August 13, 1922: Her Dreams Died With Her

Beulah Pickerill, a Texas native, was 21 years old and living with her parents in the Louisville, Kentucky area. She worked there as a bookkeeper, but had other plans for her life. 

Beulah and her friend Floy L. Butler had ambitions for the stage, and on July 29, 1922 they left Louisville for Chicago. The presumption at home was that the two young women planned to develop careers as vaudeville performers, though the story Beulah had told her family was that she was going to visit friends.

An unidentified man, described as "wealthy and prominent," had arranged the journey. Whether he spirited the young woman to Chicago purely for the abortion or in order to support her dreams is unclear.

Upon arrival in Chicago, Beulah and Floy consulted with a physician on Chicago's Northside hoping to arrange an abortion, but he refused to do the abortion himself, instead referring her to Vincent Filletti and Michael Galgano. The friends went to Fillette's office on August 7 to make the arrangements and negotiate the price of $200. 

Beulah wired to Lousiville, presumably to the "wealthy and prominent" man, for the money. The abortion was perpetrated on August 9.

The young women's dreams died along with Beulah at Chicago's Mid West Hospital on August 13. In her deathbed statement, Beulah had identified Filletti as the abortionist.

After authorities determined that Beulah had indeed died from complications of an abortion, the two physicians were held by the coroner and indicted for felony murder. 

Floy, along with Patrick J. Owens, the manager of Chicago's Clarendon Hotel, were held as accessories. A physician identified only as Dr. Peterson was held as a witness.

Watch Her Dreams Died With Her on YouTube.

Sources:

• Homicide in Chicago Interactive
• Death certificate
• “2 Doctors Held in Girl’s Death,” Detroit Free Press, August 17, 1922
• “Physicians Charged With Murder,” Cincinnati Enquirer, August 17, 1922
• “2 Chicago Doctors Held In Louisville Girl’s Death,” Louisville (KY) Courier-Journal, September 21, 1922

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Veteran pro-life investigator Kevin Sherlock asks people of good will to help him have Planned Parenthood prosecuted for profiteering from the rapes and incests of underage girls many thousands of times each year.

Sherlock has  pulled the police records of hundreds of cities and has pulled the child protective services records of multiple states to prove Planned Parenthood staffers are violating mandated reporting laws designed to protect girl victims.   But there is more to be done. Sherlock will make sure more and more evidence gets to federal and state prosecutors who care about protecting girls from abusers and profiteers.

If you would like to help, please click the following link:

https://www.givesendgo.com/stop-pp-from-profiteering-from-the-rapes

Sherlock has talked to many girls and young women who trust him. Their stories and the forensic evidence shows most of them undergo pill abortions or humiliating invasive surgical abortions due to fear or ignorance or pressure or coercion. He treats the girls or women carrying children or devastated from their abortions as friends and neighbors in his home town, not afterthoughts.

Thank you for doing what you can to help girls and fight sexual predators and rape profiteers.