TRIAL OF LUCRETIA CHAPMAN, OTHERWISE CALLED LUCRETIA ESPOS Y MINA, WHO WAS JOINTLY INDICTED WITH LINO AMALIA ESPOS Y MINA, FOR THE MURDER OF WILLIAM CHAPMAN, ESQ. LATE OF ANDALUSIA, COUNTY OF BUCKS, PENNSYLVANIA, IN THE COURT OF OYER AND TERMINER, HELD AT DOYLESTOWN, FOR BUCKS, DECEMBER TERM, 1831, CONTINUED TO FEBRUARY TERM, 1832. PREPARED FOR PUBLICATION, BY... STUDENT OF LAW.
Philadelphia: G.W. Mentz & Son, 1832. Later cloth. [2], 213, [1 blank], 11 pp. With the Supplement on the trial of Lino which, as Cohen notes, was sometimes excluded from the book. Scattered foxing, lacks front free endpaper, rear endpaper dirty, light rubberstamp on title page, Good+.
Lucretia, "past forty and buxom," and Lino, a young boarder who claimed to be the son of the Spanish governor of California, became lovers; a decision was reached to rid themselves of Lucretia's inconvenient husband.
"Five weeks after he arrived Lino purchased a quarter of a pound of arsenic from a Philadelphia druggist, explaining that he used it in stuffing birds. The following day Mr. Chapman was taken ill; four days later he was dead." Soon thereafter the lovers "were quietly married in New York...Almost immediately the true character of the Spanish adventurer came out, with the disappearance of the family silver and other obvious signs of his chicanery." His activities came to the attention of the police, who decided to investigate Mr. Chapman's death. They discovered that "he was heavily dosed with arsenic" and arrested them both.
This book contains all the material on Lucretia's trial. Lino was tried separately, convicted, and executed. Lucretia was acquitted. "It is difficult to tell whether they had acted in concert in the murder; at least the jury gave her the benefit of the doubt" [quotations from McDade].
McDade 169. Cohen 12416. Item #32548
Price: $450.00