True Crimes: The "Old West's Ted Bundy", Part 2

By Jennifer Uhlarik

 

Two months ago, I began sharing about the true crimes case of serial killer Stephen Dee Richards—a man who charmed those who knew him into believing he was an upstanding man of excellent character. Due to unforeseen circumstances, I was unable to continue the post last month, so here is the “end of the story.” In case you missed the first half or want to refresh your memory, you can find it here: https://www.hhhistory.com/2021/06/true-crimes-old-wests-ted-bundypart-1.html

Sketch of Stephen Dee Richards

 

Second Murder

 

After killing a man he’d camped with and hiding out in another county for a few days, Stephen Dee Richards returned to the area and quickly ran across a man on foot. When the man saw Stephen, he began asking if he’d seen Stephen’s first murder victim. The man on foot and the murdered man were business partners. When the new man began asking Stephen many questions—and saying he’d seen Stephen with his partner not long before he went missing—Stephen grew nervous. He offered to let the man ride his spare horse, which he gratefully accepted. When they came to a secluded place, Stephen let the fellow pull ahead of him and shot him in the back of the head. He hid the body, sold the spare horse, and carried on as if nothing had happened.

 

From the scene of his second murder, Stephen went to see outlaw Jasper Harlson, his wife Mary, and their three children Daisy, Mabel, and Jesse. While visiting with the family, Mary noticed blood on Stephen’s shirt in a couple of different places, so asked if he’d been fighting. Not realizing he’d left evidence of his crime so noticeably on his person, he responded to Mary’s question by “joking” that it must have been the blood of some of the men he’d killed. The topic was dropped quickly from there.

 

Third Murder

 

By October of 1876, Stephen was living large. He spent much of his time traveling around, passing counterfeit money which he’d received from a New York man, and hanging with his nefarious friends. He did take a job at a local farm for time, but after a 6-week illness, left there to head into Iowa. There, he used counterfeit money to purchase a buggy and horses from a young man. It didn’t take long for the buggy’s former owner to discover that the money he’d received was counterfeit, and he came looking for Stephen. Upon finding him, he demanded Stephen either pay him with good money or return the merchandise. 

 

I’m sure you can guess what happened next. Stephen led the man to a secluded place to “talk business”—and shot him. The young man’s body was concealed by throwing brush over him, and Stephen high-tailed it from the area.

 

Jail Break

 

In January of 1877, Stephen turned back toward Kearney, Nebraska, to visit his friend Jasper again. Only Jasper and a friend of his, Mr. Nixon (aka Mr. Underwood), were both being held in the Kearney jail on different charges. Jasper was accused and awaiting trial for having stolen lumber from a train trestle, and Underwood/Nixon for train robbery. Stephen and his friends were able to smuggle some kind of saw or cutting tool into the men so they could cut their way out of the jail.

 

Fourth Murder

 

Stephen hid out after the jail break by visiting a lady friend, “Dolly” (of whom he again hid all personal information) in Hastings, Nebraska, and riding around the countryside. A couple of months later in March 1877, he met up with a man by the last name of Gemge and began traveling with him. On the moonlit night of March 19, the pair went to sleep in their camp, but as the moon was so bright at about 3 AM, Stephen awakened Gemge and told him to get up and prepare to travel. This led to a quarrel between them, and when accusations of lying were hurled Stephen’s way, he grew angry and shot Gemge dead. He dropped Gemge’s horse with a local settler, telling the story that his “partner” would be coming for it in a few days, and carried on. Of course, surely no “partner” came in search of his horse.

 

Arrest—And Release

 

Not long after Gemge’s death, Stephen and several of his friends were arrested for murder, and Stephen figured the gig was up. Surely, his life of crime had come to an end. However, it turns out that it was not Gemge’s death for which they were arrested, but another man’s who he says he had no dealings with. After a brief investigation, he was released.

 

His Most Notorious Murders

 

After that release, Stephen’s confession (where much of this information comes from) skips a wide swath of time, from March of 1877 until Spring of 1878. At that time, he once again came across Mary Harlson—in jail. Stephen was being held for larceny, Mary for her part in the jail-break that saw her husband Jasper go free. While they both were incarcerated, they struck upon the plan for Stephen to purchase a quarter section of the homestead Mary and Jasper lived on.  But first, she had to “prove up” on the land, which would happen about six months later. (If you’re unfamiliar with the term, “proving up” means to satisfy the government’s requirements of living on/improving/farming the land so that you can receive it for free). Once Stephen was released from the jail, he traveled around until about October, when he once more went to the Harlson homestead to make the land deal. 

 

However, Mary proved to be a smart and inquisitive woman. She got into Stephen’s trunk and read the many letters he had from his various outlaw friends, realized the types of nefarious deeds he’d done, and told him she knew. Rather than allow her to live, he set out to murder her. So on November 3^rd, 1878, he woke early. He was sharing a bed with another man, Mr. Brown, who was also visiting Mary Harlson at the time. Stephen and Brown rose early, and they each headed outside to putter around the homestead. When Brown headed off to the stable, Stephen returned to the house with an ax and dispatched Mary and her three sleeping children in their beds. He then disposed of their bodies by burying them in a shallow grave and scattering hay from a haystack over the grave. He and Brown rode away from the homestead then, apparently Brown none the wiser, and parted company in a distant town. Stephen returned to the Harlson homestead a couple of days later to carry on as if nothing had happened. When he was asked where Mary and the children had gone, he lied and said she’d departed with Brown.

 

Final Murder

 

Stephen’s final murder came on December 9, 1878. Mary’s neighbor, Peter Anderson, had asked Stephen to help with a building project on his homestead a few miles away, but while working together, Anderson grew sick and ultimately accused Stephen of having poisoned him. Stephen denied the claim, and when he was called a liar by Anderson, the two fought. In his confession, Stephen swears he had no intention of killing Anderson (though do we trust his word? No…not particularly!), but he struck him with a hammer and caved his skull in during their altercation. He carried the man’s body into the cellar and concealed it under a pile of coal, but before he could leave the house, concerned neighbors arrived. Stephen was able to slip away while they checked the house, and ultimately, he made his way back to Mount Pleasant, Ohio.

 

Only known photograph of 
Stephen Dee Richards,
taken shortly after his hanging.

Capture, Trial, and Final (Surprising!) End

 

While in Mount Pleasant, Stephen made no attempt to conceal himself. In fact, he paraded himself openly. While on his way to a party in the company of two young ladies, he was captured in the middle of town by a prison guard and other officials from the area and ultimately returned to Nebraska for trial. On January 15, 1879, the trial began at 9 AM, and by 4 PM the same day, he was found guilty of the murder of Peter Anderson. His execution by hanging was scheduled for April 26, 1879. 

 

But this is where the story gets interesting. Between the time Stephen was convicted and his hanging several months later, he professed that he found true faith in Jesus Christ and looked forward to his ultimate home-going. At his execution, he asked for the words of a hymn, Precious Name, to be read aloud, and the 2000 people in attendance began to sing along with the preacher who read the lyrics. Once the crowd quieted from their impromptu sing-along, Stephen was hung.

 

It’s Your Turn: Do you believe Stephen Dee Richards’ profession of faith might have been true? Why or why not?

 

 

 

 

The Scarlet Pen by Jennifer Uhlarik (Now Available)

 

Step into True Colors — a series of Historical Stories of Romance and True American Crime

Enjoy a tale of true but forgotten history of a 19th century serial killer whose silver-tongued ways almost trap a young woman into a nightmarish marriage.

In 1876, Emma Draycott is charmed into a quick engagement with childhood friend Stephen Dee Richards after reconnecting with him at a church event in Mount Pleasant, Ohio. But within the week, Stephen leaves to “make his fame and fortune.” The heartbroken Emma gives him a special pen to write to her, and he does with tales of grand adventures. Secret Service agent Clay Timmons arrives in Mount Pleasant to track purchases made with fake currency. Every trail leads back to Stephen—and therefore, Emma. Can he convince the naive woman she is engaged to a charlatan who is being linked a string of deaths in Nebraska?

 

Jennifer Uhlarik discovered the western genre as a pre-teen when she swiped the only “horse” book she found on her older brother’s bookshelf. A new love was born. Across the next ten years, she devoured Louis L’Amour westerns and fell in love with the genre. In college at the University of Tampa, she began penning her own story of the Old West. Armed with a B.A. in writing, she has finaled and won in numerous writing competitions, and been on the ECPA best-seller list several times. In addition to writing, she has held jobs as a private business owner, a schoolteacher, a marketing director, and her favorite—a full-time homemaker. Jennifer is active in American Christian Fiction Writers, Women Writing the West, and is a lifetime member of the Florida Writers Association. She lives near Tampa, Florida, with her husband, adult son, and four fur children.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Barbour’s True Colors Crime series (http://www.truecolorscrime.com) 

 

True Crimes: The “Old West’s Ted Bundy”—Part 1 (with Giveaway!)

 

 

If you’ve ever watched shows or read books on any true crimes, you’re probably familiar with the fact that sometimes, truly terrible people live double lives. In one facet of their lives, they appear perfectly normal—loving husbands and fathers who hold decent jobs and serve in their churches or civic groups. They sit on the PTA at their child’s school and socialize with their neighbors. But in another facet of their lives, they are cold-blooded killers who commit absolutely heinous crimes that terrorize the community, state, or even the nation.

 

Stephen Dee Richards, who modern-day author and forensic psychologist Katherine Ramsland has dubbed “The Old West’s Ted Bundy,” was just such a man.

 

Early Life

 

Richards was born on March 18, 1856 in Wheeling, West Virginia, though his family
headed to Ohio when he was six. They moved several times within the state but eventually settled in the Quaker village of Mount Pleasant when Stephen was eleven. There, his devout Methodist mother made sure he (and several sisters) attended school during the week, as well as church on Sundays, and he also worked alongside his father on the family farm. By all appearances, it was a normal childhood.

 

However, there was a dark side brewing in the young man. By his own admission, he tells the story of a time when, as a boy, “I was sent out to kill a litter of kittens, and I did it by striking their heads against a tree—smashing out their brains, one by one. I didn’t feel bad about it at all—it was fun.” By today’s standards, many would recognize that as a chilling sign of a possible serial killer in the making, but the science of criminal profiling didn’t come about until Jack the Ripper came on the scene nine years later. I’m sure that admission would have turned the stomachs of any who heard it, but at that time, they couldn’t see the recipe for disaster it truly was.

 

The year Stephen turned fifteen, his mother passed away of an unknown cause. For the next five years, he worked for local farmers and others in the community. This was also when Stephen became pen pals with various men of the criminal persuasion. In his confession, he admits, “I opened correspondence with a number of bad men in the West, among whom were notorious desperadoes. I also began to pass counterfeit money, which I got off a New York man through one of my acquaintances.” His life of crime had begun.

 

Leaving Home

 

By the time Stephen turned 20, he’d fallen in love with a young woman in Mount Pleasant. All that is known about her is her name—Anna Millhorne—and that Stephen described her as “a virtuous young lady.” They were engaged shortly before he went West “to seek his fortune”, and during the years after his departure Stephen wrote to Anna often. He confesses that “I may say that I loved her; at any rate, I loved her as much as I can love any one.” Unfortunately, the love of that virtuous young lady would not be enough to keep Stephen on the straight and narrow.

 

In February of 1876, Stephen left home with no particular destination in mind. Rather, he said he “wanted to see the country and live easy and avoid work.” So he began making the rounds of some of the men he’d been corresponding with. For a short time, he visited friend after friend, traversing the countryside before he eventually landed in Mount Pleasant, Iowa (not to be confused with his childhood home of the same name in Ohio). There he took a job in the Iowa Lunatic Asylum as an “attendant.” In other words, it was his job to bury the dead. He said of the occupation, “here, I had my first experience handling ‘stiffs,’ and it didn’t strike me as being very disagreeable either.” He remained in this job for several months, until the fall of 1876, at which time, he returned to his gallivanting ways.

Historical Marker for Dobytown, NE

 

First Murder

 

Stephen left Mount Pleasant and went to Kansas City for a time, then back to Hastings, Nebraska, and eventually to Kearney Junction, Nebraska. About two weeks after reaching Kearney, he was drifting around the area on horseback and fell in with a well-dressed, mid-30’s-aged man, also on horse. The two rode together until dark fell, at which time, they lost the road and were forced to camp between the ghost town of “Dobytown” (thus named because the buildings were made of adobe) and an old wagon bridge. To pass the time, they built a campfire and began to play cards together.

 

During their game, Stephen—by hook or by crook—won nearly all of his companion’s money. As you might guess, the other man accused Stephen of cheating, and they argued. However, things eventually quieted down between the pair, and they went to sleep. Yet, the man hadn’t forgotten the matter, and the following morning, they broke camp and started on together when the man spoke up again. From Stephen’s confession, he writes:

 

We had not gone far when the stranger stopping his horse, said: “We may as well settle this little matter between us here and now.”

 

“In what way?” I asked.

 

“Either give me back my money or fight,” he replied.

 

Hopkins & Allen 
Blue Jacket .22

Of course, he refused to give the man any of the money he’d won so, by Stephen’s account, the man attacked him. Stephen produced the small Hopkins & Allen Blue Jacket .22-caliber pistol he’d brought from home and shot the man once above the left eye, killing him instantly. He dragged the man’s body to the nearby river and threw it in, collected the dead man’s horse, and rode on to Kearney. There, Stephen traded the extra horse for a different one, then high-tailed it into a neighboring county to hide out for a few days. 

 

TO BE CONTINUED… Watch for more next month when I continue the story of Stephen Dee Richards’s life of crime.

 

It’s Your Turn: More than ten years ago, I was coming home from my teaching job late in the evening and stopped by the gas station to fill my car’s tank. When I arrived at the station, there was a rusty, white van already at a pump. When I got out, the van’s driver—a thin, short-statured man called out to ask if I could help him, he needed money to fill his tank. When I said I couldn’t help, he changed tactics and said he was sure he’d have something in the back of his van that he could sell me so he could get the money he desperately needed. With all my red flags flying, I again told him no and got out of there as quickly as I could. I’ve often wondered if the man was being honest or if he had much more nefarious intentions toward me. Have you ever experienced a seemingly unassuming person approach you, only to get the feeling you were in danger? What specifically made you feel that way and how did you respond? Leave your answers with your email address to be entered in a random drawing for a copy of The Scarlet Pen.

 

 

IF YOU DON’T WANT TO WAIT FOR MORE OF STEPHEN DEE RICHARDS’S STORY, ORDER YOUR COPY OF MY NEWEST NOVEL, THE SCARLET PEN, TODAY!

 

The Scarlet Pen by Jennifer Uhlarik (Releasing July 1, 2021)

 

Step into True Colors — a series of Historical Stories of Romance and True American Crime

Enjoy a tale of true but forgotten history of a 19th century serial killer whose silver-tongued ways almost trap a young woman into a nightmarish marriage.

In 1876, Emma Draycott is charmed into a quick engagement with childhood friend Stephen Dee Richards after reconnecting with him at a church event in Mount Pleasant, Ohio. But within the week, Stephen leaves to “make his fame and fortune.” The heartbroken Emma gives him a special pen to write to her, and he does with tales of grand adventures. Secret Service agent Clay Timmons arrives in Mount Pleasant to track purchases made with fake currency. Every trail leads back to Stephen—and therefore, Emma. Can he convince the naive woman she is engaged to a charlatan who is being linked a string of deaths in Nebraska?

And if you want more True Colors Crime novels, check out the entire 12-book series at True Colors Crime

 

Jennifer Uhlarik discovered the western genre as a pre-teen when she swiped the only “horse” book she found on her older brother’s bookshelf. A new love was born. Across the next ten years, she devoured Louis L’Amour westerns and fell in love with the genre. In college at the University of Tampa, she began penning her own story of the Old West. Armed with a B.A. in writing, she has finaled and won in numerous writing competitions, and been on the ECPA best-seller list several times. In addition to writing, she has held jobs as a private business owner, a schoolteacher, a marketing director, and her favorite—a full-time homemaker. Jennifer is active in American Christian Fiction Writers, Women Writing the West, and is a lifetime member of the Florida Writers Association. She lives near Tampa, Florida, with her husband, college-aged son, and four fur children.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

True Crimes: The Bloody Benders

Hello, Readers! I’m continuing my (brief) series on True Crimes from history this month. And for this post, we’ll explore the serial-killing family known as The Bloody Benders, who terrorized travelers in Labette County, Kansas, between 1871 and 1872.

 

The Bender family was made up of husband a wife John and Elvira (or Almira) Bender (ages 60 and 55 respectively), and two adult children, John Jr. (age 25) and Kate (age 23). It’s unclear whether John Jr. and Kate were siblings or whether Kate was Jr.’s common-law wife. 

 

After the Civil War ended and the Osage Indians were moved from this area to Indian Territory (modern-day Oklahoma), Labette County was opened to settlers. In October of 1870, father and son registered 160 acres of land along the Great Osage Trail, along with several other families in a bit of a cult-like compound. The Bender men built a cabin, barn, and corral, and dug a well, before Elvira and Kate joined them seven months later. The four all lived in the same small home, divided into two rooms by a canvas tarp hung from the ceiling. From the front half, they sold dry goods and provided weary travelers with a warm meal and a place to rest. The back half served as their personal quarters.

 

The family was vile by all accounts. John Sr., a hulking, brutish, and profane man, spoke little English, and what he didspeak was mostly unintelligible. Elvira, who also rarely spoke English, was married multiple times—with unproven speculation that she killed several husbands. John Jr. was a fluent English-speaker but was labeled a half-wit because of his propensity to laugh at awkward times. And Kate, who may have been Elvira’s child from a previous marriage, claimed to be clairvoyant and often performed seances. She also gave lectures on her “spiritualist” beliefs, in which she made it very clear she subjected herself to no one’s authority and saw nothing wrong with having carnal relations with her brother (thus the confusion over whether Jr. and Kate were siblings or spouses, I’m sure!). 

 

In the early 1870s, the Osage Trail connected Fort Scott to points further west, and was full of horse thieves, bandits, and other rough characters. It’s easy to imagine why travelers might have been drawn to the Bender’s home and general store, where hot meals and a bit of sanctuary were offered. However, starting around May 1871 (roughly the time when Elvira and Kate came to the homestead), bodies began turning up. It was then a man named Jones was found dead in Drum Creek, his skull crushed and his throat cut. In February of the following year, two more bodies were found with the same injuries. Vigilance groups began patrolling the trail as more bodies turned up across that year. Suspects were either arrested (only to be released later) or run out of the county. By the 1873 mark, enough people had gone missing from that area that travelers were finding other ways to cross westward.

 

During the winter of 1872, a father and infant daughter crossed the Osage Trail, never to be heard from again. Their former neighbor, Dr. William Henry York, went searching for his friend but was wise enough to tell his two brothers—one who resided at Fort Scott, and the other who was a Civil War veteran and Kansas state senator—where he was going. So when the doctor didn’t arrive home, a search party of fifty men was mounted. They spoke to every traveler and homesteader in the area. They discovered that Dr. York had stayed with the Benders, but that he’d moved on. The ideas was floated that he’d probably met with Indian troubles after he left. The search party moved on. 

 

However, in the intervening days, a woman had stopped at the Bender’s place only to flee in terror with a story that Elvira had come at her with a knife. When Col. York and his search party returned and leveled that accusation in English, Elvira grew enraged and shouted (in fluent English, no less) that the woman was a witch who had cursed her coffee. She then demanded the colonel leave, and he and the others obliged.

 

As the body count stacked up, the residents grew upset and met together at a local schoolhouse to discuss. In attendance were both father and son Bender, as well as Colonel York, so when it was decided that a search warrant for all homesteads in the area would be obtained, the Benders quickly snagged their women and belongings and disappeared. Their disappearance wasn’t noticed for several days, due to the inclement weather.

 

When they did finally search the premises, they found a trap door under one bed, leading to a deep blood-soaked pit. The grounds were searched and among the vegetable garden and orchard, shallow graves containing eight bodies (including Dr. York’s) were found. A ninth body was fished from the well, and various dismembered appendages were also found strewn around the property. 

 

Statements from several would-be victims emerged after the news broke. Several men came forward with tales that the Benders had offered them meals, but when they chose not to sit in the seat of honor at the table, very near the tarp, the women (the only ones at the table at the time) had grown agitated. Not long after, the men appeared from behind the tarp, also agitated, leading the men to slip out quickly. In another case, a Catholic priest said he noticed one of the menfolk ate with a hammer half-concealed nearby, and at the discovery, he quickly departed from the house. The stains on the tarp near the seat in questions led investigators to presume that while the womenfolk distracted their mark, the two men would bludgeon the victim with a hammer from behind the tarp, then the women would swoop in to cut the victim’s throat. It is surmised that the body was then dropped down the trapdoor until it could be safely carried out to an unseen part of the homestead. Neighbors within the small “spiritualist” cult were later arrested for assisting in this portion of the crimes. While some of the victims were well-off with plenty of money or expensive jewels and watches, others were quite destitute, leading to the thought that the Benders killed more for the excitement than any financial gain. 

Photo of the Bender homestead with suspected victim's graves marked in pen.

So what happened to the Benders, you ask? Trackers followed their wagon’s trail for about 12 miles before the family abandoned everything due to one horse going lame. They were near Thayer, Kansas, where they sought to catch a train to parts further west. Some say they never made it, but were quietly killed and disposed of while walking to the town. Others posit that they walked to the railroad station and bought tickets to places further west. Some speculate that John Jr. and Kate parted from their parents and with all sorts of ideas on what may have become of them from there. There are suspicions that the parents were eventually tracked down and hung by vigilantes. Others say Jr. died of apoplexy near the Mexican border. Still other rumors have surfaced that the two women reconnected and eventually were jailed, or that a man thought to be Pa Bender was eventually jailed but sawed off his own foot to escape his leg irons, only to die of blood loss a few miles later on. Regardless, no one is certain of the true end of the Bender family, but it is sure that no one ever collected the reward that had been offered for their capture.

 

It’s Your Turn: What do you suppose happened to the Bloody Benders? What do you hope happened to them? How do you feel about stories like this one, where the ending doesn’t tie up into a neat package with the bad guy clearly getting his just desserts?

 

Jennifer Uhlarik discovered the western genre as a pre-teen when she swiped the only “horse” book she found on her older brother’s bookshelf. A new love was born. Across the next ten years, she devoured Louis L’Amour westerns and fell in love with the genre. In college at the University of Tampa, she began penning her own story of the Old West. Armed with a B.A. in writing, she has finaled and won in numerous writing competitions, and been on the ECPA best-seller list several times. In addition to writing, she has held jobs as a private business owner, a schoolteacher, a marketing director, and her favorite—a full-time homemaker. Jennifer is active in American Christian Fiction Writers, Women Writing the West, and is a lifetime member of the Florida Writers Association. She lives near Tampa, Florida, with her husband, college-aged son, and four fur children.

 

Available for Pre-Order Now

 

The Scarlet Pen

Engaged to a Monster

Step into True Colors -- a new series of Historical Stories of Romance and American Crime

In 1876, Emma Draycott is charmed into a quick engagement with childhood friend Stephen Dee Richards after reconnecting with him at a church event in Mount Pleasant, Ohio. But within the week, Stephen leaves to “make his fame and fortune.” The heartbroken Emma gives him a special pen to write to her, and he does with tales of grand adventures. Secret Service agent Clay Timmons arrives in Mount Pleasant to track purchases made with fake currency. Every trail leads back to Stephen—and therefore, Emma. Can he convince the naive woman she is engaged to a charlatan who is being linked a string of deaths in Nebraska?

True Crimes: The Murder of Chico Forster

 

See all the books in the
True Colors Crime Series

I was very blessed some months back to be given the opportunity to write the final installment of Barbour’s True Colors Crime series. The Scarlet Pen will be the 12^th and final novel in the series, and it will release July 1 this year. If you’re not familiar with this series, it is about true crimes—serial killers and other historical wrongdoings—from the annals of American history. In order to write that story, I had to research the serial and spree killers of the 1800s and choose one on which to base my story. After some debate, I settled on a serial killer from 1876, Stephen Dee Richards (He’s not the topic of today’s post—I’ll give you more info on him in later months). But I found it quite interesting to dig into the dark history of historical true crimes—so I thought it would be fun to share some of the other interesting unlawful events I found in my research.

 

Today, I’ll share with you the unusual story of Francisco Forster and Lastania Abarta.

 

Forster, affectionately known as “Chico”, was quite the Casanova in the Los Angeles area in the 1870s and 1880s. The son of Southern California’s wealthiest land baron, Chico was known to be a womanizer who’d already fathered two children out of wedlock. Forster liked to frequent a Los Angeles pool hall and tavern owned by the Abarta family, where beautiful Lastania played the guitar and sang for the customers. It was there that Lastania caught Forster’s eye, and he took great interest in her.

Chico Forster

 

On March 15, 1881, Lastania sang at a party thrown by Pio Pico, California’s last Mexican governor. Pico had recently lost a sizeable tract of land to Forster’s land baron father, a point that irritated Pico to the core, I’m sure. Being in love with the son of the man he’d lost that land to, Lastania opted to add a bit of insult to his injury. She changed one line in the lyrics of the final song she sang that night—changed the words in such a way that it took a sizeable dig at the party’s host. No sooner did she sing the changed lyric than she ended the song, ran off the stage, and straight into the arms of her beloved Chico. The crowd never had a chance to react before she was gone.

 

Lastania and Chico ran to the Moiso Mansion Hotel where Chico had reserved a room. There, he made love to Lastania, taking her virginity but promising to marry her in the process. By the following morning, Lastania was grieved by her choice to give herself to this man before they’d been wed, so Chico promised to leave immediate to find a priest and rectify the situation. Ashamed, Lastania hid herself away in the hotel waiting. But too much time passed, and Chico never returned. So calling for her sister, Hortensia, the Abarta sisters searched the city and found Chico…gambling his money away on horse racing.

 

Irate, the pair of sisters dragged Chico into their carriage to get to the Plaza Church and be married. Only Chico didn’t want to go, so he jumped out of the conveyance halfway to their destination. Both young women followed, calling after him. When he finally stopped and turned to face them, Lastania withdrew a pistol from her skirt pocket and shot Chico through the eye, killing him instantly. It was broad daylight, and there were several witnesses to her crime, so she was arrested and put on trial.

 

I’m sure you’d expect it was a “slam-dunk” case. This jilted lover made no attempt to hide herself before shooting Chico, nor did she deny having shot him. Yet Lastania Abarta was acquitted of the murder of Chico Forster in a most unusual means.

G. Wiley Wells

 

Former consul in Shanghai, G. Wiley Wells, and former city attorney, John F. Godfrey, were hired as Lastania’s defense team, and they made the case—with forensic evidence and expert witnesses—that she’d suffered from “female hysteria” at the time of the murder. In other words, an insanity defense, but not based on insanity due to shame and humiliation over her actions—but insanity due to her female biology. 

John F. Godfrey

 

If you were to read the medical journals and texts of the era, you would find that doctors and scientists thought women were so fragile that being deprived of sex…or being oversexed…would lead a woman into “hysteria.” (I suppose they thought there was a “happy medium target range” the men must hit to keep their women in “proper balance.” LOL) They also thought that the rigors of a college education could stunt the growth of the female reproductive organs. (Oh, the ridiculousness! Hahaha) Yet, it was such ideas on which the defense team based their case.

 

They presented the stained sheets from the bed on which Lastania and Chico first made love—to prove that she’d lost her virginity to the man. They also brought in no less than seven expert medical witnesses to discuss the delicate matter of female hysteria before the twelve male jurors. In these testimonies, the all-male panel of jurors heard how irregular menstrual cycles could disease the mind and bring on the dreaded hysteria. But it was the final witness, Dr. Joseph Kurtz, who finally nailed this coffin closed once and for all. In his weighty testimony, he stated that “Any virtuous woman, when deprived of her virtue, would go mad.” At that, the spectators in the gallery applauded. The jury took only 20 minutes to weigh the three weeks of testimony in the case and find that Lastania Abarta could have been nothing other than insane to have killed her lover as she did.

 

After the trial’s end, Abarta left Los Angeles never to be heard from again.

 

It’s Your Turn: Do you find learning the facts of true crimes from the past interesting? Why or why not? What are your thoughts on the case of Chico Forster’s murder?

 

Jennifer Uhlarik discovered the western genre as a pre-teen when she swiped the only “horse” book she found on her older brother’s bookshelf. A new love was born. Across the next ten years, she devoured Louis L’Amour westerns and fell in love with the genre. In college at the University of Tampa, she began penning her own story of the Old West. Armed with a B.A. in writing, she has finaled and won in numerous writing competitions, and been on the ECPA best-seller list several times. In addition to writing, she has held jobs as a private business owner, a schoolteacher, a marketing director, and her favorite—a full-time homemaker. Jennifer is active in American Christian Fiction Writers, Women Writing the West, and is a lifetime member of the Florida Writers Association. She lives near Tampa, Florida, with her husband, college-aged son, and four fur children.

 

COMING JULY 1, 2021—THE SCARLET PEN

Step into True Colors — a series of Historical Stories of Romance and True American Crime
Enjoy a tale of true but forgotten history of a 19th century serial killer whose silver-tongued ways almost trap a young woman into a nightmarish marriage.
In 1876, Emma Draycott is charmed into a quick engagement with childhood friend Stephen Dee Richards after reconnecting with him at a church event in Mount Pleasant, Ohio. But within the week, Stephen leaves to “make his fame and fortune.” The heartbroken Emma gives him a special pen to write to her, and he does with tales of grand adventures. Secret Service agent Clay Timmons arrives in Mount Pleasant to track purchases made with fake currency. Every trail leads back to Stephen—and therefore, Emma. Can he convince the naive woman she is engaged to a charlatan who is being linked a string of deaths in Nebraska?