Saturday, May 10, 2025

The Deadly Career of Dr. Lou E. Davis

Dr. Lou E. Davis was a Chicago abortionist who seemed to be trying to give Lucy Hagenow some serious competition. 

The deaths attributed to Davis are:

  1. September 9, 1913 27-year-old Anna Adler
  2. April 2, 1924, 26-year-old Mary Whitney
  3. November 4, 1928, 22-year-old Anna Borndal
  4. December 1, 1928, 23-year-old Esther V. Wahlstrom
  5. May 19, 1932, 24-year-old Irene Kirschner
  6. February 7, 1937, 27-year-old Gertrude Gaesswitz. 

In spite of these six dead young woman, David was never jailed. She was convicted of murder by abortion in 1934, likely for Irene's death, but her conviction was reversed by the Illinois Supreme Court.

She was implicated in an abortion perpetrated on 33-year-old Marie Cooper, a married mother of three in January of 1947 but I have found no evidence of a successful prosecution in that case. 

In September of 1947 Davis was charged with an abortion she has reportedly perpetrated on 22-year-old Mary Kaye in late August.

In August of 1947 Davis was performing an abortion on a 22-year-old woman who played accordion in a night club. The patient's hysterical screaming led the neighbors to call the police, who promptly took the woman to the hospital and Davis to jail.

In November of 1947 she was arrested on two charges of abortion and another of attempted abortion based on accusations from three young women, who of whom made their statements from their hospital beds.

Davis was finally stopped on December 14, 1948, when she was convicted of perpetrating an abortion. At that time she had six other abortion charges pending against her. 

A week after this conviction a criminal court adjudged Davis insane and sent her to Kankakee State Hospital, where she died Monday, May 3, 1954 at the age of 77.

Sources: 
at 2:36 PM

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