The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1906-10-31
MAD MURDERESS
KILLS GIRL NURSE
Lizzie Halliday, Inmate of Mat
teaWan, Takes Seventh Life.
ACT PROMPTED BY AFFECTION
Woman Knows Favorite Attendant is
About to Leave Hospital and At
Victim 200 Times.

About to Leave Hospital and At
tacks Her With Shears-Stabs
Victim 200 Times.
Marteawan; N. Y.-Mrs. Lizzie Hal
liday, upon whose head rests the guilt
of Staying six men and women, added
seventh victim to her list in the
hospital for insane criminals, when
she stabbed her nurse, Miss Nellie
Wicks, aged twenty-four, to death.
Miss Wicks had showed such tact
and skill in the management of forty
or fifty women patients that she was
promoted to be head attendant of the
women's department. Mrs. Halliday,
a woman Of middle age and somewhat
imbecile, showed great fondness for
her from the outset, and the attend
ant made her one Of her most trusted
patients.
Recently Miss !Wicks announced
her intention of leaving the hospital
to study to become trained nurse.
Mrs. Halliday took the announcement
to heart and begged her not to leave.
The young woman laughed and
humored her patient, but continued
her preparations for departing. Sew
eral times Mrs. Halliday had said she
would kill Miss Wicks before she
would let her go, but she has made so
many threats against different per-
sons since her Incarceration that little
attention was paid to her. Least of
all Miss Wicks feared her.
Miss Wicks entered Washroom at
q quarter to 8 o'clock a. m. She was
followed stealthily by Mrs. Halliday,
who had in her hand pair Of shears
which she was allowed to have to do
sewing. Creeping up behind Miss
Wicks, the lunatic struck her on the
head and felled her. Then taking
the nurses keys she locked the door,
leaving the keys in the lock so the
door could not be opened from the
outside. With the fury OF a tigress
she returned to the attack, and, using
the shears, she stabbed the girl over
200 times over the heart and In the
face and neck. Miss Wicks' screams
brought help, and the door was
broken down.
Mrs. Halliday stood at window,
calmly watching the death struggles.
A maniacal smile of triumph lighted
her face.
"She won't leave me now" she
said, and laughed as she spoke.
Miss Wicks was hurried to cot,
but died within an hour, without re-
! covering consciousness. Mrs. Halli-
day laughed gleefully when told she
was dead.
When Coroner Goring asked her
ghy she had committed the murder
he replied: "She tried to leave me"
Mrs Halliday will not be placed in
cell. Superintendent Lamb says
she will be carefully guarded, but
there will be no punishment for her.
For years Lizzie Halliday roved the
Hudson and Mohawk valleys as queen
Of a gypsy tribe that made living
chiefly through raids on the farmers.
1t was in 1898 that she led her band
into Sullivan County, when she met
old Paul Halliday, then in his sixty
fifth year. He lived on his small
mountain farm with his bachelor
brother. Later she married him.
She had been there four years
when the McQuillans, mother and
daughter, who were lured to the
farm, were killed by Mrs. Halliday
at the same time she murdered her
husband, and the crime was brought
home to her. Long before this she
had burned the Halliday homestead
to the ground, and the imbecile and
crippled son of Halliday in it.
After the fire, which did not even
cause her arrest, she was discovered
stealing horses near Newburg, and
term in an insane asylum saved her
from prisc1 at this time. Set free
once more, she remained quiet until
the disappearance of Mrs. McQuillan
and her daughter, Sarah, started an
investigation that resulted in the dis
covery of their mutilated bodies.
Her trial and her final commitment
to Matteawan are matter of history.
She had been sentenced to be hanged
when petitions were circulated in her
behalf and a commission, which Mrs.
Halliday aided materially by her pre-.
tended attempts at suicide in her cell
always when rescue was near
finally adjudged her insane.
Artemus Brewer, another Of Mrs.
Halliday's husbands, died after year
of beatings at the hands Of the pow
erful woman, and yet George Smith,
an old-time friend of Brewer, who
saw him die, married the widow. She
laughingly gave him a cup Of pois-
oned tea one day and left him. When
the doctors brought him around the
woman had fed with another man,
one Hiram Parkinson.
On the way to Matteawan Asylum
Mrs. Halliday attacked Deputy Sheriff
Morris and bit him in the hand. He
later died of blood poisoning, caused
by the bite. She did her best on the
train to kill him.