14 Sep 1893 - Tri-States Union (Port Jervis, New York)
- The Mother Lured to Her Death -
- The Daughter Told Three Days Later That Her Mother Had Been Hurt by a Fall -
- The Daughter Had $400 in Money -
- No Tidings of Old Paul -
The following dispatch from Newburg last Wednesday night seems to leave but little doubt as to the identity of the victims of the Burlingham murders.
There is no doubt that the two women found murdered under a pile of hay in the barn at the Halliday place, in Sullivan county, Monday, are Margaret McQuillan, wife of Thomas McQuillan and their daughter Sarah, all of the town of Newburg, about a mile west of the city of Newburg.
The daughter, who is usually employed as a domestic in Newburg, was at home spending a vacation at the time of Mrs. Halliday’s call, but was indisposed and did not go, and Mrs. Halliday departed.
Mrs. Halliday, the alleged murderess, has recently made three visits to the McQuillan home, the first of which was about ten days ago. She represented that she came from a Mrs. Smith of Middletown, and introduced herself as a Mrs. Smith. She said she lived at Walden, and was looking for some one to assist in house cleaning and wanted her about two weeks. She said she had heard Mrs. McQuillan had a daughter who worked out and wanted her to come and help her.
On Wednesday of last week Mrs. Halliday called and offered $2 a day and board for help. The mother accepted the offer and she herself went away about five o’clock in the afternoon in a buckboard wagon with Mrs. Halliday, who drove the horse heading for Sullivan county.
On Saturday afternoon last, before four and five o’clock, Mrs. Halliday re-appeared at the McQuillan house with the same horse and wagon she had on her previous trip and was alone. The daughter was not at home but returned soon after Mrs. Halliday’s arrival. The father was present when Mrs. Halliday told that the mother had been injured by falling from a step ladder and that Mrs. Halliday wanted the daughter, Sarah, to go back with her to care for the injured mother, and in a generous spirit offered the girl a package of candy and some lace.
On this visit Mrs. Halliday stated she lived about seven miles back of Walden. Sarah accompanied her, and the two drove away about five o’clock. It is said she had with her $400 in money.
On Monday, Labor Day, the father set out to find his wife and daughter, but was unable to do so and returned home. The announcement was made in the papers this morning that the unidentified bodies were those of women who had resided west of this city, and it was immediately suspected that they were the remains of Mrs. McQuillan and her daughter.
Charles W. Baker, who runs the market wagon between Walker Valley and Newburg, was here this morning. He had aided in removing the two bodies from the barn, and he stated here that he thought when he was carrying the younger of the two women out, he recognized the face, but where he had seen her he could not at the time remember. In driving on the turnpike home bound, past the lane that leads to the McQuillen home, Baker was accosted on the subject by neighbors, who knew the came from the section where the murder was committed, and his description of the remains left no doubt as the identity of the murdered women. In fact he now remembered distinctly that they were people he had seen in passing to and fro in his market wagon.
The identification is made more complete from the fact that a neighbor of the McQuillands, a Mrs. Berry, recognized unmistakably from the description she had read and from Baker’s story, some of the clothing found at the scene of the tragedy. Baker also gave the name of this dealer found on the inside of the collar of the square found that Mrs. Berry recognized nad this dealer is a Newburg man.
FULLY IDENTIFIED
Marshall Sarvis of Newburg, in company with Joseph McQuillan, nephew of the dead woman’s husband, arrived in Middletown at 1 o’clock Wednesday, and drove immediately to Bloomingburg and identified the bodies as those of his aunt and her daughter. When the cloth was removed from the dead girl’s face th eman at once said: “Oh, my! That is Sarah,” and burst into tears.
Adam Sloan of Newburgh and Marshall Sarvis also went to Bloomingburgh and looked at the murdered girl, and positively identified her as Sararh McQuillan. They also identified the mother by a lock of her hair, the body having been buried.
HISTORY OF THE M’QUILLLIANS
The McQuillans lived on a small farm about two miles from the heard of the city of Newburgh. The family consisted of three persons. The aged head is all that remains of it now. The elder of the dead women was the second wife of Thomas McQuillan, who has been farming and choring about Newburgh since he came to this country from Ireland.
The eldest of the dead women was 51, and the younger one was the issue of the second marriage, and was just past 21 years old. She had always lived at her home until a year ago, when the reduced circumstances of the family made it necessary for her to earn her own living and she went out at service in the family a wealthy Newburg man.
PAUL HOLLIDAY’s BODY FOUND He, Also, Was a Victim of His Wife’s Fiendish Desire For Blood
Middletown, NY, Sep 8 - The chief event of yesterday was the finding of Paul Halliday’s body beneath the floor of the house where the two Newburgh women, Margaret McQuillan and her daughter Sarah, were murdered. This makes three persons Mrs. Halliday stands charged with murdering within four days. Constable Scott reports that Mrs. Halliday tore her garter loose, broke it and twisted it around her neck, and pulled on both ends with all her strength. He removed it from her as soon as he discovered what she was attempting to do but her face was badly flushed and she was panting for breath. She has been watched very closely ever since.
A band of gypsies were encamped near Burlingham last summer who recently passed over the mountain. Wednesday night several of the band were in McCune’s store at Wurzboro, discussing the murders. One was overheard to re,arled: “If we get the woman, we must get her tomorrow night.”
Yesterday morning the band had moved and during the forenoon passed through Bloomingburgh in the direction of Burlingham. For some reason they divided into two parties, the women going by one road, the men by another. At two o’clock word came to Burlingham from the Halliday house that a band of gypsies had arrived there and that they declared that they were going to have the woman.
When found Halliday’s body was badly decomposed. Conductor Mabie of the Pinebush road is sure he saw Halliday Thursday. Neighbors have also said he and his wife went ot Pinebush that day. It is evidence from this that Halliday met his death on Thursday night soon before or soon after the McQuillan woman, as both bodies were about in the same condition. About two years ago a boy named George Kline, who lived in a house next to the Hallidays, disappeared. It was supposed at the time he had stolen a horse and wagon which had been missed and gone off with it. Search was made for the boy, but nothing was ever seen or heard of him. Afterward, however, the horse was found. It is now thought that he may have in some way incurred the displeasure of Mrs. Halliday, who put him out of the way. In fact, it is general belief that more bodies may be found about the locality of the Halliday house.
An autopsy developed three bullet wounds in Halliday’s body. He had also been struck on the head, causing a contusion of the left temple. The left eye had been knocked out. Medical experts say the man has been dead a week or longer. The G. A. R. Post will bury their old comrade.
There was great fear that a mob would form and lynch Mrs. Halliday last night.
MRS. HALLIDAY IS IN JAIL Conveyed Safely to the Monticello Jail Last Friday Morning
The rumored attempt of the gypsies to rescue Mrs. Halliday, the Burlingham murderess, did not take place. Early Friday morning Justice Thayer, of Burlingham, committed her to the Monticello jail. There was a great crowd to see her off as she was driven away in a three seated wagon, with constables Stoll and Nickerson in charge. At Bloomingburgh, five miles away, a crowd gathered around the wagon and there were loud threat of lynching. A hostler known as “Jim” waved a rope noose in front of Mrs. Halliday. “That is what you need,” he said ot her. He made a motion to throw the noose over her head and the crowd shouted its approval. All that was needed was someone to assume the leadership and responsibility but no one was forthcoming. The party were finally transferred to a new wagon and drove on.
They arrived at the Monticello jail at 3 p.m., where the prisoner was duly committed to a cell.
In the evening the prisoner became excited and began to scream and talk wildly, but presently subsided. Sheriff Beecher had her thoroughly searched.
The grand jury will meet September 18th.
MRS. HALLIDAY’S PARENTAGE
The Early Years of the Sullivan County Murderess and Where They Were Passed
A dispatch of Sept 8th from Newburg says: Mrs. Jane Leathem of 99 Smith street says she believes that Mrs. Paul Halliday, the murderess, is none other than Eliza Brown and that she is a daughter of Mrs. Peggy Brown of Moorfield, county Antrim, Ireland, the former home of Mrs. Leathem and family. Eliza Brown came to this country eighteen years ago. The Leathems came here from Moorfield eight years ago. Before Mrs. Leathem left the old country. Mrs. Brown told her that her daughter Eliza was probably at or near Newburg, and begged that if she saw or heard anything of her daughter she would write and let her know. Soon after Mrs. Leathem came to Newburg she learned that woman named Eliza Brown was employed in the family of James H. Matthews, in this city. From what she learned of her, Mrs. Leathem did not feel called upon to inform her mother that she had found her daughter. The mother now lives in Kells, Ireland.
HER’S A MANIA FOR MURDER LIzzie Halliday Trwice Married and Murdered Both Husbands
MIDDLETOWN, NY, Sep. 11 - It is now believed that Mrs. Halliday had a husband before she married the aged Sullivan county farmer, whom she murdered in like manner. She is said to have told Halliday the circumstances of her first husbands taking off and threatened Halliday himself with like fate. The latter told his sons of the matter, but apparently did not believe it or in any event apprehended no danger to himself.
The Coroner’s jury late Saturday evening rendered the following verdict:
“We do say upon our oath that Margaret J. McQuillan and Sarah J. McQuilland came to their death from bullets fired form a pistol in the hands of Lizzie Halliday; the balls entering the heart were the immediate cause of death; that said Margaret was killed on or about August 30, and Sarah J. McQuillan on or about September 2.”
Inquest in the case of Paul Halliday was adjourned over until this week.
When the case of Mrs. Elizabeth Halliday, charged with the murder of her husband, Paul Halliday, and the McQuillan women, mother and daughter, the defense will present a startling theory to account for the commission of the crime. It relates to the motive for the triple murder. Robert Halliday, the eldest son of the murdered man, has made this statement.
“My father told me that this woman came from his native country, Ireland; that soon after his marriage she told him that he was not her first husband, but that she had been married in Ireland. She did not like her first husband, and one night when he was asleep she killed him with a big stone and afterward mutilated his body.
“She also told my father that she could commit any crime or crimes she cared to and that she could always escape detection. She had never been suspected of the murder of her first husband and she would never be apprehended in any other crime which she chose to commit.
“She boasted to him of having deceived the physicians at the MIddletown asylum, and added that she could fool the best doctor by playing off insane.
“It was soon after this that the burning of the house, barn and stable occurred. When the stable was burned my youngest brother perished and we all knew that she had set the place on fire. Then came her escapade at Newburg, when she hired a horse and sold it, for which she was tried but escaped conviction on the ground of insanity.
“Speaking of those crime, my father told me that when Lizzie, his wife, committed them she was in a condition peculiar to married women. Shortly after she got rid of the physical cause of her spell of insanity and resumed her normal condition of life.
“It was a knowledge of the fact that my father’s wife was again in an interesting condition, as he informed me, that led me to make a search for the old gentleman when it was reported that he had not been seen for several days. The result was the finding of the three bodies.”
“When your father knew all this why did he not leave the woman?”
“He was infatuated with her. We tried to get him to leave her, but he refused. He said she was the most wonderful woman he had ever met.”
This is the latest sensational feature of the Halliay murders. It was further believed by persons who have studied the woman and her actions that she is affiliated with a mania that is now unknown, though rare, in criminal jurisprudence. This murderous principle always occurs to her when she is approaching motherhood. She is believed to be in that condition now.
[3rd Article continued immediately after the above]
MRS. HALLIDAY’S MANIA Her Former Life Shows That She Was Cunning and Low Minded and at All Times Eager to Kill [From Sunday’s N. Y. Herald.]
The solution of the mystery surrounding Lizzie Halliday’s awful crimes will be found in the history of her previous life and her relations with her husband.
Now that those around here who know her, particularly the sons of old Paul Halliday, have had time to collect their wits after the scene of the last week and to look calmly back upon the past of this woman, facts are coming to the surface which throw light upon the whole affair.
Young Paul and Robert Halliday have told their stories - until now not revealed - and when all this new and old information is put together there is produced a story of very unusual, but not of unprecedented, criminality.
Lizzie Halliday, herself a type of low humanity, was merely an ignorant, mean, cunning and revengeful woman with the belief that she possessed the power to deceive everybody she chose.
This appears to have been her character under ordinary circumstances, but at certain periods she appears to have become possessed of a mania. On each occasion when she was in this wild mental condition she was expecting to become a mother.
She never did, however, so far as is known, give birth to a living child. This mania, which is not without numerous precedents, assumed in Lizzie Halliday’s case a phase almost unbelievably shocking.
Like Jack the Ripper, she was possessed by a mania to mutilate her victims. She killed and mutilated the bodies of two husbands.
It has just come out, through the stories told by Paul Halliday’s two sons, that the woman confessed to old Paul soon after her marriage to him that she had been married before nad had killed and then hacked her husband.
Old Paul professed not to believe this story and undoubtedly did not.
Her two subsequent crimes, the killing of the McQuillan women, must have been committed in a pure thirst for blood, induced by her mania and probably whetted by her fearful crime of a few days before.
The woman is now known to be of Iriths birth and was Lizzie Brown of the county Ulster in the north of Ireland. Paul Halliday came from the same region and there knew the mother of the woman, who afterward became his wife and murderess. The daughters, however, were not born when Paul emigrated. Old Paul had no communication with them until he met and hired Lizzie as a housekeeper at the intelligence office of Mrs. J. B. Smith of Newburg.
Lizzie questioned old Paul in a mighty business-like way and elicited the information that he was more than seventy years old, had rheumatism, drank hard and owned a farm of more than a hundred acres, a mill, a house and barn and moreover, possessed a pension.
She left with him at once. He took her home and a very short time afterward they drove to Middletown and were married by the Methodist minister in that place.
Gradually Lizzie acquired a tremendous hold on the old man and he resisted all the importunities of his children to get rid of her. She had a double crown on her head which is believed by the ignorant to be a sign of some extraordinary endowment. Old Paul used to say, “she got a double crown, sir, like Napoleon.”
One night in a burst of confidence Lizzie told Paul the details of the murder and mutilation of her former husband.
The story made Paul thoughtful. Soon after this Mrs. Paul Halliday became pregnant and it was while in that condition that during the absence of Paul, the woman set fire to the house, which was burned to the ground with Paul’s idiot son inside and unable to escape. Paul’s married daughter, Mrs. Gravlin of Providence, then earnestly besought him to give the woman up but though convince of her guilt, he declined to do so.
It was during a subsequent pregnancy that her wild escape with a man in Newburgh occurred and theft of a horse. For this she was confined in the Middletown insane asylum and subsequently transferred to Auburn and then to Matteawan.
There is reason to believe that the woman is now, for the third time, in expectation of becoming a mother, and that the murder of Paul Halliday was result of the return while in this physical condition of the fearful prompting which led to the murder of her first husband.
The subsequent murder of the McQuillan women was also the prompting of the uncontrollable lust for blood begotten of her peculiar physical condition.
OBEYED HIM LIKE A CHILD “Phil” Kinney, of the Hotel Rockwell, has a Strange Influence Over Mrs. Halliday
A strange thing happened at the Monticello jail Sunday afternoon. “Phil” Kinney, the good looking young clerk at the Hotel Rockwell, was one of the large crowd of visitors at Mrs. Halliday’s cell. The moment Lizzie saw him she smiled at him and called him “Nancy”, and in a variety of ways evinced an extraordinary liking for him.
So strong is Kinney’s influence that at his request the woman for the first time since her confinement took some food. She had about fifteen minutes conversation with him in which she made a partial confession implicating two unknown men. This is the first she has talked of her crime. It is rumored in Monticello that H. B. Fullerton of Port Jervis will defend Mrs. H., but this is not true.
The Halliday residence at Burlingham is being dismantled by relic hunters.
THE HALLIDAY CASE
The Prisoner Eats Little and Refuses to See a Priest.
MONTICELLO, NY Sep 12 - Yesterday Mrs. Halliday, when visited in jail, walked in a rambling, incoherent way. She was told that her mother in Ireland had been sent for and was coming to her. When this news was told her her face assumed a saddened aspect for a moment, and then she told of her coming from Belfast, Ireland. When in conversation Mrs. Halliday avoids looking a visitor in the face.
District Attorney D. S. Hill visited Mrs. Halliday, but could not engage her in conversation. The district attorney is busy preparing to present her case to the grand jury, which meets next week. He stated that he did not think the case would be tried until the May term of courts.
Lawyer S. B. Fullerton of Port Jervis was handed an envelope containing $100, and will conduct the defense. It was impossible to learn more than that the money was raised by friends of Mrs. Halliday near her home at Burlingham.
Mrs. Halliday was examined by Dr. S. A. McWilliams, health officer of Sullivan county. After an examination of two hours he stated that she was in perfect physical health, but would not commit himself in regard to her sanity.
Since her imprisonment Mrs. Halliday has refused to eat more than one meal a day. Fearing that this course would result in serious illness ot the prisoner, Sheriff Berehr procured the services of a physician, who, assisted by the sheriff and District Attorney Hill, administered nourishment forcibly. Hundreds of people are daily visiting Monticello in the hope of seeing the prisoner. Rev. J. F. McLaughlin, the priest in charge of St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church, called upon Mrs. Halliday and endeavored to engage her in conversation, but the woman would not speak to him. It is said that extra efforts will be made to have the prisoner tried at this term of court before Judge Fursman.
RELATING IT PIECEMEAL
Mrs. Halliday is Slowly Weaving a Story of the Murder
Lizzie Halliday is gradually telling the story of the fearful triple murder with which she is so closely connected, to Mr. Phil Kinney, of Monticello. She no doubt has chosen him as the one through whom it is to be revealed.
It is evident she believes her story will relieve her from responsibility for the crimes ocmmitted in her house. She is telling this story piecemeal, mixing it up with her pretended insane ravings, but never once forgetting the text.
Beginning three days ago with the bare words, “There were two man, Nancy, two men,” she has added daily to the tale, until now it contains two women as well; an Irishman who lives in a white house with green blinds and an allegation that old Paul Halliday murdered his half witted son, the youth whom she is credit with burning alive.
By the very few friends this woman has, the unrolling of the story is being awaited with interest second only to the interest excited by the finding of the bodies of Mrs. McQuillan and her daughter and of old Paul Halliday.
The unrolling of the story is being watched, too, by the population not counted her friends, but with a different sort of interest - a mere curiosity to know what kind of tale she is capable of weaving, and whether it will be good enough to even create a doubt that the general belief in the woman’s guilt is justifiable.
The woman in Monticello jail is as different from the woman who was held prisoner for five days in Constable Scott’s house in Burlingham as night is from day. There she was raving night and day. No word was got from her that by a stretch of imagination could be constructed as intelligent. She kept up an almost constant struggle with her guards. Now she has no guards. She sits alone in a little cell on the second corridor of the jail. She raves now only when watched and then more like a person whose mind has been wandering and whose senses are just returning, rather than a person violently insane. She is consistent in this, that she always raves when she believes any one is near her to hear her, while when she feels that no on eis about she is as silent as a mouse.
Her cell opens on the hall of the house in which the jail is situated. Persons have gone ot this door quietly and listened time and time again. They have heard nothing until they placed their hand on the knob, and then the raving would begin. The woman has defied every effort made to see her when she is quiet. The first thing she did when she was left alone in her cell was to lift the bed around in such a position that she could sit on it and not be seen from the door. To the right of the cell, facing his cot as it stands, is a grated window opening on the corridor of the jail.
A final effort was made to catch her quiet Tuesday afternoon by Sheriff Beecher. Early in the morning a ladder was place against this window. Tuesday afternoon, after listening at her door for fifteen minutes, during which not a sound was heard, a reporter, with the Sheriff’s permission, tried to ascend the ladder and peep through the window. His progress to the top rung was noiseless. On the top rung he scraped his feet accidentally. Immediately there was the noise of the woman raving in the cell. She was heard to sit down on the cot, and then she began talking.
Clerk Kinney of the Rockwell House, who has been chosen by Mrs. Halliday as the medium through which to unfold her story, is a fine looking young man, with a sympathetic manner. He is the only person to whom she will talk. He paid his fourth visit to her yesterday afternoon, accompanied by two reporters, the sheriff, and three or four men, who begged the privilege of a look at the woman. Kinney brought with him a bag of peaches and pears. She greeted him with “Hullo, Nancy; I’m so glad you have come. Oh, Nancy, I must tell you!”
Kinny opened the bag and took out a peach. She declared it was a pumpkin and ate it from his hand. She called a pear a chipmunk and at that from his hand, and then she began on her story.
She repeated things over and over. She avoided every direct question. There were two men she said. One of them was an Irishman. They came to her house. Her husband brought two women there. He pulled her out of bed and put one of the women in her place.
The Irishman pushed her on another bed. She fought him. Then the men fought with sticks. Her husband hit her on the head with a shoe and rove her out into the darkness. One of the men told her she must obey him, and gave a black bag ot her, telling her she must throw the things away. Her husband had three fires. He gave his nice little boy some awful stuff, and put him in an awful place, and then he had three fires. He said he would wipe the who family. The Irishman who lived in the white house with green blinds threw something in her face.
This was her story in brief. She took half an hour to tell it, and every few second she would say: “I will tell Nancy. You can’t stop me. They fought like raging lions.” She was also worried by an imaginary face in a corner of a cell. It was a colored woman, she said. When Kinney left she called: “Be sure and tell this to grandma” Kinney will call on her daily until he has her whole story.