"a Fine Old Whiskey": the Murder-by-mail Slaying of Josephine A. Barnaby
| Publication year | 2010 |
| Pages | 83 |
2010, July, Pg. 83. "A Fine Old Whiskey": The Murder-by-Mail Slaying of Josephine A. Barnaby
July 2010
Vol. 39, No. 7 [Page 83]
About the Author
Frank Gibbard is a staff attorney with the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals and Secretary of the Tenth Circuit Historical Society-(303) 844-5306, frank_gibbard@ca10.uscourts.gov. The views expressed are those of the author and not of the Tenth Circuit or its judges. The author is grateful for the research assistance of Dan Cordova and Lynn Christian of the Colorado Supreme Court Law Library. Readers are encouraged to contact Gibbard with topic suggestions or to volunteer to write Historical Perspectives articles.
The 1891 murder trial of Dr. Thomas Thatcher Graves brought national attention to the state of Colorado. The case of People v. Graves(fn1) had it all: wealth, sex, scandal, and mystery. The accused was an accomplished gentleman whose lofty credentials inspired immediate respect in Victorian society.(fn2) The victim was a wealthy widow of questionable morals. The killing was a first: it was accomplished through the U.S. Mail from a distance of 2,000 miles.
The Accused: Dr. Graves
Dr. Graves was a Mason, a devoted Congregationalist, a scientific researcher, and a public lecturer who had achieved success both as a military man and as a physician. After compiling a stellar academic record as a young man, he enlisted in the Union Army, where he quickly attained the rank of Major.
Graves was chosen to escort President Abraham Lincoln on his tour of the fallen Confederate capital in Richmond, Virginia in 1865. He later wrote a published account of his experiences during the Southern occupation.(fn3)
In 1871, six years after the Civil War ended, he graduated first in his class at Harvard Medical School. He married a beautiful young woman and settled into practice in Providence, Rhode Island.(fn4) In 1891, when the murder of Mrs. Josephine A. Barnaby occurred, he was 50 years old and appeared "tall, well dressed and startlingly handsome," with full sideburns and a moustache, and penetrating eyes.(fn5)
The Victim: Mrs. Josephine Barnaby
Josephine Barnaby's great-grandson has left us a vivid portrait of the victim. According to his account, she was not endowed with much of Dr. Graves's ambition, wit, or intelligence.(fn6) What she did have, though, was money-lots of it. Her home-the Barnaby mansion known by locals as "the Castle"-stood just across the street in Providence from the more modest house where Dr. Graves and his wife Kitty lived.
Josephine became acquainted with Dr. Graves after one of her family servants began working for the Graves family. Though still an attractive woman at age 55, she was no longer the beauty she had once been. Years of fondness for fine food and drink had left her a little pudgy, with a drinker's veins showing in her cheeks.(fn7) But she quickly found herself captivated by the dashing, handsome physician.
Josephine Barnaby's Fortune and Travels
At the time of her death, Josephine enjoyed a generous sum of money from the estate of her late husband, Jerothmul Bowers Barnaby. J.B., as he was known, had been a rather overbearing and self-centered man who owed his fortune to a chain of men's clothing stores known as the J.B. Barnaby Company.(fn8) He was rumored to have had numerous extramarital affairs. One morning in 1889, while sitting in his horse-drawn carriage, he suddenly slumped over and died at the age of 59.
Josephine fancied herself a bon vivant. Life with her boorish and inattentive husband, whom she had married when she was just 21 years old, must have been a sort of a cross to bear on her delicate shoulders. After J.B. died, she began to live it up. She spent his money on travel. She took friends with her on her journeys, including her special friend, Dr. Graves.
Dr. Graves had a legitimate medical reason for attending to Josephine. He specialized in diseases of the nerves, and she had suffered partial paralysis of one of her arms since giving birth to one of her children.(fn9) What Kitty Graves thought of her husband's travels with a wealthy woman five years older than he was not recorded. The exact nature of Dr. Graves's relationship with Josephine also is uncertain,(fn10) but before long, as some sources describe it, she had become little more than his slave, whose life was in his hands.(fn11)
A Fine Old Whiskey
In the spring of 1891, Josephine and her friend from Pennsylvania, Mrs. Edward Worrell, traveled to Denver. They stayed with Mrs. Worrell's son, Edward, Jr., and her daughter-in-law at the Worrell home located at 2226 Williams Street. Dr. Graves remained behind in Providence.
On April 13, 1891, the day of her murder, Josephine and Mrs. Worrell spent the day on a ranch in the country near Denver. On the ride home in their open carriage, Josephine became chilled. Mrs. Worrell suggested they each enjoy a hot toddy. Josephine quickly agreed, and proposed that they try the present from her "unknown admirer."
The present she referred to was an odd bottle that Josephine had received several days earlier in the mail. The package she received had been dispatched to her from Boston-bearing no return address-in care of the office of Edward Worrell, Jr. Inside a wooden box marked "Liebig's Extract of Meat," Josephine found a glass bottle full of a reddish fluid. The bottle was not commercially labeled. It had a handwritten label on it that read: "Wish you a happy New Year. Please accept this fine old whiskey from your friends in the woods."(fn12)
Josephine's comment when she opened the package was, "It must be from [Edward] Bennett." The person she was referring to was a gentleman friend who lived in the Adirondacks.(fn13)
The Unfriendly Woods
The phrase "friends in the woods" must have had a bittersweet resonance for Josephine. "The Woods" was the name of her favorite resort in the Adirondack Mountains, run by her friend Edward Bennett. She liked the place so much, in fact, that she had proposed to buy a house or property nearby. This proposal had produced an alarmed response from Dr. Graves.(fn14) He wrote her a letter informing her that the executors of her late husband's estate were very displeased with her investment plans and that if she persisted in them, they would doubtless take steps to have a guardian appointed for her.(fn15) Dr. Graves later admitted that he had lied to her in the letter.(fn16)
The prosecution would make much of this letter, contending it was written with ulterior motives. Dr. Graves, the state theorized, had squandered some of Josephine's estate and was afraid she would find out the money was missing and demand an accounting. To prevent this from happening, he eventually murdered Josephine.(fn17)
Poisoned Whiskey
On that April evening in 1891, both Josephine and Mrs. Worrell drank some of the liquid in the gift bottle. Mrs. Worrell drank a whole glass of it quickly, and then complained of the taste. Josephine sipped it slowly.(fn18) Within minutes, both women were in horrible agony. Mrs. Worrell eventually recovered, but Josephine suffered a slow, painful death. Analysis of the bottle later showed it contained 132 grains of arsenic-enough to kill nearly seventy people.
Enter John Howard Conrad
Suspicion did not focus immediately on Dr. Graves; in fact, there was plenty of finger-pointing to go around. The Worrells came under suspicion, if for no other reason than their proximity to the bottle and their opportunity to have supplied its deadly contents. Josephine's friends at The Woods also were scrutinized.
Even Josephine's daughters had reason to resent her and were not above suspicion. When J.B. Barnaby died, he had left Josephine only $2,500 per year in his will, claiming she was too flighty to handle a larger sum of money.(fn19) At Dr. Graves's urging, Josephine had sued her daughters for a larger share of the estate-and won. The...
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