New Year’s Eve, after several days of harrowing illness.
The sudden death of his two children—and particularly of his cherished daughter, Ada—devastated Sherman. Always a heavy drinker, he began to hit the bottle harder than ever, going on benders that sometimes lasted for days. At the tail end of April, he and several cronies took off for New Haven. A week later, he still hadn’t returned home. His seventeen-year-old son, Nelson, decided to go look for his wayward father.
Lydia—whose relationship to Sherman had deteriorated so drastically that they were no longer sharing the same bed—agreed to pay her stepson’s way. Nelson found his father in a “den of low people” and fetched him home. Unsurprisingly, Sherman wasn’t feeling very well. He took to bed for several days beforereturning to work on Monday, May 8. When he came home from the factory that evening, Lydia was waiting with a nice cup of hot chocolate.
That night, Sherman was very sick with severe nausea, racking bowel pains, and diarrhea. The next morning, at her husband’s urging, Lydia sent for Dr. Beardsley, the family physician. Beardsley—who had been called to Sherman’s bedside before when the latter was suffering from a particularly brutal hangover—was puzzled by the symptoms, which bore little resemblance to the patient’s previous alcohol-induced “turns.” He prescribed one-eighth grain of morphine and a “blue pill” consisting mostly of mercury to be taken every two hours. Lydia dutifully administered the medication, helping her husband get it down with a few sips of one of her “soothing drinks.”
Beardsley returned early the next morning to find Sherman in a worse state than before. His breathing was terribly labored, his throat so constricted that he could barely speak. He was afflicted with a savage thirst and a burning pain in the pit of his stomach. He could not keep anything down. Beardsley prescribed brandy and water, then departed on his daily rounds, leaving Sherman in the care of the ever-attentive Lydia.
When the doctor showed up the following morning, it was clear that Sherman would not survive much longer. His pulse was almost imperceptible, his extremities cold, his skin a ghastly gray, particularly under the eyes. Beardsley examined the dying man with a growing sense of alarm. As he would later testify, neither an alcoholic “debauch” nor an “ordinary disease” could account for Sherman’s condition. To the physician’s great dismay, Sherman’s symptoms bore an unmistakable resemblance to “those originating from poisoningby arsenic”—several cases of which Beardsley had witnessed in his professional career.
As the doctor sat at the failing man’s bedside that Thursday morning, Sherman opened his eyes and—mustering what little strength he had—managed to gasp out a question: Was he dying?
“I fear that you are in your last sickness,” Beardsley said gently.
“I fear so, too,” Sherman said in a barely audible voice.
Beardsley slowly shook his head. “I do not understand this,” he said. “Tell me, have you taken anything other than what I prescribed?”
“Only what my wife has given me,” Sherman answered. They were his last documented words. Emitting an anguished groan, he closed his eyes and subsided onto his sweat-drenched pillow.
He died at approximately eight o’clock the next morning, Friday, May 12, 1871.
As a general rule, serial killers will continue to commit their atrocities until they are forcibly stopped. The reason is simple: killing and torture are their highest forms of pleasure. For nearly a decade, Lydia Sherman had been able to get away with almost a dozen hideous murders—three husbands, eight children—thanks in large part to the blind incompetence of the various physicians who attended her victims without ever suspecting foul play. In Beardsley, however, a doctor had come along who would finally bring the horror to an end.
After sharing his
The sudden death of his two children—and particularly of his cherished daughter, Ada—devastated Sherman. Always a heavy drinker, he began to hit the bottle harder than ever, going on benders that sometimes lasted for days. At the tail end of April, he and several cronies took off for New Haven. A week later, he still hadn’t returned home. His seventeen-year-old son, Nelson, decided to go look for his wayward father.
Lydia—whose relationship to Sherman had deteriorated so drastically that they were no longer sharing the same bed—agreed to pay her stepson’s way. Nelson found his father in a “den of low people” and fetched him home. Unsurprisingly, Sherman wasn’t feeling very well. He took to bed for several days beforereturning to work on Monday, May 8. When he came home from the factory that evening, Lydia was waiting with a nice cup of hot chocolate.
That night, Sherman was very sick with severe nausea, racking bowel pains, and diarrhea. The next morning, at her husband’s urging, Lydia sent for Dr. Beardsley, the family physician. Beardsley—who had been called to Sherman’s bedside before when the latter was suffering from a particularly brutal hangover—was puzzled by the symptoms, which bore little resemblance to the patient’s previous alcohol-induced “turns.” He prescribed one-eighth grain of morphine and a “blue pill” consisting mostly of mercury to be taken every two hours. Lydia dutifully administered the medication, helping her husband get it down with a few sips of one of her “soothing drinks.”
Beardsley returned early the next morning to find Sherman in a worse state than before. His breathing was terribly labored, his throat so constricted that he could barely speak. He was afflicted with a savage thirst and a burning pain in the pit of his stomach. He could not keep anything down. Beardsley prescribed brandy and water, then departed on his daily rounds, leaving Sherman in the care of the ever-attentive Lydia.
When the doctor showed up the following morning, it was clear that Sherman would not survive much longer. His pulse was almost imperceptible, his extremities cold, his skin a ghastly gray, particularly under the eyes. Beardsley examined the dying man with a growing sense of alarm. As he would later testify, neither an alcoholic “debauch” nor an “ordinary disease” could account for Sherman’s condition. To the physician’s great dismay, Sherman’s symptoms bore an unmistakable resemblance to “those originating from poisoningby arsenic”—several cases of which Beardsley had witnessed in his professional career.
As the doctor sat at the failing man’s bedside that Thursday morning, Sherman opened his eyes and—mustering what little strength he had—managed to gasp out a question: Was he dying?
“I fear that you are in your last sickness,” Beardsley said gently.
“I fear so, too,” Sherman said in a barely audible voice.
Beardsley slowly shook his head. “I do not understand this,” he said. “Tell me, have you taken anything other than what I prescribed?”
“Only what my wife has given me,” Sherman answered. They were his last documented words. Emitting an anguished groan, he closed his eyes and subsided onto his sweat-drenched pillow.
He died at approximately eight o’clock the next morning, Friday, May 12, 1871.
As a general rule, serial killers will continue to commit their atrocities until they are forcibly stopped. The reason is simple: killing and torture are their highest forms of pleasure. For nearly a decade, Lydia Sherman had been able to get away with almost a dozen hideous murders—three husbands, eight children—thanks in large part to the blind incompetence of the various physicians who attended her victims without ever suspecting foul play. In Beardsley, however, a doctor had come along who would finally bring the horror to an end.
After sharing his
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