Connecticut western news., 1873-06-27
Hester Dethridge in Real Life.
Mrs. Lamb Forced by a Phantom to Poison .her Children and Neighbors.

4hLuU, hL LllSWOELu, WIS.,, Guo pr0SCCu-
 tion rested after proving the facts as to
 he killing of Mrs. Ottman. The de-
 fence, admitting that Mrs. Lamb poi
 soned Mrs. Ottman and volunteering
 to prove that she also poisoned to
 death her two children and her neigh
 Dor Garland, have set up that the
 woman, bsing of weak mind, unedu-
 cated, and superstitious, is, because of
 chronic disease, subject to periodically
 recurring attacks of insanity which at
 the times she committed the murders
 caused her to imagine she heard a
 supernatural voice she dared not dis
 obey directing and commanding her to
 take away their lives. This theory they
 have supported by the evidence of Dr.
 J. A. Bowker, of Charleston, Orleans
 county, Vt., who pronounced her in-
 sane twenty-three years ago, and at
 that time knew of her insanity taking
 such form. It is further supported by
 the observations of her intimate ac-
 quaintances of late years, and by
 examinations conducted by medical
 experts. By this time, also, it is prob
 able that Mrs. Lamb herself has been
 called to the witness stand, and has
 repeated under oath the story she had
 told to medical gentlemen and others
 who have visited her since she has been
 in jail. Were it not for the strongly corroborative evidence, it might be thought she borrowed her story and the lawyers their theory of defence from
 Wilkie Collins's "Man and Wife,"
 Her story is, as told to me by one of her friends, that when, in September, 1871, her husband fell at his work in the cornfeld and died few minutes after, saying to her as he died that he saw his Jesus, she sat down upon the ground and lifted his head into her lap, and thus held it for two hours, until the neighbors came to carry the body into the house. While she sat thus an apparition grew plainly visible to her, which presented the form and features of a being having human shape but an unearthly aspect. Only the upper part of the figure was clearly outlined from the waist dswn it being cloudily indistinct. The apparition spoke to her, not with an audible voice, but she felt rather than heard its words. By turns it consoled and ridiculed her grief at the death of her husband. It re- minded her that he had been good Christian, that he was an old man to whom labor had become hard burden, and it argued that his death was 8 blessing from heaven, merciful relief from all the cares and suferings of life in the body.
 The apparition remained with her until her husband was buried, and after wards appeared to her and talked to her at any time when she had trouble of oh h 111ci ho1 sibility for the care of her property. When she promptly acted upon its advice it was pleased with her and smiled upon her, and she felt entirely happy. When she hesitated or tried to reason upon it's propositions it would ridicule her until she was shamed and grieved to the point of absolute sub- mission to it's instructions. If she was obstinate it would so angrily frown upon her that a terrible but indiscrib- able fear seized upon her. And yet the mad creature had no thought but her direct from the abode of the blessed.
 One day in May of last year her son Don was trying to hold plough in the field near by, while she was employed at some work outside the house, where she could see the boy stumbling and being ierked along behind the plough. The apparition became visible to her and soon began an argument to con- vince her that the boy, who was a sickly stripling, would be better off in heaven than on earth. She was easily convinced of that, and made little objection when it advanced the idea that it was her duty as a Christian mother to send the boy to the better land. It told her to give him small quantity of strychnine he had bought to kill squirrels, and after he was dead to tell the neighbors he had died of heart disease like his father. Following the phantom's direc- tion she substituted strychnine mixed with apple sauce for medicine with which she had been dosing the boy, and Donnie died and was buried the seemed pleased with her, and she was happy.
 The next month she was similarly persuaded to poison her little girl, Sarah, only that she being a beautiful and healthy child, the argument was that she ought to be removed from the worlds temptations and from the dan ger of being condemned to such life of drudgery as her mother had led.
 In July and again in August the phantom. required that Mrs. Lamb should relieve Mrs. Ottman from her earthly troubles. The poor woman, it said, was always i'll, complaining, and unhappy, and it would be better that she should be taken to world where she could have nothing to complain of. At first Mrs. Lamb thought this was asking too much, as she was not so much in the welfare of Mrs. Ottman as she had been in that of her younger children. But at this the terrible anger of the phantom became more than she could bear, until finally she gave the woman 8 fatal dose of strychnine, when it again beamed kindly upon her, and filed her soul with the contentment which rewards those who perform what they conceive to be their duty.
 Scarcely, however, was Mrs Ottman wrapped in her shroud before the ap- partition demanded that Mrs. Lamb should remove Royal Garland's soul to the better land. "Poor, silly Garland" it said, !" everybody despises him and nobody will live with him; he is always lonesome and miserable and he's of no use in this world he would be happier and wiser if he was dead" In this case Mrs. Lamb stoutly resisted entreaty and command, and even braved the anger of the phantom-not because she doubted it's divine authority and heavenly wisdom, but because it did not go with her to his house or appear to her there. Finally, however, she yielded so far as to carry a dose of to Garland's house, intend ing to give it to him in his food. In presence of jolly crew of harvest hands, and with both mind and body occupied by the labor of preparing their food, she partially recovered from her hallucination and threw the poison into the fire. Then the phantom came back and remained with her through day and night, waking or sleeping. Again she carried the poison to Garland's house