Here they are! The answers to the Mugshot March challenge!
Sarah McDonald, 22, was arrested during a murder investigation involving the discovery of a baby’s body inside a suitcase behind a house in a wealthy neighborhood in Providence, Rhode Island. After McDonald was arrested, she claimed that the 11-month-old had died of natural causes but an autopsy revealed the baby had been beaten to death. She was charged for her baby’s murder and sent to jail.
Sybel Wolfe, 23, was arrested for grand larceny on April 12, 1911. According to police records, she gave birth in the Clark County jail six days after her sentencing. Wolfe was later pardoned by the Washington governor for her crime and sent home to Iowa.
Mattie Brown was sent to the Nebraska State Prison on Sept. 25, 1917, for larceny from a person in Douglas County. “Larceny of a person” was often the legal term to describe pick-pocketing. She spent a year in prison.
Caroline Clotilde, 43, was arrested as an anarchist in Paris in 1894. No word on the penalty for her.
Helen Sullivan, 21, was arrested for “joy riding on public highway” and spent 90 days in the Clark County jail in Washington. 90 days for a joy ride sounds harsh!
May Taylor was arrested for shoplifting in 1940. Whew!!
In November 1904, Fay Buck was arrested in San Francisco for stealing clothes and furs valued at $540 (more than $15,000 in today’s currency rate) from her landlady, Rose Decker who ran a “sporting house” in the city’s seed Tenderloin district. Buck testified she had been lured into Decker’s “house of ill-repute” and that she stole the clothes to sell them and escape from a “life of shame.” What do you think? Believable?
Elizabeth Singleton had multiple convictions for soliciting and was described in police records as a “common prostitute.” This was from her arrest in 1927. Hmm…
Edith Towel was arrested multiple times, usually on charges of petty theft. Her last crime (or at least her last booking on police records) was in 1897 for stealing apparel and a watch. I just love this one. She reminds me a little of Mrs. Oleson on Little House on the Prairie. Another one I wouldn’t cross!
old spirituals 