Lizzie Lloyd King

Elizabeth Lloyd King (born 1847) was the murderer of Charles Goodrich, whom she is said to have shot three times in the head on 20 March 1873 in Brooklyn, New York, United States. The murder was headline news in the city, until her capture more than three months after the event. Her inquest drew large crowds, and prisoner church sermons drew requests for attendance from the general public, some of whom were granted entry. After a year in jail, a psychological assessment deemed that she was unfit to stand trial, and she was committed to a life sentence at the State Lunatic Hospital at Auburn.

Her inquest was held on the same day and at the same court as that for Mary Ann Dwyer, who had murdered her three children, making the story even more sensational for the New York press. The New York Times story headline the next day was "TWO INSANE WOMEN".

The chief of police who handled her case, Patrick Campbell, would recall her case decades later as "a great one", and one of the most memorable of his career.

Description King was described as a "remarkable woman", who was "attractive in face, manner and figure, and was a fine musician". and had an older sister. She was described to have a normal childhood, for which her mother could not recall King as having "ever said an immodest word". and that her condition was "caused by some disease peculiar to females". not returning to her hometown during this period. Handley knew King by the name Kate Stoddard, an alias in recent use by her, and the name by which she was commonly known at the time. She was an inmate of the Working Women's Home, and worked as a milliner making straw bonnets at a warehouse on the corner of Broadway and Spring Street.

King met Charles Goodrich after responding to a personal ad in a newspaper, Seven units had been built and owned by Charles Goodrich, and were completed in the fall of 1872; he had assumed residence of the unit at 731 Degraw Street. The letter also indicated that Goodrich had married King in what she now knew was a mock marriage, since the clergyman who conducted the ceremony was Reuben Smith, a doctor by trade and a friend of Goodrich.

At the urging of his brother, Charles Goodrich temporarily separated from King for about a week, but she had returned to live with him for at least a few days before he was shot. The murder occurred at his home. (that is, the given name) signed therein.

During the first few days of the investigation, it was hypothesized that Goodrich had committed suicide. Others persisted in the suicide conjecture; the claim was that he shot himself once, and that the person who discovered him shot him twice more to give the appearance of a murder, and then wiped away the blood. On 2 July 1873, Brooklyn Common Council unanimously adopted the motion to offer another $1,000 in reward for the capture of King, bringing the total reward to $3,500.

King had been the primary suspect from the start of the investigation, according to the New York Times:

Yesterday's developments were trivial and unimportant, going only to further establish the undeniable complicity of a woman, and her presence in the house on the night of the murder — The New York Times

By 1 April 1873, several suspects for the murder had been proposed: an Englishman named Barnet or Barrett; a man named James, using the alias "Pop" Tighe, and two other burglars; a Spaniard named Roscoe; and Kate Stoddard, based on several letters that were found during the initial investigation of the crime scene. The suspicion of Roscoe was based on an interview of Lucette Meyers by Chief of Police Patrick Campbell, in which she proposed that Goodrich had been "followed to his house and killed by a man—an enemy". The police efforts were by now being criticized, having failed to apprehend or even nominate a viable suspect. When a New York detective apprehended a Frenchman named Charles Dalzen, of "Hayti, West Indies" (sic), She was placed in the same room as Armstrong, posing as a witness named Lucy in a civil case, The location of the son's pistol was unaccounted.

The burglar conjecture was largely ignored as implausible by this time. Various stories regarding Roscoe were known, and by July 1873, he was deemed an accomplice of King to the murder.

Having failed in their search for Stoddard, increasingly the prime suspect in the case, the police hired Mary Handley, making her a detective to the chief of police, paying her a stipend of $2 per day for 40 days.

Here, Handley introduced King to Chief Campbell and Captain James McConnell as the fugitive Kate Stoddard. King was interviewed, but denied the charge that she was Kate Stoddard. Campbell noticed a large gold locket pendant from a chain about her neck, and requested to see it. King denied, but Campbell took it anyway.

By the time she was captured, King had reverted to using the name Lizzie Lloyd King''', and had abandoned the Stoddard alias. She was interested in news about herself, and requested the day's papers while in jail. She declined further comment regarding Goodrich, on advice from her counsel, and was dismissed.

Verdict The jury retired at 16:00, and at 16:30 returned to the courtroom to announce that the testimony was sufficient to render a verdict. They received the usual instructions from the judge, then retired for final deliberations, during which time the courtroom crowd openly discussed the possible outcome.

At 18:00, the jury returned, and rendered the verdict:

We find that the said Charles Goodrich came to his death by pistol-shot wounds in the head, inflicted by Lizzie Lloyd King, alias Kate Stoddard, with intent to cause death, on the evening of the 20th or morning of the 21st of March, 1873, at his aforesaid house on Degraw-street, Brooklyn. — The New York Times Miss Palin, betrothed to Goodrich, visited King on 14 July 1873 and stayed until late in the evening. The police were still looking for Roscoe at this time, and sent a description of him to "the police of all the cities in the United States and Canada". citing the actions of King to dismiss various previous counsels, and that "so many embarrassments had been put in their way". and on 21 July 1874 she was committed to State Lunatic Asylum in Auburn, New York. King had stated a preference for the new asylum in Poughkeepsie, A court investigation into her state of mind concluded on 15 July 1874 that she was not fit for trial, and that an order of commitment would be issued pending a reply from the Poughkeepsie facility. noting that he misrepresented the jury's indictment from the inquest:

King was criticizing the New York state "lunacy law" authorizing that those indicted for a crime, but not convicted, be sent to an insane asylum. She considered this an ex post facto law. The letter was given to Alonzo B. Cornell, the Governor of New York.

Aftermath Neighborhood residents were concerned about "the unpleasant associations" of the name of their street to the murder, that within days they had petitioned to change it to "Lincoln Place", in honor of Abraham Lincoln. Eventually, the remainder of the eastward segment, to Prospect Park, was also renamed to Lincoln Place.

In May 1873, Goodrich's father filed a lawsuit against Mrs. Finlay of Staten Island. They had an apparent agreement to exchange the brownstone houses owned by Charles Goodrich for the clipper brig Hattie Haskett owned by Finlay.

Those involved in the case would reminisce about it years later. In 1895, speaking to officers at police headquarters after announcing his retirement, Patrick Campbell spoke about the loyalty necessary to conduct police duties, citing the King case as an exemplary demonstration of that loyalty:

In a 1906 interview with the Brooklyn Daily Standard Union, Campbell, 80 years old at this time, recounted a few of his most memorable cases. He was chief of police for Brooklyn from 1870 until 1895, and identified the Kate Stoddard case as "a great one". Although he accurately recounted many details, he also stated that "as she made no effort to escape we got her easily enough". After she was sent to the asylum in 1874, he no longer kept track of her. "A commission adjudged her insane and she was sent to an asylum. She may be living yet, for all I know."