Crimes in Herstory (Blog Series) -- Fury, Fire, and Fatality: The Story of the Evil Step Mother

 WC Blogpost By: 

HerstorySleuth20, Herstorian of Crime & Shadow Scribe

The Fire is Lit

On the evening of November 1, 1887, residents of Medina County, Ohio, noticed an odd light coming from the Garrett family’s farmhouse down the road. Upon investigation, they realized that the odd light was in fact flames, and the community began to gather. There, they found Mary Garrett, the woman of the household and center of this story, hastily removing objects from the home, allegedly appearing as though she was making efforts to save certain artifacts.1 Quite the actress, she claimed that someone had murdered her step-daughters and then set the home ablaze. Luckily, or perhaps unluckily for Mrs. Garrett, the quick arrival of the neighbors kept the fire localized to certain areas of the house, and it was successfully extinguished without catastrophic damage. Sadly, the same could not be said for 26- and 42-year-old (respectively) Anna and Eva Garrett.2 Inside the home, Mary’s step-daughters were found in bed, gory and brutalized. Their heads had been so severely beaten that their features were largely unrecognizable, and brain matter could be seen through cracks in their skulls.2  Evidence found in the room pointed to the fact that whoever had set the fire had planned on their bodies being destroyed with the rest of the house. The step-daughters had been drenched in coal oil with dry leaves piled on top of them, ready to be set aflame by the fire. The quick extinguishment of the flames proved to be what allowed for the cracking of this case – if the fire had not been so quickly extinguished, the bodies and their evidence would have burned away, leaving people to believe that the girls had just perished in the fire. However, with the remaining evidence due to the early extinguishing of the fire, shortly after, Mary Garrett was arrested for murder.

The Garretts 

Mary Garrett’s case is a particularly eye-catching one for the time as it goes beyond the fire and enters the world of family murder. She hastily married widower Alonzo Garrett when she arrived in Medina, Ohio. This union was allegedly a mercenary one– it appears as though what attracted Mary to Alonzo Garrett was his large amounts of money. He had three adult children, two of them girls, or rather women, named Anna and Eva Garrett, who Mary took on as step-children. The catch? These women were the product of an incestual relationship between Alonzo and his late wife, resulting in them being labeled as “imbeciles.”3 Other reports blame the women’s problematic behavior on an older brother who was considered a “bad influence,” but regardless, Mary Garrett’s new motherly role was not entirely to her liking and stood in the way of her enjoying the wealth she had married into. In fact, she was so hateful of Anna and Eva that she attempted many times to remove them from the home. Mary successfully sent one of the daughters to the Columbus Imbecile Asylum, although she was soon discharged on account of her not being a “proper inmate”.4 Following this, Mary tried placing both of them in a “poor house,” but they were also sent back from there. With all her other options exhausted, on November 1, 1887, she took matters into her own hands.

Laying the Blame

Once the stepdaughters had been discovered and the true sinister nature of the crime was uncovered, the race for the murderer began. And attention quickly turned to Mary Garrett. Her surprisingly calm and natural demeanor throughout the ordeal was incredibly suspicious. This, in conjunction with her well-known hatred of her step-daughters, led to her prompt arrest. Mary Garrett’s hatred of her step-daughters was primarily due to their incapacitation as “imbeciles” and the unwanted task of their care that fell into her hands. Mary did not attempt to keep her opinion of the girls a secret either. Her abhorrence for them was well known amongst her neighbors. She viewed them as burdensome and, as aforementioned, made many attempts for their removal from the home. It appears as though her hatred of them was so strong that she could see no viable alternative other than murder.

The Trial

Mary Garrett’s preliminary trial was held soon after her arrest in 1887. However, it was sent to the higher court at Medina due to the nature of the case. Her jury trial was pushed back due to her failure to appear at her original court date, allegedly because of her “delicate condition and approaching maternity.”1 The rescheduled trial occurred on September 17, 1888, nearly a year after the murder took place. After only five hours of litigation, the (all-male) jury found her guilty of murder in the first degree and sentenced her to death by hanging, the date set for Jan. 24, 1889. However, Mary’s legal team requested a new trial (the motion for which was overturned) and advised that they would carry the case to the Circuit Court on a writ of error. Despite this, she was moved to the Penitentiary at Columbus shortly after, on Oct. 5, 1888, as all executions at the time took place there. This is where she remained until January of 1889.

A key part of her trial does not include the murders, nor the fire, nor any of the details of the case at all. Rather, her saving grace may have, in fact, been the baby boy that she gave birth to on July 27, 1888.

The infant added an undeniable aspect of nuance - to hang Mary would now be to leave a child motherless. This sparked sympathy amongst the public and those handling the case. Her unwavering devotion and attentiveness to her son while living with him in jail and taking him to court dates was not unnoticed and absolutely affected the public’s perception of her. In addition to this, Mary maintained her claim of innocence throughout the entire trial. She claimed that the girls had poured the oil over themselves, touched a match to observe the flames, and then been unable to escape the room when the fire grew out of control. She stated that they were overcome by smoke, and the marks on their throats were from frantic neck clutching as they struggled to breathe.1  With only circumstantial evidence, Mary’s rigid claim of innocence, and the emotional and difficult-to-navigate addition of an infant, the governor ended up commuting her sentence to imprisonment for life on January 21, 1889.

So, Who Was Mary Garrett?

 Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, accounts do not describe Mary as a sinister, unattractive, or unpleasant woman. Instead, she was portrayed as a pretty, blonde woman with large blue eyes and a refined face. She carried a kind and motherly countenance and was calm, quiet, and reserved. In fact, throughout the trials, she maintained her innocence and remained emotionless, not what one may expect to see from someone being tried for murder. Mary’s one soft spot was her infant son, who was born in prison with her. The first time she expressed emotion during the entire affair was when she and her son were moved from the Medina jail to the Penitentiary at Columbus (the site of her impending execution).

And what of her husband, Alonzo Garrett? Sleeping peacefully in the home, he was unharmed on the night of the crime. However, he filed for divorce and custody of his infant son in early 1889. The press circulated that he was against Mary in the trial and even questioned his paternity of Mary’s son. However, Mary Garrett herself stated that Alonzo stood by her throughout the case and, as seen in his desire for custody, was undoubtedly the baby's father.5 The Enterprise, 20 Feb.1889. Mary Garrett was highly aware of her need for public approval and the respect she would receive for being a loving mother and wife. She was a smart woman and knew how to win over the court system.

In Context of the Time 

At the beginning of this story, you may have raised your eyebrows at the idea of a female arsonist, particularly in such a seemingly violent case. However, in reality, arson was not as uncommon a crime at the time as you may think. In another part of the United States in the same year, 1887, Milly Poteat of Caswell County, NC, was the last of three female arson cases in the area. She was a black woman who was ultimately convicted of looting and setting fire to James Slade’s house and was sentenced to death by hanging. At the time of these two ladies’ crimes, there was the beginning of an upward trend in female crime, particularly arson. As one article states regarding Mary Garrett’s case, “the execution of women [was] getting to be alarmingly frequent,” female criminals were no longer a rarity, and the need for female-based penitentiaries was growing as more females committed crimes.6  This same article acknowledges that this growth of female execution is not solely due to the increase of female criminals, but also to the lack of women serving on juries. Both women listed above were tried by a jury composed entirely of men. In Milly Poteat’s case, she was convicted (as a black woman) by a judge who had previously been a Confederate soldier. 7. The lack of female representation on the jury resulted in harsher convictions for female criminals at the time. It is clear that at the time, female crime was a growing issue, and the states needed to find ways to alter their justice systems in order to address cases of female crime, including female penitentiaries and females standing on juries.

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SOURCES (in order of footnotes): 

1. Phillipsburg Herald, 9 Nov. 1888. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers

2. The Democratic Press, 11 Oct. 1888. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers

3. The Cincinnati Enquirer, 8 Oct. 1888, p. 1. 

4. The Enterprise, 30 Jan. 1889, p. 5. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers

5. The Enterprise, 20 Feb. 1889, p. 5. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers

6. The Charlotte Democrat, 15 March 1895, p.2. 

7. The Enterprise, 23 Jan. 1889, p. 3-4. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers