Lawrence, Mass., August 29, 1885 - Inventor Henry Goodwin visited the Lawrence, Massachusetts, office of his business partner, Albert Swan. The two men spoke quietly for about half an hour, then Goodwin pulled out a revolver and shot Swan in the head, killing him. A crowd of people rushed to the office to see what had happened and Goodwin calmly told them “I have shot him, I meant to do it.” 

With the same calm determination, Goodwin went to the Lawrence police station and turned himself in. When asked why he had killed Swan, Goodwin replied, “I told him a year ago that unless he came to some settlement with me about our matters, I would have his heart’s blood. He has robbed me of my papers and my patents, and when I have undertaken to sell them I could not give a good title. He has robbed me of $40,000. I did it, I meant to do it, and I am here to take the consequences.”

The patents in question were for telephone switches; Henry Goodwin was a gifted inventor in the nascent field of telephony. He had turned to his boyhood friend, and successful businessman, Albert Swan, for help in securing patents for his new inventions. They successfully patented one of his switches but the patent for his greatest invention, a switchboard that could route hundreds of calls through a central location, was lost to the Molecular Telephone Company of New York because Swan did not finish the paperwork on time. As it turned out, Albert Swan had a business interest in the Molecular Telephone Company.

On his attorney’s advice, Henry Goodwin pled temporary insanity. Even before the patent deal, Goodwin had a history of irrational fear that his ideas were being stolen. He left two lucrative contracts in South America because in each case, he believed his employers were stealing his proprietary work. The same thing happened in the Midwest of the United States and by the time he returned to Lawrence his reputation prevented him from working anywhere.

But the jury did not buy it. The bad blood between Goodwin and Swan was well known in Lawrence. Goodwin had admitted to the murder and had admitted to warning Swan a year earlier. That sounded like premeditation and Henry Goodwin was sentenced to life in prison.

Details on this case and about two dozen other historical Massachusetts murders can be found in Murder & Mayhem in Essex County.

Life in the Tenderloin district in New York is regarded with considerable awe by those that have heard of its naughty and glittering peculiarities, and the befuddled "sports" that take part in it probably assure themselves that it is vicious enough to be imposing. You will find that the citizens of every community take especial pride in the extent and variety of their immorality and the people of New York have always pointed to the Tenderloin as a magnificent feature of metropolitan life. You can get as stirring exhibitions of dissipation and wickedness in New York as are to be found anywhere. The wild dazzling vice of the frontier may be noisier, but for lively episodes among "racketers" and golden youth who are "blowing their stuff," New York is not to be surpassed. You watch the panorama of vice there and you will find that it is never dull.

Two fine figures which illuminated the shifting scene last week with a brilliant escapade to stir the pulses were fished out of a bath tub in the -------- Hotel on Fifth avenue. They had wound up a routine of wild debauchery by proposing to cool their heads under "the shower" of the bath tub in their hotel suite. The plug was in the bath tub, the tub filled with water, and the chambermaid found the occupant of the apartment and his girl companion asleep side by side in the water-filled tub, with "the shower" turned on. This was bathing relieved by poetic charm and individuality. A comical feature of the damp situation was that the male roysterer had an umbrella raised over himself. His girl companion is a well-known brilliantly wicked demi-virgin of Gotham, very handsome and representing very high grade and high cost immorality. One of her peculiarities is a permanent thirst for wine, but men who are of her set look upon her as very delightful and desirable. She has had before some dazzling orgies. and her past life has been followed by beautiful success in money getting. She is not an oyster-house woman; she is a high flyer. The best Gotham affords is none too good for her. She "bathes every day," she says, laughingly, "but not every day with a $300 dress and $200 worth of lace underwear on."

Illustrated Police News, May 4, 1895.

[more] There is a strong minded woman “way deown in Maine,” who has been protesting for years against her sex being debarred the right of suffrage. During the recent election she resolved to press her opinions through her spouse. They were one, she argued, and he had all the say in political matters since their marriage. His political creed differed from hers, but she determined to have “her say” for once. She overtook him on his way to the polls, laid firm hold on his ear, and forced him to put her ballot in the box. It was a clear case of connubial bulldozing.

Reprinted from The National Police Gazette, October 2, 1880.