The Death of the Garrett Family: Murder or Accident?

Newberry Township in York County was gripped in terror in February of 1894 when Edwin and Tillie, two young children of Eli and Jennie Garrett, died after exhibiting signs of being poisoned. When Jennie died under the same mysterious conditions two months later, the residents of Newberry Township were convinced that a serial killer lived among them.Was this the case? Or could there be a less sinister explanation for the untimely deaths of Mrs. Garrett and her children?

On Sunday, February 11, a neighborhood drunkard by the name of Silas Laird stopped by the Garrett home in Lewisberry and gave Jennie an apple to give to her children, four-year-old Edwin and six-year-old Tillie. Jennie cut the apple in two, and gave a half to each child. The following afternoon, Edwin came into the house holding his sides, and his mother thought that he had gotten hurt while playing outside. Both when children began to vomit violently a short time later, Jennie raced the home of a neighbor, George Gross. Mrs. Gross, who surmised that the children had ingested something poisonous, gave Jennie a pitcher of milk to neutralize the poison. She then sent for Dr. J.C. Stem, who immediately diagnosed the case as strychnine poisoning. The doctor said that, unfortunately,  the boy was already beyond any hope of recovery. He died at seven o'clock that evening. Four hours later, after suffering a violent spasm, Tillie joined her little brother in death.

The diagnosis of strychnine poisoning didn't make any sense to Eli Garrett. Strychnine was used to poison rats, and there were more than enough barn cats around to take care of that task. The Garretts kept no poisonous chemicals in their home, or so he insisted. After the his children were laid to rest on Thursday at Parkville Cemetery, Eli's thoughts turned to the apple.

The following day, Eli went to York and discussed the matter with District Attorney Miller and urged him to look into the matter. Eli Garrett, accompanied by Dr. Pfaltzgraff and Dr. Lecrone, returned to the cemetery and began exhuming the freshly-buried bodies. Meanwhile, the district attorney questioned Laird, who admitted giving the apple to Mrs. Garrett, but said that he had been given the apple by another person, who had instructed him to give it to the Garretts. It certainly now seemed that this was a clear case of foul play, but the district attorney couldn't take any action until he received the results of the autopsy.



Everyone's A Suspect: The Coroner's Jury
 

After the two bodies were exhumed they were taken to the home of Charles Erney, where Dr. Lecrone removed the internal organs and gave them to Dr. Pfaltzgraf. Pfaltzgraf then took a train to Baltimore where a chemist, Professor Dorsey Cole of the University of Maryland, would perform an analysis. In the meantime, District Attorney Miller searched for clues and the coroner empaneled a jury, consisting of Charles Erney, Aaron Ziegler, William Cable, George Livingston and Jacob Irwin. Unfortunately, no witnesses could be found who could provide any information about the mystery man who had supposedly given the apple to Silas Laird.

On Thursday, March 29, the coroner's jury  convened at the White Hall Hotel and, after calling witnesses and examining evidence, returned a verdict. But there were some on the jury who were convinced that Laird was not the culprit.

It was known throughout Lewisberry that Jennie Garrett had lost several children in infancy, all of them dying within the first year of their lives. While these deaths had been attributed to natural causes at the time, the deaths of her two remaining children led some to wonder if she had played a role in the deaths of Edwin and Tillie.

Immediately after the tragedy the Garretts moved out of their house, which was an old two-story log structure about a quarter mile off the main highway, and the coroner's jury visited the log house earlier that morning to see if any clues could be found. When it was observed that rats had chewed numerous holes in the plaster, some began to doubt Eli Garrett's assurance that he did not have a problem with rodents. Things began to look even worse when the jury found hunks of hard cheese stuffed between the logs and plaster.  When the coroner presented this evidence, Eli remembered that he had purchased some strychnine from Dr. Stem a few months earlier, which he sprinkled on the cheese and placed between the logs. He insisted, however, that he had asked Tillie if she had eaten anything before she began to feel sick, and he claimed that neither Tillie nor Edwin had eaten the tainted cheese.

At the hearing, Jennie Garrett spoke at great length in defense of her husband, and raised the possibility that it may have been Mrs. Gross who had poisoned the children. She explained that Mrs. Gross had given her the pitcher of milk before she had even mentioned any of the symptoms. It was almost as if she knew what was going to happen. The testimony of Rebecca Mummert, the neighbor who had laid out Edwin's body, also shined a light of suspicion on Jennie Garrett. Mrs. Mummert said that, after the boy died, she sent Jennie to get the clothes she wished to have him buried in. Jennie returned with clothes for both children, even though Tillie was still alive at the time.

The next witness was Silas Laird. Laird was the local vagabond, who, at any given point in his life, appeared to be intoxicated, homeless, jobless, or a combination of all three. Just three years earlier he had been charged by police with "habitual drunkenness" and placed by county authorities under the guardianship of his brother, Martin. However, Laird was also rumored to be quite rich, having inherited a large sum of money from his father. This inheritance allowed Silas to indulge in his favorite activities, many of which included glass bottles and distilled spirits. At the hearing Silas insisted that he did not have a drinking problem and that he was completely sober when he gave Mrs. Garrett the apple. For whatever reason, he was not questioned about where or how he had obtained the apple.

The final witness was Coroner Pfaltzgraf, who read a letter from Professor Cole, whose analysis confirmed that the children had indeed been poisoned, but that the poison in question had been arsenic, not strychnine. Eli Garrett breathed a sigh of relief. But while the professor believed that the arsenic had come from the embalming fluid used by Undertaker Parks, the coroner stated his belief that the poison had entered Edwin and Tillie's bodies in a different manner. He cited the fact that samples of brain tissue taken from the children also revealed high levels of arsenic, and the undertaker had testified previously that he had not injected embalming fluid into the veins, which would be the only possible way the embalming fluid could reach the brain. The jury agreed with Pfaltzgraf, and rendered a verdict declaring that "Edwin and Tillie Garrett came to their deaths from arsenical poisoning administered or obtained in some way or manner unknown to this jury."



The Sudden Death of Jennie Garrett


On Monday, May 28, 1894, as authorities under the direction of District Attorney Miller continued to investigate the deaths of the Garrett children, Jennie died suddenly at her home in Lewisberry. Newspapers attributed to passing to "suspicious circumstances", but very few details were provided, other than the fact that she had been ill for just twenty-four hours before she passed away. Coroner Pfaltzgraf decided against holding an inquest, and when Jennie was buried, the search for the killer of the Garrett children-- if such a killer ever existed-- came to an abrupt end.

While the truth behind these mysterious deaths may never be known, the possibility exists that the Garretts died from accidental arsenic poisoning.  Arsenic has been used as a pesticide for centuries (records show that arsenic sulfide was used used in agriculture in China as early as 900 A.D.), and was a common ant bait in 17th century Europe. But the widespread use of copper acetoarsenite as an insecticide didn't occur in the United States until 1867, and after it was introduced it was used for a very specific purpose-- to eliminate the infestation of codling moth in apple orchards.