by Linda Wolfe
241 “with human feelings [even] if he was a judge”: Magill, “When Men Were Sold,” p. 512.
241 Morris’s history: Kenderdine, “The Chapman-Mina Tragedy,” p. 464.
241 Du Bois’s history: American National Biography, p. 950.
241 “Mina Flood”: Lichtenwalner, Bensalem, p. 311.
Bibliography
PRINCIPAL SOURCES
BOOKS AND UNPUBLISHED MATERIAL
Brown, David Paul. The Forum, or Forty Years Full Practice at the Philadelphia Bar, 2 volumes. Philadelphia, 1856.
Chapman, Mr. and Mrs. William. United States Institution for the Treatment of Cases of Defective Utterance Such as Partial Speechlessness, Stuttering, Stammering, Hesitancy, Weakness of Voice, Mis-Enunciation, Lisping, Etc., Etc. Philadelphia, 1826.
Du Bois, William E. The Trial of Lucretia Chapman, Philadelphia, 1832.
——. Supplement to the Trial of Mrs. Chapman: The Trial of Lino Amalia Espos y Mina. Philadelphia, 1832.
Mina, Carolino Estradas. The Life and Confession of Carolino Estradas de Mina. Philadelphia, 1832.
Mina-Chapman Murder Case Papers. Spruance Library, Bucks County Historical Society, Doylestown, Pa.
DOCUMENTS
Baggage of William Chapman. Baggage Entries, 1799–1856. Records of the Port of Philadelphia, National Archives and Records Administration, Mid-Atlantic Region, Philadelphia, Pa.
Bensalem Township Census, 1820 and 1830. National Archives and Records Administration, Mid-Atlantic Region, Philadelphia, Pa.
Commonwealth v. Edward Winslow, 1814–1818. April term, Supreme Judicial Court, Boston, Mass.
Documents Pertaining to the Incarceration and Pardon of Edward Winslow, 1820–1823. Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Archives Division, Boston, Mass.
Documents Pertaining to the Incarceration of Mark Winslow, 1826. Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Archives Division, Boston, Mass.
Naturalization Records, Philadelphia, 1789–1880. Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania.
Passenger and Immigration Lists, Philadelphia, 1800–1850. Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania.
Petition for Sale of Lucretia, William, Abigail, and John Chapman’s Real Estate. Orphans’ Court files, Spruance Library, Bucks County Historical Society, Doylestown, Pa.
NEWSPAPERS
Barnstable Patriot (Massachusetts), 1831–1832.
Boston Morning Post, 1831–1832.
Bucks County Intelligencer (Pennsylvania), 1831.
Germantown Gazette (Pennsylvania), 1831.
Germantown Telegraph (Pennsylvania), 1831–1832.
Philadelphia Aurora General Advertiser, 1813–1817, 1826.
Philadelphia Gazette and Universal Daily Advertiser, 1831–1832, 1834.
Philadelphia National Gazette and Literary Register, 1831.
Philadelphia Poulson’s American Daily Advertiser, 1813, 1817, 1831–1832.
Philadelphia Public Ledger, 1831–1863.
Philadelphia Saturday Bulletin, 1817, 1831–1832.
Philadelphia Saturday Courier, 1832.
Relf’s Philadelphia Gazette, 1813, 1817.
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Banner, Stuart. The Death Penalty: An American History. Cambridge, Mass., 2002.
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Buck, William J. A History of Bucks County. Doylestown, Pa., 1855.
Cobb, Elijah. Elijah Cobb, A Cape Cod Skipper, with a foreword by Ralph D. Paine. New Haven, Conn., 1925.
Davis, W. W. H. “Half an Hour with the Old Taverns of Doylestown.” In A Collection of Papers Read Before the Bucks County Historical Society, vol. 2. Riegelsville, Pa., 1909.
——. History of Bucks County Pennsylvania: From the Discovery of the Delaware to the Present Time. Doylestown, Pa., 1876.
——. History of Bucks County Pennsylvania: from the Discovery of the Delaware to the Present Time. Pipersville, Pa., 1905.
——. History of Doylestown Old and New. Doylestown, Pa., 1904.
Dickens, Charles. American Notes [1842], with an introduction by Christopher Hitchens. New York, 1996.
A Digest of the Laws in Force Relating to the Police of the City of Philadelphia, with Some Account of the History of the Police Forces of the Same, from the Year 1682, to the Present Time. Philadelphia, 1851.
Dubois, Mary L. “Old Doylestown.” In A Collection of Papers Read Before the Bucks County Historical Society, vol. 3. Riegelsville, Pa., 1909.
Elson, Ruth Miller. Guardians of Tradition: American Schoolbooks of the Nineteenth Century. Lincoln, Neb., 1964.
England, Joseph W., editor. The First Century of the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, 1821–1921. Philadelphia, 1922.
Friedman, Lawrence M. Crime and Punishment in American History. New York, 1993.
——. A History of American Law. New York, 1985.
Gall, Ludwig. The Travels of Ludwig Gall. In “Pennsylvania Through a German’s Eyes: The Travels of Ludwig Gall, 1819–1820,” by Frederic Trautman, Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography. January 1981.
Green, Doron. A History of Bristol Borough, in the County of Bucks, State of Pennsylvania. Bristol, Pa., 1911.
Grund, Frederic. The Americans in Their Moral, Social and Political Relations. London, 1837.
Halttunen, Karen. Confidence Men and Painted Women. New Haven, Conn., 1982.
——. “Domestic Differences: Competing Narratives of Womanhood in the Murder Trial of Lucretia Chapman.” In The Culture of Sentiment: Race, Gender and Sentimentality in Nineteenth Century America, edited by Shirley Samuels. New York, 1992.
——. Murder Most Foul: The Killer and the American Gothic Imagination.
Hamilton, Thomas. Men and Manners in America. Edinburgh, 1833.
History of Philadelphia … with an Historical Account of the Military Operations of the Late War, in 1812, 13 & 14. Philadelphia, 1839.
Holton, David-Parsons. Winslow Memorial. New York, 1877–1878.
Ierley, Merritt. The Comforts of Home: The American House and the Evolution of Modern Convenience. New York, 1999.
Jacobs, James Ripley, and Glenn Tucker. The War of 1812: A Compact History. New York, 1969.
Jackson, Joseph. Encyclopedia of Philadelphia. Harrisburg, Pa., 1931.
Jones, Ann. Women Who Kill. New York, 1980.
Kemble, Frances. Journal by Frances Anne [Kemble] Butler. London, 1835.
Kenderdine, Thaddeus S. “The Chapman-Mina Tragedy.” In A Collection of Papers Read Before the Bucks County Historical Society, vol. 3. Riegelsville, Pa., 1909.
Kittredge, Henry C. Cape Cod: Its People and Their History, Boston, 1968.
Larkin, Jack. The Reshaping of Everyday Life, 1790–1840. New York, 1969.
The Laws of Etiquette, by a Gentleman. Philadelphia, 1836.
Leigh, Jane. Facts in Relation to Mrs. Leigh’s System of Curing Stammering, and Other Impediments of Speech. New York, 1826.
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Lichtenwalner, Muriel V., editor, Bensalem. 1984.
Magill, Edward H. “When Men Were Sold: Reminscences of the Underground Railroad in Bucks County and Its Managers.” In A Collection of Papers Read Before the Bucks County Historical Society, vol. 2, Riegelsville, Pa., 1909.
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Martineau, Harriet. Society in America, 3 volumes. London, 1837.
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McClellan, Elisabeth. History of American Costume, 1607–1870. New York, 1937.
McNealy, Terry A. “Andalusia,” Bucks County T
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——. “Historic Hulmeville,” Bucks County Town & Country Living. Winter 1996.
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“Memoir of Elias Durand.” Pamphlet from the Collection of the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, author and date unknown.
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Oberholtzer, Ellis Paxson. Philadelphia: A History of the City and Its People. Philadelphia, 1912.
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Pennsylvania Archives, 6th series, vols. 7 and 8. Harrisburg, Pa., 1874–1935.
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Wright, Caleb E. “Four Lawyers of the Doylestown Bar,” in A Collection of Papers Read Before the Bucks County Historical Society, vol. 1. Riegelsville, Pa., 1909.
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Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the many institutions and individuals whose help I received during the course of writing this book. Chief among the institutions is the Library Company of Philadelphia, whose impressive collection of nineteenth-century Pennsylvania newspapers is available to researchers not on microfilm but in the flesh, so to speak—that is, in bound volumes. This made an enormous difference to me, for turning the papers’ well-preserved pages and letting my eye fall at will, I was able to make unexpected and important discoveries about the Chapman case.
I had some of this joy-in-print at the American Antiquarian Society, where researchers are permitted to read actual print if the newspapers they wish to study have not yet been microfilmed. Fortunately some of the papers I needed had not yet suffered that awful fate.
The Allen Room at the New York Public Library was another special place. The library’s trove of early nineteenth-century books is a marvel, and the Allen Room, where I was kindly granted permission to read for a year, is a researcher’s paradise.
I’d also like to thank Yaddo, where the voice of David Paul Brown seemed to enter into me, and the Bucks County Historical Society. This book would truly not have been possible without the society’s exceptional collection of Bucks County books and papers, and especially without the generous help of librarian Donna Humphrey.
It might not have been possible, too, without the assistance of my bright and dogged researcher Jasmine Park, at the time a mere junior at the University of Pennsylvania. She was wise many years beyond her age.
There are many other people I want to acknowledge: Dr. Lawrence Alpert for providing me with information about arsenic poisoning; Oliver Allen for allowing me to examine the remarkable Philadelphia watercolors of his ancestor George Albert Lewis; Rebekah Ambrose of the Onondaga Historical Association for information about early nineteenth-century Syracuse, New York; General Ray Bell for tips about soldiering during the War of 1812; Brett Bertolino of the Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site for information about the prison; Kellee Blake of the National Archives Mid-Atlantic Division for telling me about William Chapman’s baggage; Norman Brower of the South Street Seaport Museum for enlightening me about what it was like to sail to America in its earliest days; Cintra Jones Browse and Eithne Ross for familiarizing me with the family history of prosecutor Thomas Ross; Kit Campbell for information about early nineteenth-century costume; Al Clark of the Barre Historical Society for his entertaining stories about Lucretia Chapman’s youth and family history; Mignon Geliebter of the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy for sending me material about Elias Durand; Judy Keenan and Ellen Saxon for accompanying me on site visits to some of the Bucks County locations mentioned in the text; Bonnie Lassen for her heroic wrestling with the endnotes; Dr. Richard Layman of Bruccoli Clark Layman, Inc., for information about early nineteenth-century publishing; David Moore of the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania for helping me trace the genealogical history of various individuals mentioned in this book; Mary Sicchio of the William Brewster Nickerson Memorial Room for information about the Winslow family; and Rachel Winslow for perambulating around Philadelphia with me in pursuit of my characters’ old haunts.
Last but very far from least, I want to thank those who read early drafts of the manuscript and made astute comments, among them Deborah and Jude Pollack, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, and Lois Rosenbaum. My debt to them is great. But my greatest debts are to my husband, Max Pollack, who kept me going during the four years it took to write this book, and my daughter, Jessica, whose brilliant editorial suggestions and extraordinary spirit have sustained me always.
Love Me to Death
A Journalist’s Memoir of the Hunt for Her Friend’s Killer
For M.P.
The manifold la
byrinth my steps
wove through all these years since childhood
has brought me to this ruinous afternoon.
—Jorge Luis Borges
“Conjectural Poem”
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The information in this book comes from the interviews I conducted with scores of people involved with Ricardo Caputo or his victims, as well as from police and court documents and newspaper articles. The narrative accounts of what transpired between Caputo and individuals now dead, including material in direct quotation, are drawn from the investigations conducted by the police with associates of the dead individuals, except in one or two instances where, because no other information was available, I made use of information tendered to me by Caputo that I judged to be true.
All the names used in the book are actual, except for those of the woman Caputo attempted to rape in 1975, the woman who kept a diary about him in 1982 and 1983, and the woman who had an affair with him in Mexico City in 1977, who are referred to here as Mary O’Neill, Lotte Angstrom, and Maria Lopez, respectively.
PROLOGUE
Not long ago a man who had been on the run for twenty years, altering his appearance, buying new birth certificates, commandeering new social security numbers, moving from one impersonal American city to another, and slipping back and forth across the country’s easy borders, confessed to having murdered several women with whom he’d had lengthy love affairs and voluntarily turned himself in for the killings. The women had all been attractive, accomplished, intelligent—one had worked for a bank, another had been a psychologist, another a film editor, another a graduate student at a university. They’d met the murderer through their work or while relaxing at cafes or bars, and he’d pleased them with his handsome looks, friendly smile, and artistic talent, as well as with the amusing stories he told about the good life he’d led as a boy in Latin America. They’d also felt sorry for him, for that good life had ended for him once he came to the United States, or so he said. Here, he’d become just another Latino, a victim of prejudice and restrictive visas, who’d had to hide from immigration authorities and take low-visibility and low-end jobs, work that was far beneath his abilities. The women were touched by his travails and enthralled by his charms. They dated him, took him home and to bed with them, introduced him to their friends and their parents, and had no idea that what lay in store for them when they decided to end their relationship with him was a knife in the chest, a nylon stocking tied around the throat, a brutal and fatal beating.