Harry T. Hayward

Harry T. Hayward (c. 1865 - December 12, 1895) was an American socialite, confidence man, serial arsonist, and murderer during the Victorian Era. Due to his ability to manipulate others, Hayward was dubbed, "The Minneapolis Svengali," by the newspapers of his time.

Hayward is best known as the mastermind of one of Victorian America's most infamous crimes -- the contract killing of dressmaker Catherine "Kitty" Ging on December 3, 1894. After his younger brother and the hitman testified against him, Hayward was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to death by hanging.

In the hours before his execution at Hennepin County Jail in Minneapolis, Hayward gave a detailed interview to his cousin Edward Goodsell and a court reporter. He admitted to numerous arsons, assaults, swindles, and three additional murders.

Journalist and true crime writer Jack El-Hai has written that, if Harry Hayward's admissions are true, then he predates Dr. H. H. Holmes as America's first documented serial killer.[1]

Early life

Harry T. Hayward was born in Macoupin County, Illinois,[2] the son of William and Lodusky Hayward. He was brought to Minneapolis at the age of one year. While attending Minneapolis public schools, Hayward was known to torture small animals.[3]

Upon graduating, Hayward became a clerk before beginning to gamble at the age of twenty. Hayward later stated that even before this, "my god was always money."[4]

Ging murder

In January 1894, Hayward met Katherine "Kitty" Ging, a tenant of his parents at the Ozark Flats building on Hennepin Avenue and Thirteenth Street. He persuaded her to front him large sums of money, which he used gambling. When Ging demanded the return of her money, Hayward paid her with counterfeit currency. Privately, however, he described her as, "an easy mark."

On December 3, 1894, Ging's body was found, shot behind the ear, on a road near Lake Calhoun. It was later revealed that Hayward had persuaded her to purchase a $10,000 life insurance policy which named him as sole beneficiary.

Trial

After his brother Adry Hayward and triggerman Claus Blixt testified against him, Hayward was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to death by hanging.

Interview

Prior to his execution, Hayward gave a detailed series of interviews to his cousin Edward H. Goodsell. During this conversation, he admitted to numerous acts of illegal gambling, arson and three other murders. Transcripts were taken down by a court stenographer.

His victims included a twenty-year-old "sporting girl" whom he met in Pasadena, California. Hayward claimed to have lured her into a remote location in the Sierra Madre, shot her in the back of the head, and buried her in the woods. Hayward then made off with $7000 which she had carried in her wallet.[5]

Hayward also claimed to have fatally shot a "consumptive" near Long Branch, New Jersey, robbed him of $2000, and disposed of his body in the Shrewsbury River.

According to Harold Schechter, "His most brutal crime, however, was the slaying of a 'Chinaman' in a New York City gambling joint on Mulberry Street. Getting into an altercation over a card game, Harry, 'knocked the Chinaman down and kicked him in the stomach.' He then picked up a chair and jabbed the pointed end of one wooden leg into the man's eye. Then, while he was, 'down and howling," Harry sat down on the chair. 'His skull was kind of thin,' Harry related with a chuckle, 'and I heard the chair leg smash down through his skull.'"[6]

Hayward only admitted his involvement in Ging's murder, however, when it became clear that no reprieve was going to arrive from Minnesota Governor David Marston Clough.

At the end of the interview, Hayward quoted the poem, "Happy the man," by John Dryden, saying that it encompassed his philosophy of life.[7]

According to Harold Schechter, "Throughout the confession, Harry does in fact display many of the traits that we now know are typical of serial murderers: overweening narcissism, juvenile sadism... pyromania, a total lack of empathy for other human beings. Like other serial killers, he would experience his 'murderous impulse' as a kind of autonomous 'second self that would suddenly 'come over him.' Interestingly, he also seems to have suffered from convulsions as an adoloscent, possibly as a result of a head injury -- a factor found in the background of many serial killers."[8]

Execution

On December 12, 1895, Harry T. Hayward was hanged at Hennepin County Jail. Earlier that evening, he said, about members of the clergy, "I like these men and want to show them respectful consideration, but I do not care for religion. As a general thing, men in this sort of predicament get religious because they think it will brace them for the final ordeal. I do not need it. I am perfectly contented."[9]

Calm and unafraid, he arrived for his execution in formal evening attire. He gave a long and verbose speech which continued until the Sheriff cut in and ordered him to, "Die like a man." Hayward's last words were those of a gambler, "Pull her tight; I'll stand pat." The rope was mismeasured, however, and Hayward took more than thirteen minutes to slowly strangle.[10] Hayward's body was first autopsied and then interred in a family plot at the Minneapolis Pioneers and Soldiers Memorial Cemetery.[11]

Legacy

Harold Schechter has written, "In the end, it is impossible to know whether Harry Hayward killed one victim or (as he claimed) four. All that can be said with certainty is that, as a case of criminal psychopathology' - moral insanity,' in the terms of his contemporaries - Harry Hayward was, as Goodsell and others saw it, one of the most remarkable specimens of his age."[12]

Conspiracy theory

According to Walter Trenerry, rumors soon spread that Hayward had been secretly resurrected by a secret society. When researching the Ging murder during the early 1960s, Trenerry heard claims that the Freemasons' Grand Lodge of Minnesota had resurrected him. Trenerry, however, expressed scepticism that Hayward could have survived both hanging and dissection.[13]

Ballad

The murder ballad The Fatal Ride describes Hayward's involvement in the Kitty Ging murder.

Further reading

External links

References

  1. ↑ "The Killer who Haunts Me," by Jack El-Hai, Minnesota Monthly, February, 2010.
  2. ↑ Goodsell (1896), pages 33-34.
  3. ↑ Schechter (2012), page 253.
  4. ↑ Goodsell (1896), page 34.
  5. ↑ Schechter (2012), page 252.
  6. ↑ Schechter (2012), page 252.
  7. ↑ Goodsell (1896), page 112.
  8. ↑ Schechter (2012), page 253.
  9. ↑ Goodsell (1896), page 135.
  10. ↑ Trenerry (1962), page 153.
  11. ↑ Findagrave's Entry on Harry Hayward
  12. ↑ Schechter (2012, page 253.
  13. ↑ Trenerry (1962), page 154.
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