returned against Hoch for bigamy; alleged number of wives to be twenty-nine.
• 1905 February 5: Five more alleged wives of Hoch identify him
• 1905 May 19: Hoch tried and found guilty of murder of Marie Walcker; sentenced to death June 23, 1905.
• 1905 June 23: Cora Wilson of Chicago advances money so Hoch can appeal sentence to Illinois Supreme Court, which sustains lower court and sets execution date for August 25, 1905.
• 1905 August 25 – Hoch execution put off until October session of Illinois Supreme Court.
• 1905 December 16 – Illinois Supreme Court refuses to intervene.
• 1906 February 23 – Hoch is executed in Chicago. After his execution, several cemeteries refused him burial so Hoch is buried in a potter's field adjoining the Cook County (Illinois) Farm at Dunning (Chicago). This is the long forgotten Cook County Cemetery on the grounds of the Cook County Poor Farm at Dunning later to become Chicago State Hospital, and then became Chicago Read Zone. A portion of the cemetery has been preserved as the Read Zone-Dunning Memorial Park on Chicago's Northwest side. One article detailing his burial appeared in the New York Times on February 24, 1906.

Other reported victims

In addition to the above, it is alleged that Hoch was involved with a Mrs. John Hicks of Wheeling WV {died}; Mrs. Emma Rencke of Chicago; Mrs. Palinka of Batavia Ill; a Mrs. Fink of Aurora; Natalie Irgang; Hulda Stevens; Schwatzman of Milwaukee; and a Justina Loeffler of Elkhart Indiana who "disappeared" in Chicago in 1903.;^[4] a Mrs. Lena Hoch died in Milwaukee in 1897; a Mrs. Hoch died 1897 and a Mrs. Hoch died 1898-both sisters of Mrs. J.H.H. Schwartman of Milwaukee;^[5]
Allegedly Hoch married twice in Cincinnati, Ohio under alias of "Henry Bartel" and "Fred Doess";

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