Pleading not guilty by reason of insanity was a novel defense in 1906, yet there were two prominent defendants in the United States at the time who made such pleas: the young man who killed Edmund Creffield in Seattle and Harry Thaw who killed Stanford White in New York on the day the Creffield murder trial began.

 

Because of the similarities between the murders and the motives, the Thaw/White case in New York also had an effect on the Creffield murder trial.

 

Both cases made headlines across the nation but Thaw and White's story stayed in the news longer. That's because Harry Thaw was the son of a Pittsburgh railroad and coke magnate and his victim, Stanford White, was at the time America's most distinguished architect. It was sort of the the O. J. Simpson trial of the day.

 

This may also be a partial explanation for why little before has been written about Creffield's murder. Even though Creffield's story has many of the the same elements as White's and Thaw's--sex, insanity, murder, and sensational court trials--Creffield's story was overshadowed and eventually forgotten.

 

Since the Thaw/White case had an effect on Creffield's case, it was written about in Chapter Twenty-One of the book, Holy Roller's: Murder and Madness in Oregon's Love Cult. An excerpt from that chapter appears below, but the names of some people have been XXXed out so as to not ruin the suspense for those who may read Holy Rollers.

 

¥µ

Holy Rollers: Murder and Madness in Oregon's Love Cult

by

T. McCracken and Robert B. Blodgett

An Excerpt from

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

***

MURDER KEPT FROM [MR. XXX] JURORS

Headline, Portland's Evening Telegram, July 9 1906

***

There was yet another murder that people all over Seattle were talking about. On the first day of [Mr. XXX's] trial, stories about his case shared the nation's front pages with stories about young Harry Thaw's murdering Stanford White in cold blood.

What is happening to today's youth? people were wondering.

On June 25th much of New York's high society was packed into Madison Square Garden for the opening of a new musical, Mamzelle Champagne. The show was so dull that people left early or milled about chatting with friends in the roof garden. Suddenly Harry Thaw, in front of dozens of witnesses, pulled out a pistol and shot Stanford White three times. White lay dead in a pool of blood, his face blackened and unrecognizable from powder burns.

"Good God, Harry!" Harry's wife, Evelyn, cried. "What have you done?"

"All right, dearie," he calmly said. "I have probably saved your life."

As screaming women fought their way to the exit, the manager tried to restore order by jumping up on a table and shouting: "Go on playing! Bring on the chorus!"

"He deserved it," Harry said to the arresting officer. "I can prove it. He ruined my wife ['life,' some thought he said]."

At the time Harry's mother, Mrs. William Thaw, was in England visiting her daughter, the Countess of Yarmouth. When she heard about the shooting, she announced that she was prepared to pay a million dollars to save her son's life--no need to post signs around town requesting donations to assist young Thaw. To represent Harry, Mrs. Thaw hired "the Napoleon of the Western Bar," Delphin Michael Delmas, born in France and now an attorney from San Francisco. Described to be a man "short in stature but mighty in voice," he had a record of nineteen acquittals in nineteen murder cases.

Stanford White, the victim, fifty-two, a big man with red hair and a big mustache, was at the time America's most distinguished architect. One of his most famous creations was the building he died in, Madison Square Garden. Although married, he spent much of his time in the company of young women, including Harry Thaw's wife, Evelyn Nesbit. And he didn't just keep her company. White, Harry said, had been seducing her since she was a child.

"He seemed very kind and fatherly," Evelyn said of White. "He always treated me just like a father except in the way he took advantage of me. Outside of this one awful part of his life he was very nice, very kind. . . . Outside of that one terrible thing Stanford White was a very grand man."

Outside of that one terrible thing Stanford White was a very grand man? Was Evelyn insane? Then again, was it any odder than [Miss XXX] thinking her seducer, Edmund Creffield, was the Second Savior?