By Kristy Matthews
Amy Archer-Gilligan:
There is little information concerning the early life of the woman who committed, what the prosecutor would refer to as, “the biggest crime that ever shocked New England”. Amy Gilligan was born in 1873 and she married James Archer sometime during her early twenties. She gave birth to her only child, her daughter Mary, in 1898. Three years later, she began passing herself off as a nurse, and without any means of qualifications, she decided to open her own assisted living facility for the elderly in Newington, Connecticut. Ironically, despite having no experience whatsoever, there were never any complaints from any of her clients. In fact, her clients were actually sad to see her leave, in 1907, when she moved to Windsor. She moved only 10 miles north and opened the Archer Home for the Elderly and Infirm.
The first three years saw business as usual in Windsor, with only twelve patients passing in those years, which is a predictable mortality rate that didn’t really turn much of a profit for Archer. It was the death of James Archer that was a shock in 1910, although his death was attributed to natural causes. Three years later, Amy remarried to Michael Gilligan, and he lasted only a year before his death. However, even with the deaths of 48 clients in Archer’s rest home, between the years 1911 and 1916, the family physician, Dr. Howard King still saw no reason for alarm. 48 deaths is an excessive number of fatalities considering Amy’s home only possessed 14 beds. However, Dr. King’s combined negligence and senility lead him to believe Amy’s diagnoses in death, which kept suspicions dormant. In reality, Amy had devised the perfect “get rich quick” scheme. She charged each new patient $1000 up front as payment for “lifetime care”, and then she cut her patients’ lives short, either by means of poison or smothering them with a pillow. She then blamed each death on either some kind of incurable disease, or simply old age. Although police were heavy with suspicions, Dr. King always obliged Amy with death certificates in hand. However, by 1914, ugly rumors were finally surfacing around Windsor, concerning the Archer home. Two years later, the surviving relatives of Amy’s patient, Maude Lynch, took their suspicions to the police, who then placed an undercover cop within the Archer home. He began collecting evidence which eventually led to Amy’s arrest in May of 1916. Amy was charged with 6 counts of murder when postmortem examinations found traces of poison in Michael Gilligan and five of Amy’s patients. Physicians averaged a death toll of around eight patients for the years 1911-1916 and Amy’s death toll was 48 in all those years.
Dr. King came out the gate fighting, with his already shaky reputation at stake, he described Amy as a victim of foul persecution. He maintained that, “Poison had been planted in several of the bodies by ghouls trying to incriminate Mrs. Gilligan.” However, Prosecutor Hugh Alcorn responded by naming this killer case, “the worst poison plot this country has ever known.” Amy’s lawyer managed to dwindle the charges down to only one count of murder, the May 1914 death of Frank Andrews. She was convicted in July of 1917. However, Amy’s life sentencing was appealed successfully on a technicality, but a second jury returned the same verdict, leaving her still caged in Weathersfield Prison. Yet, in 1923, after a series of nervous fits, Amy was diagnosed as being clinically insane, and she was transferred to a state asylum where she lived out the rest of her days until her death in 1962, at the age of 89.
William Dale Archerd:
William Archerd was born in 1912, and had a cherished love and lifelong fascination with medicine. Lacking the necessary finances and discipline to attend medical school, he work as a hospital attendant, studying what he could about drugs and their effects through practical experience. The during the years of 1940 and 1941, Archerd found work at the Camarillo State Hospital, in the great state of California, tending to the departments where insulin shock therapy was being used as treatment for mental illness. He pled guilty to illegal possession of morphine and received 5 years of probation in 1950. A second offense left him confined to the minimum security prison at Chino, which he escaped in 1951. He was quickly recaptured and then transferred to San Quentin. However, by October 1953, he was set free on parole. However, his bad luck didn’t end there. He was married 7 times in 15 years, and he lost 3 wives to mysterious illnesses between 1958 and 1966. If that alone wasn’t enough to raise suspicions, he was also losing friends and relatives alike, all of the dying under unusual circumstances.
Archerd was apprehended by police in Los Angeles on July 27, 1967, and charged with three counts of first degree murder. The victims were his 4th wife Zella, who collapsed on two months into their marriage, on July 25, 1956, his teenage nephew Burney Archerd, found dead at Long Beach September 2, 1961, and his 7th wife Mary Brinker Archerd, who died on November 3, 1966. It was suspected that Archerd was injecting victims with an overdose of insulin, which produced lethal attacks of hypoglycemia. However, Archerd was suspected of having at least three more victims tied to him. According to police, Archerd’s first known victim was a friend named William Jones, who died in Fontana, California October 12, 1947. Juanita, Archerd’s 5th wife also showed signs of hypoglycemia at her death in a Las Vegas hospital on March 13, 1958. Frank Stewart, another known friend of Archerd’s, died in the same hospital two years later, on March 17, 1960. On March 6, 1968, William Archerd was convicted on 3 counts of murder, the first American defendant ever convicted of using insulin as a murder weapon. Archerd was sentenced to death under California’s state supreme court in December of 1970, however two years later his sentence was reduced to life imprisonment, when the US Supreme Court ruled that existing death-penalty statutes were “cruel and unusual punishment”.
The Atlanta Child Murders:
There is a very strange and controversial series of deaths that sparked a 2 year reign of terror in Atlanta, Georgia. This series of deaths were labeled as “child murders”, although the suspect, ultimately blamed for 23 of 30 official homicides, was only ever convicted for the deaths of two adult ex-convicts. Nearly 2 decades after those events took place, this case still remains an unsolved mystery to many people.
The investigation began July 28, 1979, when a woman searching for recyclables came across a pair of corpses, unsuccessfully concealed in some roadside undergrowth. The first victim had been shot with a .22-caliber weapon, and was identified as Edward Smith, 14 years old, who had been reported missing on July 21. The other victim was last seen alive on July 25, and was identified as Alfred Evans, age 13. The coroner described his death as probable asphyxiation. Both victims had something else in common, something they would have in common with ALL of the victims to come, they were African American.
Milton Harvey, age 14, vanished while riding his bike with neighborhood friends, on September 4. His body was found 3 weeks later, but the actual cause of death still remains unknown. A 9 year old named Yusef Bell was last seen alive on October 21 while running an errand to the store for his mother. On November 8th, his body was found in an abandoned school, after being manually strangled. The first known victim of 1980 was Angel Lenair, age 12, also the first female victim in the series of murders. She was reported missing on March 4, and was found 6 days later on March 10, sexually abused, strangled, and tied to a tree with her hands bound behind her. Someone else’s underwear was also pulled from her throat. Jeffrey Mathis vanished while running an errand to the store on March 11. It would be 11 whole months before his body would be found. Due to advanced decomposition, there was no way to determine the cause of death. After receiving a phone call from an unknown person, 14 year old Eric Middlebrooks left home for an unknown location, and was found dead the next day, cause of death was blamed on head injuries conclusive with blunt force trauma. And the reign of terror continued.
On June 9, while on his way to the community swimming pool, 12 year old Christopher Richardson vanished. A young girl, Latonya Wilson, was abducted from her home on June 22, the night before her 7th birthday. This event shed new light on the critical nature of the murders taking place, and federal agents were brought in to work the case. The following day, 10 year old Aaron Wyche was reported missing. Search and rescuers found his body on June 24, beneath a railroad trestle with his neck broken. Although it was originally titled an accident, Aaron’s death was subsequently added to the growing list of dead and missing blacks. 9 year old Anthony Carter disappeared while playing near his house on July 6, 1980. His body was recovered the next day and his cause of death was determined to be multiple stab wounds he sustained. Earl Terrell joined the ranks when he disappeared from the public swimming pool on July 30. His skeletal remains were discovered on January 9, 1981, but the cause of death remains unknown. 12 year old Clifford Jones was snatched up off the street and strangled on August 20. When his body was recovered in October, 5 witnesses were interviewed by detectives and named the murderer as a white man, later jailed on charges of attempted rape and sodomy. The witnesses provided details of the crime consistent with the placement and condition of the victim’s body, but detectives chose to ignore their sworn statements, listing Jones with other victims of the “unknown murderer”.
Darren Glass was an 11 year old boy that disappeared near his house on September 14, 1980, with his body never being recovered. The police put him in the category with the other missing children simply because they don’t know what else to do with his case. On October 9, 1980 Charles Stephens was reported missing. His body was found the next day with cause of death being ruled as asphyxiation. The remains of Latonya Wilson were discovered on the 18th of the month, however there was no way to determine her cause of death. The month of November kicked off with the disappearance of 9 year old Aaron Jackson, reported missing on November 1, 1980. He was found the next day, yet another victim of asphyxiation. 15 year old Patrick Rogers went missing on November 10, however it wasn’t until February of 1981 that his remains were found, with his skull being crushed. Two days after New Year’s Lubie Geter was strangled and his body dumped, and not recovered until February 5. Terry Pue was strangled on January 22, and his body was found strangled by means of using a cord or piece of rope. During the investigation of Terry Pue’s death, police were able to use special chemicals that allowed them to lift a suspect’s fingerprint from the corpse. Unfortunately, the suspect’s fingerprints were not on file with any law enforcement agency in the US at the time.
Patrick Baltazar, age 12, vanished on February 6, with his body being discovered marked with ligature strangulation, and what was left of Jeffrey Mathis’s skeletal remains were found nearby. 13 year old Curtis Walker was strangled on February 19, with his body being found the same day. Joseph Bell was strangled on March 2, while on March 11, victim Timothy Hill was reported to be a drowning victim. On March 30, the killer changed his pattern. Atlanta police added their first adult victim to the list of murdered children. Larry Rogers, age 20, was added to the list as a victim of asphyxiation, linking him to the younger victims through cause of death. However, a second adult victim soon joined the ranks, with a “could not be determined” cause of death. 21 year old Eddie Duncan was found on March 31, and on April 1, an ex con by the name of Michael McIntosh also joined the list by rites that he had been asphyxiated also.
By April of 1981, the “child murders” case was completely out of hand. The official victims list fell under heavy criticism, as being incomplete and arbitrary, with cases such as the January 1981 murder of Faye Yearby, being citing as justification to prove their point. Official victim Angel Lenair shared the same fate as Faye Yearby. Like Angel, Yearby was found tied to a tree, hands bound behind her back, and stabbed to death, like 4 other victims on the list. However, Yearby was rejected from the list of victims, despite those similarities, on the grounds that 1. She was a female, as were Wilson and Lenair, and 2. Because she was too old, even though the last reported victim on the list was aged 23. An author by the name of Dave Dettlinger examined police malfeasance in the case, and determined that there were 63 potential pattern victims omitted from the official roster, and 25 of those 63 were after a suspect’s arrest supposedly ended the killing.
In April of 1981, and FBI spokesman declared several of the crimes had been solved substantially, which led to an outrage among blacks suggesting that some of the crimes were committed by the parents of the deceased. With that storm raging, Roy Innis, who was the head of the Congress Racial Equality, brought to light the story of a female witness who claimed the actions were the result of a cult, involved with sex, drugs, and Satanism. Innis led searchers to a ritualistic site, which included large inverted crosses. Their witness passed two polygraph tests, however by then, the police had already shifted their focus to another subject, and dismissed the idea of any other connections or possibilities to the crimes. April 21 saw the disappearance of Jimmy Payne, a 21 year old ex-convict, who reportedly went missing in Atlanta. His body was recovered 6 days later, with his death being attributed to suffocation, adding his name to the list of murdered children. William Barrett, 17, was next to go missing on May 11. He was found the next day as another victim of asphyxiation.
By now, several bodies had been pulled from rivers, leaving police to stake out waterways at night. In the early hours of dawn on May 22, a splash was heard under the bridge, by a rookie officer that had been stationed there on the Chattahoochee River. He heard a car rumble past, above him, and alerted the officers manning the bridge. Police then apprehended the vehicle and spent the next two hours interrogating Wayne Bertram Williams, a black man, and searching the vehicle before letting him go. On May 24, the body of Nathaniel Cater, another adult aged ex-convict, was fished out of the river downstream. Authorities began putting two and two together and shifted their focus to Wayne Bertram Williams.
From the beginning Williams made the most unlikely of suspects. He was born the only child of two school teachers, and still lived at home by the age of 23. As a college dropout, he had dreams of earning fame and fortune as a music promoter. When he was younger, he actually constructed a working radio station in the basement of his family’s home. On June 21, Williams was arrested and charged with the murder of Nathaniel Cater, despite witnesses testifying that they had seen Carter alive on May 22 and 23, after the infamous bridge incident. On July 17, Williams was indicted for killing two adults, Cater and Payne, while newspapers trumpeted the capture of the Atlanta child murderer. At his trial, which began in December of 1981, the prosecutor painted Williams as a violent homosexual and bigot, so disgusted with his own race that he hoped to wipe out future generations by killing black children before they could breed. One witness testified that he saw Williams holding hands with Nathaniel Cater on May 21, only hours before the splash at the bridge. Another, 15 years old, told the court that Williams had paid him two dollars for the privilege of fondling his genitals. Along the way, authorities announced the addition of a final victim, 28 year old John Porter, to the list of victims. Defense attorneys tried to balance the scales with testimony from a woman who admitted having normal sex with Williams, however the prosecution won a crucial point when the presiding judge admitted testimony on 10 other deaths from the child murders list, designed to prove a pattern in the slayings. One of those admitted was the case of Terry Pue, but neither side had anything to say about the alleged fingerprints recovered from his corpse in January 1981.
The most impressive evidence of guilt was offered by a team of scientific experts, dealing with assorted hairs and fibers found on certain victims. Testimony indicated that some fibers from a brand of carpet found inside Williams home (and many other homes as well) had been identified on several bodies. Further, victims Middlebrooks, Wyche, Cater, Terrell, Jones, and Stephens all supposedly bore fibers from the trunk liner of a 1979 Ford automobile owned by the Williams family. The clothes of the Stephens also allegedly yielded fibers from a second car, a 1970 Chevrolet, owned by Williams’s parents. Curiously, however, jurors were not informed of multiple eyewitness testimony naming a different suspect in the Jones case, nor were they advised of a critical gap in the prosecution’s fiber evidence. Specifically, Williams had no access to the vehicles in question at the times when three of the six fiber victims were killed. Wayne’s father took the Ford in for repairs at 9:00am on July 30, 1980, almost 5 hours before Earl Terrell vanished that afternoon. Terrell was long dead before Williams got the car back on August 7th, and was returned the next morning, still refusing to start. A new estimate on repair costs was so expensive that Wayne’s family refused to pay and the family never had access to the car again. Meanwhile, Clifford Jones was kidnapped on August 20 and Charles Stephens on October 9, 1980. The defendant’s family did not purchase the 1970 Chevrolet in question, until October 21, 12 days after Stephens’s death.
On February 27, 1982, Wayne Williams was convicted on two counts of murder and sentenced to a double term of life imprisonment. Two days later, the Atlanta child murders task force officially disbanded, announcing that 23 out of 30 list cases were considered solved with his conviction, even though no charges had been filed. The other 7 cases, still open, reverted to the normal homicide detail and remain unsolved to this day. However, in November of 1985, a new team of lawyers uncovered what were once classified documents, from an investigation of the Ku Klux Klan, conducting during 1980 and 1981, by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. A spy inside the Klan told GBI agents that Klansmen were killing the children in Atlanta, hoping to provoke a race war. One Klansman in particular, Charles Sanders, allegedly boasted about murdering the list victim Lubie Geter, following a personal altercation. Geter reportedly struck Sanders’s car with a go-cart, prompting the Klansman to tell his friend, “I’m gonna kill him. I’m gonna choke the black bastard to death”. Geter was in fact strangled, three months after the incident in question.
In early 1981, the same informant told GBI agents that “after 20 black-child killings, they, the Klan, were going to start killing black women”. Perhaps coincidentally, police records note the unsolved murders of numerous black women in Atlanta 1980-1982, with most of the victims being strangled. On July 10, 1998, Butts County Superior Court Judge Hal Craig rejected the latest appeal for a new trial in Williams’s case, based on suppression of critical evidence 15 years earlier.
Editor's note: this is the second of two “Killer ABC's” articles by this author. Two corrections against the roster.
Amy Archer-Gilligan ran the Archer Home for Elderly People and Chronic Invalids in Windsor, Connecticut. She was convicted once, of the murder of Franklin Andrews, and that conviction was reduced to a guilty plea to second degree murder on retrial in 1919; further deaths at the home were suspected and never charged. She was declared insane in 1924 and died in 1962 at the Connecticut Valley Hospital. Where the article gives a total for her, read it as an attribution.
William Dale Archerd is recorded here with six victims. He is the case worth pausing on: he was the first person in the United States convicted of murder by insulin, in 1968, having used it on relatives and acquaintances over nearly twenty years while working, at various points, as a hospital attendant. His death sentence was commuted in 1972 and he died in prison in 1977.
The prison at Wethersfield, where Archer-Gilligan was held, is spelled with one 'a'; the article gives Weathersfield.