From Criminal in 1882 to Safe and Legal in 1981

A period of a century shows us 19th and 20th century criminal aboriton deaths, a pre-Roe but legal abortion death, and a post-Roe legal death.

1882: Gussie Ellergood Implicates Physician

On Saturday, July 1, 1882, Gussie Ellergood of Carlisle, Illinois, died in a St. Louis hospital. She had been admitted the previous Wednesday after having taken sick. Her death was due to a botched abortion. She made a deathbed statement to a nurse naming Dr. Robert McWilliams as her abortionist, though McWilliams denied any knowledge of her.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch said that Gussie "had been betrayed by a villain named Harry J. Pate, who, through the medium of slushy love letters, gained her affections and then deserted her." As McWilliams' trial date approached, Pate was in the workhouse due to vagrancy, so even if he had stayed with Gussie her prospects would have been poor. I have been unable so far to determine the outcome of McWilliams' trial.
1896: Hanna Carlson Implicates Two Female Physicians

Dr. Lucy Hagenow

On July 2, 1896, 20-year-old Hanna Carlson died at Chicago's Emergency Hospital at about 5 p.m. Her brother, A. O. Carlson, swore out a complaint against Dr. Lucy Hagenow and Dr. Ida Von Schultz. Both women, who said that they were originally licensed to practice medicine in Switzerland, were charged with murder. A man named Emil Olson, identified as "the man who secured their services," was also arrested.

Hagenow and Von Schultz asserted that Hannah had come to them after a self-induced abortion and that they were merely trying to save her life. The jury evidently found the evidence against the known abortionists to be insufficient, since they acquitted both defendants after deliberating for two hours.

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, Marie Hecht,: May Putnam, Lola Madison, Annie Horvatich,: Lottie Lowy, Nina H. Pierce, Jean Cohen, Bridget Masterson, Elizabeth Welter, and: Mary Moorehead.

1936: Madell Williams and an Unidentified Abortionist

On July 1, 1936, 19-year-old Madell Williams died in a Rocky Mount, North Carolina hospital, from peritonitis caused by a perforation of her uterus during a criminal abortion.

Madell had left her mother's home in Nash County at about noon on Sunday. She went off in a car with Melton Baker, a man Madell had been associating with for about 18 months. Baker brought Madell back to her mother's home early Monday morning. Madell was very sick and immediately took to her bed, where she remained for about a week. A doctor examined her, and on his advice Madell was admitted to the hospital.

Baker denied that he had arranged or even recommended an abortion for Madell. He even went so far as to insist that he had neither picked her up at her mother's house nor had he brought her back; he had, he insisted, not seen her at all during the time in question. However, he admitted to Madell's uncle that he had gotten her pregnant.

Baker was found guilty of arranging the fatal abortion, and was sentenced to 3 - 5 years in prison. His conviction was upheld on appeal.

1971: Safe and Legal in New York

"Audrey" is one of the women Life Dynamics identifies on their "Blackmun Wall" as having been killed by a safe and legal abortion. Audrey was 44 years old when she underwent a first-trimester abortion in New York on July 1, 1971, now legal under New York's liberalized abortion law. During the abortion she went into cardiac arrest. Attempts to revive her failed; she died that day, leaving three children motherless.

The 1970 liberalization of abortion had made New York an abortion mecca until the Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court ruling that abortionists could legally set up shop in any state of the union. In addition to "Audrey," these are the women I know of who had the dubious benefit of dying from the newfangled safe-and-legal kind of abortion in pre-Roe New York (Thrugh June of 1972):

• 1970: "Judy" Roe, Carmen Rodriguez, Barbara Riley, "Amanda" Roe, Maria Ortega, and "Kimberly" Roe
• 1971: "Amy" Roe, "Andrea" Roe, "Sandra" Roe, "Anita" Roe, Margaret Smith, "Annie" Roe, "Vicki" Roe, "April" Roe, "Barbara" Roe, "Tammy" Roe, Carole Schaner, "Beth" Roe, and "Roseann" Roe
• 1972: "Connie" Roe, "Julie" Roe, "Robin" Roe, "Roxanne" Roe, and "Danielle" Roe

1981: Safe and Legal in Iowa

Sheryl Cottone was 23 years old when she underwent a first trimester abortion in June of 1981. She was rushed to Veteran's Memorial Hospital in Waukon, Iowa, on July 1. She was pronounced dead on arrival. An autopsy found that she had died from an embolism that lodged in her heart.

The Beginning of Lucy Hagenow's Bloody Trail

A Mysterious Death

A death certificate signed by Dr. Xavier Dodel stated that 28-year-old Abbia Richards died on June 2, 1888, at 12 Nineteenth Street, San Francisco -- the "maternity hospital" of Dr. Louise Hagenow.

Dr. Lucy "Louise" Hagenow

Dodel gave the cause of death as peritonitis and filed it with undertaker Theodore Dierks. Health Office officials, however, found the whole thing suspicious. Health Officer Barger and Coroner Stanton visited Dierks, who at first refused to discuss the matter but who finally said that at about 10 p.m. on June 2, a man identifying himself as Mr. Richards had come to the undertaking establishment, saying that he needed to arrange a burial for his wife, who had died at Hagenow's hospital several hours earlier. He said that her maiden name was Maria Schmidt., and that he and his wife had moved to Stockton Street from Port Costa about three weeks earlier.

Dierks and his bookkeeper, Charles Mueller, promptly brought the body back to their establishment. Although several men had gathered at the funeral establishment on June 4, the day of the burial, only one man attended the funeral.

During the inquest, Hagenow and Dodel were brought from the city prison, where they were being held for the June 26 death of Anna Doreis, to the morgue. Hagenow admitted that Abbia had died at her practice but denied having perpetrated an abortion. Dodel admitted that he had signed the death certificate, but made vague references to two other doctors that he refused to name as having had some involvement somehow.

The man who presented himself as Abbia Richards' husband was just a clerk with no connection to the dead woman, who had assumed the name of Richards in order to arrange the burial.

As the investigation went on, a creepy and conflicting picture emerged.

A man named William E. Moorcroft, identified as "the guardian of the deceased Abbie Richards," told the coroner that his ward had been only 19 years of age, not 28. She had become sick in Port Costa and gone to San Francisco, where her guardian had "supported her as well as he was able to." However, suspicions had been raised that Moorcroft had been "criminally intimate with her and responsible for her condition when placed in the hands of Mrs. Hagenow."

Tillie Boyd's Testimony

Tillie Boyd, who had known Abbie well since childhood, testified that she hadn't known that her friend had even been pregnant. She had, though, gone with Abbia to the office Dr. O'Donnell for rheumatism and headaches. Abbia had met privately with the doctor and had come away with powders that "did her head good."

Afterward, Abbie went to Port Costa, to her guardian's home. She came back to San Francisco five days later and told her friend she was going to a lady doctor's house. "I did not see her again until Mr. Moorecroft sent for me and told me that Abbie was very sick. The next thing I heard was that she was dead. I had no idea what as the matter with her. To the best of my knowledge Mr. Moorecroft always treated Abbie well."

Two Physicians' Testimony

Dr. G. M. Terrill "stated that he was visited one night by a man whom he now knows to be Moorecroft, who desired him to go to Mrs. Hagenow's hospital and see a girl who was very sick." Moorecroft wanted two doctors to examine the girl, so Dr. John Morse was called in to assist. 

Morse and Terrill saw Dodel there, with Abbia "in a dying condition." They advised Hagenow to give her stimulants, but didn't examine her.

The Social Worker's Testimony

Special Officer Holbrook of the Society of the Prevention of Cruelty to Children testified that on several occasions they'd had cause to investigate Moorecroft's treatment of his ward. In 1887, Abbia had come to him saying that "her guardian was going to Port Costa and wanted her to go with him as his mistress. The society took care of her for a while, but she soon disappeared," and the next Holbrook heard, Abbie was living with Moorecroft again.

The Board of Health

Secretary Williams of the Board of Health testified that he issued a burial permit upon a death certificate for Maria Schmidt, signed by Dr. Xavier Dodel. Several days later a worker from the Dierks undertaking business came to the office, stating that the dead woman's name was actually Abbie Richards. The board issued the corrected burial permit, but Williams' attention was struck by Dodel's name on a certificate for a death at Hagenow's address, since those were the same signatory and address involved in the Annie Doreis death earlier in the year.

Hagenow was also implicated in the San Francisco abortion deaths of Louise Derchow, as well as for the suspicious death of Emma Dep at Hagenow's maternity home.

A More Welcoming Home

Hagenow relocated to Chicago, an area much more congenial to abortionists, and began piling up dead bodies there as well. She was implicated in numerous abortion deaths, including:

• 1891: Minnie Deering
• 1892: Sophia Kuhn andEmily Anderson
• 1896: Hannah Carlson
• 1899: Marie Hecht
• 1905: May Putnam
• 1906: Lola Madison
• 1907: Annie Horvatich
• 1925: Lottie Lowy, Nina H. Pierce, Jean Cohen, Bridget Masterson, and Elizabeth Welter
• 1926: Mary Moorehead

The End of the Road

Though Hagenow was sentenced to prison for the death of Mary Moorehead, when she appealed the Supreme Court of Illinois 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, the Associated Press noted, was nearly deaf and "may not have heard. She muttered something, and shambled laboriously from the room."

As near as I can determine, Hagenow died September 26, 1933, in Norwood Park, Cook County, Illinois. Her occupation on her death record was given as "midwife. 

A Habitual Offender's Deadly Work, Chicago, 1891

On January 25, 1891, 23-year-old Minnie Deering died at Schaeffer's Hotel in Chicago, evidently due to the effects of carbolic acid mistakenly administered to her by a saloon keeper named Joseph Hoffman. Hoffman reportedly had been involved with Minnie for about four months prior to her death.

Hoffman had checked into the hotel about a week before Minnie's death, saying that his wife would be coming from the country to visit him. She arrived on January 18. She was reported to be sickly and stayed in her room, having her meals delivered to her there.

On January 23, Hoffman brought in Dr. Dietrich to treat Minnie for a fever. Dietrich prescribed an oral medication and an alcohol and carbolic acid solution to be externally applied. He returned the following day to find Minnie's condition improved. About an hour later, Hoffman summoned Dr. Detrich and reported that he'd mixed up the medications and given Minnie the carbolic acid orally by mistake.

Dr. Lucy Hagenow

When Dr. Dietrich arrived, he found another doctor, W. P. Goodsmith already there. They pumped her stomach and administered counter measures to no avail. Some reports indicate that the County Physician, Dr. Hektoen, had been called in to attend to Minnie. Whoever the doctors were, they pumped Minnie's stomach and made other efforts to save her, but she died at 12:30 p.m.

"At the coroner's inquest it was shown that Miss Deering had visited Dr. Hagenow for relief from her woes, and that she was suffering from a criminal operation when the acid was administered."

The coroner's jury concluded that ultimately Minnie had died because of a criminal abortion since it had started the chain of events that led to Minnie's death. However, they did not conclusively determine that Hagenow herself had perpetrated it. They ordered her held to a grand jury pending further investigation.

Hagenow's 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.

Hoffman told the doctors that he and Minnie had secretly married and had secretly come to the city to procure the services of a "Mrs. Hageman," who evidently was Hagenow, since it was she who was arrested.

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 deaths in Chicago, where the political climate and police corruption were more congenial to her practice. Those women included: Sophia Kuhn, Emily Anderson, Hannah Carlson, Marie Hecht, May Putnam, Lola Madison, Annie Horvatich, Lottie Lowy, Nina H. Pierce, Jean Cohen, Bridget Masterson, Elizabeth Welter, and Mary Moorehead.