PODCAST THURSDAY -- Murdered with Vitriol
Travel back to November 13th, 1900, where we meet Mrs. Emma Van Liew, the murderess of Miss Alice Hammell, the victim!
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Tonight’s episode takes us back to December 4th, 1900 in Van Wert, Ohio. Mrs. Emma Van Liew pled guilty on 1 Dec 1900 to manslaughter by throwing vitriol (acid) into the face of Miss Alice (Allice) Hammell.
The events occurred in September of 1900, causing the death of Alice. On the 4th of December, Emma Van Liew was delivered at the penitentiary in a carriage, accompanied by Sherriff Webster and Emma’s husband, John Van Liew, who was a special deputy by appointment of the court. The prisoner (Emma) was put through the usual course at the prison female department, being shown NO SPECIAL FAVORS, nor was application made for any special consideration. She was taken to a hotel for the night by reason of illness. The parting between Husband and Wife was very affecting. Mr. Van Liew is a banker in Van Wert and respected in the community.
Mrs. Van Liew was sentenced to ten years imprisonment.
The crime of Mrs. Van Liew was committed early in the evening of September 12, at the door of Mrs. Samuel Nell’s residence. on the outskirts of the town of Van Wert, Ohio. Miss Hammell was Mrs. Nell’s niece, and lived at the Nell home. She had just stepped out into the yard when someone ran up to her and dashed a pint of VITRIOL over her head (sulfuric acid). The vitriol was thrown from a tin pail. This pail and a bottle with a chloroform label were found near the gate by a son of Mrs. Nell. Miss Hammell was blinded and rendered unconscious. When her aunt and other members of the family ran to her assistance there was no one in sight.
The injured woman lay in torment for five weeks. Her eyes, her nose and her cheeks were eaten away by the acid, and she was terribly burned upon the neck and shoulders.
At first it was impossible to place suspicion upon any one in Van Wert, for it was believed that Miss Hammell had not an enemy in the world. While she lay sick, however, the indifference of Mrs. Van Liew caused comment. Then the detectives discovered that the bottle found at Mrs. Nell’s gate had been sold to Mrs. Van Liew by a druggist named Rennell the day before the attack upon Miss Hammell. Rennell said that at the time Mrs. Van Liew bought the chloroform she also purchased a large bottle of sulphuric acid. E. P. Noel, another druggist of Van Wert, said that on the same day that Mrs. Van Liew purchased the vitriol from Rennell she had asked for it at his store, but that he had not been able to supply it. He said that she explained that she wished to use the vitriol as a disinfectant.
Before Miss Hammell died, October 17, 1900, it was rumored that she had told her relatives that Mrs. Van Liew was the person who had attacked her, and that she saw the face of her former friend as the woman approached, the light from a window shining upon it. One piece linked in the chain of circumstantial evidence that was woven about Mrs. Van Liew was based upon the fact that she is left handed. That the sulphuric acid was thrown by a left-handed person the experts declared was an absolute certainty.
As stated in the dispatches the case never went to trial. Mrs. Van Liew pleading guilty to manslaughter without disclosing the motive for the crime. It is supposed, however, that gossip over the marriage of her daughter was at the bottom of it. Winnie Van Liew married a singer named Hauerbeier and joined him as a member of an opera company. Mrs. Van Liew is a proud woman and had great ambitions for her pretty daughter. It was a terrible blow to her when the girl married. The sewing societies talked and there was a stir in the churches, for Van Wert, which prides itself upon its conventionality, never had had any of its residents upon the stage.
Mrs. Hauerbeier spent her vacation last summer at her parents’ home in Van Wert. She was invited to many entertainments given especially in her honor and she received much attention from men and women. She had imbibed the ideas of the outside world and received many callers, among them some of the youths formerly numbered among her beaux by gossips of Van Wert. Once or twice Winne Hauerbeier went to drive with young men who had formerly danced attendance upon her, and this caused the girls to talk more or less. The older women took up the topic an one day when Miss Hammell was talking over the telephone with a friend the conversation turned upon Winnie Hauerbeier. Miss Hammell expressed her disapproval of Mrs. Hauerbeier’s methods of amusing herself and declared that it was a pity the young men would pay attention to a married actress when there were so many pretty young girls in the town. It happened that a cousin of Mrs. Van Liew was employed in the telephone exchange and these remarks were reported to Mrs. Hauerbeier’s mother. A few days later, when the actress met Miss Hammell on the street she asked whether such remarks had been made, and Miss Hammell said that she had criticized Mrs. Hauerbeier.
The theory set up is that the actress told her mother that the woman had acknowledged making the objectionable remarks and that Mrs. Van Liew immediately began to plan some method of revenge.
In 1902, after a year in prison, Emma Van Liew begs the State Board of Pardons for release.
The state pardon board rejected Emma Van Liew’s application.
In March of 1905 an article ran in the Toledo Blade on Thursday, March 9th, 1905 on page 2. The Headlines read:
The article reads:
The refusal of the state board of pardons to take up the matter of a pardon for Mrs. Emma Van Liew, the Van Wert vitriol thrower, who caused the death of Miss Alice Hammell, because of insane jealousy, recalls the private settlement of the sensational case in this city (Van Wert). Mrs. Van Liew was never brought to trial, though the day had arrived before the public knew that a private settlement had been made. J.C. Ridenour, the criminal lawyer of this city, had been engaged as co-counsel for the defendant, and it was largely through his efforts the ignominy of a trial was avoided. Mr. Ridenour brought out this matter before board of pardons, and declared the Van Wert banker’s wife might have been cleared of the charge, had not the settlement been made. Mr. Ridenour stated that one day just previous to the trial Judge Mooney, now dead, before whom the case would have come up; Mr. Van Liew, Miss Hammell’s two close friends; the prosecuting attorney and himself effected the settlement, whereby it was agreed Mrs. Van Liew would plead guilty to manslaughter, and be sentenced to ten years. The Hammell family agreed to this to save their deceased daughter and sister from notoriety which would have resulted in proving the causes which led to Mrs. Van Liew’s jealousy. This private settlement, however, never appeased the citizens of Van Wert and it is due to this as much as to any other one thing, that so many protests were filed with the board against the consideration of a pardon. Mrs. Van Liew went to the penitentiary expecting to be pardoned after a period of not mor than two years, but now it looks as though she may serve out her full term.
Also in March of 1905, a telegram was received at the penitentiary from J. C. Ridenour stating that Mrs. Robinson, of Van Wert, mother of Mrs. Emma A. Van Liew, was in a dying condition and asked the warden to permit Mrs. Van Liew to visit her mother’s bedside under guard. Warden Gould stated that under the law he was compelled to DENY the request. [Cleveland Gazette, Saturday, Mar 18, 1905, Cleveland, Ohio, page 3]
On March 30th, 1907, Mrs. Emma Van Liew was released from the Columbus Penitentiary, having served eight of her ten year sentence. At that time, it was believed she would travel to California to join her husband.
This was published in The Piqua Daily Call on Saturday, March 30, 1907, Page 1.
The speculation as to motive is always moving. Most of the early articles reference some gossip about John and Emma’s youngest daughter… but from this article, we find a few more nuggets in the life of Miss Alice Hammell. Alice worked at Mr. John Van Liew’s bank in Van Wert. This article spells it out, stating:
“She {Mrs. Van Liew} suspected her husband of being intimate with the girl {Alice Hammell}.”
What really caused Mrs. Emma Van Liew to do such a heinous crime will forever remain a mystery… but this seems more likely because a scorn woman.. is a deadly woman.
Join me tomorrow as we dig into the life of Emma Van Liew.
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