Chocolate Halloween Candy

Original Post Date: OCTOBER 31, 2011

“On Tuesday, February 19, 1918, Forest Bigelow, a forty-two-year-old agent for the Ohio National Life Insurance Company, deacon at the Indianola Church of Christ, member of the chancel choir, and former professional bicycle racer, not to mention husband and father, revealed to the citizens of Columbus and the world that he was also quite mad. At about 5:20 a.m., Forest took a hatchet he had spent hours sharpening until not a speck of rust remained and proceeded to murder his wife, Lena, and seven-year-old daughter, Annabelle.”

From Chapter 7, “Insanity Comes Quietly to the Structured Mind,” of the 2010 book Historic Columbus Crimes by David Meyers and Elise Meyers Walker.

Lena, 34, was nearly beheaded in her bed by two swings of her husband’s axe, and Annabelle, – whom he initially intended to allow to live, as he mentioned her in his will – sleeping next to her mother, was also nearly decapitated in her sleep.

Forest set out to kill not only his immediate family that morning, but afterward, walked a few houses down, knocked on the door of his in-laws, killed his sister-in-law and gave his mother-in-law an axe in the neck for good measure.

His mother-in-law, Sallie Cruit, somehow survived the axe blow, but Lena’s sister Hazel did not. She died on the living room floor in front of her four-year-old son Frederick.

When he was all done with the axe, he walked back to his home and shot himself in the head. He was found lying across the bodies of his wife and daughter.

Bigelow seems to have been one of those quiet types you hear about; nice desk job, sang in the church choir, good family man, until one day they just snap. Evidently he took some time after he snapped to plan it all out first, though; time to make out the aforementioned will, time to give all the information on his best clients to his friends and colleagues, time to pay off creditors and tell them he wouldn’t be seeing them again, time to put a note on the door that morning reading “stop the paper.”

Very organized and detail-oriented, Forest was. So when his wife and daughter were buried in the Cruit family plot, instead of with him as he’d specified in the extremely detailed will he laid out (chose his pallbearers and everything), he must have spun in his grave.

It’s a grisly story, and shocking for how modern it sounds, isn’t it?

The book “Historic Columbus Crimes” is well-written and well-researched, and tells some stories I hadn’t heard (“Mama’s in the Furnace” is ohmygod chilling) and very generously gives addresses where possible. You know what that means.

I got pictures! Surprisingly, both houses are apparently, going by the pictures included in the book, architecturally unchanged.

Below, 86 E. Norwich, where Lena and Annabelle were murdered and where Forest shot himself (sorry about the car – this area is now campus housing and if you tried to get a shot of the place without cars or people, you might be waiting for months). Their unit is the one on the far right, nearly hidden by the tree.

Below, 121 E. Norwich Ave. where Forest killed his mother-in-law and sister-in-law:

The Cruit family plot in Green Lawn Cemetery, where Sallie, Hazel, Lena and Annabelle were buried without individual headstones:

And finally, Big Plain Cemetery, way out in the countryside, where Forest himself was buried.

Thanks for sticking with me everyone, and Happy Halloween! 

Original Post Date: October 31, 2010

Dr. James Howard Snook Born: 9/17/1879 Died: 2/28/1930 Cause of Death: Legal Electrocution

Thanks to Andy Henderson of Forgotten Ohio without whom I would have never known this story or heard the name James Howard Snook, and to the Ohio Exploration Society, without whose dedication in finding the grave and doing the research neither Andy nor I would have our information.

Having long ago read the Forgotten Ohio page regarding the murder trial of Dr. Snook, a Ph.D. with an Olympic gold medal and professor at Ohio State who brutally killed the girl with whom he was having an affair, I was curious about someday finding his burial site. Dr. Snook was, in a way, a 1920s Columbus version of O.J. Simpson – his trial was a very big deal.

In short, Snook, a married, mild-mannered Ph.D. in veterinary medicine, had a torrid affair with a coed in the late ’20s. He eventually kept an apartment in the Short North for their trysts, but one night, they went to a shooting range near Fisher and McKinley roads instead (and if you Google Map the area, interestingly, it shows a Columbus Police Department shooting range in the area now. Same property?). It was there that he killed Theora Hix, 24, with many, many blows to the head with a hammer, stabbed her in the stomach, then slit her throat and dumped her body at the back of the shooting range.

His testimony painted a lurid picture involving drug use and scandalous sex practices (for the time … don’t get excited). In fact, his testimony was printed up by an enterprising court reporter and sold to people who couldn’t manage to get in the packed courthouse.

It took the jury less than a half hour to convict him, and he was sent to the Ohio Pen (one of the two Columbus buildings I regret deeply having gotten into photography too late to shoot. I used to pass that magnificent, spooky old hulk on my way to and from work for over a decade. Now, coincidentally, I work on the former site of it.) where he died in Old Sparky on February 28, 1930. He was spared an arguably worse death by just a few months, too; in April of that year, the worst fire in American prison history killed 322 inmates at the Pen.

He was buried quietly, in a private ceremony.

The grave had been hidden for decades, with the burial information card on file at Green Lawn stating twice “DO NOT GIVE OUT LOCATION,” to say nothing of the fact that he was buried under his first and middle names only, leaving off the distinctive surname. Somehow, the Ohio Exploration Society members figured it all out and tracked him down, posting the directions to the grave on their site. Until I became as familiar with Green Lawn as I am now though, the clues and directions might as well have read “knock yourself out, sister. Good luck to you.” It is a huge cemetery after all, the second largest in Ohio.

However, now that I am very familiar with Green Lawn, the clues made very quick work of finding the area. I left home at about 9:45 in the morning, drove to the cemetery (about halfway across town), drove through the cemetery gate at 10:08, and by 10:20, had found it, taken my pictures, and gotten back in the car. I was terribly impressed with myself, though all the credit goes to the websites I got the directions from. (And most especially to Jason at the OES, who knows why. :) )

I held up the picture I’d printed off as a guide, and walked around the entire area; up and down about four rows, several times before I found it. All the stones in that area look pretty much alike. And then there he was.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Dr. James Howard Snook, executed murderer.

© Dania Hurley, All Rights Reserved

A Columbus Ghost Story for Halloween:

Benjamin F. Allen, of Tennessee, and the Lady In Gray

Long time Columbus ghost story. His grave is within the walled confines of Camp Chase Confederate Cemetery; there used to be a Confederate prison camp in Columbus during the Civil War, and there was a cemetery for prisoners who died there. The camp was long ago dismantled, but the cemetery was (eventually, after many years of neglect) spruced up, made an official military cemetery, given monuments (the large one inside the gate you can see directly behind the grave) and walls and an Ohio Historical Society marker.

Apparently long before the cemetery was restored, when it was still a run down, ill-cared for collection of wooden markers with names scrawled on them, people began seeing a woman dressed head to toe in gray, weeping openly, and appearing to walk directly though objects.

The Lady In Gray was also heard weeping, even when she wasn’t seen. According to stories from caretakers throughout the years, flowers will suddenly appear in front of this particular grave, that of Benjamin Allen from Tennessee (specifically the one from TN - there is also another Benjamin Allen’s grave further down this very row, but he is from Virginia). She is also reportedly seen crying directly in front of his grave.

She is said to mourn him, her lost love, and be unable to move on, possibly because he is still stranded so far from home.

Green Lawn Abbey Exterior

Original Post Date: NOVEMBER 2, 2008

I finally got inside.

It was worth the wait. The tour was great fun, with volunteers from the preservation society stepping out of the crypts of the people they were portraying (in costume) (one was the great-great-grandson of the gentleman he portrayed) and talking about “their” life story. Fascinating stuff. Some of the people they focused on were a several-term, popular mayor of Columbus, a prominent circus owner, Thurston the Magician, a Civil War soldier, and J.C. Penney’s brother, H.R. Penney. They all did a great job. I will go back as frequently as they do this.

The building itself was so cold. So, so cold … it was 65 degrees and quite nice outside, but inside, it was one cold pile of marble. The volunteers had scrubbed it out (resorting at one point to a leaf blower to get the inch of dust off the floors) and done a nice job, but just as its sister mausoleum,Amaranth Abbey smelled lovely, Green Lawn smelled … let’s just delicately say, off.

I know enough about mausoleums to have an idea why, too. And I’d have been so very disappointed if it didn’t smell like that. :)

A few more here, at my Flickr site.

Thanks for coming by all month, for following and commenting and downloading and helping make Halloween so much fun this year. No post for tomorrow, and then on Monday, we’ll turn the lights back on in this crypt.

Henry Clay’s Sarcophagus

Original Post Date: OCTOBER 27, 2008

Henry Clay Lexington, Kentucky

Yeah, I know, normally, I get right up there and practically jam the lens through the wire to get the shot, but what can I tell you? This one gave me the wig. Badly. I just could not make myself get any closer.

Those Creepy Bunnies

Original Post Date: OCTOBER 13, 2009

Dancing Hares, Sophie Ryder Dublin, Ohio

These creepy bunnies, if you aren’t familiar with them, are a staple of my Flickr account. They’re sort of disturbing and I keep returning to them. I think they’re either ten or twelve feet tall.

I’ve shot them with every camera I have. This one comes from my cheap little Instamatic.

Halloween Morning 2

Took the day off work today, and got up early to wander around a nature preserve. I soaked up the chill, gently eerie atmosphere and took some pictures.

Blacklick Metro Park

Columbus, Ohio