by Bruno, Joe
Richardson expanded this article into a book, and combined with his other writings, Richardson had transformed himself from a war prisoner into a wealthy man. So much so, Richardson bought shares in the New York Tribune, making himself a minority owner of the newspaper.
At the time he moved into the same boarding house as the McFarlands, Richardson was now an editor/writer for the New York Tribune. (Author’s note: I was a sports columnist for the reincarnation of the New York Tribune in the 1980s.) Richardson used his room at 72 Amity Street as an office as well as a place to sleep. As his staff at 72 Amity Street, Richardson employed a stenographer, an artist, and a messenger boy to deliver his work to the New York Tribune offices downtown on Park Row.
On February 19, 1867, McFarland returned to the boarding house, and he found his wife standing outside Richardson's door. Abby claimed Richardson and her were discussing one of his articles, but McFarland would have none of that.
Abby later wrote: “When we entered our apartment, my husband flew into a rage and insisted that an improper intimacy existed between Mr. Richardson and I.”
McFarland immediately went on a three-day bender, during which he again threatened Abby's life and said he would commit suicide. Finally, on February 21, Abby left McFarland for good. She grabbed her two children and took up residence with Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Sinclair.
At the Sinclairs, Abby summoned her father, who now lived in Massachusetts, and she enlightened him as to her marital situation. It was agreed upon that McFarland would be invited to the Sinclair residence. When McFarland arrived, Abby, in the presence of the Sinclairs and her father, told McFarland that their marriage was over.
That same evening Richardson called at the Sinclair residence. Richardson offered Abby his condolences and said he would do anything he could do to help her in her time of need. Then, as he was leaving, Abby followed him out to the hallway.
With tears in her eyes she said: "You have been very kind to me. I cannot repay you."
Referring to Abby's two children, Richardson said, “How do you feel about facing the world with two babies?”
She answered, “It looks hard for a woman, but I am sure I can get on better without that man than with him.”
Before leaving, Richardson told Abby, “I wish you to remember, that any responsibility you choose to give me in any possible future, I shall be glad to take.”
Two days later, Richardson asked Abby to marry him, telling her that he wanted to give her his motherless children for her to care for as she would her own.
Abby later said, "It was absolutely impossible for me not to love him.”
On the night of March 13, 1867, Richardson met Abby at the theater where she had just finished a performance. As they turned a corner, McFarland rushed up behind them and fired three shots, one of which pierced Richardson's thigh. It was a superficial wound, and Richardson was not badly hurt. McFarland was arrested by the police, but due to some inexplicable courthouse dealings, McFarland somehow managed to escape jail time.
When it was obvious to McFarland that his wife was lost to him forever, he decided to sue to get custody of both their children. The courts came to a split decision, whereby Abby would get custody of Daniel and McFarland the custody of Percy. In April 1868, Abby attempted to see her son Percy, but she was denied doing so by McFarland, who flew into a rage and threatened to hit her. At this point, Abby had no choice but to file for divorce.
In the state of New York, the only grounds for divorce was adultery. So, in July of 1868, Abby decided to go to Indiana for her divorce, where the grounds for divorce were more extensive. Those grounds included drunkenness, extreme cruelty, and failure to support a wife. Abby stayed in Indiana for 16 months until her divorce from McFarland was final. Then Abby traveled to her family's home in Massachusetts, and Richardson met her there to spend Thanksgiving Day 1869 with her and her family.
On November 25, 1869, at 5:15 p.m., McFarland walked into the Park Row offices of the New York Tribune. He hid quietly in a corner for about 15 minutes until he saw Richardson enter through the side entrance on Spruce Street. While Richardson was reading his mail at the counter, McFarland rushed up to him and fired several shots. Richardson was hit three times, but he was still able to walk up two flights of stairs to the editorial office, where he flung himself on the couch, mortally wounded with a bullet in the chest. When the medics arrived, Richardson was carried across City Hall to the Astor House and laid down on a bed in room 115.
At 10 p.m., McFarland was arrested in room 31 of the Westmoreland Hotel, on the corner of 17th Street and Fourth Avenue. The arresting officer, Captain A. J. Allaire, told McFarland he was under arrest for the shooting of Richardson. At first, McFarland said he was innocent of the charges.
Then he shockingly said, “It must have been me.”
Captain Allaire took McFarland into custody and brought him to the Astor House, room 115. After Captain Allaire asked Richardson if the man in front of him had been his attacker, Richardson rose his head off the pillow weakly and said, “That is the man!'
Abby Sage was immediately summoned to New York City. As soon as she arrived, at Richardson's request, arrangements were made by Horace Greeley so that Abby and Richardson could be married at Richardson's deathbed. The marriage ceremony was performed by Rev. Henry Ward Beecher and the Rev. O.B. Frothingham. Three days later on December 2, Richardson took his last breath, leaving Abby Sage Richardson a widow.
Before McFarland's trial, his defense attorney John Graham told the New York press that Abby Sage's intentions towards Mr. Richardson were anything but honorable.
Graham said, “This tender and touching marriage was a horrible and disgraceful ceremony to get the property of a dying man, and that tended to hasten his demise.”
At first, Richardson's fellow New York City journalists defended the honor of Richardson, and they began delving into McFarland's life, trying to find anything that would discredit McFarland.
The New York Tribune wrote that McFarland was in “the habit of opium eating for the purpose of drowning his sorrows.”
However, the New York Sun went on a campaign to discredit both Abby Sage and Richardson. In an editorial entitled A Public Outrage on Religion and Decency, the Sun accused Richardson of luring Abby away from her loving husband.
The Sun even dredged up a quote from McFarland's brother which said, “Abby went reading just to get a chance to paint her face, pass for beauty, and get in with that free-love tribe at Sam Sinclair’s.”
What followed was a battle in the press, where most of the New York City dailies opined that it was Richardson and Abby who were immoral, and that McFarland did the honorable thing in killing the man who had stolen his wife away from him.
McFarland's trial commenced on April 4, 1870. Since she knew her ex-husband's defense lawyer was on a mission to disgrace and discredit her, Abby stayed away from the trial. Yet Graham sought to secure sympathy from the jury towards his client by having McFarland's son, Percy, sitting next to him during the trial.
In his opening argument, Graham implored the jury to understand the mental anguish his client had been forced to endure.
Graham said, “So sensitive and tender was the defendant's mental organization that he was incapable of grappling with, and bearing the deep sorrows and misfortune that awaited him. His speculations were disastrous and then the seeds of dissatisfaction first began to be sown.”
Graham got to the main thrust of his defense, when he attacked the virtue and honor of Abby Sage.
“When she first met my client, she was but a poor factory girl. Yet on one occasion she told my client, 'All I need to make me an elegant lady and popular with the elite of New York is money.' ”
Graham then told the jury that the turning point in his client's life came on February 21, 1867, when McFarland arrived home at 3 p.m. and saw his wife exiting Richardson's room.
“This beautiful woman was completely corrupted,” Graham said. “She had placed before
her as temptations the honors of the stage and the society of great men. She was then too elegant and too popular for her humble lot, and the demon that placed her before all these temptations for which she must pay the price with her soul was Richardson.”
Graham pointed out that the boiling point for his client had been reached one day when McFarland went to the office of the New York Tribune. There he was given a letter by an office boy that was addressed to “Mrs. McFarland.” The boy had mistakenly thought the letter was addressed to “Mr. McFarland.”
Graham told the jury, “My client opened the letter, peruses it and finds it is a love letter written by Richardson, who was in Boston, to Mrs. McFarland. In this letter, Richardson openly claims his intentions to marry this woman if she can obtain a divorce from Mr. McFarland.”
During the trial, the prosecutors, led by former judge and then-congressman, Noah Davis, concentrated on how McFarland, during his marriage, had mistreated his wife and on occasions beat her. To back up these claims, the prosecution called in Abby's relatives and friends, including a man of great clout, Horace Greeley.
However, Greeley was no fan of the corrupt Democratic machine Tammany Hall, whom Greeley excoriated many times in his newspaper. As payback, Tammany Hall used their considerable influence, before and during the trial, to discredit Greeley and Abby Sage.
In his summation to the jury, which took two days, Graham tried to sway the jury into thinking his client was just the victim of unbearable consequences.
“The evidence proves the insanity under which the defendant was laboring at the time of the shooting,” Graham said. “This was a condition of mind superinduced by the agony he endured at the thought of the loss of his home, his wife, and his children.”
Graham even went so far as to quote the Bible to discredit the dead Richardson.
With tears in his eyes, Graham said, “Whoso committeth adultery with a woman lacketh understanding; he that doeth it destroyeth his own soul. A wound and dishonor shall he get; and his reproach shall not be wiped away. For jealousy is the rage of a man; therefore he will not spare in the day of vengeance.”
The jury bought Graham's incredible defense like a mark buys into a three-card-monte game. On May 10, it took the jury only one hour and 55 minutes to return a verdict of not-guilty on the grounds of insanity.
Although she was deeply despondent after the trial, Abby Sage Richardson steadfastly remained in New York City. She became a successful author and playwright, and was well-received in both the literary and social communities. She also edited and published a book of Richardson's unpublished works.
Abby also kept her promise to the dying Richardson that she would raise his three children as her own. She also raised her son Daniel, whose name was changed to Willie (not to be associated with his father Daniel McFarland). Abby's other son, Percy, left McFarland and returned to his mother. He changed his surname from McFarland to his mother's maiden name of Sage.
On December 5, 1900, Abby Sage Richardson died in Rome of pneumonia.
In 1880, Daniel McFarland traveled out west. He was last heard from in Colorado, and there is no recorded account of his death.
However, according to historian Edmund Pearson, “It did not take him long to drink himself to death.”
Albert Richardson was buried in his home town of Franklin, Mass. Prominently displayed at Franklin’s City Hall is a monument to Richardson's heroics in the Civil War.
The inscription on the monument reads: “Many give thee thanks who never knew thy face, so, then, farewell, kind heart and true.”
Mittelman, Evelyn – “The Kiss of Death”
It's never a good thing when a femme fatale is called the “The Kiss of Death.” Yet, never has this moniker been more appropriate than in the case of Evelyn Mittelman, a little lass from the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn.
Little is known about Mittelman's early life, except that at the tender age of 16, she was already one of the most sought-after broads in the entire borough of Brooklyn. In 1941, after Mittelman had been thrust into the spotlight as a material witness in the trial of her boyfriend, Murder Incorporated's Harry “Pittsburgh Phil” Strauss, veteran New York Daily Mirror columnist Eddie Zeltner said, “I knew Evelyn 10 years ago, when she was barely 16. She was a gorgeous blond who used to come from Williamsburg to Coney Island to swim and dance in the cellar clubs which are grammar schools for gangsters.”
Two years later, Evelyn surfaced in California with a beau named Hy Miller. Hy was crazy about Evelyn, but Evelyn was not so crazy about Hy. One night, Hy took Evelyn to a dance where she met another young chap who thought she was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Because she was obviously flirting with the newcomer, whose name is unknown, Hy said something to this fellow, and something even worse to Evelyn. The anonymous chap took umbrage at Hy insulting Evelyn, and the final result was that Hy became very dead. It is not known if Evelyn took up with the victor for any period of time, or not.
Still, Hy was the first notch on the Kiss of Death's garter belt.
A few years later, Evelyn showed up in Brooklyn with her new love, Robert Feurer. It was at a dance she attended with Feurer that she met a nasty piece of work named Sol Goldstein, known in the rackets as “Jack.” Goldstein was famous on the docks of New York City as one of the biggest fish wholesalers in the business. Of course, in order to keep being prosperous on the docks, Goldstein went up against, and aligned himself with, people as nasty as he was; some even nastier. But we'll get to that later.
As Goldstein cozied up to Evelyn at the dance, smoke began to blast from Feurer's ears. One word led to another, and soon Feurer said a few things to Evelyn that were not quite so nice. Goldstein rushed to Evelyn's rescue, and when the dust settled, Feurer was now quite dead, too (see a pattern here?).
This is getting a little repetitive, but one night Goldstein brought Evelyn to another dance, where she met Harry “Pittsburgh Phil” Strauss (called “Pep” by his friends). Strauss, considered a tall, dark and handsome lug by the opposite sex, was the top killer in a cozy little group called Murder Incorporated, run by Louis “Lepke Buchalter and Albert “The Lord High Executioner” Anastasia.
Although Strauss was paid tidy sums for killing people whom his bosses said needed to be killed throughout America, he was so good at what he did because, as Brooklyn District Attorney William O'Dwyer once said, “Strauss killed people just for the lust to kill.”
When an out-of-town hit was assigned to Lepke, it was usually Strauss whom Lepke entrusted to do the job. When these occasions arose, Strauss packed a bag with a shirt, change of socks, underwear, a gun, length of rope, and an ice pick; just in case. Most times, Strauss didn't even know the name of his target, and he didn't care either. As long as the dude wound up dead, that was enough for Strauss.
On the night Strauss met Evelyn at the dance, he told both Evelyn and Goldstein that he considered Evelyn to be his new girlfriend. Evelyn didn't protest too much, but Goldstein did. Strauss told Goldstein they shouldn't fight in front of a woman, and would Goldstein agree to go with Strauss to a nearby pool room to settle the dispute about who should be the top man in Evelyn's life.
Goldstein agreed, and the next thing he knew, Strauss was rearranging the features on Goldstein's face with a mean pool stick. The result was - Goldstein was out, and Evelyn was the new girlfriend of one of the most sadistic killers in American history. For some reason, Strauss let Goldstein live for the time being, but he would rectify that situation later as part of his daily duties for Murder Inc.
Goldstein's mother was quite happy her son was away from the likes of Evelyn Mittelman. Mom Goldstein was plain giddy, when soon after the dust-up with Strauss, Goldstein met a nice, young girl named Helen, who was the daughter of a Cleveland used-car dealer.
Goldstein's mom told his sister, “Sol is away from the tough boys at last.”
Well, not quite mom.
In the summer of 1936, Mom Goldstein received the wonderful news that her
son and Helen had tied the knot and were honeymooning at Glen Wild, a small, romantic place in the Catskill mountains in upstate New York. Weeks went by without hearing from the newlyweds again, and after three months, Mom Goldstein began to fret a bit. After much sleuthing, Mom Goldstein finally located Helen in New York City.
“What happened? I haven't heard from Sol in months,” she said to Helen.
Helen’s eyes started dripping crocodile tears.
“I don't know,” she said. “We were in our room getting dressed for a Saturday night dance, when the phone rang and he answered it. A little while later some men drove up. Sol said he'd be back in a few minutes. I haven't seen him since.”
Mom Goldstein decided to take a little trip to the Catskills to see if she could find any news concerning her son. After she arrived in the Catskills, Mom Goldstein could not find a trace of Sol, but she did find Helen hosting a gay party not far from Glen Wild, where she had honeymooned with Sol. Mom Goldstein told Helen that Helen was not behaving like an aggrieved wife should behave.
Helen coldly told Mom Goldstein, “Sol is dead. He was thrown in a lake.”
It wasn't until four years later that Mom Goldstein and the government found out exactly what happened to Sol “Jack” Goldstein.
It all started with Abe “Kid Twist” Reles, one of the higher-ups in Murder Incorporated, becoming a government informant. Abe knew who killed who and how, and with his photographic memory, he told the government about scores of murders, including the untimely demise of Sol Goldstein. Two other Murder Incorporated killers, Allie “Tick Tock” Tannenbaum and Pretty Levine, corroborated everything Reles said about the Goldstein hit.
It seemed that the contract on Goldstein was put out by Joe “Zocks” Lanza, the big boss on the Manhattan docks and the highly-profitable Fulton Fish Market. Lanza had been indicted by a Federal Grand Jury for the “monopolistic control of fish sent to New York City from Minnesota, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, and Canada.” Lanza was tried and found guilty, but he won an appeal to have a second trial on the same charges. While planning his defense, Lanza realized that Goldstein, who had some pull on the docks himself, knew enough information about Lanza's waterfront rackets to put Lanza away for a very long time, if not land Lanza directly into the electric chair. Lanza contacted Louis Capone, another Murder Incorporated big shot, to set the process in motion of eliminating Goldstein from the witness list at Lanza's second trial.