Episode 133: The Derby Poisoner
Lydia Danbury was born on December 24th, 1824 in New Jersey. She grew up as an orphan as her parents died when she was still an infant, and she was raised by her uncle John Claygay. By the age of 16, Lydia was working as a tailor. She met her first husband, a man named Edward Struck, at the age of 17, almost 18, through the Methodist church they both attended. Edward was a widower and had six of his own children. He was also almost 20 years older than her. The two married shortly after meeting in 1842.
Edward and Lydia soon moved to 125th Street in New York City and had eight children together. Edward was working as a police officer, but lost his job in 1863 after a detective was killed when he was supposed to be on duty but had left his post. He soon fell into a deep depression. As opposed to taking him to a doctor or even having him committed into a psychiatric ward, Lydia took matters into her own hands. She decided to, in her own words, “put him out of the way, as he would never be any good.”
She made her husband some dinner of oatmeal mixed with arsenic laden rat poison, and after several hours of vomiting, diarrhea, and intense stomach cramping followed by convulsions, Edward passed away. Lydia realized that the money from the life insurance policy she took out on Edward shortly before his murder would not come for a while and she was left with six children to feed. The couple’s oldest son John had moved out by this time and their youngest daughter Josephine had died of an illness, leaving the six remaining children: 6-year-old Mary Ann, 4-year-old Edward Jr., 9-month-old William, George, Ann Eliza and Lydia, ages unknown, to fall victim to Lydia’s arsenic poisoning.
Lydia strategically called different doctors for each child’s death to avoid suspicion, and had Edward buried quickly as authorities had wanted to investigate his sudden death. She also played the part of grieving mother and widow, so much so that a local doctor ended up feeling bad for her and hiring her as a nurse.
Eventually, Lydia got a nursing job in Stratford, Connecticut in 1867. This is where she met a man named Dennis Hurlburt, who was a farmer and fisherman and was also recently widowed. He was also very wealthy. Lydia was affectionate with Dennis in public to avoid raising suspicion that she was only with him for his money, as the couple had married rather soon after meeting. Lydia began noticing that Dennis suffered from a lot of aches and pains due to his old age, and soon he too began vomiting and convulsing before dying of arsenic poisoning, leaving Lydia with $30,000 in inheritance money.
In April of 1870, Lydia began working as a housekeeper for a wealthy man and recent widow named Horatio Nelson Sherman. Nelson had four of his own children, as well as a drinking problem. Within several months of moving into Nelson’s Derby, Connecticut home, the two ended up marrying. One night, Nelson was intoxicated and saying that he wished his sickly infant son Frankie would pass away so he would not have to suffer anymore. The young child died days later after Lydia added arsenic to his bottle. Several months after this, Nelson’s 14-year-old daughter Ada was sick with the flu and under Lydia’s care when she too passed away.
Overcome with grief, Nelson went on a week long binge, partly funded by Lydia’s inheritance money she received after she murdered Dennis. She began mixing her arsenic into his brandy and cider, and Nelson was dead within several days.
Given the sudden nature of Nelson’s passing, a local doctor named Dr. Beardsley quickly took notice and performed an autopsy. Upon further examination of the stomach contents, the doctor found large amounts of arsenic. The bodies of Nelson’s deceased children as well as the body of Dennis Hurlburt were exhumed for examination and authorities found that all four of the deaths were from arsenic poisoning.
Lydia was arrested in 1871 in her home state of New Jersey for Nelson’s murder. She almost immediately confessed, but initially claimed that Nelson’s death was an accident. She was tried in New Haven, Connecticut in 1872, where the jury found her guilty of second-degree murder. She awaited her sentencing in the New Haven jail, and a year later in 1873 she made a full confession where she admitted to poisoning her “three husbands and four children.” On January 11th, 1873, Judge Sanford of New Haven sentenced Lydia Sherman to life in prison. She served her sentence at the Wethersfield State Prison.
On June 5th, 1877, Lydia escaped from prison and made it to Providence, Rhode Island. She was eventually found with a fourth wealthy, recently widowed man after she gave a hotel owner two different false names and appeared suspicious. Several months later in 1878, Lydia was diagnosed with cancer and passed away in prison on May 16th, 1878 at the age of 51.
Image sources:
nhregister.com - “The Derby Poisoner: The story of Lydia Sherman, a mass murderer”