Four Anniversaries, Many More Deaths

On July 26, 1877, Mrs. Augusta Boschen was found dead in the Chicago home and office of Dr. Muleck from complications of an illegal abortion. She had left her house the previous night and was never seen alive again. Dr. Muleck fled to avoid arrest. Before leaving, he left a letter for his wife saying that he had not performed the abortion, but had just provided Augusta with the instruments, "she being so bashful and modest as not to allow him to do the work." When Augusta went into convulsions, he said, he'd concluded that she was going to die and skipped town. "The scoundrel of a doctor has not yet been caught, and hence the evidence was meagre."

Lucy Hagenow

On July 26, 1925, Mrs. Lottie Lowy, age 27, died at the Chicago office of Lucy Hagenow (pictured) from an abortion performed that day. Hagenow also operated under the name Louise Hagenow. Hagenow, who had already been implicated of the abortion deaths of Louise Derchow, Annie Dorris, Abbia Richards, and Emma Dep in San Francisco, would go on to be linked to over a dozen Chicago abortion deaths: Minnie Deering, Sophia Kuhn, Emily Anderson, Hannah Carlson, Marie Hecht, Mary Putnam, Lola Madison, Annie Horvatich, Nina H. Pierce, Jean Cohen, Bridget Masterson, Elizabeth Welter, and Mary Moorehead. Hagenow was typical of criminal abortionists in that she was a physician.

On July 16, 1930, homemaker Evelyn Dellorto, age 20, underwent an illegal abortion believed to have been performed at the office of Dr. Frank Psota. Evelyn died on July 25. On August 1, Psota was booked for murder by abortion even though the coroner's verdict was "undetermined." Psota was indicted, and held on $10,000 bond by Judge Lyle. On December 10, he was acquitted of the murder charge.

Mildred Maddalone, age 32, died on July 26, 1944, steadfastly refusing to name the abortionist who had fatally injured her. Her husband, from whom she was separated, told investigators that he hadn't even known that she was pregnant.