November 22: A Funeral Interrupted

Summary: Newlywed Ida Coakley's funeral was interrupted for an investigation: Was she an abortionist's victim?

On November 23, 1897, a funeral procession in Irvington, California, was stopped just as about the body was being loaded onto a ferry. The deceased was 24-year-old Ida Coakley, a homemaker who had only been married to John Coakley, a farmer, for two months. John reported that he'd taken her to the office of Dr. Samuel Hall the previous day to be treated for a heart problem. He had left the doctor's office and returned that evening only to find his wife dead. Her body was whisked away to a funeral establishment at 10:00 at night

A night watchman at a nearby bank had found the clandestine removal of a body from Dr. Hall's premises fishy. He spoke to the driver while the undertaker and his assistant went inside. The driver told the night watchman that a woman from Irvington had just died there. The watchman contacted the police. Deputy Coroner McCormack, who should have been notified about any death, went to Hall's house and was told that there had been no death there.

McCormack went to the Health Office and found a certificate signed by Dr. McMurdo, stating that Mrs. Coakley had died from a cardiac aneurism. Clearly, then, there had been a death and there was something fishy about it.  McCormack contacted the undertaker, who told him that the body was on the way to the ferry. Thus the interruption of the funeral. Ida's body was taken for an autopsy, and a coroner's jury convened. 

Dr. Mc Murdo testified before the coroner's jury that the undertaker had asked him to sign the death certificate because of Hall's "peculiar" reputation.

John Coakley admitted that he had taken Ida to Hall the previous week and asked if an abortion would be safe for her. When Hall had assured him that it would be safe, John paid $50 and Hall promptly took Ida into a procedure room. A few minutes later, Hall returned, told John that Ida had been fine, and sent her home.

Dr. Hall's daughter, Josephine Wells, testified that Ida had come to the McAllister Street house at about noon on the Saturday before her death. Hall had asked to use Josephine's room for a couple of days to care for Ida, whom Hall told Josephine suffered heart disease. Ida was sitting in a chair by the fire the following Monday when she died at about 6 o'clock in the evening. 

They concluded:

That Mrs. Ida Coakley, aged 24 years, nativity California, occupation housewife, residence Irvington, Alameda county, came to her death November 22, 1897, at 14 McAllister street, from septicaemia, following an attempt at abortion; and we further find that deceased came to her death from the effects of a criminal operation performed by Dr. Samuel H. Hall, and we further find that John Coakley was an accessory to the same crime.

Hall was arrested when he arrived in San Jose to visit his wife and daughter. He said that he'd not known that Ida had been pregnant when she and her husband had come to his office on Saturday. He'd treated her with morphine and nitroglycerin. On Monday see seemed okay, he said, but he left her for a while only to return to his office and find her dead. He said that he assumed that she must have died from an aneurysm.

The charges against John Coakley were dropped during the first trial in order to loosen his tongue against Hall. John Coakley proved useless during the trial, however. He broke down on the stand but the prosecution was unable to get him to say anything significant. The trial resulted in a hung jury, voting seven to five for acquittal. A second trial against Hall ended in acquittal after Coakley fled the state, leaving the prosecution minus the prime witness.

Hall had been twice tried for the 1891 abortion death of Ida Shaddock. The first trial ended in a hung jury and the second, three years later and after several key witnesses had moved away or died, resulted in acquittal.

Newly added sources:

• "Held Responsible for Causing Death," San Francisco Examiner, November 30, 1897