Murder & Mayhem in Jefferson County

by Cheri L Farnsworth

  According to the Re-Union:

  Damaging evidence implicating James Farmer more strongly as being at least an accessory to the deed developed at Wednesday morning’s examination of Farmer before Judge Reeves, when the district attorney produced in court and read the paper signed by Farmer which…became a notice to dispossess Patrick Brennan of the home in which he and his wife had resided for many years, and which even that day sheltered [a] mutilated body…The dispossession notice, signed the day after the murder had been committed, states that Farmer bought the property, had the keys, and warned Brennan to get off and stay away from the home of which forgery had robbed him and which cost the life of his wife.

  Farmer had to be aware of his wife’s plot. He enforced it by having the notice drawn up and asking Constable Sherman to serve it upon Brennan at once. He, too, had bragged with his wife about having bought the property long before that fateful day. But had Mary Farmer convinced him that she really did buy the property legitimately with money she had saved from his meager earnings? Had she convinced him that Sarah Brennan was aware of the property transaction and had willingly left town without telling her husband or taking her things? Did she leave out the part where she brutally murdered the poor woman in cold blood? James Farmer seemed genuine enough when he asked Brennan, three days after the murder, if he had heard anything on where his wife went. And when the trunk containing the body was found by the sheriff, it was James Farmer who suggested breaking the lock to open it when the key couldn’t be found. Would a guilty man who knew what the trunk held have suggested such a thing without missing a beat? Was he truly unaware that his own wife had murdered Sarah Brennan? Perhaps his only role was enforcing the property transaction to take possession of what he believed was rightfully his. Perhaps he had no knowledge whatsoever of the full scope of the crime. He would have his day in court, but first Mary Farmer, the mastermind of one of Jefferson County’s most shocking murders ever, had to be dealt with.

  Early postcard of Jefferson County Courthouse, Watertown. Courtesy of the author.

  Mary Farmer’s sister-in-law, Mrs. Michael Doran, had a hunch something wasn’t right from the time she arrived at the Farmer residence at the behest of her brother, James, to pick up a deed that he asked her to take to Watertown to have recorded. Mary came to the door and handed her the deed, and Mrs. Doran took one look at it and recognized the signature as that of Mary Farmer, not Sarah Brennan. She asked Mary how much she had paid for the property and was told $1,200. “The woman must have been crazy [to ask for so little],” said Mrs. Doran, according to the Watertown Re-Union of May 9, 1908. “Crazy or not, I have the property,” was Mary Farmer’s response. Mrs. Doran also told the court that Mary Farmer appeared at her home on the day of the murder, around 2:00 p.m., to speak with James, who was helping out there that day. Doran testified that Mary Farmer handed her husband a bunch of keys and said, “There are your keys. Go and see Patsy Brennan and tell him his wife has gone and he has no home.” She said her brother exhibited obvious apprehension over his wife’s demand, which was very upsetting for Mrs. Doran to see, being his sister.

  Many individuals living nearby testified as to the comings and goings of Mary Farmer and Sarah Brennan on the day of the murder. All agreed that they had seen Mrs. Brennan enter the Farmer home around nine that morning but never saw her leave, although, they did see Mary Farmer buzzing around all day. Mrs. Charles Baker, for example, swore that she saw Mrs. Farmer “running back and forth from her house to the Brennan’s a dozen times,” beginning around nine-twenty. Nothing, however, was more incriminating than the testimonies of a young girl named Edith Blake and a man named Philip Smith who had helped carry the storied trunk from one house to the next.

  The Watertown Re-Union best summed up Edith’s testimony in its June 17, 1908 paper:

  Little 12-year-old Edith Blake told how she had gone to the Farmers’ and cared for the baby Thursday. The girl’s answers were clear and concise, sticking to the same in spite of any cross-examination. The witness told how Farmer swore and took some keys from his pocket and passed them to his wife, saying he did not want them. Witness said Mrs. Farmer said, “To hell. You won’t get a d—— [sic] cent of money.” The testimony gave the impression that the Farmers quarreled at the noon hour.

  The girl told how Mrs. Farmer had gone to Doran’s and returned, getting some paper from a drawer and again returning to Doran’s, where her husband was at work. Once at home again, Mrs. Farmer told the witness to tend the baby while she cleaned the back room, taking some clothes from the bedroom. The witness said that Mrs. Farmer had sent her to a store for some camphorated oil.

  It developed during the questioning that Mrs. Farmer was very careful to shut the door to the room which she was cleaning, so that witness was unable to see what was going on. The cross-examination tended to show that about the noon hour, Mr. and Mrs. Farmer had many talks, occasionally going into one of the rooms and closing the door, leaving the child minding the baby.

  Philip Smith’s testimony regarding the black trunk sealed the deal. The Re-Union reported that Smith, who lived one house to the east of the Brennan house, agreed to help the Farmers move their belongings into the Brennan house on the morning of April 25.

  Jury for what was dubbed the “Watertown Trunk Murder.” Printed with permission from the Watertown Daily Times.

  Witness told of getting a clothesline to tie the trunk, at the request of Mrs. Farmer, and with her assistance of tying the trunk around twice with the rope, and…tying the trunk around the third time. Witness also testified to getting a gallon jug replenished with ale three times while the moving was going on, the defendant furnishing the money for the beverage. All partook of the ale, but witness could not say that defendant drank any. [Author’s note: The old get-‘em-drunk-until-they’re-oblivious-trick.] The defendant told the witness that she would ask Mr. Tierney to help him carry the trunk, because her husband and Mr. Callahan were drunk, and there was something in the trunk she wanted to be very careful with.

  The trunk was heavy enough to require two men to carry it, and while it was being moved from one house to the other, the defendant followed close after it. No discoloration was noticed under the trunk, and a smaller one was placed on its top…It also developed that Mrs. Farmer was in the Barton house [the Farmer’s rented property] most of the time before the trunk was moved, but after it was moved, she spent most of her time in the Brennan house.

  Mary Farmer didn’t take her eyes off the trunk and made sure that it was never unduly disturbed, for fear of someone opening it. William Tierney corroborated Smith’s testimony “of how the trunk was carried and followed in close succession by Mrs. Farmer.” Tierney said Mary Farmer told him there was something breakable in the trunk and to be ever so careful while carrying it. The testimony affected the jury greatly, as did seeing a photograph of Sarah Brennan’s postmortem head that was brought in as evidence. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that the signatures of Sarah Brennan had been forged on the deed and bill of sale, for the real Sarah Brennan was not the woman who had gone before the attorney and notary public the year before, and there was now no doubt that Mary Farmer was well aware of the contents of the black trunk, contents that Mr. Farmer seemed unaware of when he suggested that the authorities break the trunk open. Mary Farmer was thus found guilty of murdering Sarah Brennan and sentenced to die at Auburn the first week of August.

  Postcard of Auburn Women’s Prison, circa 1922. Courtesy of the author.

  With that, Patrick Brennan commenced legal action to have the forged deeds declared null and void, so he could regain possession of his property. The Farmers’ infant son was put in the care of John Conboy, a member of the Farmer family, and ultimately, he was sent to the Ogdensburg orphanage in St. Lawrence County. The trial of James Farmer, who had been in the Jefferson County lockup since April, was the next item on the agenda. A half year of sobriety had done much to improve his appearance. The Watertown Herald said, “In court, d
ressed neatly and soberly, clean and sober, and much lighter in weight after six months imprisonment,” he looked nothing like the man dressed in working clothes the day of his arrest. But as “clean” as he now appeared, there was nothing clean about the crime for which he was being tried. District Attorney Pitcher said, “Never in the history of Jefferson County has there been a crime which could measure to this in cold deliberation and in a cruel and relentless pursuit of a criminal purpose.” Still, the defense insisted that their client knew nothing of the murder until the trunk was opened and the sheriff said, “I have found her.”

  Patrick Brennan testified at James Farmer’s trial, much as he had at the trial of Mary Farmer, repeating as he had so many times the story of how he came home from work to find his wife missing, of the nightmarish experience of being kicked out of his own house by his neighbor who claimed he had bought it and of the search for, and discovery of, his wife’s body in the trunk. Alice Doran, Farmer’s sister, again testified that she was asked by Mary Farmer to take the deed to Watertown and have it recorded. After visiting the office where attorney Francis P. Burns had drawn and executed the deed for someone proclaiming to be Sarah Brennan and learning that the woman he saw didn’t match the description of Sarah Brennan, but rather of Mary Farmer, Mrs. Doran became very concerned that something criminal was going on. She said she asked her brother several times if he had ever spoken to Sarah Brennan about transferring the deed, and he admitted he hadn’t—that he had only spoken to Patrick about it the day he evicted the poor guy from his own property. Many of the witnesses called to the stand in Mary Farmer’s trial returned to the stand in the James Farmer murder trial. And when all was said and done, when attorneys for the people and attorneys for the defendant had pulled out all the stops and put the best spin they possibly could on the now-familiar testimony, the jury reached its verdict: guilty. Then, just as Justice DeAngelis was about to pronounce the sentence, a motion for a new trial was made, when Attorney Kellogg said he believed that a sermon preached at the All Souls Church the previous Sunday had prejudiced some members of the jury who were in attendance at that service. The pastor was brought in and asked to read the entire text of his sermon to see if it was, in fact, something that might sway the jury. But the judge saw nothing in it that he thought would influence a juror and no reason to delay his pronouncement of sentencing. Thus, a full year after the deed that started the whole mess was forged, James Farmer was sentenced to die in the electric chair, like his wife, and he had only two to four months to come to terms with his fate.

  While James Farmer’s defense attorneys set to work on his appeal, he was placed in a cell in death row at the Auburn Prison. Mary Farmer was nearby, in the Auburn Women’s Prison, with her execution having been temporarily stayed by a futile appeal. The couple was permitted to see each other just twice, briefly, before Mary Farmer’s execution on March 31, 1909, but they were never allowed to touch or to speak in private. James Farmer was moved to another part of the prison on his wife’s execution day to spare him from hearing Mary as she was led to the execution chamber. She would be accompanied only by Father Hickey, her spiritual advisor who had prayed with her in the days leading up to her execution, and the two female attendants who had remained constantly at her side since she had first arrived at Auburn. The Watertown Re-Union of March 31, 1909, said, “The Farmer woman walked unfalteringly to the death chair. Her eyes were half closed, and she saw nothing of the death chair and rows of witnesses. In her hands, she clasped a crucifix, and as she was being strapped in the chair, Father Hickey stood at her side and offered prayers for the dying.” The prison physician acknowledged that Farmer was dead with the first shock, but to quell the residual muscle tremors quickly, two more contacts were made, each with 1,840 volts of electricity shooting through her body. After the physicians pronounced her dead, her body was removed for autopsy and then, as directed by her husband, it was laid to rest in St. Joseph’s Cemetery near Watertown.

  Postcard of the electric chair, Auburn Prison. Published by W.H. Zepp, circa 1914.

  Previously, Father Hickey had said, “Mrs. Farmer will die a good Catholic and will go to her death bravely. It may be, though I cannot say positively, that some statement may be made by Mrs. Farmer to the public. If so it will not be given out until after the execution.” The time had now come to release the statement Mrs. Farmer wrote and addressed to Father Hickey the Sunday before. It was in response to his telling her that, if she could truthfully exonerate her husband, she should do so before it was too late. This, she did eagerly, signing her handwritten statement—with her real name—before a notary that she requested on March 28. It said:

  To Rev. J.J. Hickey:

  My husband, James D. Farmer, never had any hand in Sarah Brennan’s death, nor never knew anything about it till the trunk was opened. I never told him anything what had happened. I feel he has been terribly wronged. James D. Farmer was not at home the day the affair happened, neither did James D. Farmer ever put a hand on Sarah Brennan after her death. Again, I wish to say as strongly as I can that my husband, James D. Farmer, is entirely innocent of the death of Sarah Brennan, that he knowingly had no part in any plans that led to it and that he knew nothing whatever about it.

  (Signed) MARY H. FARMER.

  Subscribed and sworn to before me this 28th day of March, 1909.

  B.F. WINEGAR

  Notary Public, Cayuga County.

  James Farmer’s second trial began on February 22, 1910. The same witnesses who had been called for Mary Farmer’s trial and James Farmer’s first trial were brought in again. And the same attorneys who had represented him at his first trial would represent him at the second, along with E.R. Wilcox, who had defended Farmer’s wife. District Attorney Fred B. Pitcher, assisted by Floyd S. Carlisle, tried the case for the people. According to the Herald, “The evidence was about the same as in his first trial. The prosecution tried to show his presence in the house at the time the killing took place and tried to show that he knew of it then or immediately afterwards. The defense offered evidence to show that he was not at the house at the time, and that his actions afterwards showed a man free from any guilty knowledge.” (That evidence included his suggestion that the sheriff should break the trunk open when the keys could not be found.) With the very first vote taken of the jury at 7:15 p.m., all twelve men unanimously agreed on a verdict of “Not guilty.” Farmer would leave the Jefferson County Courthouse that day a free man.

  The Herald said:

  Shortly after 9 o’clock, Judge Emerson put in an appearance. The jury filed in a moment later. The courtroom was in absolute silence, but no sooner had the foreman uttered the words, “not guilty,” than the courtroom resounded with hand clapping. One woman jumped up and shouted, “Good, good, good.” Judge Emerson rapped loudly for order, commanding the court attendants to bring anyone forward that had been seen taking part in the demonstration. As the jurymen left the enclosure, Farmer shook hands and thanked each. Later on, men and women pressed forward and shook Farmer’s hand. Farmer was visibly affected by his good fortune.

  CHAPTER 10

  THE BURLINGAME MURDER-SUICIDE

  CHAUMONT, 1922

  On Saturday, August 19, 1922, Roy C. Burlingame left home for a few hours to go out, telling his wife of two and a half years that he’d be back later. Jessie Burlingame was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. George Dillenbeck and had lived in Chaumont most of her thirty-one years. Roy, who was forty-three years old, was her second husband. He conducted an automobile business on State Street in Watertown and was well known in the industry because he often participated in auto shows. The prominent couple lived in a lovely old stone home that had been built around 1772 by Squire Preston P. Gaige. It had been in the Dillenbeck family for fifty years.

  That summer night in 1922, Jessie was not feeling well. In fact, she hadn’t felt well since an operation several months prior, according to relatives, and the Chaumont couple had been arguing with greater frequency. Things we
re not happy on the home front. Jessie’s brother, Alvin Dillenbeck of nearby Point Salubrious, stopped by to visit and check on his sister after Roy went out that night. When he left late in the evening, Roy had still not returned home. The next morning, Dillenbeck stopped by the house again and, finding no sign of the couple stirring from within, he solicited the aid of police justice W.H. Robbins and Deputy Sheriff Frank Rogers. The men broke down the door and found the Burlingames dead, each the victim of fatal gunshot wounds. Jessie Burlingame was lying on top of the revolver, in the front area of the house, while Roy Burlingame’s bullet-riddled body was found on the bathroom floor. District Attorney E.R. Wilcox, Undersheriff Brumley C. Wilde and Sheriff Ernest Gillette were called in to investigate.

  Reconstruction of the crime, and interviews with several individuals, yielded the following findings, according to the Cape Vincent Eagle of August 24, 1922:

  Mr. Burlingame, who had been out during the evening, arrived home after Mr. Dillenbeck left at 11 o’clock…Mr. Burlingame was preparing for his bath when his wife opened fire on him with a .38 caliber revolver. The gun has been identified as Mrs. Burlingame’s property.