RealChoice: November 29: Lucy Hagenow's Final Known Victim

Monday, November 29, 2021

November 29: Lucy Hagenow's Final Known Victim

On November 29, 1926, 25-year-old stenographer Mary Moorehead died from a criminal abortion perpetrated in the Chicago office of Dr. Lucy Hagenow.

Hagenow (pictured) wasn't arrested until November 13 of the following year.

Hagenow told the court that Mary had come to her office on November 5, giving her name as Margaret Sullivan. Hagenow said that she examined Mary, who had a foul-smelling vaginal discharge. Hagenow said that she concluded that Mary's unborn baby had died.

Hagenow said that she packed Mary's vagina with an antiseptic-soaked cotton ball and sent her home. She said that she told Mary that she would come by the next day with another doctor. If that doctor concurred that the baby was dead, Hagenow would get yet another doctor to come and perform an operation to remove the dead baby.

Hagenow said that Mary paid her $50 in advance for the promised care and left, but when she went to the address "Margaret Sullivan" had provided she found only a vacant lot. That was the last she'd known of the woman, she said, until she was arrested for Mary's death.

The prosecution, however, asserted that several police officers had been present when Mary was about to go surgery in an attempt to save her life. With Hagenow present, Mary told the police that Hagenow had used instruments on her to perpetrate an abortion on November 5.

Dr. Charles H. Phifer testified that on November 7 he saw Mary at her home. She was in a lot of pain and told him that she had been to see Hagenow. Dr. Phifer concluded that Mary was in labor, though he could not determine if the unborn child was alive or dead. He said that he told Mary to consult with Dr. Hagenow.

The next time Dr. Phifer saw Mary it was at Illinois Central Hospital on November 12. She was no longer pregnant and was suffering from septicemia.

Hagenow was convicted of murder by abortion for Mary's death. She was sentenced to 14 years at Joliet Penitentiary, but was able to get her conviction overturned by the Illinois Supreme Court, which ordered a new trial in 1929. The judge, noting that there was no new evidence, dismissed the case, telling Hagenow, "You had better make your peace with God, Lucy Hagenow. I do not think your months on earth are many."

Hagenow, who also went by the name of Louise or Louisa Hagenow, had a long and unsavory history of being involved in women's abortion deaths. The first were in San Francisco before Hagenow relocated to Chicago around 1890. The abortion deaths Hagenow was linked to include: