Alice + Freda Forever: A Murder in Memphis

by Alexis Coe

Alice climbed back into her seat and roughly steered the buggy away, ignoring Lillie’s questions. She rode with only one hand on the reins, while the other she shoved deep into her dress pocket, desperately fishing around for the razor, and, in the process, bloodying Freda’s last letter to her. Alice feared she had dropped it during the melee—and she wasn’t done with it.

  Had everything gone as planned, Alice would have first cut Freda, and then herself, so that the two lovers could bleed out in each other’s arms in one final—and eternal—embrace. But Jo and the growing crowd had interfered, and in the ensuing struggle, Alice had lost track of the razor. Only days later, when her sisters searched the buggy, did the murder weapon reappear. By that time, she and Lillie would be together once again, this time as cellmates in jail.

  Having safely maneuvered the buggy onto Court Street after the murder, Alice finally answered Lillie’s question.

  “I have cut Freda’s throat,” she said.

  “No, you haven’t—have you?” Lillie cried in disbelief.

  “Yes, I have,” she said.

  Alice had given up on the razor, and countered with her own alarming question. “What is the quickest way I can kill myself?”

  “Don’t do it while you are here with me,” Lillie pleaded, still piecing together what was happening. “Go home and tell your mother what you have done.”

  “Is there much blood on my face?” Alice asked, to which Lillie answered yes, as she held her young nephew close. Alice was covered in blood, a steady stream dripping down her face and onto her coatdress.

  “Take my handkerchief out of my pocket,” Alice ordered, “and wipe it off.” But as Lillie moved a finely woven cloth toward her friend’s face, a new realization came to Alice.

  “Oh, no,” she said now. “It’s Freda’s blood. Leave it there. I love her so.”59

  “LADIES TO THE RIGHT, AND GENTS TO THE LEFT,” bellowed Judge DuBose.60 It was as if he were directing revelers in a dance hall, and not throngs of voyeurs at the habeas corpus hearing of a teenaged girl. The question of whether Lillie Johnson would be escorted back to Alice Mitchell’s jail cell or returned to her family was to be determined, and nobody wanted to miss a minute of the show.

  It did not matter that no verdict would be handed down on that day in late February, 1892, or that an appearance by Alice was in no way guaranteed. Lillie may have been a minor character in the same-sex love murder, but it was still the hottest ticket in town. In the days before every American household had a radio and television, entertainment options were scarce; just like a theater troupe passing through town, a sensational trial offered a rare and brief spectacle. If the day’s show starred Lillie, then people happily turned their attention to her.

  It had been a month since the grand jury indicted Alice and Lillie, and weeks since the arraignment, but the public’s interest had not waned in the least. Every moment of this case was unfolding like a serial drama, and the eager audience wanted to see the story progress.

  Records of the grand jury proceedings have been lost, and its deliberations were closed to the public, but we know at least one witness testified that Lillie had been present during the murder—and had done nothing to prevent it. When Alice herself confessed to the authorities, she revealed that it was Lillie who had directed her home, to tell her mother of the murder, rather than advising her to proceed immediately to the police station and surrender. Under Tennessee law, that was enough evidence to charge Lillie with “aiding and abetting” Alice Mitchell in the murder of Freda Ward. It was on the basis of that testimony that she was taken into custody and held without bail.

  Lillie’s attorneys argued that the grand jury lacked sufficient evidence to warrant their client’s arrest, but in order to prove it, they would have to call their own witnesses to the stand. It would be the first time that testimony was heard in an open courtroom, and that was what the public had come for.

  But the show had been delayed until construction work on the courthouse was completed. Well aware that the case had become a national obsession, and that the local economy was getting a boost from the influx of visitors in town, Judge DuBose’s unorthodox request to expand the Criminal Court in Shelby County was granted—even though it took almost a full month to do so. Every few days, the court date was pushed back once again by the construction project. But Judge DuBose was enjoying the frenzy and attention, making full use of the time. His name appeared in the newspapers every single day; family, friends, colleagues, acquaintances, and assorted others called on him at the courthouse and at his home at nearly every hour in pursuit of information. He had no hesitation about continually postponing the trial date to accommodate all corners—especially members of the press.

  Knowing that the press was in control of the day-to-day public narrative of the trial, Judge DuBose made sure journalists had the best seats in the house. He ordered a special section of box seats for the press, a move that immediately set off squabbles among the reporters over which paper deserved the best spot. But even with the expanded space and the reserved seating, demand quickly overwhelmed the room. Reporters who managed to secure box seats were quick to mock those who scrambled around them.

  The clamoring crowds gathered at the courthouse and the general public’s frantic curiosity in the trial were becoming the case’s main storylines. “Another Day of Thrilling Interest in the Criminal Court, The Attendance Was Even Greater Than on Opening Day, Opera Glasses Leveled on the Cowering Defendant Witness,” exclaimed the Memphis Appeal Avalanche.

  It did not take long for one newspaper to distinguish itself from the pack. It was not the Appeal Avalanche, the Commercial, nor the big out-of-towners, like the New York Times or the San Francisco Chronicle. Judge DuBose’s former employer, the Memphis Public Ledger, was by far the most popular news outlet. It was available at the conclusion of each eventful day in court, however inconclusive, with exhaustive commentary on every detail of the unfolding case, keeping readers coming back for more.

  According to the Public Ledger, Judge DuBose’s courtroom had quickly become the most democratic public place in all of Memphis. By the time President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, Tennessee had abolished slavery and returned to the Union fold, but Jim Crow laws helped maintain the South’s rigid, deeply entrenched racial hierarchy. These segregation laws mandated that African Americans were kept “separate and equal”—meaning separate and unequal. They ensured systematic economic, educational, and social disadvantages well after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were passed.61 But in this rare instance—the theater that was Judge DuBose’s courtroom—people from across class, race, and gender lines shared a space.62 They sat side-by-side as they would in almost no other setting in Memphis.

  Staid Matrons and their young daughters sat check by jowl with women of doubtful character and women whose lack of all character was blazoned on their faces as plain as a pikestaff. There were white and black, mulattoes, quadroons, octoroons and a sprinkling of the genus whose class has never been distinctly defined—all eager to see two of their sex in peril of their lives, and hoping, perhaps, to hear something excitingly naughty.”63

  Female spectators, who DuBose separated from the male spectators, featured prominently in print. The press, who were almost all white and male, never failed to describe the women’s craning necks, distracting bonnet plumes, and artificial flowers—all with a palpable degree of disdain.

  “The best place for ladies to sit during the trial is about four feet from the hearthstone,” the Avalanche Appeal complained.

  Judge DuBose himself took the lead on that front, constantly reminding women, lest they forget, that their continued attendance in the courtroom was at his discretion, and he could easily have them removed. But behind these displays of white male authority was a distinct anxiety about white male authority; the press and the judge made a point of asserting their power precisely because they were unnerved by the prospect of women watchi
ng courtroom proceedings and drawing their own conclusions. Alternate domesticities, such as two women coupling and sharing a home—and even the general notion of females expressing passion—were considered inappropriate for the “fairer sex,” especially for ladies of the higher classes. It was no coincidence that female witnesses went to great lengths to dress conservatively, donning capes and jackets over their dresses, and often covering their faces with heavy veils removed only upon request. And at that point, they further exaggerated modest affectations, bowing their heads until they were again told otherwise.

  It was one thing to allow women inside the courtroom—seated apart from men, of course—but no individual woman’s place was secure. Judge DuBose took a particular dislike to one Sarah Davis, whom the press quickly nicknamed “Buckskin Lou.” Her greatest transgression seemed to be in occupying a seat between two white women even though she looked “like a Mexican,” and wore a dress with a bright print. Judge DuBose criticized her each day of Lillie’s habeas corpus hearing, until finally, he expelled her. Like everyone else in the courtroom, Sarah Davis had worked hard to secure a seat, showing up early and claiming a spot amid the tussle, and she was not about to give it up without a fight. After the court adjourned, she waited for the judge, and a heated scene quickly ensued, much to the delight of reporters standing nearby.

  “Go away, woman; I don’t want to talk to you,” Dubose said. “I won’t go away. I know my rights. I won’t be ordered out.” “Mr. Officer,” said the judge, “take this woman to jail.”64

  Judge DuBose took every opportunity to exercise his authority over the court’s eager spectators, which only deepened the tensions in and around the Criminal Court, and heightened the public’s already anxious anticipation to see defendants and witnesses in person.

  And then, it finally happened: Alice Mitchell and Lillie Johnson entered the courtroom, leaning heavily on the strong arms of their escorts, George Mitchell and J.M. Johnson, respectively. Either their older female relatives were absent, or the women had become so skilled in the art of self-effacement that not a single newsman noted their presence.

  QUITE A FLIRT

  MUCH TO THE PUBLIC’S DISAPPOINTMENT, Alice did not stay long. Her lawyers, still eager to control her story, would have preferred that she never enter the courthouse at all that day. Gantt and Wright almost certainly forbade Lillie’s attorney, a junior at their own firm, to call Alice to testify at his client’s habeas corpus hearing. Alice’s lawyers hoped to make it to the final verdict without ever having their client utter a word in public.

  Unfortunately for them, Alice’s presence in court that day was necessary for the defense’s motion. The Ward family had entrusted Freda’s collection of love letters to the state, and it had become a real point of contention. Gantt and Wright had already sent several requests to the attorney general’s office, but they refused to furnish the letters until the trial. But Alice’s lawyers were desperate to see them now, not when their client’s lunacy inquisition finally arrived. At best, a surprise would leave them scrambling, and at worst, it would determine whether or not their client would hang.

  As the New York Times predicted, prosecutor George Peters countered the motion by making his own request “for an order requiring the defense to permit him to inspect certain letters in their possession, which he would very much like to get a peep at.”65 But Peters was not particularly interested in seeing the defense’s letters. He was, in fact, far more concerned by the level of interest the defense had in his letters, which he kept locked away in the attorney general’s office.

  Peters was a respected prosecutor with personal experience when it came to crimes of passion: His own father, Dr. George Peters, Sr., had murdered Confederate major Earl Van Dorn for supposedly having an affair with his wife. But nothing in Peters’s background, or the ample evidence he believed proved Alice was sane and should be tried for murder, seemed to help him with this case. He was overextended in his current post, and far too reliant on young, relatively inexperienced assistants.66 The battle for public opinion had already exposed his office’s weaknesses, and so Peters, eager to gain back some advantage, strenuously argued against the defense’s request for the letters. And for once, he was met with some success. Judge DuBose was uncharacteristically swift in granting him the right to keep all letters sealed until Alice’s lunacy inquisition.

  After their motion was denied, throngs of disappointed journalists and curious observers watched the entire Mitchell family, including Alice, of course, file out of the newly expanded courtroom. They had come no closer to seeing Freda’s letters, nor had the public seen or heard anything noteworthy from the murderess herself. And it would be months before they would see her again, not until winter and spring had passed, and summer was in full bloom.

  COMPARED TO THE MITCHELLS, the Johnsons were of modest means. But they had the good fortune to live near “one of the most promising young men at the bar,” as the Commercial put it. The Johnsons had become well-acquainted with their young neighbor, Malcolm Rice Patterson, and at just the right time: Had they attempted to procure his services just a few years later, he surely would have been too busy to take on their case.67 Patterson was a Southern Democrat steadily climbing the political ranks; by 1907, he would be the Governor of Tennessee.

  Patterson came from an old Memphis family of great prestige. His father, Colonel Josiah Patterson, had been a formidable Confederate commander during the Civil War, and went on to be a representative in the Tennessee State legislature, a candidate for governor, and a member of U.S. Congress. He had joined his father’s law firm, Gantt and Patterson, and it behooved him to work closely with Gantt himself on such a high profile case.

  He was tasked with convincing Judge DuBose that Lillie had made the innocent mistake of getting into Alice’s buggy on the wrong day. Lillie had no prior knowledge of Alice’s intention to murder Freda, and she was unaware of what was happening even as the crime was being committed. Lillie’s entire focus that afternoon, Patterson would argue, was not on revenge against Freda or loyalty toward Alice, but most immediately on her young nephew, who was in her care. Lillie was a family-oriented young woman who belonged back at home with her loved ones, not in jail with a murderess who everyone knew—because Patterson’s own law firm repeatedly told them—was insane.

  Newspapers tended to portray Lillie as a vulnerable, deferential young woman. There was much talk of her public displays of “nervous prostration.” She was understood to fare poorly under even the slightest emotional strain, and the case was believed to have greatly exacerbated her condition, leaving her visibly pale, exhausted, and physically weak. Her father or brother was usually by her side when she stood or walked, and as close as possible when she sat in court or was returned to her cell, should she be suddenly overcome by these most unfortunate circumstances. It was suggested that she suffered from “female hysteria,” a catchall diagnosis for women who appeared faint and nervous; symptoms included insomnia, sexual desire, and shortness of breath. This affliction—which is no longer recognized by physicians—was used to describe almost any undesirable emotion. In court, it would work in Lillie’s favor.

  And she would need every advantage she could get. The grand jury had, after all, indicted Lillie. Even the press, who doubted her involvement in the murder, remained unsure as to whether or not she was a good, pious girl in the wrong place at the wrong time, or a “fast,” perverse girl who might as well remain in jail with Alice, lest she start consorting with the chaste daughters of Memphis in her friend’s absence.

  In the courtroom, the public learned about Lillie’s less than virtuous behavior. The rumors that she flirted with streetcar conductors were not going away, nor was this immodest behavior the end of the story.68 Like Alice, Freda, Jo, and presumably many of the students at Miss Higbee’s, Lillie had answered ads placed by young men in the matrimonial papers. During an era when courting options were limited, there were publications, like San Francisco’s Matrimonial News�
��which had originally catered to lonely men who ventured West during the Gold Rush—that were entirely dedicated to putting single people into direct, and often unsupervised, contact. Although the young ladies of Memphis had access to such periodicals, they were more likely to use the local paper’s classified sections, where bachelors placed advertisements.

  Under the pseudonym Jessie Rita James, Lillie exchanged flirtatious letters with, as the New York Times called them, “callow youths.” The letters were themselves relatively harmless, but the press and prosecution called her propriety into question. Why, they asked, had she kept her identity a secret? Why had she kept the correspondence hidden? Knowing that her mother would certainly disapprove, Lillie had taken care in concealing her actions, relying on her brother’s downtown office to funnel correspondence. No one was suggesting that Lillie had met these men in person, but the matter was clear. She consistently engaged in an unseemly activity—which could have easily crossed into the realm of true scandal—and she had demonstrated a capacity for subterfuge. Lillie had taken dangerous risks and lied unabashedly. Were those not the traits of a person who acted as an accessory to murder?

  Even if Lillie was not legally culpable for the bloody events of January 25, in the eyes of the nation, Alice was as a cautionary tale. Freda’s murder illustrated that any young woman’s misdeeds, no matter how slight, could quickly turn into the worst and most vicious form of immorality.

  Lillie’s continued loyalty to Alice only encouraged such speculation. Much was made of the cell Alice and Lillie shared, but no one seemed to care whether or not there was another option. There were only two private rooms in the jail, and the other one was occupied by a man who was also charged with murder; she could have been grouped together in a communal cell with women of ill repute, who were being held on charges like larceny, or far worse. Still, they wondered, why would an innocent woman agree to share a confined space with an admitted murderess, especially one with “unnatural” proclivities?69 If Lillie was engaged in this type of behavior, even under such public scrutiny, then what, the paper insinuated, would she do when nobody was watching?