May Be One

Detroit Free Press, February 6, 1875

Farmers from Nankin Township report the presence of some animal which has been killing sheep and raising timid peoples' hair by its unearthly howls. Some think it is a wolf, others believe it is a panther, and the remainder are unprepared to express an opinion.

Ghost Story #24: Baker Street Brick House Tenanted by Spirits of the Other World

Detroit News, January 5, 1875

 

Tea Leaf Fortune Are Taboo in Detroit

The Ludington Daily News, September 24, 1930

DETROIT, Mich., Sept. 24. - (AP) - Police and the courts of this city are bearing down on the reading of tea leaves in tea rooms. 

Mrs. Emma Libson, 48, and Miss Margaret King, 31, were before Judge Edward J. Jeffries Tuesday on fortune-telling charges preferred by patrolmen who visited a tea room.

The policemen said that they paid $1 for a cup of tea and a sandwich and that their "fortunes" were read in the cups. 

Judge Jeffries adjourned the case two weeks, and told the women: "If you don't get out of this business it is going to be too bad for you."

Tea rooms where a "reading" is thrown in with the refreshments have been a fad with many persons here for some weeks.

Charges Sorcery in Suit to Regain Her Property: "Augusta," Who Sells Detroit Candy and Flowers, Says Friend Bewitched Her

Detroit Free Press, June 18, 1915

Tales od witchcraft and sorcery were told in Judge Hally's court Thursday, where Augusta Bierwith is suing Mr. and Mrs. George Weston to recover half interest in a house and a lot at 284 Humboldt avenue.

For many years Miss Bierwith, or "Augusta," as she is known, has sold flowers, candy and chewing gum in Detroit. With proceeds of her sales, she says she bought the Humboldt avenue property, deeding half interest to Mr. and Mrs. Weston, with whom she made her home.

Now she alleges that at the time she executed the deed she was under the control of Mrs. Weston, by whome she says she was "sorcerized." Relatives brought suit in probate court recently to have Miss Bierwith declared incompetent of handling her own property. The request was denied. Mr. and Mrs. Weston say they have cared for "Augusta" for several years and that half interest in the property is no more than they deserve.

Voodoo, Witchcraft, Mildly Intrigues Detroit Folks

Detroit Free Press, January 20, 1929 (enlarge)

Anybody need a voodoo love recipe? Here's a January 1929 potion from Papa Jo, a black priest from Detroit, as prescribed from his ramshackled shed at Hastings and Gratiot: 

Take a pint of water and a piece of tar paper and boil together for an hour in the full moon. Then add the left foot of a hen, five drops of turpentine (five being a sacred voodoo number), the tail of a mouse, the tongue out of an old shoe and a spoonful of sour milk. Boil five minutes longer and strain through the left glove of a pallbearer and then feed it to the "Big Boy" in his coffee or gin. 

Of course, the article that this was taken from uses some offensive language that I won't repeat, though the term "Big Boy" is likely disturbing enough to some. One could assume from that phrasing and that the participants were all of African descent that this spell might not work on a Caucasian, Asian, Arab, etc. man but who knows. 

Amid the illustrations and photos included is one of Major John Roehl of the Detroit Health Department and shows confiscated witchcraft and fortune-telling implements. The confiscations came amidst a crackdown on such activities as so-called "hex" and voodoo murders had begun springing up across the country. 

The most egregious slaying was still yet to come as the Benny Evangelista family of Detroit werer butally murdered in July of 1929 with all members either decapitated or bludgeoned to death. The children's ages ranged from 18 months to 7-years-old. Santina lay in bed decapitated with her baby beside her. Mario's skull had been crushed. The other three children lay slaughtered in their beds across the hall. Benny, the preacher and eccentric author of an obscure history of man, sat at his desk with his hands folded as if in prayer and his head at his feet where it had been cleanly severed from the torso. A bizarre altar was found in Evangelista's basement where he frequently held healing sessions and readings. The murder was laid at the hands of a fanatic or the work of the mob outfit known as the Black Hand but nobody was ever convicted of the crimes. 

While some bemoan the archaic laws forbidding fortune telling - Gundella the Witch's own daughter Veronica was an advocate for repealing such statutes in the 1990s - they were not without merit or pointed prosecution of the innocent as people were routinely swindled out of fortunes and cult slayings frequented the news blotter in the 1920s and '30s as immigration increased and the superstitious from the old countries fueled cult members to stave off the evil both therein society and within themselves.

Yes, Dr. Theodore Holds Hands; But For Healing Purposes Only

Detroit Free Press, March 22, 1908

Outside of a queer little abode on Hibbard Avenue near Jefferson in Detroit Dr. Theodore Trombley had booths stationed where at 7 o'clock every morning he would enter for the purposes of healing all ailments with his hands.

He advised the throngs to "come early and avoid the rush" and the women of Detroit would flock to the location and wait hours for a chance to be healed for the price of a quarter. The inside of one booth was said to have "a flaring red wall and faded bunting, a chromo of Daniel in the lions' den, and vari-colored daubs designed to arouse a feeling of piety."

Called the "Hypnotic Hippocrates" he must have been a handsome man or the women, many who were described as "of the elephantine avoirdupois," were simply desperate to hold a man's hand in a more staid time period where such a public coquetry could sully your reputation.

Trombley had come into the Spiritualist realm late in life, at the age of 44, after being a molder at the Michigan Stove Works for years, having had an awakening in 1902 he began to heal people with the laying of hands. The practice evolved into a full-time job and extended into other aspects of the occult including the conjuring of spirits.

One particular seance in 1906 received media attention as Trombley hosted the communication with the dead from his chapel at 230 Hibbard. While normally he talked to the spirit of a Catholic priest, a spirit named "Pat" entertained the audience of 100 with a co-host medium named George Kaiser on hand. Unfortunately for the pair so was their former comrade J. D. Hagaman who came to be the bugbear in their spookfest. Having been a long-time believer Hagaman now sought to expose the fraud being perpetrated.

"Pat" began to speak, through the channeling of Trombley, of Kiser's ability and attacked Hagaman, who had been to a seance at Kiser's home a few days earlier, as an unworthy skeptic who didn't have the gall to show up for the event. Unbeknownst to both psychics Hagaman had indeed shown up and sat in the back of the chapel with two associates just waiting to pounce.

Trombley...err... "Pat," speaking in broken English, besmirched Hagaman while regaling the mediumship of both Trombley and Kiser. After speaking of a murder case and the Detroit police detective bureau he told the audience that they were all mediums though they didn't know it and would be sorry when they got on the other side that they hadn't developed their innate powers.

At this point "Pat" began his farewell but was interrupted by an associate of Hagaman who stated that the man was not only the enemy but was present in the audience. It was requested that Hagaman arise and expose the seance if indeed it were fraudulent. The cohort of Hagaman said that nothing extraordinary had occurred during the presentation but that if "Pat" demonstrated his powers they would be exposed by the three men. "Pat" demurred saying that conditions weren't right at the moment. Other audience member testimonies followed and "Pat" only spoke up again to refute his earlier assertion that Trombley was a medium, but rather was only a healer. Other objections and points of contention were made by the group, including the ever-poignant "Christ worked in the dark," but "Pat" grew more reserved and the conditions demanded his departure.

Hagaman didn't gloat over this shirking away but did seem amused and laughed at the folly that his presence had brought upon the event. He assured the audience that he didn't come to damper the mood but would prove at any time or place the farcical nature of such conjurings.

The Detroit Times, January 11, 1910

In late 1909 Trombley was brought up on charges of practicing without a licence after a complaint by Dr. Beverly D. Harrison. At the court hearing on January 11, 1910 the good doctor failed to show up as the star expert but 150 of Trombley's female followers stormed the court to testify on his behalf.

When the star witness Mr. Pritchard was called to the box to testify on behalf of his daughter, who had sought help from Trombley with no medical remediation, he stumbled without the helping hand of Dr. Harrison. The case was dismissed by Judge Stein and the throng of women jeered and giggled in triumph walking out of court surrounding the healer and his wife.

The latter was quoted as saying, "Dr. Trombley heals as Christ did, by spiritual aid... It has been an uphill battle, and they wanted to down us, but we've shown them that they can't." They had been vindicated after seven long years of persecution but the joy wouldn't last. Prosecutors looked into charging Trombley again but nothing seems to have materialized. At least not on the legal front. On the home front was a different story. Whether it was the gaggle of female admirers or simply an egotism gone awry on one or both of the couple, Mr. and Mrs' Trombley divorced in 1914. This would set up for the swansong in Trombley's career and the familial undoing of a farmer from Nankin Township.

Detroit Free Press, April 27, 1916

While very few men consulted Trombley, one who did wished he hadn't. Charles Outhwaite, a farmer living outside of Wayne, who in 1909 was looking for help in curing his wife's tumor and his own rheumatism had sought out a specialist. Instead he found a faith healer named Theodore Trombley. Even though a laying of hands by this practitioner did nothing to cure Outhwaite's ailment he was so impressed with Trombley that he took him home to meet his wife. There began a multitude of regular treatments both in clinic and at the Outhwaite residence.

But after several years the doctor and patient visits weren't quite enough for the pair and extra therapy sessions at the Victory Hotel were necessitated. While Trombley and Fannie's evident love for one another developed over this duration of years, he later claimed that there was no extracurricular activity involved beyond the drinking of a beer or two, which Mrs. Outhwaite wasn't particularly fond of. After all, malt extract was recommended in her treatment and Trombley had suggested Dublin stout. Mr. Outhwaite began to have reservations and in a letter demanded that Trombley quit coming to his home, lest he sue him.

The visits apparently didn't cease and in 1916 Outhwaite took Trombley to court seeking $10,000 in damages. Trombley testified that his 25-year-old son Benjamin had been present at the hotel treatments and nothing inappropriate had occurred between doctor and patient. Although Fannie had left him Mr. Outhwaite apparently wasn't done with his wife just yet. He sought out the advice of a "spiritualist person" (not to be confused with a fortune teller) in the form of Lillian Wren-Ryan-Kelley, who was using the latter name at the rendering of this article, to win his wife back and as a witness in the trial.

The ruse didn't work, Trombley was found guilty and ordered to pay $500 in restitution but the damage had already been done to Charles Outhwait. Trombley married the former Mrs. Outhwaite in 1917 and in a cruel twist of fate for Mr. Outhwaite - who also remarried in 1917 only to die within two years - he, Trombley and their Fannie are all buried at Glenwood Cemetery in Wayne.

Last Appearance of the Keelar Brothers in Detroit

Detroit Free Press, March 20, 1874

MUSIC HALL.- 

Friday, March 20th. 

Last appearance of the

Keelar Brothers 

IN DETROIT. 

Entire Change of Seances, 

Transposition of the Brothers En- 

tirely Different than Ever 

Witnessed Before. 

Five persons selected from the audience allowed in the Cabinet during the most 

Marvelous Manifestations. 

Entirely new DARK SEANCE. Commence at 8 o'clock precisely. Admission, 50 cents.

A Seance in Whitney's Opera House

Detroit Free Press, October 2, 1879

WHITNEY'S.—To-night Anna Eva Fay will give a seance in Whitney's Opera House, during which she will, it is said, offer some manifestations, of alleged superhuman origin, of the most startling character. Miss Fay has often been subjected, in England, to the severest scientific tests, and yet her scheme has never yet been detected.

If You Like Ghosts, Detroit Has Plenty

Detroit Free Press, June 2, 1940 (enlarge)

Hamilton the Hair Buyer, Le Nain Rouge, Sans Souci, Le Loup Garou and the Devil's Mill at Presque Isle all lumped into the mystical history of the Marxist enclave known as Detroit.

Ghost Story #23: A Substantial Ghost

Detroit Free Press, June 18, 1875

For every bump-in-the-night, unexplainable at first groaning moonshine still in the basement ghost in the annals of Detroit history there was also one of these stories where the shade was easily traced to intelligible figures of flesh without need of scientific experimentation or seance. It was simply a man keeping watch over a vacant house on Vinewood Street in Springwells in the summer of 1875 when a nosy woman peeped into the darkened window at the inopportune time that he had finished with his bath. Out of modesty he threw a sheet upon himself while she shrieked in terror. In response to the first peeping and the subsequent neighbor's stirring about interfering upon his intended sleep he cast the figure of a phantom upon their psyches and all was well with the reasonable cast who wished to speak no more on the matter of apparitions.

Ghost Story #22: The Red-Haired, Moon-Faced Monster Man of Shelby Street

Detroit Free Press, May 26, 1866

Euphemisms are a beautiful thing because they allow even a respectable outlet such as the Detroit Free Press (Haha! As if! Foisted upon respectability anyhow.) to call somebody a whore with possibly the most ambiguous word relating to the oldest profession. The old Cyprian! Surely one could also mean a specie of bee, the worship of Aphrodite, an inhabitant of Cyprus or even the Carthaginian bishop-martyr known by that very name. Capitalized, of course. Always capitalized except when referring to a trollop. 

Anyway, some prostitutes were getting drunk with some Johns on Shelby Street and after the gin and beer had flowed all morning, Lizzie and Hattie went to "Europe" or out to get the former her sea legs back from the rollicking within and soon enough she passed out under a maple tree holding the latter woman's gold watch for safe-keeping while the latter slept in a nearby bush. 

Lo! When Lizzie awakened a red-haired, copper-faced monster man with a head the size of the moon was upon her! Was it the Nain Rouge? Le Loup Garou? Rocky Dennis? It was only a visage. A shade. A spirit of the spirits. A thief in the night. 

Whatever it was it took Hattie's watch and the owner, being the shrewd business woman that she was, took Lizzie to court. Said court cited a lack of evidence and intent to convict. The annals of time confer a similar conclusion on all accounts. Therewith resides that thing referred to as folklore. Another euphemism contained within itself where humbug formerly resided.

The First Psychic Spiritualist Church of Brightmoor

Detroit Free Press, July 24, 1929

The earliest mention that I have seen of the First Psychic Spiritualist Church of Brightmoor at 21729 Fenkell Avenue in Detroit was in an article from 1939 involving a witch hex and a ghost attack on the family of Roy and Della Tomlin, then recent transplants to the city from the nearby suburb of Livonia.

The story made the front page of one of the city's daily newspapers and Mrs. Tomlin was later found to be insane, Mr. Tomlin unfit, the children were sent into foster care and the spiritualist sect mentioned therewith and led by Rev. E. Armitage, female pastor, persisted into at least the early 2000s.

Detroit Free Press, October 25, 1931

Rev. E. was at the head of the congregation for at least a decade, and likely longer since they didn't feel a need to advertise much at all.

The October, 1931 advert announces that Rev. Amanda Flowers of Grand Rapids would give a service and a circle, presumably a psychic reading of some sort within their Spiritualist sect.

The Plymouth Mail, December 1, 1939

Parishoners seemingly came from as far as the remote western suburbs as this 1939 advert in the Plymouth Mail attests to.

There was a mid-week message service on Thursdays at 8:00 p.m. and a Sunday song service at 7:00 p.m. with a lecture at 7:30. The public was welcome. Additionally, that December there was a Ladies' Aid bazaar at the church on December 2nd at 1:30 p.m.

Chimes, November 1, 1961

After a mention or two in the psychic monthly Chimes around the early 1960s it seemed to disappear. By then it was led by the Rev. Carroll Ware, quite the ambiguous Christian name when determining gender (if that's allowed), and the Pastor, Rev. Katherine K. Cation. A developing class was offered on Tuesdays evenings at 8 p.m. and a Sunday service at 7:30 p.m.

Detroit Free Press, June 5, 1973 (enlarge 1, 2)

The church "was holding its own" by 1973, after seemingly falling off the newsworthy map, with Rev. Glenn V. Mickle at the helm. he felt that the Spiritualist message of contacting the dead had become a lukewarm concept which now had to complete with the far flashier mediums of radio and television over the preached written word.

Detroit Free Press, June 14, 1981 (enlarge)

By the 1980s it was reduced to a bit player in the punchline to a long shirking off of the subject as a marginal trifling. 

Nonetheless, The Rev. Lynn Tucker and John Wilson, presumably both of the First Psychic Spiritualist Church of Brightmoor but definitely the latter, were in charge at the house of worship.

It's demise in the following decades might have been more by attrition than due to squalor than a lack of wanting for spiritual guidance.

In the 1990 book Profits of Deceit: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Fraud by Patricia Franklin it is mentioned that the area had two motorcycle gangs, the Scorpions and Forbidden Wheels, whose virile engines provided "deafening tributes to horsepower" for the parishioners of a neighborhood riddled with fire bombs, gunshots, vacant flats and crack houses.

The next mentions are between 2001 and 2005 when a combination of the Glory of God Ministry International and the Zion Tabernacle Church are seemingly interwined, with the latter's name only appearing in print in 2003, though I haven't searched the name further.

Popular Delusions Scientifically Explained!!

Detroit Free Press, April 1, 1855

POPULAR DELUSIONS 

Scientifically Explained!!

A LECTURE WILL BE DELIVERED IN THE

YOUNG MEN'S HALL,

On Monday next, April 2d,

On the phenomena of

Ghosts and Vampires,

     In which some of the causes of Modern Spiritualism will be explained, and cautions given with regard to premature interments by 

HENRY GOADBY, M. D.,

Fellow of the Linneaus Society, of London. Admittance 25 cents. Doors open at 71/2 o'clock; Lecture will commence at 8.

Leader of Cult Admits Slaying At Home 'Altar'

Detroit of the 1920s and '30s was a rollicking mishmash of industrial and culture-shock malaise. The Polish and Hungarians imported their witches and superstitions from Europe to salve over the working class struggles, the Italians brought all that plus the Black Hand and black folks had the religious fervor all subjugated groups experience when given the leading hand in their own salvation and demise. From competing Christs to voodoo hexes transported from the Southern homeland. For Robert Harris it all culminated in himself becoming the King of the Order of Islam (later Nation of Islam). Within that realm he was given the divine right of sacrifice to the Gods. 

Detroit Free Press, November 21, 1932 (enlarge)

He chose James J. Smith as the chosen lamb for slaughter. Upon the altar he brought the poor unsuspecting soul--randomly chosen from the throng of human specimens by chance when he was the first person encountered by Harris upon leaving his home at 1429 Dubois Street; though the story was later changed to accommodate the fact that Smith lived with him and supposedly agreed to be sacrificed--quieted him with a car axle and removed his soul from the living sphere with an 8-inch knife to the heart. 

The why was almost as simplistically fatalist as the how, as it was determined 1,500 years ago that in the 9th hour of the 20th day he should die and die he did. 

Harris's fingerprints were compared to those at the brutal Benny Evangelista family murder scene a few years earlier but proved neither a match or a resolution for the unsolved case.

Harris was eventually linked to leader of the sect Wallace Fard Muhammad--he was then going by the name Wallace Farad--whom eventually was recognized as the founder of the Nation of Islam. While touted as a "negro" (or at least a white-skinned Arab) by his anointed successor Elijah Muhammad and later by Malcolm X, police contend that Farad was actually Wallace Dodd, an New Zealand national born of a Polynesian mother and a British father. 

When the Nation of Islam put out a $100,000 reward to prove that Fard wasn't of African heritage, it is said that his wife came forward with documentation before the sect backed down from their previous offer. The Nation of Islam contends this supposition, claiming that the entire Dodd/Farad connection was an FBI hit piece and the evidence supporting it was bogus.

The San Francisco Examiner, July 28, 1963 (enlarge)

I've come across at least two other instances of plots being uncovered to sacrifice more victims but in those cases undercover black police informants or family members came forward to halt the cult's crazed actions. 

Included among the proposed victims was a 21-year-old welfare worker who had taken several members off the dole who had other means of income while investigating truancy among the black schoolchildren. It turned out that they were purposely being withdrawn and educated by the cult.

TO BE CONTINUED

FURTHER READING

1931

Warrant Is Asked For Mayor's 'Guest'; Detroit Free Press, November 20, 1931

1932

Voodoo Slayer Admits Plotting Death Of Judges (2); Detroit Free Press, November 22, 1932

Raided Temple Bares Grip Of Voodoo In City (2); Detroit Free Press, November 23, 1932

Negro Leaders Open Fight To Break Voodooism's Grip (2); Detroit Free Press, November 24, 1932

500 Join March To Ask Voodoo Kings' Freedom (2); Detroit Free Press, November 25, 1932

New Human Sacrifice With A Boy As Victim Is Averted By Inquiry (2); Detroit Free Press, November 26, 1932

Evangelist Case Still Is Unsolved; Detroit Free Press, November 27, 1932

Pastors Decry Growth Of Cult Practice Here (2); Detroit Free Press, November 28, 1932

Pontiac Temple Discovered; Detroit Free Press, November 29, 1932

Suburbs Also In Voodoo Net; Detroit Free Press, November 29, 1932

Voodoo Chief Held Unsound; Detroit Free Press, November 30, 1932

Voodoo's Reign Here Is Broken; Detroit Free Press, December 30, 1932

1933

Banished Leader Of Cult Arrested; Detroit Free Press, May 26, 1933

Wallace Fard Muhammad and Elijah Muhammad founded and organized the Nation of Islam in the early 1930s in Detroit. A headquarters and school, set up Hasting Street, was raided by police and Detroit schools officials on April 16, 1934. Several members were arrested and held. They were charged with contributing to the deliquency of minors by withdrawing children from the public schools and "teaching subversive doctrines." The next day 500 Nation members marched to police headquarters to see those who were arrested. They were met by Detroit police. --Detroit News

1937

Death Rituals Revived In City By Voodoo Cult; Detroit Free Press, January 19, 1937

1959

Trouble Is Old Stuff For Secret Cult; Detroit Free Press, August 14, 1959

1963

Black Muslim Fake (2); The San Francisco Examiner, July 28, 1963

1965

Violence, Dissension Hit The Black Muslims; The San Francisco Examiner, February 28, 1965

Ghost Story #21: The Haunted Corner

Detroit Free Press, September 19, 1877 (enlarge)

Keywords: ghost, haunting, Detroit, Michigan, Officer Furman, Officer Wilford, Thomas Kennedy, Jefferson Avenue, R. R. Lansing, Charles Van Anden, Woodward Avenue, Griswold Street, Louis Desnoyer, American Express Company, 1877.

Ghost Story #20: A Ghost

Detroit Free Press, September 19, 1873

"A family named Morrison, living on Ohio street, vacated their house Wednesday night because they heard strange noises, cries and groans. They believe that the ghost of a man who was murdered near the house several years ago had taken possession of the domicile."

Herman Menz's Devil

Statues of slave owners, NAZIs, Confederate officers...pffft!

In 1905 Detroiter Herman Menz erected a gargoyle statue that the residents of the city mistook for Satan himself (Menz played into the fervor) and demanded its fall lest they riot and tear it down. 

Detroit Free Press, November 9, 1905 (enlarge)

Menz mollified the mob by allowing visitors a chance to visit the statue for 10c a pop but still the city wanted it gone.

Detroit Free Press, November 11, 1905

Pastors denounced it and so did his neighbors and countrymen. Menz grew tired of the notoriety and removed it himself.

Later, a man sued him and the statue was auctioned off to pay the settlement.

It was purchased by the owner of the Electric Park but after suffering losses for nearly two years after his purchase it was returned to Menz who vowed to resurrect it.

Detroit Free Press, September 24, 1908 (enlarge)

Alas- he resurrected the statue on November 1, 1908, nearly three years after he caused an outrage throughout Detroit. This go-around nobody seemingly cared, not even the Devil himself.

Ghosts Explain

Detroit Free Press, February 23, 1898 (enlarge)

If somebody was inclined to write a book about Spiritualism, ghosts and murder in Detroit they could write 20 sequels as well. The city was a spiritualist hotbed at the turn of the 20th century and any particular character involved in the trade of producing ghosts usually spawned a web of other such personages that involved themselves in various other cases, scandals and incidents.

Medium E. Medford Gilman was an admitted fraud. It took a few years in prison on such charges for him to confess to his charlatanism. His game was so good that before coming to Detroit he had swept up another man's wife in Wisconsin and she, along with several other spooks who had set up in a house of tricks on Lafayette Avenue in Detroit, were arrested along with him. Though most of the participants seem to have been spared jail time as they testified against him. For her part, Mrs. Johns, supposed mistress of Gilman, her mother explained in a letter to the editor that it was a working partnership between the two that Mr. John heartily agreed to. Gilman also denied any wrongdoing in matters of the heart.

Also in the city at the time was a man named Edward Ascher (alias E. Robert Lang) who had performed trumpet séances at the home of Prof. Donovan, another Spiritualist. A farmer from Pittsfield Township named Valmore Nichols who had an affinity for Spiritualism was murdered by Ascher after taking out a several hundred dollar loan from a friend and travelling to Detroit to meet the medium. Ascher was charged and found guilty twice for the killing, having had the first conviction revisited, after an earlier hung jury, only to be sentenced to life in the fourth trial.

Detroit Free Press, August 19, 1898 (enlarge)

Lang was apparently a serial killer of sorts. Before he offed Valmore Nichols in Detroit in 1898 he seemingly did a similar job on a widow named Sabra Gates in Louisville, Kentucky a year or two earlier. She had been poisoned after he managed a few hundred dollars and a watch from her but the evidence against him was circumstantial and flimsy at that. Our old pal E. Bedford Gilman made the connection for the authorities having been made privy to Ascher-Lang's scheme of magnetic healing through talks with him and Prof. Donovan. One could write a novel about these charlatans.

The Louisville and Detroit connections grow closer with the revelation that John Kuprion, one of Lang's Kentucky victims, testified in the original trial that ended in a hung jury. Lang had used similar tactics on Kuprion that he employed on Valmore Nichols, the murdered Pittsfield Twp. farmer whose body was found in the Detroit River. It had floated to the top of the water and been spotted several times but with only the head semi-sticking above the water it was mistaken for a buoy before a boatman from Belle Isle discovered the grisly truth. While the first trial ended in a hung jury Ascher-Lang was eventually re-tried an additional three times, two ending with convictions which sandwiched another trial that was dismissed (I believe).

Detroit Free Press, March 26, 1903 (enlarge)

Lang, a Russian Jew, said that he was a native of Detroit, though he obviously did some travelling to practice his trade.

Detroit Free Press, January 13, 1898

Professor Donovan, as mentioned in a few articles, fled prosecution and I haven't tracked his fate while Gilman went into the iron moldering profession after his prison time. Likewise, I haven't tracked his movements thereafter.

Detroit Free Press, April 16, 1899 (enlarge)

FURTHER READING:

Spiritualistic Christening

Detroit Free Press, March 28, 1898

Rev. Nellie S. Baade was a different kind of preacher. As a longstanding member of the First Spiritual Philosophical Society of Detroit, along with her husband Charles, a prominent businessman, she believed in ghosts and reincarnation along with some of the more standard tenants of religion. In this case baptism or a spiritualistic christening. Though instead of dousing the children in water she presented them with bouquets of nosegay.

Her and husband Charles are buried at Woodmere Cemetery.

Evansville Press, August 5, 1907 (enlarge)

St. Louis Post Dispatch, October 10, 1897 (enlarge)

Mrs. Dr. Stanley's Last Week in Detroit

Detroit Free Press, April 10, 1898