-
“There is no Morality without a Knowledge
of Good and Evil.”
III. HIS IND UNESSION
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ST. LOUIS, MO.,
KNOWN AS
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- T H E G R E AT T R A. L.
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PHILADELPHIA :
BARCIAY & CO., PUBLISHERS,
No. 21 North SEVENTH STREET.


---
&ntered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1875, by
B. A. R. C. L. A. Y. & O 0.,
p the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at washington, D. L.
*_
LIFE, TRIAL AND CONFESSION
OF
y; R s, 3 tri-j. A Foº ºff ºf ºf Rs.
NN Morgan street, in the city of St. Louis, between Eighteenth
and Nineteenth (No. 1817), there stands a low, one-story
| brick house. This dwelling forms a striking contrast to the
many fine residences in the neighborhood. Small and insig-
nificant as this house appears, it has been the scene of the
most horrible crimes that were ever perpetrated by a human
being—and that being a woman.
In the month of August, 1874, information was given to
the police that some startling revelations would be made to
them very shortly; and within a few hours afterwards another
notice was sent to the Coroner to the effect that a young woman lay dead at
No. 1817 Morgan street. After this, Mrs. Fortmeyer, who occupied the
house, sent to the city authorities a notice to request them to remove a dead
body and bury it. In consequence of the notice, and some other private
information, the police officers and the Coroner of St. Louis took charge of
the house and began to make search for its contents. In the front room
they found the body of a colored girl about eighteen years of age, good-
looking, but her body cold in death. In the middle room lay a young white
woman, apparently very sick or dying. In one corner of the back room
they found the dead body of a newly-born infant, wrapped in brown paper
and an old piece of white rag. The stove for burning wood was also exam-
ined, and in this was found a quantity of the bones of infant children, all
the flesh destroyed, but the bones were clearly identified as those of human
beings.
While this examination was being made, Mrs. Julia Fortmeyer, the occu-
pant of the house, and the perpetrator of those horrible and inhuman murders,
was coolly moving about and explaining to the police that the colored girl
had been confined of a baby in another house and had come there to get
well, and that the white girl was in bed sick of the cholera morbus.
After a while, the deceased colored girl's body was moved to the City
Hospital, where a Coroner's jury was summoned and an inquest held, the
- 19

20 MRS, JULIA FORTMEYER,
result of which was the arrest of Mrs. Fortmeyer on the charge of murder
and abortion.
Although the crimes above named were horrible and revolting, it remained
for the witnesses in the case to bring out in full detail the still more horrible
facts that the children born through the vile practices of this woman were
burnt in the stove immediately after delivery, and in most instances burnt
alive! The possibilities of human nature are wonderful. An angel of light,
a minister of love, a fountain of charity—or a demon of darkness, and a
breeder of despair and death. Of the latter class seems to be the woman
whose name will go down to immortal infamy with the few who stand forth
like herself apparently to show to what depths a life of crime and reckless-
ness may eventually lead. And yet this woman was once a helpless little
child, like the ones she so ruthlessly destroyed.
Ah, mothers, you little know or think some of you to what neglect, un-
kindness or cruelty may lead in the fate of your children. Read the life of
this woman and the testimony given in the trial, which is here published in
full from official sources, and you will see how, step by step, one lesser crime
leads to one greater, and at last stops at nothing to accomplish the ends and
purposes of the miserable creature who wades in the great ocean of sin.
Julia Fortmeyer was born in the State of New York; her parents were
in comfortable circumstances, and in early childhood every whim and fancy
of her life was indulged and gratified by foolish though loving parents.
She has some brothers and sisters, living until lately in Sheboygan, Wis-
consin, but for their sakes we withhold their names. At an early age she
manifested some strange freaks of passion, and the loss of some childish toy,
or a disappointment in her expectations would throw her into an ungovern-
able rage. Her parents were both members of the Protestant church, and
Julia was early sent to Sunday-school. As she grew up towards woman-
hood her brothers were proud of her beauty, and every wish she expressed
they endeavored to supply.
Gifted with a bright eye, well-formed features, a ready tongue and a taste
for music, she became the belle of the neighborhood, and many a young
man felt as if he would be ready to give his right hand for a smile from her
eye or a pleasant word from her lips; and yet, if her own words are to be
believed, which she said to the writer of this after her trial and sentence,
she never loved any of them.
The custom in that part of the State where Julia Fortmeyer was born
was for the parents to make the marriage matches, and in due time Julia was
betrothed to a man who loved her, but for whom she cared nothing. But
her career of crime had already commenced, and although her own heart
was hard and callous her passions were strong, and the man who made her
his wife only changed her name to his—her maiden nature ceased to exist.
There is a mystery hanging around the death of her first husband. Some
said he was murdered; others believe he killed himself; Mrs. Fortmeyer
says, “A tree fell upon him and killed him; ” but the exact truth will never















THE BABY BURNER. 21
perhaps be known, unless a woman's heart gets melted by repentance or
remorse.
After the death of her first husband, Mrs. Fortmeyer left the State of
New York for the State of Wisconsin, where she lived in the city of She-
boygan under various fortunes some years. While residing there she first
thought of acting as a doctress, and undertook to cure people of diseases by
faith without medicine. In this way she became mixed up in several in-
trigues. Husbands who consulted her became jealous of their wives, and
wives soon lost confidence in their husbands, until at last the excitement
and prejudice against her became so strong that she was obliged to leave the
"State and go to Illinois, not very far from Springfield.
It was while Mrs. Fortmeyer lived in Wisconsin that a man, whose wife
was on intimate terms with her, was found dead in his bed; cause of death
being supposed heart disease, but the corpse became spotted after twenty-four
hours and whispers were made of foul play somewhere. Step by step
downward in her career, blinded by her own evil nature and goaded by fierce
hot passions, she still carried mischief and ruin into every household where
she found an entry.
At La Salle, Illinois, she fixed her abode, and her evil courses naturally
brought her acquainted with the worst forms of society. A numerous band
of counterfeiters had their head-quarters in La Salle, and the wife of the
captain of the gang being desirous of having an abortion produced applied
to Mrs. Fortmeyer for assistance. As she had never hesitated at anything
before, so she stopped not now, but readily undertook the affair. She suc-
ceeded, and also saved the woman's life. The captain of this gang of counter-
feiters was named Rider, and his little son, five years old, told Mrs. Fort-
meyer that his father and friends made money. Rider discovered what his son
had done, and getting Mrs. Fortmeyer on board a canal boat held a huge
knife up at her throat and made her take a terrible oath never to disclose
the facts the little boy had told.
But oaths were of no consequence to this woman whose whole life was a
lie; the counterfeiters soon had reason to know they were unsafe while she
had their secret, and they determined to murder her. By the time, how-
ever, that this had been determined on, Mrs. Fortmeyer had left La Salle
and gone to Quincy, where a couple of the band followed her.
On a dark night, on April 10th, as she came up from the southern part
of the town, she had to cross the great square in Quincy, one side of which
was unbuilt at that time, in order to reach her home in the northern part of
the city, above the market. She was just thinking of the condition of the
young unmarried woman she had left, and of her own chances to get the
thirty dollars promised for her work, when the report of a revolver was
heard and a bullet crushed through the silk bonnet she wore, but did her
no other injury than fright. She screamed and ran, and little thought that
death by the hands of an assassin would have been a blessing to herself as
well as posterity.


22 MRS, JULIA FORTMEYER,
Quincy was not blessed with Mrs. Fortmeyer's presence very long. She
knew not who had fired the bullet at her brain, but suspected some of the
men whose wives she had been doctoring. Fortunately, however, for her
safety, about this time many of Rider's gang of counterfeiters were arrested,
and the rest dispersed, and so no more attempts were made to murder her.
From Quincy she went to Chicago, which at that period of time was full of
gamblers, thieves, speculators, land-stealers, and in fact the refuse of a great
many of the Eastern States.
In Chicago she had a fine field for her vile trade, and also found ad-
mirers who were ready to buy and sell their souls to ruin.
Mrs. Fortmeyer had one daughter, who was about fifteen years old when
she went to Chicago; and as she inherited much of the beauty of her mother
she became an attractive prey to many a bold villain. The mother thought
to make a good trade of her daughter's shame, but in this she was happily
disappointed. A man named Frazier loved the girl, and when the daughter
learned the plans of her mother with regard to herself she readily consented
to an elopement with Frazier, and mother and daughter have never met since
that time. After the loss of her only daughter Mrs. Fortmeyer seemed to
abandon herself entirely to evil. The flattery of her childhood made her
believe herself a perfect angel of beauty. She danced at balls; she rode on
horseback in company with blacklegs; she told fortunes with cards; she led
women as well as men astray from the paths of virtue; and in secret she was
ready to impart information to husbands and wives how to get rid of their
partners by death without suspicion.
Restless, as all intensely evil natures are, she could not remain in Chicago,
neither would her life make it safe for her to do so. Several suspicious
deaths among women of her acquaintance led some to hate and some to fear
her, and she concluded to leave Chicago, at least for a time. Detroit and
St. Clair, in Michigan, were her next places of abode, in each but for a short
time, and then crossing the boundaries she went to Chatham, in Canada West;
but the British possessions had laws against her class more strict than the
United States, and she feared the halter and dreaded its touch, consequently,
after an absence of two years, Chicago was once more her home.
Mrs. Fortmeyer, while in Chicago the last time, professed to become a
Catholic, and still professes to be a member of that communion. The un-
settled condition of society after the war, the demoralizing influence of the
Rebellion, offered her a fine field for operations, and about nine years ago
Mrs. Fortmeyer turned her eyes longingly towards St. Louis, and it was
destined for St. Louis to discover at last the nature of the dreadful crimes
she has committed, and to mete out to her the penalty of the law.
In St. Louis Mrs. Fortmeyer succeeded in getting a Dr. William Putnam
to marry her, but very soon he obtained a divorce. He left St. Louis and
went to New York, where he commenced to keep a drug store. He was
found murdered in his store, some one having entered the store at midnight,
on the plea of obtaining medicine, and then stabbing him in the back.
-
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THE BABY BURNER. 25
Thus her second husband, like her first, met a suspicious and violent death.
But death could not interfere with this woman's plans, and ere long she was,
for the third time, married to Mr. Fortmeyer, her present husband.
St. Louis above all other cities brought out all the horrors of this woman's
crimes. Her past experience in other places gave her a great advantage over
other women of the same character, and her reckless daring nature enabled
her to accept any responsibility however atrocious or horrible. Her third
husband, Mr. Fortmeyer, was disabled from sunstroke, and she had no one
to watch her movements or to criticise her practices. The north, south and
west portions of St. Louis have all, by turns, been her places of residence.
First under one name and then, when that got notorious, under another,
in a distant street, she has year after year evaded the clutch of the law,
grown bolder and more reckless of human life, until at last she arrived at
that depth of infamy when, to use her own words to her confidential ad-
viser, she said to him, when he asked her if she was not afraid to burn those
babies, “No, I could look you in the eyes and cut your throat from ear to ear,
and think nothing of it.”
At least ten different houses in ten streets of St. Louis have been the silent
witnesses of Mrs. Fortmeyer's crimes. Oh! if those dead walls could speak
and tell of the horrors now long over; of the young mothers prematurely
hurried from a mistaken life into a nameless grave; if they could but echo
the dying wail of those little breathing innocents cast so ruthlessly into the
flames, while the monster in the shape of woman looked calmly on how
St. Louis would stand aghast at the picture And yet it must be remem-
bered that Mrs. Fortmeyer is only one of a tribe, probably the most reckless
and cruel, we have in our midst.
Inquiries carefully made lead to the conclusion that nearly one hundred
bodies, dead and alive, have been cast into the flames of the stove by this
human fiend, and that too in some instances by the advice (as she says) of
medical men. We here produce the official testimony brought out before
the coroner at the inquest held at the City Hospital on the body of Lena
Miller, who was one of the many victims of Mrs. Fortmeyer's murderous
arts. First comes the terrible testimony of Sarah Fay, the young girl who
lived with Mrs. Fortmeyer in 1817 Morgan street, and who saw with her
own eyes this fiend burn the babies and heard with her own ears the first fee-
ble wail of the little helpless ones. She also saw Mrs. Fortmeyer pour coal
oil on the bodies of the infants when they were put into the burning stove.
Sarah Fay, being duly sworn, says:–I have been at 1817 Morgan street
in this city, with Mrs. Julia Fortmeyer. I lived with her for the last four
weeks. I am single; I am eighteen years old; was born in St. Louis.
My parents are both dead. I have but one brother, he is my half-brother;
we have the same mother. I have known Mrs. Julia Fortmeyer for over
two years; have visited her off and on during the time; I have stayed there
as many as two or three days in my visits. I recognize and know the body
here lying dead; it is Lena Miller, a colored girl; she is about nineteen

26 MRS, JULIA FORTMEYER,
years old. She told me that she was a married woman. I first made her
acquaintance when she came to Mrs. Julia Fortmeyer's, with whom I lived.
She came at about half-past six or seven o'clock P. M., of last Friday even-
ing, at least she was there when I came in ; she told that she came there to
get relief; that she was in trouble; that she was four months gone; that a
colored boy was father to the child. When she told me this, it was a little
while after I came in. She told me this voluntarily and with her own free
will. Mrs. Fortmeyer did not introduce me to her, but she called me from
behind the screen, calling me by name; she called “Sarah ;” Mrs. Julia
Fortmeyer took the case of deceased under the condition that she (Lena):
should pay Mrs. Fortmeyer the money right down, which she gave her,
and it was seven dollars; and Lena, the deceased, promised further to pay
the next month's wages after she got well. For and in consideration
of the money paid and the promise made, Mrs. Fortmeyer promised
to bring Lena Miller through, that is, she promised to relieve her of
her child
Mrs. Fortmeyer examined her; and she called me and I went back of
the screen where deceased was lying on her back on the lounge, and I then
and there saw Mrs. Fortmeyer examine her as I said; I was in full view of
her when I saw her examine deceased; I stood about three feet up from
Lena's head. The hook she used was a rough-looking hook; straight all
the way except at one end it was bent in a curve. Afterwards noticed her
taking something from the girl and put it in some printed paper, and she
went to the stove; at this time I went off, and yet heard the door of a stove
shut; then she called on me for a match; I gave her the match and she told
me to set fire to the wood in the stove; I told her that I would not do it;
then she called me a little fool; I told her I would not have anything to do
with the case. She then lit the match and with it she set fire to the wood
in the stove; then the fire burnt a little while, then it would not burn, and
she took and poured some coal oil in and set it ablaze; I saw her pour on
coal oil twice. After she got through, the deceased, Lena, seemed to be
easy a little while; then Lena talked of being very sick; then Mrs. Fort-
meyer took out a round box with some white powder.
She then took of the white powder not quite half of one teaspoonful and
mixed it with some water in a glass, and then she gave it to Lena to take
and Lena drank it; in about one hour after, Lena sat and seemed to be out
of her head; her eyes looked wild and bloodshot; and she asked, Where is
the doctor? Mrs. Fortmeyer, who was sitting beside her, said, I am the
doctor. Lena then said to her, Will you take good care of me? Mrs.
Fortmeyer said, Yes. Then Lena lay down on her side; and from that
time Lena breathed very hard, and I thought she was dying, but Mrs.
Fortmeyer said she was not dying; yet afterwards said to me that she knew
that she was dying; I called Lena but she did not open her eyes, and she
did not seem to hear; she died about ten or eleven o’clock the same evening,
last Friday. After Lena died I undressed to go to bed; and Mrs. Fort-

THE BABY BURNER. 27
meyer then sent me for acousin of hers, and I went up on Twenty-third and
Franklin, and stayed all night at the house of Mrs. Nichols. I did not go to
the cousin she sent me to, viz., she sent to Andrew Rother, to tell him to
come, that the girl Lena was dead, and not to come the next day. She
spoke as if he knew whom she meant; I only told Mrs. Nichols that the
girl died, nothing else. I stayed there at Mrs. Nichols until Saturday, twelve
P. M., when my brother came up and said the coroner wanted me; and he
(my brother) sent the police up who got me.
Before Mrs. Fortmeyer commenced to examine deceased, she gave her
some of the same white powders out of the round box, in order to make her
go to sleep, but she threw it up, and then Mrs. Fortmeyer gave her some
more; it made her dizzy; it made her go to sleep. Previous to Mrs. Fort-
meyer working at deceased, she told me to go and fix the fire. I put in
three pieces of paper and kindling on top of some paper which she fixed; and
after she got through with deceased, she put the “something.” I recog-
nized as a baby in paper, on top of the wood in the stove, and when she took
it from the mother, and before she wrapped it up, I heard a squeaking noise
amidst the groans of the mother. When I left for her cousin, the fire was
out, but she was in the act of setting fire again to some stained clothes.
She yet wanted me to set fire to it; I would not do it. I often asked her
what the white powder was, but she told me to shut my mouth—that it was
none of my business. She told me if I ever got in trouble that she would
bring it away from me; I told her I would not give her the chance. I do
not know that she, Mrs. Fortmeyer, had any advice or assistance from any
doctor; I only know that while she lived at 1129 on Fourteenth street, Dr.
M came to her on a visit. Also Dr. D came once at same place,
to get me to go to work for him, but I would not go. -
Mrs. Fortmeyer at three or four different times, when gentlemen would
come to see her, tried to persuade me to have sexual intercourse with them,
and if I did I should have a home as long as I lived. At one time she
sent me to Dr. D , about three or four months ago, to get some salve,
and on this occasion Dr. D fooled around me, and offered me twenty-
five dollars to let him do as he pleased, he saying he wanted me to stay all
night with him, and I promised him to come back, in order to get away
from him, but I did not come back; Dr. D even said Mrs. Fortmeyer
told him if he would try to stay with me I would let him.
About three or four weeks ago, a white girl, having her hair platted, and
saying she came from Germany, and worked in a boarding-house on Les-
perance street near a match factory, and crippled in her left leg, it being
shorter than the other—she was low-sized, spoke a little English, and ap-
peared to be a Jewess—came alone to Mrs. Fortmeyer at 1817 Morgan
street, and wanted Mrs. Fortmeyer to examine her, and this she did. The
girl first told Mrs. Fortmeyer that she was six months gone.
Mrs. Fortmeyer took the case, receiving twelve or thirteen dollars, and
with a promise to get five dollars more. Mrs. Fortmeyer gave her the

28 MRS, JULIA FORTMEYER,
same white powder as she gave to “Lena,” and put her asleep for about
one hour before she performed on her; then when the girl was asleep she
performed on her, taking first the syringe with the long point, a little bent
at the end; and then after that in about fifteen or twenty minutes, she took
the same hook which she used on Lena, and used it upon the girl for about
fifteen or twenty minutes; after that she called me to hand her a piece of
paper; I picked up a piece of paper from off the floor and handed it to her.
I then saw her have a baby which she wrapped in the paper; it was a
larger baby than Lena's. She then put it in the stove; I saw her lay it in;
she had fixed the fire herself; she burned the baby, and after the
stove got cold, in about an hour, I took the ashes out and threw them in
the yard. The baby was burned to ashes. After that the girl got
right sick, and laid there for three days, then went away. The girl
was sent to Germany by her sister; I was present when she told it to
Mrs. Fortmeyer.
The third case I know is that of a girl named Louisa; she is about nine-
teen years old, from the country; she came with a colored man named
Dave, in a wagon; she came the same evening when Lena came; I found
her when I came in; she was lying down with her dress unbuttoned.
Louisa told me that she wanted her baby taken away from her; and that
she was six months gone; she gave Mrs. Fortmeyer eight dollars and prom-
ised to make the colored man pay her the rest, four dollars.
For this Mrs. Fortmeyer promised to treat her, and keep her until she
got right well. In Louisa's case she also first took the same syringe and
the hook, and used it the same way as in the girl's and Lena's case, after
first giving to Louisa the same white powder, upon which Louisa slept a
little while, and then Mrs. Fortmeyer woke her up, and performed on her.
I did not see the taking of the baby, but I heard the same noise from
Louisa and the squeak that I heard in Lena's case. Then I saw her light
the fire, and saw her put something in the stove; she also poured coal oil
in the stove as before; the stove got right hot; then after the baby was
burned up, I noticed the girl to be sick; the ashes of this remained in the
stove when I left the house.
When I left Louisa was better; I heard her tell Louisa not to tell any-
thing, and if any one asked, to tell them to go way from there. She burnt
up some stained clothes; she folded the stained sheets and put them some-
where, I don’t know where.
Lena, the deceased, when she first came was well treated; was well and
hearty, and was not bleeding before she was operated on; it took about one
and one-half hour from the time Mrs. Fortmeyer commenced to work on
deceased until the child was born.
I recognize those hooks as the ones she used in Lena's case; also in the
case of Louisa, and in the case of the crippled girl; I recognize this specu-
lum, but I never saw her use it; I don't recognize this syringe (metallic).

THE BABY BURNER. 29
I never looked for things about the house, for she told me “that for my
life.” I should not open any bundles in her trunk.
This is Louisa, and is the third case I spoke of
SARAH FAY.
Sworn to and subscribed before me,
this 12th day of August, 1874.
ENG. WoRKSTER, Coromer St. Louis Co.
Louisa Beehler, alias Biehler, being duly sworn, states:–I will be nine-
teen years old in November, 1874; I have father and mother and one
sister and one brother, living in St. Geneveve; my father, by trade, is a
shoemaker, but of late, farmer. I left home June 1st, 1874, for the pur-
pose of living out; I worked for Mrs. F of this city, on Gamble
avenue, between Twenty-first and Twenty-second streets; I worked for her
all together for two years and one-half, doing kitchen-work. I left her the
last time on last Friday at about two P. M., and I went myself to Mrs.
Fortmeyer's, 1817 Morgan street; I went for the purpose of giving birth to
a child; I was pregnant with child for seven months at my calculation; I
had sexual intercourse with Mr. L-, a German. We were engaged to
be married; however he met with an accident and broke his leg.
He broke his leg about the third week of last March, 1874; I was at
home at that time with my parents; I then already knew that I was preg-
nant, and my parents found it out. I acknowledged to them my condition,
and they agreed that I should marry L. D -
While I was with Mrs. F , a colored man by the name of David
Elliott came to the house and brought vegetables and meat there; he noticed
my condition; I acknowledged pregnancy, and he asked me if I had a cer-
tain place to go to stay? I said No; he said, Well, if you don’t want the
lady to find it out, I advise you to go to Mrs. Fortmeyer, at 1817 Morgan
street, that she would take care of me. This was some time last week.
On last Thursday evening I went with Dave Elliott to Mrs. Fortmeyer,
and he told her who I was; he said I was Miss Louisa Beehler; I told her
I would like to stay with her until I got down and got up again; Mrs.
Fortmeyer said she was willing to keep me and said as long as I was able
to work I could help her; also that after I got up I could help her until I
got able to go away. I made arrangements to come on the next evening;
I went the next evening and got there about three P. M., Friday, August
7, 1874. I told her that I was pregnant, and gone about seven months;
she said she could keep me, and if I did not want to stay with her until
my time was up, she would take me to a lady friend across the river; I
then told her I would rather go away from the city entirely until my time
was up. She asked me then if I did not want to get rid of it; I told her
No, I did not care about getting rid of it as long as I had gone so far. She
told me she could get away with it without me having much trouble, and
that I could get well soon. I told her I did not like it much ; I studied
over it a while; she said she would give me something to make it easy on

30 MRS. JULIA FORTMEYER,
-
me. She then got me so that I consented to let her do as she advised.
I went to bed in the back room; just as I got to bed, a colored girl, I
think the deceased, for it looks like her, and as far as I can see, it is her,
was brought in the same room with me, and Mrs. Fortmeyer stretched a
sheet across the room and between the bed on which I lay and the one
where the colored girl lay; I fell asleep; Islept right well on Friday night;
I awoke about six o'clock in the morning of Saturday; I got up; I did not
take any medicine that I know of; and after eating breakfast felt kind of a
headache; I laid down and she examined me first with her hand; I did not
see anything in it; I could not see her hand, I felt it; I felt a little pain
like scratching. When the child was born it gave one scream, and then
she put it at the foot of my bed, and she attended to me. Then I felt
sleepy right off; but she then said I must not go to sleep; but I could not
help myself, I fell right to sleep; I turned my back toward the stove and
face toward the wall; I could only see the stove through a small place
between the sheet when I lay on my back; I did not sleep very long; about
half an hour; I heard the stove burn; the baby was gone; I asked what it
was, she said it was a little girl, and that she put it away; I gave birth to
the child about eleven A. M., last Saturday morning; I only saw the colored
girl, the deceased, when passing through the room; at first I did not know
she was a colored girl; I did not see her go to bed; she died about two
A. M. Sunday morning; then she was moved from the room where I lay, to
the front; I don't know which room they put her in ; Mrs. Fortmeyer and
a colored woman, a friend to deceased, moved her; they also moved the
lounge and bedding; then the sheet was taken down.
As the coroner came on Sunday P. M., he asked me what was the matter
with me, and Mrs. Fortmeyer said for me, She has cholera-morbus, and
when he asked me again I said cholera-morbus, because I didn't want
things to be found out as they are; I was asked about my case by the cor-
oner and told him the truth about my condition and all I know, denying
that I had cholera-morbus.
After coming here I stayed with Mrs. Fortmeyer two weeks; then I went
to Mrs. Jones. I told Mrs. Fortmeyer that I was going there. I stayed
with Mrs. Jones three days, and went back to Mrs. Fortmeyer's the fourth
day. In the afternoon of last Sunday an ambulance came and took me to
the City Hospital; this was on the suggestion of the coroner, and it suited
me very much. I have good care and attention, and feel pretty well. The
rooms of Mrs. Fortmeyer are three in line, back of one another. I first
found out deceased was a colored girl when they moved her from my room
to the front. This is Mrs. Fortmeyer, the lady with whom I stayed at
1817 Morgan street.
LOUISA BEEHLER.
Sworn to and subscribed before me,
this 12th day of August, 1874.
ENG. VoºrsTER, Coroner St. Louis Co.

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THE BABY BURNER. 33
Josephine Hunter, colored, of lawful age, being duly sworn, states:-I
live at 608 North Eighth street; I am single; the deceased is Lena Miller,
colored; she is my niece; she is twenty-one years old; born in Kentucky;
she is single in condition of life; she has one child, Harry, two years old;
he lives with Mrs. Brown; the deceased was always in good health, and of
sound mind. Deceased was not addicted to drinking, nor to the use of mor-
phine or other narcotics. I saw her last night previous to her death at my
home, wanting me to take her place; she wanted to see her child that was
sick. I did not know she was pregnant. When I last saw her she did not
look sick, nor did she complain of anything. Young colored man with
whom she used to go will take charge of her body for burial.
her
JOSEPHINE x HUNTER.
Sworn to and subscribed before me, mark.
this 12th day of August, 1874.
ENG. VoßRSTER, Coroner St. Louis Co.
Julia Brown, colored, of lawful age, being duly sworn, states:—I live on
Twenty-third street; I am married; I know the deceased, Lena Miller; she
has her child with me; his name is Harry. She was all night at my house
on last Thursday; she left on Friday morning about five o'clock, saying she
was going back to her work on Fourteenth and Olive. I did not see her
since till Monday lying dead at 1817 Morgan street. I did not know she
was pregnant when last I saw her. Harry Johnson, colored, will bury her.
JULIA BROWN.
Sworn to and subscribed before me,
this 12th day of August, 1874.
ENG. WoFRSTER, Coroner St. Louis Co.
Harry Johnson, colored, of lawful age, being duly sworn, upon his oath
states:–I work at 813 North Sixth street. The deceased is Lena Miller;
she is my intended wife; she is pregnant with child from me since five or
six months. The boy, Harry, two years old, living, is not mine. I saw the
deceased last on August 5th, 1874; she said she was going to get rid of the
child, and asked what I thought about it; I advised her not to do anything
"of the kind; that no woman could get away with her young one as far gone
as she was. She said she did not know, but some woman had told her so.
I left her then; told her not to do anything of the kind; she said, “I don't
know.” I will bury her remains.
his
HARRY x JOHNSON.
Sworn to and subscribed before me, mark.
this 12th day of August, 1874.
ENG. VoßRSTER, Coroner St. Louis Co.
William L. Barrett, being duly sworn, upon his oath states —I live at ,
1422 Washington avenue; I am practising physician of the city, and At-
34 MRS, JULIA FORTMEYER,
tending Physician of the City Hospital: office, 1617 Washington avenue;
I am a graduate of the Bellevue College, New York. On last Monday P.M.
I made my regular visit to the hospital; found lying in ward Miss Louisa
Beehler; was informed by Dr. Homan that an abortion was committed on
her. She was lying there; pulse rapid, about one hundred and forty; abdo-
men tympanitic and tender; she had considerable fever, and complained
good deal of abdominal pain. I made vaginal examination; I found the
uterus enlarged and tender to the touch; I found the neck of womb lacerated
and ragged. From her condition and the injuries described, I diagnosed
that she had been delivered of a child, and that she had pelvic peritonitis.
To-day her mind is clear; in fact it has been since her admission. The
bones here presented are of a human—an infant in the seventh or eighth
month of gestation; perhaps at full time; they are well developed; from
appearance, had been burnt, and are the inorganic remains.
W.M. L. BARRETT.
Sworn to and subscribed before me,
this 12th day of August, 1874.
ENG. WoFRSTER, Coroner St. Louis Co.
William Fortmeyer, of lawful age, being duly sworn, upon his oath
states:–I live on corner Broadway and Chambers; I have been tending
bar; I have no trade; I am married to Mrs. Julia Fortmeyer; I have no
children by her; she practised midwifery for about six years; I am married
to her for over seven years; she also practised medicine; when living on
Fourteenth street, between Biddle and Carr, there I saw one sick lady lying
in my house. I know nothing about the case, except that the lady gave
birth to a child; this from what she said; I was never present at any of her
deliveries, for when such occurred I had to go off. Between three and four
months, while living at 1127 Brooklyn street, Mrs. Fortmeyer left me, we
not being able to agree; we have not lived together since; we met several
times; I do not know the deceased. I know Sarah Fay from one and a
Lalf to two and a half years. My wife told me that she had Sarah Fay in
her house; she had her to do housework; I do not know that she had her
for any other purpose
WM. FORTMEYER.
Sworn to and subscribed before me,
this 12th day of August, 1874.
ENG. VoßRSTER, Coroner St. Louis Co.
Henry B. Dwelle, of lawful age, being sworn, upon his oath states:–I
live and keep my office at 403 North Fifth street. I am a practising phy-
sician of the city; I am a regular graduate of the Medical University of New
York City. I do not know the deceased; I never saw her; I do not know
the cause of her death. I know deceased from no source. Of late Mrs. Fort-
meyer got no medicine off me; I saw her last about three months ago. From


THE BABY BURNIER. 35
about seven or eight years ago up to about one year ago Mrs. Fortmeyer
got medical advice in her own case and that of her husband; also for chil-
dren in her practice; also in obstetrical cases in her charge. When I first
made the acquaintance of Mrs. Fortmeyer I found she had some knowledge
of medicine and midwifery, and from her statement I was led to believe that
she got along pretty well with her cases. I did not find, from her seeking
information or from her statement to me, that she treated any of her cases
wrong. I do not think she had an extensive practice. She at times also
acted as nurse. About five or six years ago I knew that she had a case, the
locality of which I do not remember, in which she consulted me.
They were all cases of regular marked labor, and in them I gave her
generally office advice, and I may have been called to one or two cases. I
never found any but regular natural cases. At one time, about four years
ago, Mrs. Fortmeyer came herself and asked advice in a case of miscarriage;
I refused to have anything to do with the case, and did not give advice; she
only had a few, to my knowledge, which were not regular, in which I refused
advice; and at other times, when getting prescriptions for herself or other
parties, she would mention cases, and then I told her she would get herself
in trouble and warned her, saying it was a moral wrong. In all those cases
where I so warned her I judged them to be cases of abortion. One case
which I remember was about four years ago; a man came to me and inquired
about Mrs. Fortmeyer, and whether she was capable of taking a case of
abortion in the case of his wife; I then answered him by replying in regard
to the moral wrong of so doing; also that I had nothing to do with
Mrs. Fortmeyer in such cases; never had, and never shall. In about
six weeks after, Mrs. Fortmeyer informed me that the wife of this man
was dead
I looked upon Mrs. Fortmeyer as an abortionist these three or four years.
Since that time I had little as possible to do with her, and this little
was in legitimate practice; usually it was in cases of children. She would
bring many personally to me; at those times she gave me the symptoms of
disease and I would give medicine. For these cases she would ask for and
get medicine, and in case of gonorrhoea in men. I got the impression from
Mrs. Fortmeyer that she brought about abortion with instruments; I do
not know what kind of instruments she used, nor did she describe them to
me; I don't remember that she has told me anything in regard to medicine
she used in criminal abortion; I told her that in regular abortional cases, to
facilitate labor, to give a moderate dose of morphine; I told her to give it
after the patient had become exhausted.
This was when I first knew her, between five and six years ago; she
seemed ignorant of the action of morphine. About eight months ago I for-
bid her coming to my office. My treatment to her was of a professional
character. She did not get of nor through me a uterine syringe, nor did I
give a description of what size or kind to get; I think she had one.

36 MRS, JULIA FORTMEYER,
I became acquainted and gained her confidence when I treated her case
of poisoning about eight years ago with the electric battery and saved her.
HENRY B. DWELLE.
Sworn to and subscribed before me,
this 12th day of August, 1874.
ENG. VoIPSTER, Coroner St. Louis Co.
Wm. Jacob Metzger, of lawful age, being duly sworn, upon his oath
states:–I live in 309 Ashley street; I am police officer of the Third Dis-
trict of St. Louis, Missouri. I don't know deceased; I know Mrs. Fort-
meyer; that she has a sign out sometimes as a midwife. I know she lived
in Seventeenth street, between Morgan and Franklin; on Fourteenth and
Carr, and of late on Morgan, between Eighteenth and Nineteenth streets.
About six or seven weeks ago I was put on her track by Captain Bengton
to find out what her business was; wanted to ferret out case of abortion per-
formed on young girl from N. M. R. R., and Mrs. Fortmeyer was suspected.
The rooms occupied by Mrs. Fortmeyer were three rooms. Mrs. Rogers
had three rooms down stairs. There was stairway leading from down stairs
to Mrs. Fortmeyer's rooms; these stairs were boarded up. I eavesdropped
her at head of stairs, and learned from conversation that the girl would come
back. To get a full description of the woman I got my wife to interview
Mrs. Fortmeyer; she did so, and according to my instructions. My wife
stated that she came from Ferguson Station; that she was in trouble (which
she was), and that she wanted her to help her get rid of the cause of it.
Mrs. Fortmeyer told her it was easy to do that; that she would help her.
My wife told her she wanted it kept quiet, as she was from a good family.
Mrs. Fortmeyer agreed to take her case for one hundred dollars. My wife
told she was not quite ready, but would be in a few days. She also asked
her what she would do with the child, and she said, “I will burn it up:
ashes tell no tales.” My wife told her it was a good idea.
heard every word that passed between them while I was at the head
cº the stairs. At another time, on August 9th, 1874, while Mrs. Fortmeyer
as in the room of Captain's office, Third Police Station, I had conversation
with her; I told her she got into trouble, that somebody must have given
her away, and that she did not get into trouble with my case; and she
wanted to know when ; I told her on Spruce; upon this she said, “Ah, yes,
I thought I knew you.” I told her I felt very sorry for her; she said,
“Damn it, if I had any kind of a husband I would not have got into this
trouble; for as soon as it happened it could have been done away with.” I
asked her how it happened, and, without any inducement or influence
brought to bear, she told me the damn “ nigger wench” came in there with
her clothes all open, and she tried to get out of her what was the matter;
she would not tell her, but laid right down in her arms and died. In the
evening I visited her, and she told me Louisa Beehler's child was a girl, and
this she burnt it up. She said Dan Smith gave her three dollars and Louisa

THE BABY BURNER. 37
gave her eight. She asked me to go and tell Dr. Dwelle that she was in
trouble and wanted his assistance; I did not go. I left her; I came back
and told her I saw him and he said he did not know her. She then asked
me to write a letter for her to him. I told her I would if she would
dictate it. She did so, and I wrote the letter, which I did not send.
On the 11th I had another conversation with her; she asked me if I had
delivered the letter; I told her yes; she wanted to know what he done; I
told her he pulled his hair and walked the floor and tore it up, and was
nearly crazy and would try to raise the money by 7 o'clock. She then said
she thought she would make him come to his milk. I told her the police
were on track of Sarah Fay; wanted her as a witness against her, but that
they would never get her, that I saw her off on the train to Kansas City.
That I had a talk with Sarah, and she told me all about Mrs. Fortmeyer's
business. - -
I told her if Sarah testified against her she would send her to hell; she
replied, “Yes, I know it. She is the only woman in God's world that
saw me burn up those two young ones on last Saturday night.” I told her
the police were trying to find out what she had been doing in town. I told
her they weren’t smart enough. Upon this, she said she had done enough
to hang her a dozen times. Also that she burnt up a German girl's child
about three weeks before that, and if it was known she had burnt up over
one hundred all together. She asked me to get some punch, which I got
for her. She said that she burnt up her instruments.
W.M. J. METZGER.
Sworn to and subscribed before me,
this 13th day of August, 1874.
ENG. VoIRSTER, Coroner St. Louis Co.
Henry F. Ferguson, of lawful age, being sworn, states:—I live 1229
North Twentieth street. At police office district, at about 11 o'clock,
Sunday, August 9th, 1874, I was informed that a deceased form was at the
door of 1817 Morgan–Mrs. Fortmeyer's room. I passed by, mumbling a
song to allay my noticing the premises. A party was leaving the house,
and upon my interrogating her she said, “Mrs. Fortmeyer wants to see you.”
I went in ; she seemed friendly but excited, and informed me that the girl
had died, but would not tell the cause of death. I wanted to inform the
officer on his beat, she objected because he looked so cross. Then she told
me that the girl had an abortion performed on her somewhere else. I sus-
picioned her, and asked for the other sick woman, and she said she hated
for me to see her. I reported case to coroner.
She asked me to keep secret the other girl in the house. I could get no
information from the girl in the back room. She denied all relating to an
abortion in her case. She said she was sorry for coming there. Then I
asked to be let out the back way. I went Sunday P.M. with coroner and
assisted in taking some bones out of stove standing in the back room. I

38 MRS, JULIA FORTMEYER,
recognize those as the remains. I also saw a bent hook, and this is the same
here shown, which I took out of the stove on yesterday.
On entering the room on Sunday morning I smelt a curious medicine in
the room. I noticed a horse kick a bottle from out of the road in front of
the premises 1817 Morgan street; I picked it up and smelled the contents,
and found it to be the same smell as in the room. This is the same bottle;
has the same smell, but not so strong.
HENRY F. FERGUSON.
Sworn to and subscribed before me,
this 13th day of August, 1874.
ENG. VoßRSTER, Coromer St. Louis Co.
August Massman, being sworn, upon his oath states —I am police officer
of Third District. At about 11 o’clock A. M.. I relieved the officer in a
coroner's case at 1817 Morgan. On entering I found deceased lying dead
in front room ; could get no information as to cause of death; they thought
it was from an abortion; she said deceased had come to her after being
delivered.
In one room I found a patient, Louisa Beehler. Search was made for a
child lost by either the deceased or Louisa Beehler, and the remains of one
found in the stove. I saw bloody clothes; the mattress was bloody on which
the deceased lay, also some bloody clothes back of lounge on which Louisa
Beehler lay. From what I saw I took charge of Mrs. Julia Fortmeyer,
and took her to Third Police Station. Coroner had Louisa sent to City
Hospital; he also had deceased removed. Mrs. Fortmeyer afterwards made
confession to me that she delivered the child of Louisa Beehler with a
hook; that she got the hook right inside under the child; that the child
lived fifteen minutes. Not knowing what to do with it she put it in the
stove and burnt it up; she said she made her own hook; that the child be-
longed to Dan; that he paid her eight dollars; pay balance when she got
well, seven dollars.
AUGUST MASSMAN.
Sworn to and subscribed before me,
this 13th day of August, 1874.
ENG. VoºrsTER, Coroner St. Louis Co.
STATE OF MIssouri, County of St. Louis:
I, the undersigned, Engilbert Voerster, M.D., and the Coroner of St.
Louis County, do hereby certify, that, on the 13th day of August, 1874, and
at City Hospital, in city and county of St. Louis, I held view and inquest
on the dead body of Lena Miller, colored, and after hearing all the evidence,
and upon full inquiry concerning the facts, I made a careful post mortem
examination of said body and found: Externally no marks of violence. On
opening cavity of chest and abdomen found all organs except the uterus and
adjacent tissues normal, but drained of a great quantity of blood; found
uterus enlarged but empty; found the neck of womb lacerated; found great


Capt. Rider, the Counterfeiter, made Mrs. Fortmeyer take a terrible oath, that she would never reveal his secret.—Page 21.
Capt. ºtiber, ber ºnſidmünger, nimmt ſtrº. ºortmeper einen fürditerſiden Gib ab, baſſ fie ſein (Şeheimni mie betrathem tooſe-gette 21.



THE BABY BURNER. 41
contusion of vagina and adjacent tissues, and do hold that some great material
force was the cause of these injuries; and these produced hemorrhage, and
shock to the system from these. Found that there was abortion produced in
the case, and this criminal abortion.
ENG. VOERSTER,
Coromer St. Louis Co.
George Homan, being duly sworn, on his oath states:—I am Assistant
Resident Physician in the City Hospital. Louisa Beehler was admitted in
City Hospital, and assigned to ward twenty-three, Gynecological Ward.
On examination, found her with intermittent fever; but recovered from
fever now, and is convalescent otherwise. I verify the statement made by
Dr. Barrett, also, as relative to those inorganic remains of foetal skeleton.
GEO. HOMAN, M.D.
Sworn to and subscribed before me,
this 13th day of August, 1874.
ENG. WoRKSTER, Coroner St. Louis Co.
The preceding testimony was reproduced in the great trial in the St.
Louis Criminal Court, Judge W. C. Jones presiding, and the testimony was
reiterated from the witness box through the lengthy and searching examina-
tion of counsel. Mrs. Fortmeyer engaged as her attorneys the well-known
lawyers and advocates Colonel W. W. Arnett and E. A. Noonan. The
success of these gentlemen, in reducing the charge of murder against her to
manslaughter in the second degree, is considered one of the most remarkable
triumphs of legal skill and eloquence in the history of the bar. From the
opening of the case until its close, a period of some eight days, they skil-
fully fought the testimony, and were finally rewarded by not only saving
their client from the gallows but in receiving the comparatively light verdict
of manslaughter.
OPENING SPEECH OF E. A. NOONAN FOR THE DEFENDANT
GENTLEMEN OF THE JURY:-As one of the counsel for the defendant,
it is my duty—having been chosen to make the opening speech—to present
to you as briefly as possible the case of the defence. I am not expected to
dwell upon the law, but more properly to outline before you the salient
points of the testimony and the issues in the cause. My colleague, Colonel
Arnett, will elucidate the law and devote the time allotted him in applying
it to this case.
In opening, I will say, my client is before you charged under an indict-
ment for murder. What is an indictment? It is a written accusation against
one or more persons of a crime or misdemeanor, presented to, and preferred
upon oath or affirmation by, a grand jury legally convoked. The word is
derived from the old French word “inditer,” which signifies to point out.
After proper indictment the case comes before you and the “issues” are

42 MRS. JULIA FORTMEYER,
made up. What is an issue? It is a single, certain and material point,
deduced by the pleadings of the parties, which are affirmed on one side and
denied on the other.
My first purpose then shall be to discover the issue in this case, for there
is but one, and to it and the elucidation of it our whole attention should be
directed.
The charge is, that, on the night of the 9th of August, 1874, Julia E.
Fortmeyer, the defendant, did premeditatedly, intentionally, wilfully, and
with malice, kill the infant child of Sarah Beehler. The indictment
further charges that its life was destroyed by burning in a certain stove;
said stove being filled with inflammable matter. Now this charge makes
the issue that you are sworn to try; namely, did Madam Fortmeyer, pre-
meditatedly, intentionally, wilfully, and with malice, destroy the life of the
deceased infant by burning, as asserted by the prosecution?
We say she did not, and from the testimony presented we propose to show
that the child was dead when placed in the stove; that it was killed in the
operation of abortion, and that the crime lacks the elements of murder:
namely, premeditation, intention, wilfulness, and malice. We assert that
the testimony shows that the instrument used produced death; and thus
under the statutes of our State the crime of manslaughter in the second de-
gree can only be sustained. Again, then, let me repeat that there is but one
issue in this cause, and that is, whether the defendant is guilty of murder
in the first degree, as charged, or simply guilty of manslaughter in the
second degree. Whether the State has established a crime that will consign
her to the gallows, or whether she shall simply dwell in a penitentiary for
not less than three nor more than five years. In other words, was the child
living or dead when its body was consuming in the fire of Madam Fort-
meyer's den?
Upon the determination of this point, gentlemen, depends the fate of this
woman; and in deciding upon it you should concentrate around it all the
intelligence of your minds, all the fairness of your justice, linked with all
the mercy that her position warrants.
In analysing the evidence for the prosecution you will find the most im-
portant of it the testimony of Sarah Beehler, the mother of the deceased,
and the witness following her, Sarah Fay. In viewing the statements of
Sarah Fay, it will be most meet for you to remember her relation to the
accused. She stands before you as one who has been for a considerable time
living under the roof, and even in the very rooms, where it is charged this
crime was committed. Across her evidence passes a cloud of accessory guilt,
and ere it can be dispelled the State must show her innocence, and want of
knowledge of what was transpiring around her. Can this be shown 2 No!
for from her conduct on the stand, and the manner in which she testified,
you must credit her with intelligence and an understanding of crime; while
from her hasty, anxious, interested manner arises the terrible conviction.
that she had a hand in the dark deeds of the defendant's life.

THE BABY BURNER. 43
Then, when she swears that the child was living when thrown into the
flames—when it is endeavored to supply through her the necessary link in
the chain of evidence that is wanting—it is for you to say whether it can be
supplied by this person who herself acknowledges to being present when
the crime was committed. Again, her evidence differs now from that given
before the coroner, and differs again, most materially, from the sworn state-
ments of the mother. -
All this you will remember, gentlemen, and as I desire to be brief, and
am loth to dwell upon these disgusting recitals, I shall leave them with you.
As I have outlined the case, presenting its prominent features and its
only issue, preparing the way merely for my able colleague, let me conclude
by saying a few words for my client.
Opposed to us we have the powerful argus-eyed influence of the State.
Their machinery reaches into the most hidden and inaccessible coverts.
Their keen-eyed detectives shadow the subject of their search or suspicion.
The treasury of the metropolis is at their command, and they use it to secure
a conviction.
On the other hand, the defendant is almost in penury. The wolf of want,
emaciated from hunger, stalks with silent but deadly step across her path,
its lean jaws and glassy eyes threatening her with death. Witnesses of her
acts and life, that would be valuable in her defence, have fled the State,
while those of importance to the prosecution are kept within the reach of
the county officials. Physicians who are “particeps criminis” to her offence
of abortion tremble in their steps, and dwellers in lordly mansions spend
sleeplessly the hours of night dreading the terrible denouement that may be
made. Many of our witnesses are not here, shrinking, as they do, a con-
nection with this horrible case. These are but few among the insuperable
difficulties that we meet in building our defence and keeping this woman
from the gallows. But with all these difficulties in our path, and with the
knowledge that we will be followed by the able representative of the com-
monwealth, still we feel that before such a jury as we see to-day impartial
justice will be done.
Cruel as the heart and cold as the soul of the defendant may be, she still
bears the impress of her Maker. Like unto the Arctic seas may I liken her
conscience: still like those same seas parts of her cold soul have floated into
genial climes and dotted the surface of a tempest-tossed life. And in her
inner heart leaves opened to me in her conversation—penetrating, as I did,
into the Sahara of her life, I have found oases of kindness and womanhood,
that warrant me in stating that she is not an example of total depravity.
You must not treat her as something inhuman, for in her arteries circu-
lates the same blood that distinguishes mankind from the brute. Pulsating
and throbbing from her heart a current flows that stamps upon her the seal
of God's own image. Her heart may be blacker than ours, but under the
law of the land she is entitled to a careful and just hearing, an unbiased
verdict.

44 MRS, JULIA FORTMEYER,
Calcined bones of dead infants have been brought before you, and the
State, from these embers of once human forms, has drawn a picture that out-
brutalizes the brute. The black hour that gave birth to the blacker act
of Madam Fortmeyer's crime and cremation has been stated; and a vivid
drama of her sins is fresh upon your minds, still upon this day of her trial
there must appear upon the horizon of evidence only such matters as refer
to the particular act with which she is now charged.
There is a social ocean of crime, and upon its surface float many barks;
when tempest-tossed and oceanward sinful mariners cry to their Maker for
mercy, the soft, kind star of penance rises into their view, and by its light
they see their Saviour cheering them with the hope of forgiveness. This is
heaven's charity, and will it not sanction in your verdict, gentlemen, an
element of human charity? It will! and in this case, as well as in all others,
you are justified in recognizing it.
Our position, gentlemen, as attorneys for the defendant at the bar, places
us indeed in an unenviable position. Against us, and our efforts in her be-
half, we feel the power of a merciless indignation. The populace receiving
their impressions, as they do, from a sensational press, look upon this case
as the most horrid in the annals of crime. That press gave to the world
but an ex parte statement, and before you for the first time has the defendant
had an opportunity of being heard. This indignation and suddenly con-
ceived opinion is honest, but, like hasty opinions generally, is somewhat
unjust.
Public opinion has made too many terrible errors to justify it in receiving
much respect at your hands. It was mistaken public opinion that brought
on all the unjust wars and persecutions of the past. It was public opinion
that eighteen hundred and seventy-five years ago crucified the Saviour of
men. It was public opinion that with the sword decimated the finest
nations of other days, and with the torch consumed millions of homes whose
cheerful, innocent dwellers asked only for liberty and peace. He who kneels
to that opinion, when he knows his cause is right, is a base ingrate and
slave, and deserves not to breathe the sun-cheered air of freedom while in
life, or feel the soft presence of the most holy of freedoms when his soul has
passed beyond and meets the embrace of a pleased and satisfied Creator.
I thank you, gentlemen, for your kind attention and indulgence, and if I
have been over zealous it is but because I plead for an impartial justice for
this woman, such a justice as is guaranteed to the most criminal as well as
to the most perfect in our republican land. We expect at your hand, ac-
cording to the testimony and law in the case, a verdict not of murder but of
manslaughter in the second degree.
The court-room was one mass of human beings on the day that the argu-
ments of counsel were being made. The defendant's attorneys, notwith-
standing their well-known eloquence and ability, were looked upon as
undertaking a herculean task. Shortly after Mr. Noonan finished, W. W.

THE BABY BURNER. 45
Arnett, the defendant's senior counsel, arose and addressed the jury as fol-
lows—the breathless interest manifested during Mr. Noonan's remarks was
intensified when his senior colleague arose to speak:-
SPEECH OF COLONEL W. W. ARNETT FOR THE DEFENDANT.
IF THE Court PLEASE, AND You, GENTLEMEN OF THE JURy:—
arise, I admit, with sympathy for this prisoner; yet I shall ask you to do
nothing which will militate against the majesty of the law or contravene the
avoirdupois of evidence.
My commiseration for the accused is excited simply by the spectacle she
exhibits of a fellow-mortal crushed beneath a weight of wretchedness and
woe. From me she is the recipient of sympathy, because the subject of
suffering; solely the object of pity, because the prisoner of pain; and that
too without reference to who she may be, or what she may have done, and
utterly irrespective of whether her condition has been the consequence of
of her fault or the effects of her misfortune! For, gentlemen of the jury,
the fountains of the soul ebb and flow responsive to no fixed periods; nor
are they stirred or stilled in obedience to any established laws; and it is
equally true that the emotions of the heart are neither awakened nor allayed
in compliance with any commands of the head. The tear of pity never
delays its starting for reason to sanction as worthy the object upon which it
is shed, and the ºutbu 's of the soul never lie dormant for the judgment to
approve as deserving the creature in whose interests they have shot forth.
No, gentlemen, it is simply the sight of human suffering which excites
human sympathy. Human sympathy that noblest of all the heart's attri-
butes, which is coextensive with the expanse of the universe, and will prove
commensurate with existence of the imperishable soul.
Wherever human suffering is felt, human sympathy will be found. Its
gentle influence will descend like the dews of heaven, a balm for the wounds
and solace for the sufferings consequent upon the ills of earth—utterly regard-
less of who the victim may be, in what clime he was born, or to what country
he may belong-thus showing itself one of the loftiest and most ennobling
attributes of a reasoning creature.
But, gentlemen of the jury, my sympathy, enlisted as I have indicated,
is increased by the reflection that this culprit is a woman, a weak woman,
and therefore less able to breast the dark billows by which she is buffeted;
and it is still further intensified by the recollection that in the ridst of her
troubles she is deserted, and even despised by all the world. Verily, indeed
is she “trodden down, alone, forsaken.” In all the swelling tide of human
life there is not one heart that pulsates with pity for her; in the vast uni-
verse of God, he only excepted, there is not one soul that throbs with
sympathy for her; in all not one breast that warms with even friendship
for her. Worse than Niobe, she is not only “childless” but husbandless,
houseless, homeless, friendless, defenceless. -

46 MRS, JULIA FORTMEYER,
Truly do I, gentlemen, appearing here as her accredited proxy to speak
for her, feel buoyed by the thought, as well as blessed in the consciousness,
that I stand here, Oroloso-like, “the friend of the defenceless.” In this the
hour of her sore trial she sits here solitary and alone. On account of the
furious attacks of the press and the almost fiendish assaults of the police,
she is left with none even to care for her, the entire world having withdrawn
from her, thereby severing the last tie that in this sphere of affection binds
us all to each other, “the common bond of sorrow.”
Excepting myself and associate, her humble advocates, she can look for
success only to that all-merciful Being who never forsakes even the vilest.
In him she will assuredly find a friend. How mighty the contrast! how
cogent the corollary While many have become too debased to continue
the comrades of men, not one has ever fallen so low as to render him unfit
to be the associate of God. Daily do we see this exemplified. Men often
become so righteous that they feel bound to turn their backs upon the vile,
yet God has never grown too pure to press the basest to his bosom. Mani-
festly indeed was this made known by the moral of a fact which in ringing
tones comes floating down to us over all the dreary waste of the past seven-
teen centuries, reverberating from the summit of Calvary and reëchoing a
sound from the crucifixion. When nailed to the cross between the two
malefactors, one asked to be remembered when he should come into his
kingdom, the Saviour of the world responded in tones the echoes of which
are still resounding, “This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise.” I have
never been charged with being pharisaical; I don't believe I am hypocritical;
but laying myself obnoxious to the accusation, I do feel constrained to say,
thank God for that ever memorable language.
But, gentlemen of the jury, I not only approach the argument of this
cause with sentiments of sympathy for this culprit, but with feelings of
intense anxiety as to my own ability for the task. I never have, and I
presume I never shall, enter upon the discussion of a cause involving the
liberty of an individual without serious apprehensions as to my competency
for the duty; but when it comes to issues involving the life of a human being,
I am overwhelmed with alarm lest some error of mine shall produce conse-
quences which no length of time can heal, no created being cure. My un-
easiness cannot be less on this investigation, for let me assure you, gentle-
men of the jury, this is a cause which entails obligations on me that are only
equalled in weight by the responsibilities it imposes upon you, and only
surpassed by its overlasting consequences to the defendant at the bar.
Truly can I assert that in this land life has no responsibility graver than
that with which you are clothed, and the lot of man no duty more important
than that with which you are charged. Time cannot determine the conse-
quences of your decision; the cycle of eternity alone can ordain the limits
thereof. Sirs, in your hands you hold the life of a human being. Equal
to the God who gave it, you are possessed of the power to take it away.
Like the Deity who made, you can declare it forfeited; and you are the only

º
Sarah Fay testified:—“I saw Mrs. Fortmeyer put the helpless infants into the burning stove, heard their feeble wails,
and saw her pour coal-oil upon them.”
€arab sat beseugte:—ººd ſal) ºré. §ortmeper bie & ſinginge in beſt trengerºe: Siè: #erien, ºtte beven Sammertöne umb ſal) fie Stoffſenåſ auf bieſelben gießen."


THE BABY BURNER. 49
body, individual or collective, who in this land of ours is clothed with such
an absolute prerogative.
Can you be further more fully or more emphatically admonished of the
responsibility of your trust? Is there an earthly consideration that will
more forcibly remind you or more indelibly impress you with the absolute
power conferred upon you than the reflection that you are permitted in your
sound discretion as men to destroy that life which it required a God in his
profound wisdom to create? I pray, gentlemen, I implore you, to realize to
its utmost import the great responsibility with which you are intrusted.
Sirs, it is not only the present which regards you an important jury, but the
future likewise will record yours among historic panel. Those of to-day
will remember, and those of coming years will retrospect the part you are
performing as one of the most solemn scenes ever enacted upon the theatre
of an earthly assize.
And now, gentlemen, having submitted these general but natural reflec-
tions, we come to the real issues. Though introductory, yet, gentlemen,
allow me to assure you that these considerations should be looked upon by
you as not only central but colossally so in your deliberations upon the
matters involved. Though abstract as to this issue, they are essential ideas
in your deliberations; though submitted in the manner indicated they should
not be the less seriously considered. Right here a primary and prominent
inquiry is propounded; it is, What are the issues involved in this cause of
“The State of Missouri vs. Julia E. Fortmeyer?” What has this jury,
under the pleadings, been sworn to try and decide? This is a desideratum
of utmost moment, indeed it is an indispensable requisite, a sine qua non to
a correct decision of the cause; for how can any jury decide an issue intel-
ligibly without knowing exactly and mathematically what the issue is? This
ascertained, the duty is evident. What, therefore, are you to determine
from the evidence in this cause? I tell you the court will so declare to
you, and the representative of the State will concede to you, that the issue
is resolved and narrowed down to this single, simple interrogatory, Was or
was not the infant of Louisa Beehler, spoken of in the indictment, alive when
it was cast in the stove in said indictment mentioned and described 2 That is
the only issue!
It is not whether the child was born; not whether it was born alive; not
whether it had run the full term of gestation; not whether it was brought
into the world with instruments, used generally in producing abortion; not
any nor all of these but solely and simply whether or not the child was alive
when cast into the furnace? Not whether it was cast thereinſ not by whom
it was deposited there! nor yet whether there was a fire in the stove nor
whether or not it was ignited by Mrs. Fortmeyer; nor whether or not Mrs.
Fortmeyer was an abortionist nor how long she had been such; nor whether
she burnt any other children; not, I reiterate, any nor all of these; but, I
repeat, simply, whether or not that infant of Louisa Beehler was alive when
cast into the stove? If it was alive her crime is murder: if it was dead it
4.

50 MRS, JULIA FORTMEYER,
was not murder; for if the child was dead surely she could not have been
guilty of killing it, manifestly not of murdering it.
Again, gentlemen, let me assure you the character of a party charged with
crime is not in issue; is not to be taken into consideration by the jury: not
by any means. In accordance with this idea, the god of justice of the ancients
was painted blind. Whether the defendant be a Christian or an infidel is
a matter of no concern to the jury. All the basest as well as the best stand
upon a common plain, a grand aggrarian level. No matter who the de-
fendant is or what his moral character, he is entitled to the same presump-
tions of law, and the same impartiality of trial. Whether he be a paragon
of moral grandeur or a prince of the basest turpitude, whether prototype of
saintly virtues or a pattern of the blackest impiety, is not even to be con-
sidered; all stand upon a common base. The lowest as well as the highest,
the poorest as well as the richest, the vilest as well as the best, are all of one
class, all in one category. The most influential in your councils, the most
wealthy in your exchanges, the most eloquent at your forum, and the most
righteous in your sanctuaries, are entitled to no greater legal privileges and
no higher legal protection than the veriest beggar in the streets or the vilest
wretch in your jails.
This grand equality is the shining, crowning glory of our criminal juris-
prudence. The question of ethics is one cognizable before a higher court;
and a jury that would essay to consider the moral character of a culprit
would be guilty of a rash invasion upon the province of the world's great
arbiter, before whom you and I and all of us must in turn appear and
answer for the deeds done in the body; that tribunal which to the clear dis-
covery of truth needs no testimony; that forum in which mistakes are im-
possible, perjury unknown, and prejudice unheard of
No, gentlemen, the only issue, I again reiterate, is whether or not the
infant was dead when cast into the furnace? We maintain it was, and here
let me introspect what you will be instructed by the court, and stated by
the Circuit Attorney; what all must concede, that it is not our business to
prove the child was dead, but incumbent upon the State to show that it was
alive at that time. The law presumes the defendant innocent until her guilt
is established, and that presumption imposes the affirmative upon the State,
and as a result thereof makes it incumbent upon them to prove in this in-
stance that the child was alive at the time. They must prove it was alive,
not we that it was dead. And allow me here to interject the remark that
the presumption of innocence is not a mere arbitrary inference of law, nor yet
was it established out of tender regard to the accused, but as a matter of
equity, of justice, and of right.
Because a great State is the prosecutor, with all the means and appliances
necessary to procure papers and persons against an humble defendant, gen-
erally without wealth and often devoid of influence; because the infractors
of law are in the minority, the exception and not the rule, it is but equity
that the State should hold the affirmative, and that being the case, the proof

THE BABY BURNER. 51
being upon the State, let us, therefore, see by what evidence and by what
character of evidence they expect in this cause to prove that the child was
| alive.
I ask you, gentlemen, to mark and remember well that there were, ac-
cording to the uniform testimony of all the witnesses, only three persons
present on that fearful August Saturday night, three including the defendant,
who said first, and has uniformly asserted ever since, that although the child
was born alive, at full term, that its head was injured by the delivery; that
it lived fifteen minutes afterwards and then died. This is a reasonable story,
and I believe before God is the truth. Now who are and what is the character
of the witnesses who offer dissent to that statement? They are Louisa
Beehler and Sarah Fay. What are their characters? for their characters are
to be considered in deciding whether they have stated the truth or have
uttered a falsehood. Why they are utterly unworthy of belief! Why from
their own words they are accomplices, and I shall try them only by their
own words! Who is Sarah Fay? She is a woman who, according to her
own statement, has known this defendant for two years; has lived in the
same house with the accused; a woman who was cognizant of what was
transpiring therein; a woman who was the handmaid to this prisoner; a
woman who concealed what she says she saw ; a woman who affected to de-
spise what she assisted in performing; a woman who, according to her own
testimony, has turned her back upon her former benefactor, and practised
towards her only friend a species of malignant and mercenary meanness; a
woman whose trade, as shown by her own testimony, is treachery, and whose
profession is a compound of perfidy and prostitution. If this prisoner was
the principal, Sarah Fay was the second in that theatre of blood and those
scenes of slaughter. Such is Sarah Fay, whose testimony, except that of
Louisa Beehler, is the only evidence upon which you are asked to doom this
woman to death on the scaffold.
º who is Louisa Beehler? She is a creature of the female sex who,
according to her own testimony, is the unlawful and unnatural mother of
the illegitimate child whose homicide is the cause of this prosecution. She
is a woman who, conscious that her condition of disgrace would soon be dis-
covered, fled from the gaze of the world; she is a woman who assayed to
conceal the evidences of her licentiousness within the hidden abodes of the
midnight obstetrician. Worse, and more horrible still than that, she was a
woman who calmly sought refuge from the scoffs and jeers and scorn of the
world through the arts of the abortionist; a woman who, dead to the love
of maternity, dead to every womanly instinct, dead to every sense of de-
cency, has disgraced her sex, her color, and her human nature. She, a pure
Caucasian, yielded herself in luscious embrace to the unadulterated African;
she, a white woman, allowed herself to hold dalliance and exchange caresses
with a negro man; she, a daughter of America, locks and revels in sexual
embrace with a son of Ham; converts her body into a swill tub, receptacle
for the seminal deposits of the lecherous black, and then, yes, and there,

52 MRS, JULIA FORTMEYER,
attempts to wipe from her character the dark stain of her miscegenal amours
with the innocent blood of her murdered offspring. These are the witnesses,
and these the characters of the witnesses upon whose testimony you are asked
to take the life of the prisoner.
Great God ºf Human nature cries out at the very mention of the
thought. Convict a woman upon such evidence as this! Convict men
upon the evidence of friends ! It is made the duty of courts everywhere in
Christendom to instruct the jury to pay but little attention to the testimony
of accomplices. Many judges both in this country and in England have
gone to the extent of instructing the jury that they must under no circum-
stances base a conviction upon the testimony of the prisoner's accom-
plices, and it is right the law should be so. You can only decide whether
to believe or disbelieve a man according as you know his character for truth
and veracity; and upon the same principle, you have no way of determining
what credibility to ascribe to each witness except as you know his standing
for honesty and veracity.
Sirs, I care not whether the statements of these persons concerning them-
selves and what occurred be true or false, the effect is the same, to utterly
annihilate all confidence in their veracity. If their declarations are facts,
they establish their unworthiness of credibility by displaying their absolute
disregard for the demands of the law, and their supreme contempt for the
claims of morality. If they are false, they exhibit by example their entire
want of veracity by their sovereign indifference to the teachings of truth,
and their superlative insensibility to the obligations of an oath.
In fact, whatever occurred was done in the interest of Louisa Beehler.
She was the party interested in the destruction of the life of that offspring,
not the accused. It was she whom a few more days, may hours, of gestation
would have made a disgraced mother of a dishonored child, and that too of
the blackest paternity; not this defendant. She only was the party to whom
the death of the child would bring relief fºom degradation.
But, gentlemen of the jury, not only are they shown unworthy of confidence
by reason of the part tº e taken in the dark and terrible transaction
detailed, but they have exhibited their utter unreliability by the contradic-
tions in their own testimony, and by the conflict of their statements with
each other. You will remember, Louisa Beehler says she does not know
what became of her child; she merely saw it when it was born, a simple
glance, barely enough to show its head was injured and the brain visible;
and she saw the prisoner deposit it at the foot of the bed, wrapped in swad-
ling clothes, and leave it there. More than that she does not know and did
not see, except she says the child did not cry, but did make some slight
noise similar to a shriek, and that was all!
Whereas, Sarah Fay says she saw the child taken directly from the mother's
womb, and that forthwith it was carried and cast into the stove. Louisa
says the prisoner placed it at the foot of the bed, where it was when she fell
asleep, and that she does not know that it was cast into the stove, or if so,

THE BABY BURNER. 53
when Hence, Sarah Fay is the only one who can tell the tale. And she
is not only contradicted by the statements of the prisoner, over and over
repeated, and by the mother, as already shown, but her own statements are
inconsistent with themselves, one part in direct conflict with another. She
stated before the coroner that she did not see the child taken from the
mother at all, but afterwards saw the prisoner wrap something in brown
paper and cast it into the stove. Now she says she did see it born, heard it
cry, and saw it immediately cast into the furnace. Statements utterly incon-
sistent with each other. -
In the second place, she says before the tribunal of the coroner that Louisa
Beehler did tell her that Daniel Elliot, colored, was the father of her child,
whereas now, only three or four months afterward, she asserts in this forum
that the prosecutrix did not tell her so, but admits she did say so then.
In the third place, she said before the coroner that she did not hear the
child cry, now that she did distinctly hear it scream. Gentlemen, what con-
sistency! I regret to assert, these statements cannot emanate from one
aiming to tell the truth. If the contradictions were about immaterial mat-
ters I should not ask you to discredit her on that account. If it were in
regard to the time of day, or what some one said about an immaterial thing,
or as to the phraseology used in some expressions, I should say those cir-
cumstances were trivial, ought not to shake your faith in her words. But
when the contradictions are in respect to the great central figures in the
cause, the main facts, the prominent issues in the cause, I ask you to reject
every word she has uttered. I ask it because it is reasonable. I request it
because just. I expect it because it is right. I demand it because the law
requires it. The court will instruct you, and it is your bounden duty to
receive and regard such instructions.
Where, therefore, is the evidence that the child was alive when thrown
into the stove? Indeed neither of them undertakes to say it was living
at that time, although they do assert it was alive when born. Neither one
of them says it lived until that time; the prisoner declares it was dead. But
even if they did so assert, you cannot respect their statements, for, as I have
shown, they are unworthy of belief; because of the infamous characters of
the witnesses in the first instance, and because, in the second aspect, by
reason of their inconsistent and contradictory statements.
If nothing else existed to show the inveracity of Sarah Fay it would ap-
pear from her manner of testimony; she was indeed a swift witness; seated
in the witness box, she commenced without a single interrogatory, in race-
horse style, “My name is Sarah Fay; I lived with Mrs. Fortmeyer,” etc.;
and she was about to add, “she ought to be hanged,” when the Circuit At-
torney halted her, acting upon the advice of Paul Brown with respect to
a witness to “inspire the timid and repress the bold.”
No, gentlemen of the jury, the truth is that the child, if born alive, which
is very doubtful, was dead long before it was cast into the stove. The de-
fendant stated so to every one, three or four in number, to whom she has

54 MRS, JULIA FORTMEYER,
spoken. But there can be no doubt that if the child was not prematurely
born it was so injured that it died from the effects of the hook or means used
in bringing it into the world. If you believe that injury was unnecessary
to save either the life of the child or the mother, she, this prisoner, is guilty
under the statute of Missouri of “manslaughter in the second degree” only;
if you believe she did use the hook spoken of because it was necessary to
save the life of the child or the mother, she is guilty of no offence whatever,
and the court will so instruct you.
Allow me to say to you, gentlemen, that I hope, indeed hang with per-
fect confidence to the opinion, that you cannot find the defendant guilty of
murder in the first degree. Should you find her guilty of manslaughter, I
shall not be disposed to complain of the result which your deliberations shall
have reached. But even should the remark be considered obnoxious to criti-
cism, nay, more, to censure, I will assert that there is no evidence justifying
a verdict of guilty of murder.
And, gentlemen, suffer me to ask you to carefully consider the evidence
and say whether or not I am right in the position I have assumed. I only
ask this as a matter of justice, not of mercy. I do not ask for mercy, but I
do demand of you justice, and nothing but justice, and that justice mathe-
matically ascertained and impartially administered. I shall ask you to disre-
gard everything like prejudice, everything akin to passion, and to decide
the cause according to the law and the evidence, and nothing else.
I am constrained by candor to confess that I cannot present my client to
you as a type of pure womanhood, nor yet as one permanently entitled to
that mercy which falls like the gentle dew from heaven, blessing twice, both
him that gives and him that receives; nor do I ask you for mercy at all,
neither in determining the question of her guilt nor in determining the de-
gree of her punishment, though I should be justified in such demand.
It is permitted, as an equitable consideration entering into the considera-
tion of the jury, to contemplate the age, the education and breeding of an
accused, as also the nature of and circumstances of the character of their
crime. Hence, the latitude allowed by the law in cases of larceny, from two
to five years. The one who in younger life has been brought up in the fetid
atmosphere of vice, who has never known the gentle influences of a mother's
advice, or the favored restraints of a fond father's admonitions, is not con-
sidered deserving as severe punishment as the one reared under more favor-
able circumstances. Likewise, the man who, like Jean Valjean, steals to
avoid starvation is not meriting as rigid punishment as the one who, like
Tweed, commits larceny merely to accumulate gain. And while I am bound
to admit that the accused seems to be wanting in clemency, yet I can, upon
every principle of law, reason, and revelation, claim mercy at your hands.
I could consistently ask you to remember that this life is only a state of
probation, in which none are perfect; a life in which all are possessed of
evil passions and depraved appetites, and which compel all to violate the
law; a life in which punishment is intended not as a vengeance but as a

The Counterfeiters, whose secret Mrs. Fortmeyer had learned, attempted to
assassinate her at Quincy, Illinois.-Page 21.
Qie ºaſidjminger, beren (Şeheimni ºré. ºortmeyer erfahren batte, betſudjen, fie in
Quincy, Slinois, 3a ermorben.—&eite 21.








THE BABY BURNER. 57
precaution against future offences, by reforming the one upon whom it is
inflicted or by the example to benefit society. I could, therefore, ask you
for elemency in reaching your verdict as well as inflicting punishment, be-
cause, gentlemen of the jury, according to transcendental German philos-
ophy, the God of the universe would not consent to create man until mercy
had promised to go with him through the world.
Equally could I, gentlemen of the jury, be excused for reminding you
that all that can save you from a worse fate than can possibly await the
prisoner is mercy. But I do pray you not to forget that we are all imperfect,
all sinful, and until you can say that you are not, let no one think of ven-
geance, but simply treat this prisoner as any other imperfect individual who
only differs from you in degree; “Let him that is without sin cast the first
stone.”
But, gentlemen, I implore you to remember that if you inflict upon this
woman the severe penalty of murder in the first degree there is no chance
of correcting any error that you may commit, as you might if the future
were to develop her innocence, should she be sent to the penitentiary. The
grave covers up all the violence that may be done her; even a God cannot
undo it without a violation of the economy of nature's law.
But, gentlemen, to conclude, there is much I must omit, much upon which
I would be pleased to comment. Victor Hugo has said, and said truly,
“ that is a solemn hour in which the world pronounces shipwreck on a
luman soul.” Too often do we forget, not only in public administrations
of justice but in our private estimate of individuals, that charity which Saul
of Tarsus so much extolled—that virtue which was above all others, the
greatest of the three, charity. We fail to temper our ardor for punishment
with the reflection that we ourselves are, as human beings, imperfect, and
being imperfect are necessarily violators of law, differing only in kind, dis-
similar, it may often be, alone in degree. We have allowed to become obso-
lescent, if not obsolete, the great example of the Nazarene God, with the
weeping and repentant Magdalene, when as accusers they were reminded, in
substance, to remove the beam from their own eye; he told them, as physicians,
to cure themselves, by requesting that only the righteous should prefer the
indictment; all having fled, he told her to go and sin no more. How seldom
is this thought of when the public tongue is clamoring for the punishment
of some criminal, or the public eye is glistening with sanguinary fury to
behold some offender suspended from the gallows?
Why, gentlemen, it is impossible to find a solution of the circumstances
which lead men to crime, except in the idea that all are imperfect. Who
can tell why one is good and another is bad? Aye, who can declare why
his character is just what it is? Circumstances make and mould our dispo-
sition, and who can tell what particular circumstance created a particular
trait of character? and especially whether the circumstance was within or
beyond his control. Who, digging a spadeful of detritus from the delta of
the Mississippi, can tell from what western hillside it was washed 2 The

58 MRS. JULIA FORTMEYER,
great Father of Waters and its tributaries draining myriads of acres and
drifting its alluvial gatherings to that bourne, it is impossible to say from
what particular spot the detritus came. So with man, he gathers ideas and
forms habits and frames characteristics from all creation, and who can tell
from what association a certain trait was gathered 2 A man's character is
what is moulded by teachings and gleaned from the associations of a life-
time, and no one can tell for how much he is responsible that is bad, nor
for how little he is deserving that is good.
I pray you, gentlemen, remember this, and decide this cause soberly from
the evidence, by means of your judgment, utterly free from prejudice.
Think of this, for, gentlemen, I must soon leave the cause with you. I
have very few more words to utter; the last word in her behalf will soon be
spoken, and then, gentlemen, you must retire. Oh! who can imagine her
anxiety during that interim 2 She will live years in those moments. With
what bated breath and rapid pulse she must hear your decision. I implore
you, do as you would wish to be done by.
True, she may be the only one in this world who will care, yet there is
one in heaven who will feel interested. He who will not even permit the
sparrow to fall to the ground without his care, cannot prove insensible to
the agony of an imperishable soul.
It is true that if judicially murdered she is only “one more unfortunate”
hurled “to her death.” The world will continue as busy, the sun shine as
brightly, the flowers bloom as sweetly, and all nature appear as grand as
before the wrong was committed against the rights of this poor, deserted,
despised, weak woman, but the shock will be felt as an injury that can be
repaired nevermore.
In conclusion, gentlemen, while I thank you for your patience, suffer me
to pray you to consider the evidence carefully, determine its weight accurately,
disregard all foreign communications, and, above all, decide justly. And may
the blessings of the Just in Spirit ever attend you both here and in the
“changeless beyond.”
The following letter from Colonel J. C. Normile, Circuit Attorney for
the County of St. Louis, will explain itself. We may add, however, that
the speech here presented contains every important point made by the elo-
quent gentleman, and that as a legal effort it will stand as one of the most
able and powerful appeals ever made to a jury in a court of justice:
ST. LOUIs, February 7, 1875.
MESSRS. BARCLAY & Co., GENTLEMEN:—I am in receipt of your com-
munication of the 4th instant, asking for publication my full argument for
the prosecution in the case of the State against Julia E. Fortmeyer. Were
it in my power to comply with your request I should take pleasure in doing
so ; but since it was only partially reported, the greater portion is lost even
to me. I have in my possession only the fragments published in our daily

THE BABY BURNER. 59
papers, which, together with a few additional notes, I herewith transmit
you with pleasure.
I have the honor to be your obedient servant,
J. C. NoFMILE, Circuit Attorney.
SPEECH OF COLONEL J. C. NORMILE, PROSECUTING ATTORNEY.
After the conclusion of Messrs. Arnett and Noonan's arguments for the
defence, Colonel Normile arose and said:
I am sick and weary of this trial and its disgusting details; my gorge has
risen at it, and it is with impatience I approach the final moment when the
mantle of responsibility shall pass from my shoulders to yours. Believe me,
gentlemen, that you occupy an important trust at this hour; you may be
unconscious of it, but you are in the annals of our city an historic group.
You will be remembered here long after we have all passed to dust, and
God grant that you may survive in the gratitude of those that will follow
us, whose best heritage will be a purified social code which your verdict
may do much towards perpetuating.
For seventeen years Julia E. Fortmeyer has pursued the abortionist's
dark and deadly calling. Year after year she has risen higher in her daring
and reckless career; bidding a bold defiance to our police, she has ranged
the city in her nefarious trade, and pursued it with impunity almost to
the threshold of this court-house. She has fallen, still she would carry
ruin and destruction in her descent; she would lay rude hands on our fairest
families; strip happy homes of their ornaments; into tombs would turn their
hearthstones, around whose once cheerful precincts she would leave but the
smouldering ashes of their hopes. Into the meridian blaze of public scandal
she has attempted to drag chaste matrons and timid maids, and on the wreck
of their fame she has essayed to float on the tide of time to after years and
make her own infamy immortal. Wretch! libellous wretch! with what
fiendish delight she withers reputations, denounces our social fabric as im-
moral and depraved, which at this hour she would have us believe to be
crumbling, reeling and tottering.
I have already explained to you at some length the two propositions of
law involved in the testimony, and I have also reviewed and analysed that
testimony with candor and fairness. I have attempted to conceal none of
its weaknesses; nor have I asked you to give efficacy and force to any fact
not warranted by the most frigid rules of logic or reason. This is either a
case of murder in the first degree or manslaughter in the second. I hold
that a careful examination of the facts in evidence will sustain a verdict for
the higher offence. That the child of Louisa Beehler was about eight months
advanced when it came to its death is admitted by the accused to three police
officers, and should this be deemed insufficient it is further proved by the
mother of the child whom I have placed before you. That this child was
born alive and cried is confessed by the accused, and is proven by its mother
and by Sarah Fay, the servant who was present.

60 MRS, JULIA FORTMEYER,
On precisely the same authority, I state that the child was fatally injured
on the skull by the iron hook that lacerated its brain, while it was being
prematurely introduced into this life by the defendant, but that notwith-
standing the serious or deadly injury it continued to live for a period be-
tween fifteen and twenty minutes. But was it living at the time the flames
were kindled around it? I hold that it is a principle of law that life being
established it is presumed to continue, and it devolves on the defence to
prove that life was extinct when placed in the stove.
Aside from this, Sarah Fay swears that the child was deposited in the
stove immediately on its being delivered; and it being admitted by the
accused that it lived at least fifteen minutes, it must necessarily have been
alive when it was laid in the stove; which was not then fired, it is true, but
which I have circumstantially shown was fired within the period intervening
between the birth and death of the infant. The turning point of this case
is involved in the testimony of Sarah Fay, and it is against this witness the
counsel for the defence have concentrated all their force, in the vain effort to
shatter or shake it.
Sarah was a simple servant in the employment of the defendant, receiving
the beggarly pittance of the meanest scullion, yet you have been told by my
opponents that you should look upon her as an accomplice, whose liberty is
purchased at the price of swearing away that of her former mistress. Surely,
gentlemen, I have already shown you that these my learned opponents have
been indulging their taste for baseless declamation. Sarah stands unim-
peached and uncontradicted. It is true, she told the coroner that Louisa
Beehler told her when she first came to be delivered that one Dan, a colored
man, was the father of her child. She now says that although she did make
such a statement on a former occasion, she was mistaken, and probably mis-
understood Louisa in confounding the man that brought her to the house
with her seducer. She has made no effort at prevarication; she is candid in
the avowal of her probable error; yet, strange to say, this circumstance that
must commend her to your confidence has been contorted into an occasion
for attempting to overthrow her veracity, and for the further attempt to send
her forth into the community a ruined and perjured girl.
Louisa Beehler was then in the same room, they have told you, and they
have asked in triumph how it was, if Sarah told the truth, Louisa could not
see the same facts. It was in vain that Louisa repeated on the stand that
the pain of the premature delivery was so great that exhausted and lacerated
nature sought refuge and relief in unconsciousness, and that just as the child
was taken from her she fainted and saw no more of her offspring. But they
have insisted that she could have known and seen all, and that, forsooth,
because she did not Sarah Fay must appear a perjured witness.
I have heard of strange actions of men under rare circumstances; I have
read of Nero fiddling as imperial Rome was being laid in ashes, but I have
never read in books of science that women should be cool and unconcerned
although writhing beneath the terrible throes of premature delivery; that
THE BABY BURNER. 61
amid the crucifying pangs of labor women should amuse themselves with
cracking nuts and catching flies. Louisa Beehler then must be pardoned if
she did neither; nor is Sarah called upon to produce such a miracle in order
that her own truth may be attested before a jury of intelligent men.
They have not even stopped here, they have lugged in the cheap prejudice
of race, and they have asked that German girl, Louisa, if nigger Dan was
not the father of her child? Even if he was, what has that to do with the
case? Louisa denies that her child had negro paternity; still the accused
insists that it was a little nigger, and the child of nigger Dan who brought
her there to be confined. In the name of humanity, I ask, is it not enough
that the accused has butchered this poor girl and dragged her to the brink
of that early grave from which science could barely save her? Is not this
enough to gratify fiendish malignity without seeking to destroy the remnant
of that reputation that is left her? But no, she would even now wantonly
drag her into the gaze of public scorn; drive her out from amid her kindred
and race, and consign her future and her fair features to the companionship
of black ruffians. In the name of this defenceless and outraged girl, I pro-
test against such an insinuation; I protest against it in the name of the
Caucasian race; and I trust that the day will never dawn on this enlightened
land when my vision will rest upon such a revolting spectacle.
Inviolate and sacred is the helpless life of infancy wherever society ex-
tends its protection; inviolate and sacred are our social sanctuaries, the source
of every virtue in which we ride in safety. To protect these, gentlemen, is
your high province; to protect these individual life must yield; the vile
must perish, and he that enforces the law with a Roman firmness and rids
us of them is a benefactor of his fellow-men. “ Thou shalt commit no
murder,” says the great law. Against this edict she has transgressed. This
is the voice that rises high above the hum of human opinion, ringing out
its solemn tones of warning amid the tempest of every passion, and in the
midnight darkness of doubt guiding us in safety and mooring our consciences
to the haven of eternal truth. The prisoner stands charged with the highest
crime known to the law. With the murder of an infant she is charged, with
a murder alike cruel and cowardly.
I hasten to close, gentlemen; I hasten to dismiss a theme so distasteful,
and I am now about to surrender to your keeping the welfare of the com-
munity, whose laws and morals the prisoner has outraged. Should the
child have met death in coming into this world by an instrument of abortion,
then under our statute I apprehend the court will instruct you that the
offence is only manslaughter in the second degree. But if you find, as I
hold you should, that although the child was dangerously injured by the
accused while performing the act of abortion, yet if nevertheless, it still
lived and continued after birth to have an existence separate from its mother's,
and that while living, though injured, it was cast into the stove still alive,
and met death by the flames she kindled around it, then I shall continue to
hold that the accused is guilty of the crime of murder in the first degree.


62 MRS. JULIA FORTMEYER,
In vain we search the dark annals of crime for a deed fraught with more
fiendish malignity. From the pale ashes of those helpless infants I have
placed before you, from the calcined bones brought here by the coroner,
there ascends an appeal that melts even the frozen heart, fires the bosom
with lofty indignation, yet humbles our pride of race and our boasted civil-
ization. I think I can see those little arms lifted above the flames; that I
hear the feeble voice rise in helpless suppliance; that I behold this stolid
wretch, as Sarah Fay describes her, bending over those little roasting bodies,
feeding the flames with the burning fluid, and with the malevolent spirit of
the demon gloating over the glowing embers and the tortures she would
prolong. From what stagnant pool of vice can we draw the dark coloring
that can deepen the guilt of the accused? Where can we gather attributes
that can heighten its horror? And where, oh, where, gentlemen of the jury,
can another be found that has attained an eminence as bad and brutal 2
Hers is a name
“The pale air freezes at,
And every cheek of man sinks in with horror–
A cold and midnight murderess.”
You must feel an oppressive weight in the air you breathe with her; a
repulsive shudder with which we instinctively shrink from a being abhorred
as every murderer has been from the hour when God affixed his blighting
brand on the brow of Cain. A murderer for what? For a mere pittance.
Urged on by no heated blood, smarting beneath a stinging insult; urged on
by no whirlwind or tempest of passion hurling reason from its throne. No!
No! Calm, deliberate and secure, she crushes out young life with remorse-
less cruelty. With a searching and inquisitive malice she explores the
source of generation and life, tearing the buds of human existence from
their stems, and scattering their sacred dust unurned and uncoffined among
the daily sweepings of her hearth. A mother herself, she has stifled every
maternal instinct. Death darts from those eyes that should beam with tender
sympathy, and black as the slime of the Stygian marshes is that soul that
should be fair, while her hands still reek from that carnival of blood she
shed with such prodigality and shed without shame. But enough! enough 1
our senses already reel and sicken. By the mangled and murdered remains
of those infants, by those scattered atoms of human clay, by those hushed
voices that in seeming silence pierce heaven with their appeal; by that
paternal glow that kindles your bosoms in love of your own helpless off-
spring that now look up to you for protection; by all these I conjure you
to deal with the defendant regardless of her sex—to deal with her as you
should with a deed that is dark and deadly, let it be done by whom it may.
Protect the little ones from the abortionist, for they cannot protect them-
selves. Guard the domestic hearth from desecration—guard the gentle
maidens around whose image the tendrils of a parent's heart are entwined-
guard her from the perjured arts of the libertine—say, beware! as he enters
the home whose peace he would poison—restrain your lust, for a Fortmeyer's
-

THE BABY BURNER. 63.
art can no longer flourish and save you. Arrest the tide of infant blood,
and reverence every shrine of virtue, or lechery will stalk abroad in our
midst, until chastity becomes the scoff of the town, and society sinks to the
level of the seraglio. Believe me, that issues that are grave are involved in
your verdict. I have charged the accused with the murder of an infant; I
have proved it, and in the name of humanity and justice, I now ask a verdict
of guilty.
During the delivery of Colonel Normile's speech for the prosecution the
immense crowd, who filled every inch of space in the large hall of the
criminal court-room, listened with breathless eagerness. The charges and
evidence had produced an overwhelming sense of horror in the community,
and men and women, old and young, heard for the first time in their lives a
tale of crime which few had before believed possible. And yet while all
this damning evidence was being accumulated and piled up in blackening
shape before her, Mrs. Fortmeyer sat veiled, but smiling under her veil, and
in some instances in such good spirits that her own counsel had to administer
a reproof to quiet her horrible mirth.
To such an extent had this woman carried her trade in murder that it is
surmised, from pretty accurate inquiries, that no less than one hundred
young girls and babies had been killed or burnt within the six or seven
years of her residence in St. Louis.
At least seventeen cases of baby burning have already been traced to her
hands, and more are being discovered weekly. It was partly through her
own mutterings in the jail of the words “Ashes tell no tales” that led to
the examination of the stove and discovery of the little human bones within.
Enough was then discovered to show the facts, but the world will never
know the full record of that burning list of deaths.
The prosecution insisted and expected a verdict of murder in the first de-
gree, but the view of the crime taken by the defence was successful with the
jury. After being out part of the day and all night, they returned with a
verdict of manslaughter in the second degree, and the defendant was sentenced
to five years in the penitentiary. The woman showed the greatest degree of
happiness at the result, and her counsel were elated over one of the most
remarkable legal triumphs in the annals of this State. The other indictments
against her were dismissed on compromise, the defendant accepting a sentence
of an additional five years. -
In an interview had with Mrs. Fortmeyer in the jail of the Four Courts
in St. Louis, the writer was introduced to a strongly-built woman of mode-
rate height, dark hair, turning gray, black eyes that sparkled and flashed
like coals of fire, a set of features once regular and beautiful, but now marred
and eaten by a terrible disease, and lighted up by a continuous smile as if
the soul within was pure and holy, and at peace with all the world. A con-
versation with this woman, however, soon dispelled any illusion that may
have existed with regard to her true character.
34 MRS, JULIA FORTMEYER.
º
While talking of those who had borne testimony against her, the coun-
tenance so smiling would suddenly be transformed into that of a fiend, and
without being conscious of the change the woman told hºr own story too
plainly to be mistaken. - º
When asked if she felt troubled about her future, her reply was: “No,
not at all, I have been visited by some pious ladies here who talked to me
about my soul and future state, but I believe I am a better woman than
any of them.” She said, “I was reared up in every luxury; I had my own
horse to ride; I mixed up with the first families, and every wish was grati-
fied; I am well acquained with many members of the first families in St.
Louis, and I could tell tales about some of them that would scare a gº
many out of their wits; I have lots of powerful friends who will see that
am set free. That girl, Sarah Fay,” and bere her features changed to a
demon's, “is a perjurer and liar; she has been paid to injure me; they have
tried to murder me here in the jail and to poison me, but I shall triumph
over all my enemies. My spirits are good and my health is poor; I am a
very delicate woman, not at all strong, but I shall survive this persecution
and triumph over all my enemies.” - - -
In answer to the question, Are you a member of any Christian church?
she replied, “Yes, I am a Catholic; my parents were Protestants, but I
joined the Catholic Church about nine years ago, and consider myself
still a member. I am thirty-seven years old, but my trouble makes me look
older.” On being questioned about the children's bones in the stove, she
said, with a smile, “They were all dead, and most of them were born so; I
was interested in the mothers and not the children.”
On taking leave, she was asked for her portrait, and she then promised
that no other person should ever have her picture while she was alive and
in jail. With a cheerful shake of the hand and a pleasant smile on her face,
we parted with the greatest female criminal of this or any other age.
Mrs. Fortmeyer's life and record is but one of several such of lesser note
in our midst. The writer is acquainted with one who throughout the sum-
mer season visits the Union Market, on Fifth street, every Saturday night
to ply her nefarious trade. With a market basket on her arm, filled with
suggestive little circulars, she approaches every probable patient in the future
and slyly slips one of those circulars into the hands of the victim. The
result is a spread of evil, ruin and death, and until the public, with one
unanimous cry, unite to stop the evil, it will go on increasing year by year,
and Mrs. Fortmeyer will be only one of a brood to be hatched for the cursing
of generations yet unborn.
THE END, .
ºf -
º º, ſº * / . . º - tº
-