Devil's Rooming House: The True Story of America's Deadliest Female Serial Killer

Devil's Rooming House: The True Story of America's Deadliest Female Serial Killer

by M. William Phelps
Devil's Rooming House: The True Story of America's Deadliest Female Serial Killer

Devil's Rooming House: The True Story of America's Deadliest Female Serial Killer

by M. William Phelps

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Overview

The gripping tale of a legendary, century-old murder spree

***

A silent, simmering killer terrorized New England in1911. As a terrible heat wave killed more than 2,000 people, another silent killer began her own murderous spree. That year a reporter for the Hartford Courant noticed a sharp rise in the number of obituaries for residents of a rooming house in Windsor, Connecticut, and began to suspect who was responsible: Amy Archer-Gilligan, who’d opened the Archer Home for Elderly People and Chronic Invalids four years earlier. “Sister Amy” would be accused of murdering both of her husbands and up to sixty-six of her patients with cocktails of lemonade and arsenic; her story inspired the Broadway hit Arsenic and Old Lace.

The Devil’s Rooming House is the first book about the life, times, and crimes of America’s most prolific female serial killer. In telling this fascinating story, M. William Phelps also paints a vivid portrait of early-twentieth-century New England.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781493050123
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date: 09/01/2020
Pages: 336
Sales rank: 358,001
Product dimensions: 5.50(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

M. William Phelps is a crime expert, lecturer, and investigative journalist who has more than 600,000 copies of his books in print since 1999. His contemporary crime titles include: Perfect Poison, Lethal Guardian, Every Move You Make, Sleep In Heavenly Peace, Murder in the Heartland, Because You Loved Me, If Looks Could Kill, and I'll Be Watching You (2009).

His works of history include an account of Nathan Hale's life titled, Nathan Hale, which chronicles a period in Hale's life between 1773 and 1776 set against two major battles of the American Revolution. He also co-wrote Failures of the Presidents: Our Leaders' Worst Decisions from the Dred Scott Case to Watergate to the Bay of Pigs to Iraq, with Thomas Craughwell.

Phelps has appeared on Court TV, The Discovery Channel, Fox News Channel, CN8, ABC's “Good Morning America,” The Learning Channel, Biography Channel, History Channel, Montel Williams, Geraldo At Large, USA Radio Network, ABC News Radio and Radio America, who calls him “the nation's leading authority on the mind of the female murderer.” He's written for the Providence Journal, Hartford Courant, the New London Day, and published several best-selling history “Shorts” for Amazon.com.

Profiled in such noted publications as Writer's Digest, NY Daily News, Newsday, Albany Times-Union, Hartford Courant, Advance for Nurses magazine, Forensic Nursing, The Globe magazine and NY Post, Phelps has also consulted for the Showtime cable television series “Dexter.”

He lives in a small Connecticut farming community with his wife, three children and Labrador. He runs a crime forum at www.crimerant.com and can also be reached at his author Web site, www.mwilliamphelps.com

Table of Contents

A Note to the Reader viii

Prologue Simmering Death x

Part 1 Silent Killers

Chapter 1 The Matron and the Reporter 2

Chapter 2 Quiet Menace 12

Chapter 3 Silent Killers 22

Chapter 4 Humble Beginnings 26

Chapter 5 Devout Christian 30

Chapter 6 Left Behind 34

Chapter 7 The Bible Thumper 37

Chapter 8 Thousands Overcome 40

Chapter 9 Forecasting the Weather Is No Science 44

Chapter 10 The Biggest Boardinghouse in New England 49

Chapter 11 Cold Storage 56

Chapter 12 Red Skies at Night 61

Chapter 13 The Beginning of Franklins End 64

Part 2 Investigation & Innovation

Chapter 14 They Come and They Go 68

Chapter 15 Death at First Sight 74

Chapter 16 The Last Good-bye 78

Chapter 17 Death by Marriage 81

Chapter 18 Sweet Little Amy 87

Chapter 19 The Con 97

Chapter 20 Red Falcon 104

Chapter 21 "I Can Fix That All Right" 108

Chapter 22 The Wrong Victim 114

Chapter 23 "Fit as a Fiddle" 120

Chapter 24 Public Service 127

Chapter 25 Too Late 134

Chapter 26 Done to Death 140

Chapter 27 May the Curse of God Come Down on You 145

Chapter 28 Poison Control 149

Chapter 29 The Facts 154

Chapter 30 Grave Robbers 157

Chapter 31 Motive 166

Chapter 32 In the Dead of Night 170

Chapter 33 Oh, What a Beautiful "Mourning" 173

Chapter 34 "Murder Factory" 183

Part 3 Trials & Tribulations

Chapter 35 A Changing World 194

Chapter 36 The Greatest Success 198

Chapter 37 Witch of Windsor 203

Chapter 38 Victory for the Vanquished 208

Chapter 39 The Experts 216

Chapter 40 "Dark Murder Hole" 223

Chapter 41 Drug Addict 227

Chapter 42 One Last Trick 237

Chapter 43 Arsenic and Old Lace 239

Epilogue Whatever Happened to Amy? 244

Acknowledgments 252

Endnotes 255

Selected Bibliography 291

Selected Essays & Documents 294

Index 295

About the Author 304

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