On January 23, 1891, saloon keeper Joseph Hoffman summoned Dr. Dietrich to Shaeffer's Hotel in Chicago to tend to an ailing woman, 23-year-old Minnie Deering. Dietrich prescribed an oral medication and an alcohol and carbolic acid solution to be externally applied. The following day, Hoffman summoned Dr. Detrich and reported that he'd mixed up the medications and given Minnie the carbolic acid orally by mistake. Detrich and another doctor pumped Minnie's stomach and administered counter measures but to no avail. She died on January 25.
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| Lucy Hagenow |
Even though this meant implicating himself in a crime, Hoffman told the doctors that he and Minnie had secretly married and had secretly come to the city to procure the services of an abortion doctor he referred to as "Mrs. Hageman." "Mrs. Hageman" was actually Dr. Lucy Hagenow.
Hagenow, a prolific abortionist who had fled prosecution after the deaths of abortion patients in San Francisco, evidently had found a welcoming new home in Chicago. Her attorney, John C. King, requested a writ to get Hagenow released. Judge Tuthill "readily granted it, saying that the verdict was an admission and an exhibition of ignorance, and that Mrs. Hagenow should not have spent an hour in jail."
Tuthill thus released Hagenow to ply her trade in Chicago. There she was connected to over a dozen abortion deaths, including Sophia Kuhn, Emily Anderson, Hannah Carlson, Marie Hecht, May Putnam, Lola Madison, Annie Horvatich, Nina H. Pierce, Elizabeth Welter, Bridget Masterson, Lottie Lowy, Jean Cohen, and Mary Moorehead.
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