By the time she died her name was Nancy Waggoner Yeast Layman Hufford Wiley. She was born in 1803 and went through four husbands and three of the four marriages only lasted a year or so. Hmm. Any thoughts pop to mind?
How are we related to her? She was the sister of Sarah Waggoner, born in 1825, and
Her last husband was Holmes Wiley. She married him in 1862 and he died in 1878. But in 1851 she stood trial for the murder by poisoning with arsenic of her friend Mrs. Engle. Seems that Mr. Engle asked
There was a lot of gossip making the rounds in the neighborhood. Married ladies were not too keen on three-time widowed women out on the loose. Plus, she had inherited money from some of the marriages so she was available, independently off, and probably looking for husband number four. It was even rumored that Mr. Engle might have been sweet on
The transcript of the trial contains a lot of gross medical testimony which won’t be reviewed here. Go check the web site if that’s your cup of tea, or should we say arsenic? The testimony is interesting because the reader gets a view into the state-of-the-art medical world in the mid-1800s. The local doctors had just begun to do autopsies, and not to give too much away in case you do want to read the newspaper account, let me just say that the reader does wonder from the testimony if the removal of the stomach was done correctly.
Local doctors did a post mortem and sent bits of Mrs.
Engle in jars to expert doctors in Baltimore .
They were hot on the trail of arsenic poisoning. Later at the request of the
experts from out of town Mrs. Engle’s body was exhumed for further testing.
It’s fascinating to read and compare the testimony from the local doctors to
the Baltimore
expert doctors and professors.
Testimony at trial went like this: first local ladies
and neighbors (didn’t care for her and thought she did it). Next up were local
docs (also thought she did it and gave many in-depth clinical reasons for doing
so). The defense was next at bat with expert testimony from the boys from Baltimore . They had a
shining hour with plenty of medical jargon and concluded Mrs. Engle died of
typhoid fever. Numerous cross-examinations followed.
During all of this, “the prisoner was much affected and wept constantly.” She was found not guilty by an all male jury. Oh, did I mention that she was very beautiful?
Photo of the day from the Archive:
The Old Rose Hill Cemetery near Eckhart, Maryland.
Has nothing to do with this article but I like it:)
Has nothing to do with this article but I like it:)
The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2013/03/black-sheep-sunday-did-she-murder-3.html
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