September 14, 1902, Siskiyou County, California Jane Doe

On September 14, 1902, two people would go on a hunting trip in Siskiyou County, California near Hornbrook. During the morning they passed by a basket but paid no attention to it thinking someone would come for it or was near. When they walked by again later seeing the basket there they investigated it. They would find items belonging to a woman, some clothing including a nightgown, a woman's purse with three one-cent pieces, and nickel and another purse having $ 1.50 in small change.

About 50 feet away was a tree. This would be where a gruesome discovery would happen. A woman's body was hanging from the tree but it was obviously not a suicide, but a brutal murder. The woman had a brutal death. It was obvious she fought for her life before her killer shot her in the right eye partially blowing away some of her skull. After her death, the killer would tie her to the large branch of the tree. She was found with one foot double under her and the other hanging down the hill. She was tied with a light rope.

It was obvious from the scene that the woman had greatly fought for her life. The area she was killed was trampled pieces of her clothing had were ripped from her. Her dress sleeves were torn off, her underclothing was disordered and her cape was ripped to shreds. Fur pieces from the cape were found some distance from where she was killed.

From the description of her clothes, she was seen in Hornbrook Around two weeks before she and a man were seen eating at Day's restaurant. The two were strangers to town and were also seen driving a span of yellow horses after the meal.

Jane Doe was between 40 and 45-years-old when she died.

SOURCES:
Find a Grave
Evening Sentinel September 24, 1902

December 27, 1902 Newent, England

On December 27, 1902, a woman would go to a well for water on Botloes Green in Newent, England. She would look inside the well and thought she had seen her cat. She would ask a man to help her retrieve it from the well. Instead of a cat, it was the body of a 10-day-old baby girl.

The coroner stated that the girl had breathed and was 10 days old. She had died from neglect and want of care at birth.


SOURCES:
Unsolved Murders UK

July 14, 1902 Sheridan County, Wyoming Doe

On July 14, 1902, an unknown person (gender not stated) died in Sheridan County, Wyoming. They are buried at Sheridan Municipal Cemetary. There is little information in this case. 

SOURCES:

Find a Grave

Unidentified Wiki

Murder of Jane Daley

 On December 29, 1902, a blacksmith was walking down a private path next to a canal in Wolverhampton, England. He would stumble over something and strike a match to see what it was . It was the body of Jane Daley. Jane had been kicked about and her face was badly bruised. Her legs had been tied and her clothes were torn in several places.

Jane was a middle-aged woman who lived on Strafford St. in Wolverhampton.

SOURCES:

Unsolved Murders UK

Unsolved Murders by Pat Finn

Sep. 19, 1902 Detroit, Michigan Unknown Man

On September 19, 1902, at 7:10 p.m.an accident would happen on Jefferson Avenue in Detroit, Michigan. No 176 Woodward car heading west hit an unknown man was leaning over the side of the platform of a Rapid Railway car that was heading East. 

The man was still alive after the accident. He would lay on the road in the rain. He had been bleeding from his ears and had internal injuries. It was said that medical help for him was overlooked. He would soon die. The coroner arrived he was in the same place he died. Angry at the crowd that was watching the spectacle he asked why no one took him off of the road. This caused the crowd to go silent. 

In the man's pocket was an article from the Toledo Blade, the article was about a similar accident. It is possible he was recently in Ohio City. A jury found that the man's death was an accident from his own carelessness. 

The man was a white male and was around 35-years-old. He had black hair and a sandy almost red mustache. He had the tattoo J.M.C. on the upper part of his right arm. He was 6 ft and 190 lbs. He was wearing a black worsted coat, light striped trousers, a black topcoat, black flannel overshirt, black lace shoes, black socks, and a black fedora. 

It's unknown if he had been identified or not, but his grave is still marked as "Unknown Man". 

SOURCES:

Find A Grave

Detroit Free Press September 20, 1902

Detroit Free Press September 26, 1902

Murder of Johanne "Bertha" Schippan

A photograph of the Schippan family, with Matthes (second from left) and Mary (to his right), Bertha is not in the photo.  

The Schippan family was a German immigrant family living in Towitta, South Australia, Australia. Mattes and Johanne left on Jan. 1, 1902 to travel to Eden Valley that was 20 km away. They left the younger children to be watched by their oldest 24/25-year-old Mary.

Around 8 p.m. Mary and 13-year-old Johanne who went by Bertha went to bed in their cottage while the boys slept 90 meters away in a galvanized iron room attached to a farm shed. Around 10 p.m. Mary said she awoke with something heavy across her chest. It was a bearded man.

Mary was able to get out from under him and ran to the barn. She sent one of her younger brothers to go get help. Bertha was still in the house with the man. The neighbor the boy ran to declined to help the family so he had to run 1 km to the home of Constable Lambert.

When they returned they found Bertha laying in a puddle of her own blood. She had been stabbed 40 times and her throat had been slit. There was no sign of the so-called bearded man.

Bertha was two weeks away from her 14th birthday.

 Police didn't believe that an intruder murdered Bertha. Two months later Mary was put to trial. There was no solid evidence and everything was circumstantial evidence. Mary was in a relationship with 21-year-old Gustave Nitschke and they believed that she was scared Bertha would tell her father. The evidence was not strong enough to convict Mary.

Some believed that their father was the perpetrator of the crime. He was described as a nasty piece of work. He once fired a shotgun at a Nitschke boy leaving the boy to pick pellets out of his leg. But it wasn't possible with the time to travel that far by horse and be where he was that day.

It's unknown who the actual murderer was. It's possible that it was a member of the family, but maybe there was an unknown man who came into the home to murder the girls. Maybe Mary was lucky enough to get away and not suffer the same fate as Bertha.

SOURCES:
Wikipedia
ABC
Find a Grave

Peasenhall Murder: The Murder of Rose Ann Harsent

On the night of May 31, 1902,  Peasenhall, Suffolk, England was dealing with a dark and stormy night. It was remembered as a particularly bad storm.

On the morning of June 1, 1902, 21/22-year-old Rose Ann Harsent's father came to visit her at her home in the Providence house. He found her lying on the ground in her kitchen with her throat slit. It was initially thought of being a suicide until it was found that Rose was 6 months pregnant and a closer look at the scene.

It was believed that she was killed around 1 to 6 a.m. She had been attacked and her chest and throat stabbed and her arms showed signs of defensive wounds. It seemed that the murderer failed to burn her and the home as her arm had been burnt, her nightgown had been partially burned, and there was a newspaper under her head that had burnt edges. Paraffin from a broken lamp was used to try to start the fire, and a medicine bottle was smashed and left at the scene. It seemed like she hadn't slept in her bed that night.

No one had known that Rose was pregnant. It seemed as if she had tried to induce a miscarriage at one point, but it failed. She then kept her pregnancy a secret and never revealed who the father was.

There was a letter found in her home.

"Dear Rose, I will try to see you tonight at twelve o'clock at your place. If you put a light in your window at ten o'clock for about ten minutes then you can take it out again. Don't have a light in your room at twelve o'clock as I will come round to the back."

It's believed that whoever sent this letter may have been the killer. 

William Gardiner became the main suspect soon. The locals knew he was having an affair with her in 1901. It was assumed that the baby may have been Gardiners. There was other evidence that seemed to point towards him also. Such as bootprints in the wet ground seemed to have matched a pair of his boots. A handwriting expert stated that the letter was in his handwriting and that the paper came from his workplace. The smashed medicine bottle was also 

William denied all of this. He also had spent a lot of time that early morning with his wife and another neighbor with visiting. But he lived in the eyesight of Rose's home and wouldn't have taken much time to get there to murder her and come back.

William Gardiner was arrested and tried twice once in 1902 and 1903 but was acquitted. His trial was said to have been 11 to 1 for guilty in the first trial and 11 to 1 for not guilty for the second.

Was the murderer was acquitted of his crime? Maybe the real murderer was someone no one suspected due to the main focus being on William. Some speculate that William's wife was the perpetrator of the crime and her motive was because she was jealous.

But the world will never truly know what had happened that stormy morning.


SOURCES:
Revolvy
Wikipedia
Strange Company 
Press Reader
Unsolved Murders

Elijah Gersham Cravens

In 1902 Elijah Gersham Cravens was a farmer who lived outside of Okmulgee, Oklahoma. He had left on horse back to go to a 'Woodmen of the World' meeting. He was never seen again and little is known about his case. He may have been around 30 to 40 years a possible birthday for him was  10/20/1867 which would had made him 35 if that was correct.

SOURCES:
https://www.namus.gov/MissingPersons/Case#/9137/attachments