Connecticut western news., 1873-01-24
The Derby Prisoner.

She story told by Mrs. Lydia Sher- man, arrested in June, 1871. at New Brunswick, N. J., on the charge of hav- ing murdered her husband, Horatio N. Sherman, in Derby, Conn. in the year 1871, is as follows: She was born in New Brunswick, N. J., in 1925, and was early left an orphan. At the age of seventeen she joined the Methodist Church, and at love-feast there she met Edward s. Struck, whom she sub- sequently married. Struck in time be- came policeman at Yorkville, one of the suburbs of New York city. One night there was row in 8 saloon on his beat, and detective was killed. Struck was off without leave. He was repri- handed and disgraced. It troubled him very much, and finally it weighed so on his mind that he became crazy and had softening of the brain. He then was discharged. When he recov- cred 1t was only to be very feeble physi- cally and unable to get any work, so that he was only a burden to his wife. One day male friend of hers suggested to her that she could get rid of the man by poison. She took kindly to theidea. and gave him arsenic in his food, and she also, with the same poison, killed their two youngest children, so that they also should not be burdens to her, and should not have, as she says, to grow up to life's cares.
 She was not suspected of this murder, and soon after it went to Litchfield to live. Here she met one Dennis Hurl- burt and married him, but she did not get along particularly satisfactory to | herself with him, and so she poisoned him.
 Soon after his death she was told by friend that there was man in Derby, named Horatio N. Sherman, who had plenty of money, and had lost his wife, and that by skillful management, if she wanted q third husband, she could probably get him. Accordingly she went there and applied to him for the place of housekeeper in his family, and he engaged her, and subsequently, she succeeded in marrying him. He had two small children, Ada and Frankie, and these she determined to poison and did poison, but she did not plan to poison Sherman. She intended to em- ploy the arsenic upon the rats in her house as we'll as to kill the children, and she purchased it in New Haven, at Peck's drugstore, with the first-men- toned object. She took the package home and put it on shelf beside a similar package of saleratus. MT. Sser- man used to drink great deal of cider, into which he would put saleratus to make it foam. This was his favorite drink. The saleratus and the arsenic on the shelf became mixed in some way, but she did not mix them, but saw they were so. One night some friends were present, and they had some "toddy" to drink. Her husband invited her to take some, but she chose in preference to drink some of his cider prepared to foam. Soon after she took it she went out of the house to call upon neigh bor, and was taken suddenly very sick, so badly that she was utterly unable tC do anything for herself, and had to be carried into the house. But she rallied in little while. She thinks that this sickness was due to the arsenic that had been mixed with the saleratus, and that when he died, it was because o1 taking more of a similar preparation al a later period. Inno other way did she know of his obtaining poison, and the talk of the prosecution about her put ting arsenic into his tea and into 'slings and other hot drinks was all expended on wrong track.
 This was not, therefore, such clear case of murder as the others. In fact, she merely neglected to warn him of his danger, and that she did not always re- member it herself is shown in the fact of her having taken some of the cider. It is curious that the only death for which she could not be held accounta- ble, according to her story, should be that for which she has been convicted.