The Roanoke times. [volume] (Roanoke, Va.) 1890-1895, 1893-09-13
MANIA LIKE JACK THE RIPPER.
The Many Grimes Charged
Against Lizzie Halliday.
Tho Murderous Maniac Killed and Ninth
lated Her First Husband in the Same
Manner as the Second-The McOulIlan
Women Murdered Through Thirst For
Blood.

MIDDLET0WN, sept. 1.-The solu-
tion of the mystery surrounding Lizzie
Halliday's awful crimes will be found in
the history of her previous life and her re-
latons with her husband
Young Paul and Robert Halliday have
told their stories, and when all this new
and old information is put together there
Is produced story of very unusual, but
not of unprecedented criminality.
Lizzie Halliday, herself type of low
humanity, was merely an ignorant. mean,
cunning and reyengeful woman, with the
belief that she possessed the power to de-
ceive everybody she chose.
This appears to have been her character
under ordinary circumstances. but at GER
tain periods she appears to have become
possessed OF q mania. On each occasion
when she was in this wild mental con-
dition she was expecting to become
mother.
She never did, however, so far as 10
known, give birth to living child. This
MANIA which is not without numerous
precedents, assumed In Lizzie Halliday's
case phase almost unbelievably shocking.
In fact, there is excellent reason to as
sumo that her case and that of the
mysterious London assassin, known as
Jack the Ripper" are very similar
In both the mania appears to have de-
veloped crimes of similar nature, the
difference being chiefly that in one 1t de-
veloped in man and in this last case in q
woman.
Lizzie Halliday has killed two men in
her life. both of them husbands, and she
mutilated BOTH
1t has just come out, through the stories
told by Paul Halliday's two sons, that the
woman confessed to old Paul soon after
her marriage to him that she had been
married before, and had killed and then
hacked her husband
Old Paul professed not to believe this
story, and undoubtedly did not. But it
now appears that she treated his body
after she had killed him as she had that of
her first husband.
Her two subsequent crimes, the killing
of the McQuillan women, must have been
committed in pure thirst for blood, in
duced by her mania and probably whetted
by her fearful crime of u few days before
She did not mutilate the bodies of the
women, which shows that it must have
been merely thirst for blood which
prompted her to tie deed.
In protracted interview with Robert
Halliday, the eldest son of the murdered
man, he made the following statement:
This woman came from the same county
In Ireland Us my father. He told me this
himself He first met her in an ntelli-
gence Office in Newburg, where he secured
her services as housekeeper. Some time
after he married her None of the family
liked the woman. Her appearance was
against her. She did not conduct herself
as wife should My father, however,
was infatuated with her. She held pc
culiar influence over him which nothing
could shake. Soon after his marriage to
the woman, who gave her name rs Lizzie
Brown, there began the peculiar success
sion of crimes which finally led to her be-
Ing committed to the insane asylum
First there was the burning of the
house. Then the burning of the barn. and
finally the burning of the old mill where
my father, his wife and my brother John
lived, in which fire my brother lost his
life.
Following this at stated period came
her theft of the team of Newburg livery
man. She hired IL horse and buggy in
Newburg on the statement that she was o.
poor Irish servant who wanted to visit her
sick mother. The man let he. have a
horse and buggy. She drove out of town,
got an old man to go with her as she did
not know the country, and within twenty
four hours had sold the rig and horse to
some gypsies.
"She was arrested, tried and found not
guilty on the ground of insanity.
1.-Two fires in my fathers place occurred
In quick succession. After longer period
came the conflagration in which my young
brother persisted. For this crime she was
arrested, but on the ground of insanity
twas remanded to the insane asylum at
Middletown. She remained there awhile,
was then sent to another asylum, and
finally was released rs cured at my fathers
request.
MY father told me subsequently to these
affairs that his wife, at the time of their
commission, was i'll condition peculiar to
women. That when i'll that con dition she
was subject to spells of insanity. With
The disappearance of the physical. condition
there was disappearance of the criminal
tendencies. I begged my father to leave
the woman, but he would not listen to
me-
After a great deal of deliberation the
coroner's jury arrived at this verdict: 1--WE
do say upon our oath that Margaret j.
McQuillan and Sarah j. McQuillan came
to their deaths from bullets fired from a
pistol in the hands of Lizzie Halliday
That said Margaret was killed on or about
Aug. 30, and Sarah j. AlcQuilan ON or
about Sept. a."
The inquest ON the body of Paul Halli-
day was resumed ut o'clock this morn
ing, but nothing new, it is believed, will
be elected. After that the case will sink
out of sight until Mrs. Halliday is called
to answer at court some time next month.
Tux storage of pianos and organs, free
from dampness, at reasonable rates, at
Hobbie Music Company, 36 Salem ave-