Kevin J. Murphy

So when will they make the movie?

Lydia Sherman was a nineteenth century woman who, as a result of temperament or upbringing or something, ended up with a deeply disturbed moral sense. She seems to have been genuinely religious, but she used arsenic to dispose of at least two and probably three husbands, plus about seven children -- the majority of them her own, although some were stepchildren.

It wasn't just random murder; she seemed to be a decent wife and mother until her first husband, Edward Struck, lost his job and went into a depression so deep that he began to have delusions and to talk about wanting to die. So Lydia... gave him a little help. But that left her with a bunch of kids and no income. So she gradually polished most of them off as they became problems. (If they could make a living on their own, they survived.)

No one caught on, and she presented a very dignified and caring front. So when Dennis "Ole" Hurlbut lost his wife and needed someone to care for his household, Lydia seemed a good choice. And so -- marriage #2, resulting in the elimination of Hurlbut.

Which brings us to Nelson Sherman, who had just lost his wife and needed help with the children. What he really wanted was a housekeeper/caretaker. Lydia, who was at last in a good financial situation because she had inherited Hurlbut's fairly extensive holdings, was hesitant, though she liked at least one of Sherman's children. Sherman upped the ante by offering marriage -- and Lydia accepted, although apparently they did not sleep together.

But Sherman's youngest child was a baby who was endlessly sick and frail, and Lydia got the kid out of the way. That started Nelson around the bend, so he and the child that Lydia liked both got a little something extra in their oatmeal.

This time, finally, a doctor caught on. Nelson Sherman's body was tested for arsenic, and it was detected. Several of Lydia's other victims were then tested, and arsenic was found in them also.

Lydia was eventually tried for the murder of Nelson Sherman (only). While I don't doubt her guilt (she later confessed), the evidence presented does not seem to me sufficient to constitute proof; it was just too easy to get arsenic as rat poison at that time. The jury, however, found her guilty of second degree murder -- a verdict that makes no sense, really (her murders were clearly premeditated if she committed them at all), but the jury probably chose it so that she was assured of spending the rest of her life behind bars but would not be executed.

This is, as far as I know, the only modern book about this puzzling case. This obviously makes it difficult to know if it is accurate or not, but it does seem mostly correct. It's a slightly unattractive printing job (large print on a large page, with too much space between lines, and the handful of illustrations mostly very badly reproduced), but that's minor.

If there is any defect here, it's that author Murphy doesn't seem to be much interested in trying to understand Lydia. Oh, I know, most of us don't want to comprehend a mass murderer -- if she seemed too sympathetic, we might be tempted to imitate her! But just labeling her a sociopath is not really an answer -- for starters, "sociopath" isn't even a diagnosis; the only diagnosis available for "psychopaths" and "sociopaths" is "Antisocial Personality Disorder." Which Lydia seemed to fit -- a minister who talked to her for a very long time said she had no sense of right and wrong -- but the evidence certainly isn't enough to prove it. I don't know if there is more to be said, but I didn't much care for the idea of just writing Lydia off as broken. It doesn't teach us anything.

But that's a relative nitpick. Compared to a lot of the "True Crime" books I've had to slog through as I've researched old murder ballads, this is both high-quality and readable. And since apparently Hollywood hasn't turned this into a horror movie yet, this is your one chance to learn about Lydia.… (mehr)