Crimes in Herstory (Blog Series) -- Candy, Arsenic and Roaches: The Philadelphia Murderess

 WC Blogpost By: Michele Leo and Bree Anna

http://www.murderbygaslight.com/2017/02/monster-or-maniac.html

“The Wholesale Poisoner,” “The Philadelphia Murderess,” and “The Philadelphia Prisoner” – Sarah Jane Whiteling 

Who was she and what had she done?

Sarah, born on March 2nd mid-nineteenth century, came from humble beginnings. She immigrated from Germany at 9 months old with her mother, who died soon after, so she grew up on a farm with an American family in Iowa.1  This was also where she met Tom Brown, her first husband, and soon after they were married, they moved to Chicago where they resided until the Great Fire. However, what seemed like a happy marriage soon faced an unexpected twist when in 1868, Tom Brown was arrested for highway robbery, and sentenced to long-term imprisonment.1 Sarah, now on her own with little to her name, hopped from city to city before being swept off her feet by a streetcar conductor and cigar manufactory stripper named John Whiteling. Married on March 19, 1880, and facing John’s inability to get work and several health ailments, they hopped from residence to residence: 4th and Callowhill Street, 621 East Thompson Street, 1226 Charlotta Street, and finally 1227 Cadwalader Street.2 This was the beginning of the end.

Rough on Rats

Sarah placed her hands on her hips and surveyed the work she had done so far. She was almost done cleaning the house for the day and all she had left to do was sweep the kitchen. The kitchen was a rather small space so Sarah thought she would be done quickly, but a cockroach scurrying across the floor stopped her in her tracks. 

The vermin continued to infest the house despite their using the popular repellants and traps in the house. Fed up with the pests, Sarah stopped her sweeping and trekked to George Billie’s drug store on the corner of 2nd and Thomson Street to get something to get rid of the insistent roaches for good. 3 George Billie sold her Rough on Rats, with the promise that it would kill any vermin in the house. This promise also came with a warning that the poison could also kill a human if ingested.

The moment George Billie uttered these words Sarah started to hatch her plan – a plan that would result in her husband, John, and two children, Bertha and Willie, dying and Sarah being a little richer.

The Poisonings

On the morning of Saturday, March 17th, Sarah had just finished making breakfast when she overheard her husband tell Bertha to be “a good girl and mind her mother.”1 As Bertha scurried off to eat her eggs, John pulled Sarah aside and revealed that he had taken some of the poison that she had bought for the vermin. Alarmed, Sarah rushed over to Mrs. Gilbert’s House at No.1219 Cadwalader Street and begged her son, Charlie, to go find Dr. Smith who had been cast as “A Modern Lucretia,” in The Cincinnati Enquirer on June 15th 1888. Working at his uptown office on Marlborough Street.1 Around noon, Dr. Smith arrived and left some medication for John to take. Sarah made no mention of the poison and instead, told him that her husband had fallen ill. Dr. Smith continued to visit religiously until John died at 7:00 PM on Tuesday, March 20th, 1888. His official cause of death was the inflammation of the bowel, and he was buried on the 22nd.2 Whether this was true, no one would ever know.

Two months later, Dr. Smith returned to the Whiteling residence, but this time, for Bertha. What he didn’t know was that just a few days before, Sarah had made a second visit to the store and bought a 2nd box of Rough on Rats. This time, it wasn’t for the vermin, it was for her children. 

On April 21st, Bertha, her daughter from her previous marriage to Thomas Story and affectionately called “Birdie,” received her first dose of poison. When she started showing symptoms, Sarah sent for Dr. Smith who again, brought medication. Instead of giving Bertha the medicine, Sarah continued to dose with her poison for two more days before finally giving her the prescribed medicine. Dr. Smith again visited everyday until Bertha’s inevitable death on April 24th. Her official cause of death was gastric fever, and she was buried on the 26th.2 

Approximately two months later, Willie reached the same fate. Dr. Smith, this time, refused to treat him and requested Sarah find another doctor. Dr. Dietrick was called on and prescribed medicine, but like Bertha, Willie continued to receive poison. 15 spoonfuls later, Willie was dead. He died on May 26th. His official cause of death was congestion of the bowels, and he was buried on the 28th.2 Were the Whiteling family members’ deaths a stroke of bad luck or was there a more sinister motive at play?

Were the Whiteling family members’ deaths a stroke of bad luck or was there a more sinister motive at play?

The Confession

On June 12, the truth was revealed about Sarah’s true scheme. Months in advance, she had fed arsenic containing candy to children in the community, and as children fell ill, she created the perfect excuse for her own children doing the same.2 But, of course, it wasn’t the candy that made them ill, it was their own mother’s poison.3 Now, the real question is: why did she do it? 

At first, unwilling to admit the truth, Sarah claimed to kill Bertha because she foresaw a life of crime for her daughter as she had been caught stealing pennies when she was young. Willie was simply in the way and childcare was too expensive. However, as the guilt weighed on her, Sarah spilled it all.

Wanting to earn some measly cash, Sarah calculated meticulously the life insurance money she would gain from each death. $122 from the Hancock Insurance Company for Bertha. $17 from Prudential and another $30 from Hancock Insurance Company for Willie. With the children dead, she could collect the money and spend it however she wanted. As for John Whiteling, no one will ever know whether he truly died from suicide or if he faced the same fate as his children. When he died, Sarah collected $145 from John Hancock Insurance Company of Philadelphia and $85 from Herd No.2 Benevolent Order of Buffaloes, all the same. 4 

After the money had been collected, Sarah spent $60 on the funeral, and $5 on a new watch. Although richer, Sarah, weighed down by guilt and haunted by visions of her children, could not sleep at night. Her visits to the church, repenting for her actions were to no avail. Sarah contemplated suicide but being a religious woman, she was afraid she would be unable to rest after death due to the sins she had committed. She ended up moving out of her home to a rented room on 401 Columbia Avenue.4 

In court, her defense was that she was insane and the devil had possessed her, but the extensive planning that went into the murders proved otherwise. It was inevitable that Sarah would soon face the consequences for her actions.

June 25, 1889

After months in a cell at the Moyamensing Prison, the time finally came for Sarah to endure her punishment – execution by hanging. To be sentenced to death was a punishment reserved for the most egregious crimes, a punishment that would terrify and paralyze most people. Sarah was not like most people, she was not only resigned to her fate but also excited to be reunited with her husband and children in heaven.5 The night before the execution Sarah walked around her small brick cell singing and praying, the anticipation of the next day leaving her restless. 

At 6:00 am on Tuesday, June 25th, 1889, Sarah enjoyed her last meal of fried eggs, toast, and chocolate. She was then escorted by the Prison Matron and a watchwoman from her cell in the female department of the prison to a cell in the male department on the opposite side of the prison. This new cell was Sarah’s last stop before her death, merely a few hundred feet from where the scaffold was standing.4 

Sarah spent her last few hours with her spiritual advisor, Reverend Jones of Scott Methodist Episcopal Church, and undertaker, Samuel Kehr. The hymns and prayers recited by Reverend Jones and Samuel brought her great comfort and when the time came she walked without hesitation to the scaffold. While reciting the hymns “there is a fountain filled with blood,” “I am coming,” and “guide me, o, thou great jehovah”, Sarah climbed the ten steps up the scaffold, allowed the leather straps to be placed around skirt, ankles and hands, and dropped to her death at 10:07 am.6 

The sheriff, deputies, prison officials, prison physician, and ten newspaper reporters waited until Sarah’s spasmodic heart beats stopped, then watched as her body was lowered to the ground at 10:41 am. Sarah’s body was given to Dr. Alice Bennet from the Norristown Hospital for the Insane for a brain examination before being buried next to her family. Dr. Bennet believed that Sarah was insane and had been the defense's prime expert opinion for Sarah’s insanity plea.7 Even though Dr. Bennet could not successfully convince a judge and jury of Sarah’s insanity, she was a scientist who required proof to support her hypothesis. 

While the results of Sarah’s brain examination may be lost to time, Sarah Jane Whiteling remains an infamous figure in Philadelphia County’s history of crime and punishment as she was the first woman executed in Philadelphia county.

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Bibliography 

“A Modern Lucretia,” The Cincinnati Enquirer, June 15, 1888. 

“Death on the Scaffold Mrs. Sarah Jane Whiteling Hanged,” The Semi-Weekly New Era, June 29, 1889

 “Pelt Gov. Beaver With Protests,” Lucifer, the Light-Bearer. May 3, 1889 

Segrave, Kerry. “Sarah Jane Whiteling,” Women and Capital Punishment in America, 1840-1899: Death Sentences and Executions in the United States and Canada. (pp. 151-153). McFarland & Company, Inc. 2008