An Edgewood Tragedy: The Murder of Eleanor Buggy

Edgewood Park in Shamokin

 

Life was finally beginning to look up for James Buggy. It had been three years since his beloved wife Kathryn passed away during the birth of their first child, leaving him with the seemingly impossible challenge of keeping a steady job in the mines that would allow him to raise his infant daughter on his own. Three long years and hundreds of lonesome nights, lying awake in the bedroom of his tiny home in the Edgewood section of Shamokin, wondering how he was going to make it all work, praying for a miracle that never seemed to come.

And then, in January of 1917, James' prayers were answered. The thirty-year-old single father met and fell in love with a young Italian woman who also lived in the neighborhood of Edgewood. With hair as dark as the anthracite mined in the nearby hills and piercing eyes that flashed with youthful passion, twenty-three-year-old Annie Compolo swept the lonely widower off his feet. And, much to James' delight, his new flame took an immediate liking to his motherless daughter, Eleanor. 

Eleanor was three years of age, and, for James Buggy, the timing couldn't have been better. It had been a difficult enough task raising an infant, but James was aware that Eleanor was now at the age when she needed the guidance and love that a mother could provide best. He wanted only the best for his firstborn child, and Eleanor deserved someone who could teach her how to braid her favorite doll's hair, how to sew buttons onto her favorite blouse, and how to make the flowers in the garden blossom into fragrant, cheerful displays of color. James worked at the Burnside Colliery; he could teach his beautiful little girl none of these things. But Annie could. After a brief romance, James Buggy made Annie Compolo his wife.

Four weeks later, James would realize that he had made the biggest mistake of his life.

Annie, it seemed, had a fiery temper, and while quarrels among newlyweds are not uncommon, James had decided that he didn't want any disruptions in the peaceful Edgewood home he had fought so hard to maintain. His first wife, Kathryn, had been a kind and gentle woman who rarely, if ever, raised her voice. James himself was known among his friends and co-workers as a kind-hearted fellow, the sort of man who had always put his faith and his family above everything else in his life. He had attended St. Edward's Catholic School as a youth and was an active member of his church. He was proud of his community and never passed up an opportunity to volunteer for a good cause. So when he heard through the grapevine that the former Miss Compolo had been less than faithful as a married woman, a terrible argument ensued. James put his foot down. On the night of Sunday, February 25, he told Annie, in no uncertain terms, that he wanted her out of the house by the time he returned home from work the following day.

On Monday afternoon, James returned to his home at 825 West Independence Street and found that his wife was gone. But, much to his alarm, so was his young daughter. 

James knocked on every neighbor's door, and learned that Annie was last seen shortly before 9 o'clock that morning, leaving the Buggy home with a little girl. Annie appeared to be in a hurry, but neighbors thought little of this occurrence, as Annie's parents lived on the same street. They had assumed Annie had taken Eleanor to the Compolo house. James returned home to wait. He washed up from his day at the colliery and made himself something to eat, but as the minutes stretched to hours and there was still no sign of his wife and daughter, he began to worry. He walked to the home to Annie's parents. Annie was home.

When James demanded to know the whereabouts of his daughter, Annie replied, nonchalantly, that she had taken the girl to a point just west of Edgewood Park, leaving Eleanor between two large rocks.
In his frazzled state, James must've thought that his little girl was lost, wandering the wooded hillside and the banks of Furnace Run alone and bewildered. It had never occurred to him that something far more sinister might have taken place. He summoned Charles Levan, a private police officer who patrolled the grounds owned by the J.H. & C.K. Eagle Silk Company (owners of the Eagle Silk Mill) and insisted upon the formation of a search party. Levan notified Michael Dormer, the constable of Coal Township, and they apprehended Annie at the Compolo home and demanded that she lead them to the place where she had left Eleanor Buggy.

Annie led Levan and Dormer, who were accompanied by a handful of other concerned citizens, through the darkness into the woods west of Edgewood. The glow of the searchers' lanterns soon fell upon two large boulders, but as the men crept toward the lonesome, secluded spot, they made a baffling discovery. The little girl was not there.

The search party tramped through the brush seeking clues, while Annie insisted that she had left Eleanor Buggy right where where she had claimed. But after several hours, not a bit of evidence-- neither a set of footprints nor a scrap of clothing-- could be found. Annie had some explaining to do, and it was only then she broke down and confessed. Armed with a potato knife, she had taken the three-year-old child into the woods and slashed her throat from ear to ear. Officer Levan immediately dragged Annie to the city jail.

It was just after daybreak on the morning of February 27 when the barking of a dog in the distance caught the attention of James Buggy and his cousin, Michael, as they were searching the the hills behind the Monroe Paving Company stone crusher along the road to Trevorton. It was Michael Buggy's pet collie, which had accompanied the men into the woods before sunrise. It was the same dog that little Eleanor had frequently played with during her visits to her uncle's home. James immediately took off running, following the collie's barking along the crest of the hill.

When he reached the dog James poked around the brush, but couldn't find any sign of his beloved daughter. The sun was still rising, and in the hazy light of early dawn he continued his desperate search, until his eye was drawn to a piece of red fabric. James knew that it was Eleanor's scarf. At around 6:30 he spotted Eleanor's crumpled body on a pile of rocks at the foot of the mountain.

James scampered down the slope, mindless off the jagged rocks, and found the body lying face down on a flat rock. He had not yet been told of the manner of Eleanor's death. Words cannot express the anguish he must have felt when he rolled over the body.

Later that morning, another group of searchers recovered the bloody potato knife from the woods, along with a locket that had belonged to the girl's step-mother. The chain was broken, suggesting that Annie had either discarded it in anger, or that little Eleanor had ripped it from her step-mother's neck during a frantic fight for survival.

The body was taken to the Campton Funeral Parlor, where it was examined later that day by Coroner Fred P. Steck. Steck's examination revealed that Annie had made three deep slashes in the girl's throat, before attempting to saw the head off at the neck. 

Annie Tells Her Story

 

Annie made a full confession to Officer Levan, stating that she had made up her mind to kill Eleanor when James Buggy left for work in the morning. Annie told the officer that she loved Eleanor deeply, and was traumatized at the thought of never seeing her again if her husband refused to permit her back inside the house. Annie said that she knew that Eleanor was the pride of her husband's life, and that taking the life of Eleanor Buggy would be the cruelest revenge.

Annie told Levan that she had sharpened the knife soon after James left the house to go to work. She then dressed Eleanor, and led her to the scene of her demise by a roundabout way in order to avoid arousing suspicion. After murdering the girl, Annie ran to the home of her parents on West Independence Street. She did not tell anyone what she had done. It was a textbook example of cold, calculated, premeditated murder. 

On Tuesday evening, February 27, Annie Buggy was given a hearing before Justice Harrison Heslop in Shamokin, and committed to the county jail in Sunbury without bail to await trial. Her trial was set to begin in May. The following morning, a funeral was held for Eleanor Buggy at St. Joseph's Church. She was buried at St. Edward's Cemetery, alongside the mother who had preceded her in death just three years earlier.

Annie refused to speak while in prison, and it was murmured that insanity would be her defense. Surely, no sane person had the capacity to commit such a callous crime-- or so it was whispered around town. Warden Wallace W. Barr kept a close watch on her, as it was feared the only female among the 53 inmates at Northumberland County Prison would attempt suicide. Although every potential weapon was removed from her cell, Annie succeeded in inflicting damage upon herself-- by using her own teeth.

Meanwhile, a lunacy commission was formed to establish whether or not Annie was mentally fit to stand trial, at the urging of Dr. R.B. McCay. Those who knew the young woman were questioned, and friends and neighbors declared that Annie had seemed somewhat irrational in the days leading up to the murder. Yet, for every person who said that Annie had been acting strangely before the crime, there seemed to be twice as many who insisted that Annie was "shamming" in order to avoid paying the price for her heinous act.

As the trial date grew closer, Annie Buggy's behavior became increasingly erratic. Despite being kept under close observation, Annie made three separate suicide attempts in jail. On one occasion she was found with a stocking tied around her neck, though Annie herself was none the worse for wear. Shortly afterward, she was discovered tying an article of clothing around her neck, with the other end of the fabric tied to the end of the bed. Her third attempt at suicide came after she grabbed a knife from the hand of Toppy Raker, the jail carpet boss (while some prison factories manufactured license plates, the Northumberland County Prisons manufactured rugs and carpets), with the intention of stabbing herself. Despite the dramatic act, Annie was uninjured.

Whether Annie Buggy was pretending to be insane or not, her behavior convinced the lunacy commission that she was unfit to stand trial. On May 15 she was transferred to Danville State Hospital, only to be pronounced "cured" and released less than two years later. The former Annie Compolo would never face a jury for partially beheading a three-year-old child in a fit of jealous rage. Upon her release from Danville State in March of 1919, she returned to Shamokin, whose residents had largely forgotten what she had done.

But James Buggy did not forget. Though mostly a symbolic gesture, as soon as Annie was released from the mental hospital, he filed a petition for a "complete and absolute" divorce. Perhaps because of her reputation, Annie never remarried, and she resided in the area for the remainder of her life, keeping a low profile. The date of her death is unclear.

As for James Buggy, he lived out the remainder of his life in the same house at 825 West Independence Street in Shamokin, succumbing from a lingering illness in April of 1962. He remained an upstanding citizen to the end, serving on the Coal Township Board of Education and holding membership in the Holy Name Society of St. Joseph's Church for several decades. He rose to the position of foreman at the Burnside Colliery, a position he held for thirty-two years.

 

 

Sources:

Philadelphia Evening Public Ledger, Feb. 27, 1917.
Mount Carmel Item, Feb. 27, 1917.
Allentown Leader, Feb. 28, 1917.
Danville Morning News, Feb. 28, 1917.
Mount Carmel Item, Feb. 28, 1917.
Pottsville Republican, March 1, 1917.
Harrisburg Telegraph, March 3, 1917.
Mount Carmel Item, March 30, 1917.
Mount Carmel Item, May 5, 1917.
Mount Carmel Item, May 14, 1917.
Mount Carmel Item, May 17, 1917.
Mount Carmel Item, March 12, 1919.