An Undertaker's Revelation, and Other Abortion Deaths

An Undertaker Blows the Whistle, 1961

Vivian Grant

On January 21, 1961, 52-year-old Dr. Mandel M. Friedman contacted a Queens undertaker, asking him to arrange burial for 23-year-old Vivian Grant of New York. Friedman told the undertaker that Vivian, unmarried and working as a book editor at Dell Publishing, had died of a heart ailment. 

The undertaker notified authorities, who determined that although Vivian had not been pregnant, Friedman had attempted to perform an abortion on her, causing her death. Friedman was charged with homicide and falsifying a death certificate.

An autopsy showed that air bubbles had entered Vivian's blood stream during the abortion attempt, which triggered clotting problems, causing her to bleed to death.

Mandel Friedman

Vivian had told the baby's father that she believed she was pregnant on January 13. He offered to marry her, but they decided to postpone marriage and arrange an abortion instead. They went to Friedman's office on the morning of January 21, and the boyfriend paid $800 for the abortion. He left Vivian with the doctor. When he returned at 2 p.m., Friedman told him that Vivian had died, and returned the abortion fee.

Friedman resurfaced late the following year, while still awaiting trial in Vivian's death. He was charged with homicide in the September 11, 1962 death of Barbara C. Covington, age 35, a Florida socialite.

Few Details on 1926 Death

On January 21 of 1926, 38-year-old homemaker Victoria Smith died in Chicago from a botched abortion. The Homicide in Chicago Interactive Database indicates that the abortion was performed at Jefferson Park Hospital, but the database often erroneously lists the hospital where the woman died as the location of the abortion. The coroner pushed for the arrest of Peter Krakowski as the principal and Mary Sprochi as an accessory. Krakowski's profession is not given. On February 15, Krakowski was indicted for felony murder.


1901:A Deathbed Statement Reveals Abortion Death Two Years Earlier

In 1901, on her deathbed, Chicago homemaker Annie Robinson named Teresa Muenster not only as the abortionist responsible for her own death, but also as the abortionist responsible for the death of her sister-in-law, 28-year-old Caroline Schroeder, on January 21, 1899.