Typical Criminal Abortions and a Murder-Suicide

A Chicago Nurse or Midwife, 1900

On August 4, 1900, 20-year-old newlywed Mary Borglum died in her home from complications of an abortion performed there that day. The abortion had been agreed upon by both Mary and her husband, James. Mrs. Mary Kempfer was arrested that same day and held without bail by a Coroner's Jury. Kempfer's employment status was listed as nurse or midwife.

A Chicago Physician, 1913

On August 4, 1913, 40-year-old seamstress Anna Turnovan, a Hungarian immigrant, died in Chicago at the scene of an abortion perpetrated that day by Dr. Frank L. Meuller. Mueller was arrested and held by the Coroner, as was Sima Mallasch. The case never went to trial.

A Habitual Offender in Wichita, 1824

Loren Franklin, age 19, of Buffalo, Missouri, died in August of 1924 in Wichita, Kansas. An inquest was held to verify if Dr. Charles C. Keester had perpetrated a fatal abortion on her. A tentative date of death is August 4. Keester had already been implicated in the abortion deaths of Hattie Myers, age 19, March 7, 1922; and Hazel Hadicke, age 19, December 16, 1923. The same month that Loren died, Keester was implicated in the abortion death of "Bonnie," age 18. He would go on to be convicted in the February 28, 1930 abortion death of Rena Armstrong, age 17.

A Chicago Midwife, 1942
On August 4, 1942, 18-year-old Eva Moyer died after an abortion perpetrated by Chicago midwife Katheryn Eickenberg. A taxi driver testified that he had taken Eva to Eickenberg's house three times in the week prior to her death. She was accompanied by James Tivey, a sailor, that the taxi driver said accompanied Eva on those trips to the midwife. Tivey testified that he had paid Eickenberg $50 for the abortion. Eickenberg was convicted or murder by abortion and sentenced to 14 years in prison.

Murder-Suicide in Florida, 2006

Laura Grunas

On August 4, 2006, 30-year-old Laura Grunas, a police officer in Plantation, Florida, shot her boyfriend, 31-year-old Robert Peat, dead inside his home. Grunas then turned the gun on herself. The couple had been together for about a year. Neighbors reported that Laura was hysterical the last day of her life, standing outside Peat's garage yelling, "Why is everyone blaming this on me? He killed my baby." The argument became so loud that neighbors called the police.

In what those close to the pair believed to have been a mutual decision, Laura had aborted the couple's baby a few weeks earlier. Michael Roth, a friend of Peat, told police that Peat had been "enormously upset" about the abortion. "He was a lot more religious than me and didn't believe in that, but they had felt that that was the right thing to do for whatever reasons."

Peat had called Roth and asked him to come over shortly before the shooting. Roth said that when he arrived, Grunas became upset, saying, "If, when he felt the need to call, did he tell you about killing my baby?"

Peat also called the police, and when two officers arrived, Grunas, a colleague of theirs, became furious. They asked her to leave, and she complied. Peat asked Roth to remain with him, and Roth recommended that Peat get a restraining order. "Thirty seconds after I tried to make that suggestion, his phone started ringing. .... And then she started banging on the front door."

Laura then used a Smith & Wesson 9mm, her work-issued handgun, to shoot out the sliding glass door to the kitchen. Roth, who suffered minor injuries in the incident, fled the kitchen through the shot-out door and called 911.