Deaths from the 1920s

On February 6, 1924, Ida Cantor performed an abortion on Wanda Szidzewicz. Wanda developed septicemia after the abortion, and went to a Massachusetts hospital on February 11. She was treated there until her death on February 26. The jury found that Cantor used improperly sterilized instruments in the abortion. A key part of the prosecution's case was a deathbed statement by the injured woman.

Dr. Richard Thacker

Marie Epperson, just 19 years old, was an early victim of Oklahoma City abortionists J.W. Elsiminger and Richard E. Thacker. Marie died February 26, 1929. Her brother had told authorities about the abortion. The doctors lay low for a while, then were implicated, sometimes together and sometimes singly, in a total of eight abortion deaths, most of them taking place in the spring of 1932: Isobel F. Ferguson (Elsiminger and Thacker), Ruth Hall (Elsiminger and Thacker), Virginia Lee Wyckoff (Eisiminger), Lennis May Roach (Elsiminger and Thacker), Nancy Joe Lee (Thacker), Robbie Lou Thompson (Thacker).