A Sensational Crime and Trial that Confronted Racism, Sexism, and
Privilege as America Took to the World Stage
On the foggy, cold morning of February 1, 1896, a boy came upon what he
thought was a pile of clothes. It was soon discovered to be the headless
body of a young woman, brutally butchered and discarded. She was found
just across the river from one of the largest cities in the country,
Cincinnati, Ohio. Soon the authorities, the newspapers, and the public
were obsessed with finding the poor girl's identity and killer.
Misinformation and rumor spread wildly around the case and led
authorities down countless wrong paths. Initially, it appeared the crime
would go unsolved. An autopsy, however, revealed that the victim was
four months pregnant, presenting a possible motive. It would take the
hard work of a sheriff, two detectives, and the unlikely dedication of a
shoe dealer to find out who the girl was; and once she had been
identified, the case came together. Within a short time the police
believed they had her killers--a handsome and charismatic dental student
and his roommate--and enough evidence to convict them of first-degree
murder. While the suspects seemed to implicate themselves, the police
never got a clear answer as to what exactly happened to the girl and
they were never able to find her lost head--despite the recovery of a
suspicious empty valise.
Centering his riveting new book, Unwanted: A Murder Mystery of the
Gilded Age, around this shocking case and how it was solved, historian
Andrew Young re-creates late nineteenth- century America, where
Coca-Cola in bottles, newfangled movie houses, the Gibson Girl, and
ragtime music played alongside prostitution, temperance, racism,
homelessness, the rise of corporations, and the women's rights movement.
While the case inspired the sensationalized pulp novel Headless
Horror, songs warning girls against falling in love with dangerous men,
ghost stories, and the eerie practice of random pennies left heads up on
a worn gravestone, the story of an unwanted young woman captures the
contradictions of the Gilded Age as America stepped into a new century,
and toward a modern age.
