again, this time for the murder of Prince Arthur Freeman. During her second trial in February 1886, the government argued that Prince Arthur’s killing had been part of an elaborate plot to obtain his $2,000 life insurance policy, a scheme that also necessitated the murder of both Annie Freeman and seven-year-old Tommy.
Interestingly, it was the defense attorney, John B. Goodrich, who did a better job of identifying Sarah Jane Robinson as the homicidal maniac she so clearly was. In his closing argument, Goodrich argued that money couldn’t possibly explain the horrors of which his client stood accused. “The idea is repellent; it is unnatural; it is unreasonable to suppose that that would be a sufficient motive,” he insisted. The crimes allegedly perpetrated by his client could have only one cause: “uncontrolled depravity.” If “such be the case,” he told the jury, “you must pity her. You cannot condemn her.” After all, it took a “monster” to commit such atrocities, said Goodrich, and “I do not know that the law hangs monsters.”
In the end, the jury required less than one day to side with the prosecution. Sarah Jane Robinson was found guilty of first-degree murder and condemned to hang, though her sentence was later commuted to life in prison. She lived out the remainder of her days in anarrow cell decorated with engraved portraits of her victims, clipped from local newspapers.
• • •
As in the case of Lydia Sherman, one of the most striking features of the Sarah Jane Robinson affair was the harsh light it shed on the state of nineteenth-century medicine. Though various medical men had been called in to examine her victims throughout the years, none of them had seriously suspected foul play until Dr. White came along—by which time there were virtually no members of Mrs. Robinson’s family left for her to murder.
To be sure, this failure was partly a function of her own plausibility—of the “mask of sanity” that she, like other psychopaths, was so skillful in presenting to the world. But it was also a reflection of the inadequacies of horse-and-buggy physicians like Drs. Driver and John T. G. Nichols.
For Dr. Nichols, at least, there was some consolation to be taken from the experience. It had taught him several valuable lessons. For one thing, he was now completely conversant with the symptoms of arsenical poisoning and would, he felt, have no trouble identifying them in the future, should the occasion arise.
Even more important, he had discovered that human depravity can come in many different forms—even in the guise of a perfectly ordinary-looking Boston matron. In the exceedingly unlikely event that he ever encountered another creature like Sarah Jane Robinson, he would not be fooled again.
Or so he believed.
3
And girls defenseless, wretched, poor,
Snatched from the haunts of vice and care,
From ill examples here secure,
Instruction and protection share.
Train’d soon in Wisdom’s pleasant ways,
And taught to be discreet and good,
Virtue will be through all their days
From habit and from choice pursued.
—H YMN, SUNG BY THE O RPHANS OF THE B OSTON F EMALE A SYLUM , T HIRTEENTH A NNIVERSARY C ELEBRATION
B ESIDES THE ALMSHOUSE, ONLY THREE MUNICIPAL charities existed in Boston prior to 1800: the Boston Dispensary, the Boston Humane Society, and—oldest of all—the Boston Maritime Society, founded in 1742 for “the relief of distressed mariners, their widows, and their children.” It was not until 1799 that the idea for a public orphanage for destitute young girls was first proposed by Mrs. Hannah Stillman, wife of the Reverend Samuel Stillman of the First Baptist Church of Boston, one of the most beloved clergymen of his day.
In September 1800, Mrs. Stillman’s pet project came to fruition when the Boston Female Asylum accepted its first orphan, a young girl identified in later histories only as “Betsey D.” The circumstances of her
Interestingly, it was the defense attorney, John B. Goodrich, who did a better job of identifying Sarah Jane Robinson as the homicidal maniac she so clearly was. In his closing argument, Goodrich argued that money couldn’t possibly explain the horrors of which his client stood accused. “The idea is repellent; it is unnatural; it is unreasonable to suppose that that would be a sufficient motive,” he insisted. The crimes allegedly perpetrated by his client could have only one cause: “uncontrolled depravity.” If “such be the case,” he told the jury, “you must pity her. You cannot condemn her.” After all, it took a “monster” to commit such atrocities, said Goodrich, and “I do not know that the law hangs monsters.”
In the end, the jury required less than one day to side with the prosecution. Sarah Jane Robinson was found guilty of first-degree murder and condemned to hang, though her sentence was later commuted to life in prison. She lived out the remainder of her days in anarrow cell decorated with engraved portraits of her victims, clipped from local newspapers.
• • •
As in the case of Lydia Sherman, one of the most striking features of the Sarah Jane Robinson affair was the harsh light it shed on the state of nineteenth-century medicine. Though various medical men had been called in to examine her victims throughout the years, none of them had seriously suspected foul play until Dr. White came along—by which time there were virtually no members of Mrs. Robinson’s family left for her to murder.
To be sure, this failure was partly a function of her own plausibility—of the “mask of sanity” that she, like other psychopaths, was so skillful in presenting to the world. But it was also a reflection of the inadequacies of horse-and-buggy physicians like Drs. Driver and John T. G. Nichols.
For Dr. Nichols, at least, there was some consolation to be taken from the experience. It had taught him several valuable lessons. For one thing, he was now completely conversant with the symptoms of arsenical poisoning and would, he felt, have no trouble identifying them in the future, should the occasion arise.
Even more important, he had discovered that human depravity can come in many different forms—even in the guise of a perfectly ordinary-looking Boston matron. In the exceedingly unlikely event that he ever encountered another creature like Sarah Jane Robinson, he would not be fooled again.
Or so he believed.
3
And girls defenseless, wretched, poor,
Snatched from the haunts of vice and care,
From ill examples here secure,
Instruction and protection share.
Train’d soon in Wisdom’s pleasant ways,
And taught to be discreet and good,
Virtue will be through all their days
From habit and from choice pursued.
—H YMN, SUNG BY THE O RPHANS OF THE B OSTON F EMALE A SYLUM , T HIRTEENTH A NNIVERSARY C ELEBRATION
B ESIDES THE ALMSHOUSE, ONLY THREE MUNICIPAL charities existed in Boston prior to 1800: the Boston Dispensary, the Boston Humane Society, and—oldest of all—the Boston Maritime Society, founded in 1742 for “the relief of distressed mariners, their widows, and their children.” It was not until 1799 that the idea for a public orphanage for destitute young girls was first proposed by Mrs. Hannah Stillman, wife of the Reverend Samuel Stillman of the First Baptist Church of Boston, one of the most beloved clergymen of his day.
In September 1800, Mrs. Stillman’s pet project came to fruition when the Boston Female Asylum accepted its first orphan, a young girl identified in later histories only as “Betsey D.” The circumstances of her
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