The Dufty Family Ax Murders

In August of 1908, Henry J Dufty ended three innocent lives with an ax. The newspapers blamed religious hysteria and the doctors blamed his diseased mind. The neighbors had been buzzin' over the fences that ol' Henry was out of his senses for years already, but what really led to this tragedy? Follow along as we tell the story and chase down the clues in an attempt to solve this decades-old mystery. Why did Henry Dufty take his ax to breakfast?

Transcript

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What do breakfast, axes, and brainstorms have in common? You're about to find out on this episode of Forgotten Felonies. Welcome back to Forgotten Felonies. I'm one of your co-hosts, Monica, and this is where Olivia and I take you way back to uncover the felonies that time forgot. In this episode, we are traveling back in time to 1908. Now, previously, we covered a family annihilation in Oregon in 1909. And this one is along similar lines, but just one year earlier and down in Los Angeles, California. This one's a little... explosive, and I mean that in a literal sense. No dynamite. The story itself, however, certainly exploded across the country. So let's dive right into the story of the Dufty family. Olivia, tell us what you found about the origins of the Dufty family. Okay. Henry Edwin James Dufty was born back in 1849 in Chatham, Canada, to John and Sarah Dufty. He was the third of four kids and his dad tragically passed away when he was just four years old. His mom, though, later remarried and then had six more children, so Henry had three full siblings and six half-siblings. So now we're going to skip ahead a few years. When Henry was 29 years old in 1878, he married 18-year-old Mary Ann Clark. She had also been born in Canada. In 1860. She was 11 years younger than he was. Even though they were both born in Canada, they somehow met in Iowa and got married there, and that's where they started their family. And Henry was there working as a farmer. So their first child, Clark, was born in 1880. Then they had another son, Frederick, in February 1881. And then they had a daughter, Zeta, who was named after one of Henry's half-sisters, actually. And she was born in June 1883. By the time Zeta was born, they had already moved to South Dakota from Iowa. Oh, wow. I love that name, Zeta. It's a fun one. Yeah. It's very like. It's like a millennial unique, but also old-timey. Yeah. Like you never hear that anymore. I was surprised when I saw that name. So yeah, it's really, it's really pretty. And by the way, she was gorgeous. I was, when I saw her picture. She was absolutely beautiful. We'll post it. Yeah, for sure. All right. So Henry and Mary actually got divorced in 1899. Officially, Mary said it was due to cruelty and non-support. And I really wish I had more information about what had been going on in their marriage. And I have to wonder, because, you know, today when people get divorced, a lot of times they say it's due to irreconcilable differences or. No fault divorce too right there's like a box that you have to check, like you know. And so I wonder if, if those were just two options on the papers, and she just had to, you know, Mark a couple boxes or something. But yeah, so officially it was cruelty and non-support. But knowing what I know now, I really do wonder what was going on. But at the time of the divorce, Mary and the two youngest, Fred and Zeta, they moved to Minnesota and they stayed there just for a short while. So at the time, Fred was 19 and Zeta was 17 when they got to Minnesota. But eventually in 1902. So just a couple years later, they moved to Los Angeles, California. So Henry had actually moved to Los Angeles in 1901. because he had sold a farm where he'd been living, and he moved to L. A., and he had gotten into the real estate business. And so Henry, at this time, he owned quite a few properties in L. A., and he was selling properties and everything, and he apparently was pretty good at his job. He had, you know, quite a bit of money. Yeah. Imagine today. Being a real estate agent in LA. How? Wealthy. He would be. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And I mean, by all accounts, he was he was doing pretty well. He he had a lot of money. Yeah, I found articles where it's like. He sold this property. He sold this property. There's a transfer of ownership. Like. Oh yeah. There was a lot. He had just given a rental to his son, Fred. And yeah, he was just, yeah, it was, it was pretty amazing. He had quite a bit of money. So let's talk about the living arrangements in, oh, I don't know, let's say May of 1908. Yes. Okay. So as you said, Henry and Mary had gotten divorced in 1899. So they hadn't lived together for nine years by this time. Mary, though, um, in LA she was living in her own little house a block or two away from Henry. Henry and their son Fred, who was 27 at this point in 1908, they were sharing a home together on North Mountain View Street. Henry and Fred lived in adjoining rooms, and they had a roommate who lived in a third bedroom. Fred had a job at the time and was working as an auto machinist. So Zeta was 25 in May of 1908. She was married to a man named Ferdinand Lacombe, who she married and had a daughter with, and moved to Los Angeles with in 1902. So they had actually met in Minnesota and they got married. And then eight months later, their daughter was born. I know, scandalous. And he was like quite a bit older, not quite a bit, maybe like six years older. So... Zeta is referred to in the newspapers a lot as Mrs. Ferdinand Lacombe, or just Mrs. Lacombe. But she and her husband and their six-year-old daughter, Margaret, lived kind of behind Henry and Fred. They were technically on the same city block, but on the street behind them on Northwest Lake Avenue. So they could just walk through some backyards to easily get to each other's houses. So, Zeta was actually about six months pregnant in May of 1908. She was due to give birth in the middle of August. It was her second baby, and she and Ferdinand were getting ready to welcome the new baby. Her mom, Mary, was even going to move in with them for a while when it got closer to the baby being born so she could help out with the new arrival. What a good mom. I know that. is so helpful to do that. So I love that Mary was able to do that for her. So yeah, it's really cool that they all lived so close together and also even cooler that Henry basically gave them all their houses. Just like, please, Papa, a house for me. Kind of like that Oprah show. And you get a house and you get a house. Yeah. So anyway, now what's even more cool is that Zeta's house was kind of like the meeting place for breakfast every morning. Zeta would cook. Breakfast, you know, is for her husband. And then, when her brother Fred would get up, you know, before he'd go to work, he would just cross through the backyards and just pop over for some breakfast before heading to work. And her dad, Henry, would come on over for breakfast too. And so sometimes Ferdinand, Zeta's husband, he would be gone to work, you know, before Fred and Henry would make it over, but it was pretty much an open door policy and they would just come on over and eat breakfast when they got there. So it was like a pretty cool family thing, just what they did in the mornings. It's like a little compound before the compounds got big. Yeah. And I mean, there were other neighbors and everything, too. But it was just really cool that, you know, they just they just had that family thing going on and just something that they did. Pretty cool. And even I mean, it seems like Mary, even though Mary and Henry were divorced, they were still, you know, civil. So they could still see each other, you know, for breakfast and it was still, you know, fine. So. That was pretty cool. I wonder if, because she hadn't moved in yet. though. Right. So I wonder how much she did see him at breakfast. Yeah, I don't know. And she was just a couple blocks away. And I do wonder if he gave her the house. But she was because she was on her own, though. I mean, she never remarried. And I don't know if she worked. I don't know really what she did. So he may have given her that house too. He owed it to her for the cruelty. True. And the non-support. So maybe he was making up for it. I hope so. He was rolling in the dough, really. So he probably came for the house. So anyway, now the reason I wanted to specifically point out what was happening in May of 1908 is because of what else was happening in May of 1908. Pray tell. This seems to be when Henry Dufty started to ruminate about some things. He was ruminating about the deaths of his two youngest children, Fred and Zeta. So, yeah, 27-year-old Fred. and 25-year-old Zeta, who were perfectly healthy young adults with plenty of life ahead of them. You know, he's just obsessing over them dying like he he could not get it out of his head so he took a friend of his with him to a cemetery to figure out the best place to be buried. They talked to the cemetery caretaker about burial plots, and the cemetery caretaker noticed that Henry was very odd, very eccentric. He had all of these like strange twitches and these jerky movements. Um, but other than his odd body movements and facial twitches and everything, you know, the cemetery caretaker thought, you know, he seemed okay, other than that, I guess. But Henry wanted the best burial plots in the cemetery for himself and his two youngest adult children, right? And there were a few to choose from. He spent a few weeks like, you know, really just going back and forth on which of them to choose. And he actually went to the graveyard six different times. times over a three-week span before he finally settled on a location near the center of Evergreen Cemetery and he paid in full for three— you know, three burial plots on June 15th. So what I wonder... is why he didn't take into account the oldest. Is it because he wasn't living there? You know, probably because Clark was living in Montana, not California. And why he didn't. His wife. Ex-wife. My bad. Yeah. Interesting. Interesting. So that same day, Henry purchased three granite headstones, and he had them carved with the names Zeta Lacombe. Henry J. Dufty, his own name, and Fred A. Dufty. And a week later, when the carving was done, he had them installed on the burial plots with his being in the middle, his daughters to the left, and his sons on the right. He paid $18 for each of the headstones, and he had negotiated that price. You know, with the manager of the company, which was W. Y. Tietzel Monument Works. And he had brought that price down from $20 each. And then he also negotiated for the purchase of three coffins in late July from a company called Breezy Bros. Now... Now, one thing to know about Henry Dufty, you know, again, he had a lot of money because, you know, he had all that real estate around L. A. So if he wanted to buy burial plots, he could buy the best burial plots with the most scenic views around. And I think that's what he was looking for. You know, he wanted that scenic view. And if he wanted the nicest granite headstones, he did not have to skimp on the price. But apparently, you know, he wanted to for this one. But can you imagine, like, in today's money, though, like, $18? That is a lie. You should Google it. But yeah, like, if only we could just pay $18. Oh, I know. It's like so much more. Wow. But I mean, like, you know, if you can buy coffins, why the heck not buy coffins? Like, go buy a coffin, you know? Like, treat yourself, right? Right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, make sure you're buying the new coffins. Don't go with the used model. You know what I mean? Sorry, I just think that's such a funny joke. Okay, I honestly have heard of people renting coffins. Oh, like for... Props or something? No. What? Just for like the... The funeral, and then they get buried in something else. Oh my gosh. I know. Wow. Wow. Well, I do wonder if they actually mean caskets because the newspapers say that he was buying coffins, but I do wonder if they were actually talking about caskets. So... What's the difference, though, between a coffin and a casket? Well, I'm glad you asked. So a coffin has six sides, like you see in the vampire shows and cartoons, you know? But caskets would be rectangular, having four sides, like the caskets you see at a funeral today. So I do wonder what Henry Dufty was actually after. But I did look that up to see what they used in 1908. Caskets had mostly replaced coffins by 1908, and coffins were reserved for like the really, really wealthy. But I mean, the Duftys were pretty wealthy, so I don't know. He could have been buying coffins. I don't know. Um, note to future people, bury me in a coffin, please. Oh, man. But anyway. So Henry, he had always been pretty religious and he had joined the Pineal Hall back in 1903. So he had been a... member of the Pineal Hall for five years by 1908. And the leaders of the Pineal Hall, which were a married couple, they had founded the place. They were the Fergusons. They had noticed that Henry had been getting, quote, queerer and queerer over the years. On August 6th, Henry went to the Citizens National Bank to rent a safe deposit box, and he had his church leader, T. P. Ferguson, with him. And he told the people at the bank, 'I do not expect to live long.' In the box, he placed three bulky envelopes, and each one contained some papers and some money orders for each of his three adult children. And he told Mr. Ferguson to be sure to get those items to his kids in the event of his death. Hmm. Yeah. So we had $40 for each of the kids that were in L. A. So Fred and Zeta. And then he had, I think, it was only twenty-eight dollars that was for Clark. And interestingly enough, that was just to pay the train fare for Clark to come to L. A. so that he could be there for the funeral, I assume. So there was favoritism. Right, and what's interesting is Clark was a trained... Like... railroad man um in Montana, so you'd think he would have gotten a free ride anyways. I don't know. That just seemed interesting that he's just going to pay for his train fare to get there in the event of his death. Yeah, but he was going to leave Fred and Zeta 40 bucks each. Maybe Clark was making some good money. Maybe. Maybe. And L. A. was already on the rise of being expensive. Yeah. Maybe. Yeah, maybe. So. Very interesting. So in the months of June, July, and August of 1908, Henry had been asking his friends at the Peniel Hall on Temple Street to pray for his children's souls. And he'd been saying things like, 'I don't think they're ready for the hereafter.' So it was, it was getting weird. But see, nobody thought he was going to kill anybody. They just thought he was, you know, to put it in their words, insane. And, I mean, of course they thought he was insane because, one, he had pretty severe locomotor ataxia, which means he had— very jerky, involuntary bodily movements that he just could not control, which was a bit off-putting to people who were unfamiliar with his condition. And two, he was carrying an axe around with him by this point. Literally everywhere he went. Conceal and carry. I mean, he was literally carrying an axe everywhere. And he was buying burial plots for no reason. And he was putting headstones on them for perfectly healthy people who were not dying. I mean, it was getting weird in L. A. Yeah. So even Zeta had called Mr. Ferguson, the church leader at Pineal Hall, and she. said it was rather gruesome, that is a quote, rather gruesome to know that there was an entire, you know, burial plot with a headstone all set up for her death, but she figured it was just one of her dad's quirks, you know, because he, he was pretty weird, like he was insane, and had been for quite some time. And so she just shrugged it off as just another, you know, weird thing that dad was doing. So his kids were just kind of used to it. Like, oh, dad, you know, just kind of roll the eyes. Oh, dad, there he goes again. You actually just answered my question. I was going to ask if they even knew that he got them burial plots. Oh, yeah. Oh yeah, they knew. I wonder if he was like, guess what I did today? I picked out the perfect spot. You should go. Oh, yeah. No, he even took Fred to show him. Yeah, check this out. What do you think of this view, son? This is your eternal resting place. What do you think? Like, wow, dad, it's great. Yeah, whatever you say. Yeah, pretty interesting. The guy at the cemetery thought it was really weird that he bought one for Zeta because traditionally it would have been the husband buying it for his wife. So he thought it was very strange since she was married. He thought it was really weird that Henry was buying it for her. On Pretty and Pretty Weird. But anyway, yeah. So another thing that he was doing was Henry was bringing his axe to breakfast every day. Every morning when he was going to Zayda's house for breakfast, he had the axe with him. So, I mean, that seems weird too, but it was just— just something he was doing. So, I mean. You know, so when they find out he's asking everyone at church to pray for his kids' souls, I mean, that's not too far out there when you look at everything else. So nobody assumes he's going to go and kill his kids. You know, I mean. You know, I mean, hindsight is 20, 20. Exactly. Exactly. But at the time, it was just like— just another thing. You know, it's just— it's just Henry. It's just Henry. Henry. Yeah. And people had been saying he was insane since at least 1899, which had, you know, it had been nine years by this point. But not only that, his grandfather was insane and had committed suicide while insane. And his own brother, his oldest brother, had been insane, like diagnosed, for a solid two years before he committed suicide. So insanity actually ran in the Dufty family. And there were heaps of people who would tell you that Henry was just... strange. You know, like he was insane. There was nothing new to see here. This was just Henry's normal. It would be very interesting to know from Mary's perspective. Because she did. Marry him earlier than that. Like, if it was a slow progression to insanity or if it was kind of just like. Ta-da! I'm now weird. Yeah. Yeah, that's why I really want to know what happened that led up to the divorce. Like, yeah, that would be really interesting to know. But yeah, so even though that was Henry's normal, we now know that there was nothing normal about it. But nobody could tell because it was— such a slow progression from the beginning of his decline in what I'm assuming was the late 1800s up until that fateful day, which was on August 13th of 1908. So here's where... Yeah, here it comes. All right, I just got goosebumps all over. So. 59-year-old Henry Dufty woke up that morning very early, between 6 and 7 in the morning, and he saw that his 27-year-old son Fred was still asleep in his bed. Henry walked over to the side of Fred's bed and he knelt down to pray. He then picked up his axe and he brought it down squarely on Fred's neck. Fred died instantly, so there were no signs of a struggle anywhere in the room. Henry was not angry at all when he did it. There was literally no emotion involved. He just loved his son and felt the need to end his life that morning. The blood evidence showed that he then walked with the axe from Fred's bedside to the kitchen. He had to remove a wash basin from a wall and fill it with water, then wash his hands. After cleaning his hands and emptying the wash basin, he hung it back up on the wall. The bloody outlines of his hands were still on the wall. He used a piece of paper to wipe the blood off the axe, and then he put his axe in the sack in which he usually carried it. It was about an hour later that he made the walk. Through the backyards from his home over to Zeta's house. His ex-wife, Mary, had just moved in a few days before because Zeta was due to give birth. Any day now. She was ready to pop. Totally in that really uncomfortable stage where she's just done being pregnant and ready for that baby to make its appearance already. You need help to get up off the couch. You need help getting shoes on. Those are some rough days. You need help getting all your corset on. In 1908? Do they even have those for pregnant ladies? They did, actually. Oh my gosh. Wow. Even rolling over in bed. I mean, those were rough times. Your hips hurt. Oh my gosh, yeah. Ugh. And she probably needed help making breakfast. Yeah. So Zeta's mom, Mary, was in the kitchen washing some dishes by the time Henry arrived at eight or so. Zeta's husband, Ferdinand, had already had his breakfast and had left for work. Zeta was in the dining room clearing the dishes off the table when the front door opened. Mary could hear Henry's voice from the kitchen, and she assumed it was probably Henry and Fred finally arriving for breakfast. But what she heard next didn't sound quite right. Mary heard a terrible commotion. Mary's first thought was that Henry must have said something offensive, and maybe Zeta had slapped him, so Mary rushed into the room to see what was wrong. When Mary got into the room, she saw that Henry had the axe in his hands. You know, the axe he'd been bringing to breakfast with him every day for the past few months now. But he was holding it up above him, attempting to bring it down onto Zeta's head. Mary rushed over to her ex-husband and tried to get him to drop the axe, but then he turned and swung it at Mary instead. Now, Mary was able to grab hold of the handle, and they started to struggle for control of the axe. In the scuffle, he was able to slice her left arm by the elbow, and that's when Mary realized that fighting was not going to save her life, and fleeing was the better option. So Mary called to Zeta, and then Mary grabbed her six-year-old granddaughter, Margaret, and she rushed from the house over to a neighbor's home and told her to call for the police. police, but unfortunately Zeta had not followed. So Mary ran back to the house to try to find out why, and that's when she found Zeta lying in a pool of blood. Here are Mary's own words from the Los Angeles Herald, published Friday, August 14, 1908. I knelt beside her and raised her head to kiss her. I then discovered that her head was almost severed from her body. Mr. Dufty had evidently left after killing my daughter. My poor child. She was to have become a mother in a short time. I never will forget the terrible experience. I know I am not right mentally and expect that I will grow worse instead of improving. I can't blot out the horrible sight, and I seem to see the tragedy being enacted and my poor child lying dead in a puddle of her own blood. Mary was right. Henry had struck his slow-moving, very pregnant daughter with the axe multiple times. The first blow to the head split open the... back of her skull, knocking her to the floor, and the second blow severed the skull almost completely, leaving it held in place only by some skin at the front of her neck. When he was done, he left through the back of the house and walked home, dropping the bloody axe along the path between the backyards. So, was Mary just like... I don't know. What was she going to do? Because she figured she... wasn't going to survive, but then Zeta didn't come. So is she just like. Well, guess I gotta go try again. Well, I mean, she ran back. She thought that Zeta was coming behind her. And so then she was like, oh, my gosh. Like, where is she? So she like ran back. I mean, you know, it was her daughter. Yeah. So she like ran back and then was like, oh, my gosh. And. I mean, she had to try, you know, to save her. So, She didn't hear any more. screaming you know she didn't hear anything else so she ran back and then that's what she found it's very very sad Poor gal. Very tragic. One neighbor, I had seen a quote where a neighbor said, 'It's too bad that like a doctor hadn't arrived like within minutes because they could have saved the baby.' That's true. But. Yeah. So the neighbor did call the police. And Officer F. L. Coe, now that morning, he's a motorcycle cop. He had arrived at the police station around 8 o'clock that morning. And then the call came in.

So he was sent to the Lacombe home on Westlake Avenue around 8: 28:37

10 that morning. And so he arrives about six minutes later. And even though, you know, there had been a huge issue at Westlake Avenue, there'd been a murder there when Mary Dufty saw Officer Coe. She was more worried about the safety of her son, Fred. You know, because she's worried, oh my gosh, where did my ex-husband go? And is my son all right? So she begged. Officer Ko, please head around the block, you know, to the other house and see if my son is okay. And so here are Officer Ko's own words describing what happened next. I remounted my motorcycle and dashed over there. I ran up the steps leading up the hill from the street to the door and went in. The old man was sitting on the bed, slashing his throat with a butcher knife. Yeah, so Henry Dufty had gone back to his house and, in the bedroom that was connected to the room where he had basically decapitated his son an hour previously, he was... Læs merke til Læs merke. sitting on the bed, cutting his own throat with a butcher knife. Now, there was blood literally all over the walls and the ceiling. And of course, over the floors and dripped across the floor to the kitchen. The place was a mess. And he's just sitting there slashing his own throat with a butcher knife. So Officer Coe said to him, 'What's the matter, Cap?' That's a quote. What's the matter, Cap? And Henry told him, 'You know, I want to die.' And he continued to cut his throat. So Officer Coe, he doesn't really know what to do. They didn't have mental health training back then. And so, Officer Coe did what most cops would do. He pulls his gun and he says, 'Drop the knife or I'll shoot.' Well, that's not really going to help in this situation because, I mean, the man literally wants to die. And sure enough, Henry responded with, 'Go ahead.' That is actually a quote attributed to Henry in Officer Coe's report. So here are Officer Coe's words again. I saw there was no use in trying with a revolver to bluff a man who wanted to die, so I tried to get the knife away from him. Every time I tried, he attacked me with it. When I was not trying to take the weapon away from him, he was attempting to slash his throat. I looked in the other room and saw the boy lying in his blood. A ghastly sight it was. The bedclothes about the boy, whose head was almost severed from his body. It seemed that the attack with the axe had been terrific, several blows, one of which cut off almost all of his face, having been struck while the boy was asleep, as there was no evidence of a struggle. Olivia, can you imagine being the officer responding to the two scenes that morning? No. Thank you. And it's so crazy that he didn't have a partner. Oh, yeah. But also, like, seeing this guy slashing his throat, then looking over and seeing... The body of a 27-year-old man, whose face is basically off and head is off, is wild. Yeah. I hope he can sleep later. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Oh, yeah. The trauma for everyone who came across this, just wow. Yeah, so eventually Officer Coe had to go out to the yard to get what he described as a three-foot eucalyptus club, which I can only assume is a large branch from a eucalyptus tree. And he describes that he had to hit Henry's hands every time he slashed at his own throat or slashed at the officer. Eventually, two other officers, officers Boyd and Jones, arrived to give Officer Coe some much-needed backup, and together they were able to overpower Henry and get him off to the hospital for some treatment. I wonder how the other officers knew to come, though. Because they didn't have walkie-talkies. Right. But probably, they had, you know, called the police. I don't know. I assume... When they sent him there, I don't know. Maybe more than one neighbor had called the police. And so they were like, we better send... you know, some more people. Let's just go see what's going on. He's been gone a while. Yeah, maybe. And so they went to go check. Even today, when you call the police, they send more people, you know, and then once they see, like, oh, only a couple of people are needed, then they'll leave, you know. So, yeah, I don't know. Now, of course, Henry Dufty, he was shackled while he was in the hospital and he had a six-inch gash in his throat and the cartilage was very damaged, but he was going to survive. And he said, at first, that he couldn't remember the attack on his son at all. And the first thing he could remember about the whole morning was when he was attacking his daughter. And the only explanation he had for any of it was, I must have been crazy. And he said, something must have come over me and made me do it. So he was asked if God told him to do it, and he said no. However, there are reports in some newspapers that say he had been waiting for a word from God to let him know when to kill his kids. Um. But the newspapers back then, there is so much stuff. That is. Incorrect or like it's like fluff added because they want to sell them papers. Oh yeah, I mean because we know that he waited an hour, you know, he cleaned up and waited an hour, but like there's a couple papers that are like the axe-wielding maniac waved his axe in the air and like all this he walked down the street slashing his own throat. Yeah, I mean, they, you know, so much stuff that didn't happen or like the one that said after he cut off his son's head, then he gouged out his eyes with a knife and like that didn't happen. So there's a lot of stuff that the papers make up that's sensationalized to sell more papers. The original tabloids. Yeah. So, yeah, I don't know when when they're like, you know, he said that he was waiting for God to give him. Word to do it here, whatever. It's like, I don't know if that's accurate because. In others, it's like a reporter was literally sitting in the hospital with him and asked him, did God tell you to do this? And he said, no. So, you know. Those where it's like the reporter who's writing it actually sat in the room with him. That one I tend to believe more than the ones who just picked up the story in the next state, over and then reprinted it, and seem to have a few more details that are added and are a little different. Um, but anyway. There are some reports in some papers saying that he told a friend at church a couple of days prior to the killings that he had found a way to bring his children to Jesus and he was going to do it on Thursday. So. How much truth is there to that? I don't know. Um, I'm going to look up if that was a Thursday. I mean, it was a Thursday. But yeah, you would think that they would have named the friend. Yeah. You know what I mean. But they don't. So, you know, you'd think that they would have had the friend quoted and, you know. Mm-hmm. Attribute it to someone with a name. A close source. Yeah. A source close to the family. Yeah. So, yeah. So we need to talk a little bit about Mary. So Mary Dufty, the mother, after finding her pregnant daughter dead on the floor, her head literally just attached by some skin at the front of the throat. Um, she had a mental breakdown and she was sent to the same hospital as Henry Dufty. And at first they actually put her on a stretcher right next to him. And she looked over at him and didn't even seem to recognize him. Like she, she was not okay. She was not okay. You know, at least she didn't recognize him. Yeah. And she kept saying, 'I forget what it was,' but she kept saying this prayer, repeating this prayer, saying, like, 'God, help me be a strong soldier or something like, you know, just hoping to get through it.' Yeah, so they treated her for the wound on her arm, and it wasn't, like, too serious. It wasn't too bad. And so they realized that she did not need to stay, you know, at the hospital overnight. Or anything but the doctors weren't sure if her mind was going to recover, and she kept just kind of pacing around the hospital room. She really just was not okay, and she repeatedly recounted what had happened that morning. This was a very traumatized woman. It was later that day that they let her know that Fred had also been murdered. So, I mean, this was just really, really a bad, bad day for Mary. So while she was well enough to leave the hospital, she was clearly not mentally well enough to just be released altogether. And the plan was for her, you know, her last living child, her oldest, Clark, to pick her up. But he was in Montana, so clearly he's, you know, it's going to be a while before he makes it to L. A. He's going to use that $28. Yeah. And so they actually moved Mary to a dim little cell on the top floor of the city jail. So yeah, they put Mary in jail. So the Los Angeles Times published an article on Friday, August 14th, so the day after the murders, and it talked about Mary being kept in the jail. It mentioned... that she was being held in a cell with another woman who was described in the article as 'one of the creatures who daily go to jail to serve out sentence.' Course featured hardened gutter bird. It also referred to this other woman as a 'quote woman of the slums' and it said that she was petting Mary's hair and crying with her while Mary wept over the death of Zeta. So she sounds like a pretty nice person. I think she was probably, you know, a prostitute or something. You can be a prostitute and be nice. Oh, I know. I'm saying she may have been. Yeah. You know, just maybe, maybe homeless and just struggling. I mean, probably, maybe also, you know. Like struggling with substance abuse and stuff. I don't know. Anyway, so then the article details just how deep into despair Mary had fallen. It's so sad. She had certainly had a psychotic break, of course. Which can absolutely be induced by severe stress like this. And she kept asking, 'Have you seen my little Zeta, my little girl?' She was my first little. Baby, my little golden-haired girl, why here she is now and then she would reach over to the other incarcerated woman and start petting her hair, thinking it was they and she was like looking at her with this look of recognition and love. So Mary was just really not doing well at all. And then she'd have a moment of lucidity. And realize where she was. And then again, she would recount the details of Zeta's murder and then just let out this wild scream. And it was like really disturbing to all of the other inmates. So, I mean. It was a dark, dark day. Sounds like a couple days, though, because... Yeah. Mark had to come from Montana. Yeah. So yeah, eventually Clark made it. I don't know how long. It took for him to get there, but eventually he got there and he was able to get married. That poor woman. Oh my gosh. Yikes. Can you imagine that, though? I mean, she went up to her daughter. And she picked up her head to kiss her and then— That's when she realized that her head was not attached. Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah. Anyway. Um, okay. So now, when it came to like putting Henry on trial for this, um, They they didn't even go the trial route. They went straight to insanity because it was clear. It was clear to basically everyone that this was not a sane man. There were so many news articles that came out with neighbors, associates, and even just random people giving their stories about their run-ins with him. And they shared things about how, like, you know, he walked so strangely, how his body was just always moving, you know, because he had the ataxia, how he would like stare oddly. They're my favorite quote. My absolute favorite quote, attributed to Mrs. J. E. Brazelton of 226 North Mountain View Avenue. Do you want to do it or you want me to? I can do it. Okay. Crazy? Well, he was getting crazier every day. Why, I declare, he was certainly crazy. I used to try to talk with him just to be neighborly, you know? Often, I used to see him when the Chinese vegetable man was out in the street. And when I did, I'd say, 'Good morning.' After I did that, he used to come back an hour or so later and stand in front of my house, just looking at it. I tell you, I was afraid of him. And so were the other women of this part of town. I hope they'll do something to him. For if they let him out, I'll certainly move away. I couldn't live here anymore if he does. I just love it. Why, I declare, he was certainly crazy. Oh, man. I just when I saw the 'I declare,' I was like, 'Oh, my gosh, they really said that.' Anyway, she was just trying to be neighborly. I know. Oh, that was so fun. Yeah. Come back an hour or so later and stand in front of my house just looking at it. Oh, man. Yeah, I just wow. I could just see it now just with a big hat. Yes. Clutching her pearls and just, oh. Wearing a nice fur. Exactly. I never, I declare. I'm imagining one of those long-stemmed... cigarette holders yes and you know she's the one who's like peering outside the window all the time pulling back the curtains Neighborhood watch. Yes. Oh, Mrs. Brazelton. So yeah, that one was in the Los Angeles Evening Express on Thursday, August 13th, page 12, if anyone wants to find it. Why, I declare. Oh, goodness. So, yeah. But yeah, that issue had a lot of different quotes and experiences. The kids would apparently make fun of him a lot. And there was one neighbor, I didn't write it down, but one neighbor said something like, 'You know, they say he's a religious man, but I only ever saw the devil.' The drama. Bring back the drama. I love the old newspapers, the way they were written. It's like, why don't they write like this anymore? I need it. I would read the newspaper more if they... Brought it back, dude. The old days. Yeah. Thank you. Some good stuff. So, yeah, on December 21st of 1908, so this is several months later, a jury deliberated over Henry Dufty's sanity. His son, Clark, testified that he had considered his father insane for many years. Henry's relatives from Minnesota testified and said that he had been insane for at least 10 years. So at least from, you know, 1899 when the divorce happened. And in fact, a brother and two half-sisters testified that, when he lived in Minnesota many years prior, he was often incoherent. 'Silly,' that's a word they used, very silly, sometimes violent, and he had delusions that he was a great inventor of perpetual motion machines. Delusions that he was a wonderful violinist or an otherwise great genius of any other talent. attorney told the court that Henry had not even been able to assist in his own defense at all or even act rationally throughout the entire process since the crime had occurred the previous August. So the jury found that Henry was hopelessly insane and he was sent to the Southern California Hospital at Patton until he could recover his reason. So they said, you know, you're there until you can recover your reason. And then he could. You know, stand trial for this crime if he ever recovered his reason. So he was transferred to the hospital on the night of December 21st, 1908. So Olivia, did Henry Dufty ever recover his reason? No, actually. He wound up dying in the state hospital just a couple years later. He died September 24th, 1910. And he was buried in Evergreen Cemetery. Yes. And actually, so were Zeta and Fred in the burial plots that had been purchased for them. Yeah. And dear, dear Marianne. She actually lived until May 25th, 1932. But she died. She moved back to Los Angeles. And she died there and was also buried in Evergreen Cemetery. Did she get plots near her kids? That I'm not 100% sure. Interesting. Very interesting that she moved back. Yeah. Did Clark move with her? I, there's. Not a lot of information on Clark. It just says 'deceased.' Huh? I wonder why she moved back. I don't know. Unless he would have moved with her, but... Because her family—except for deceased— wasn't there. I mean, except for deceased. Yeah. To be continued. We'll get back to that. Interesting. And little Margaret, she lived until 1995. Wow. I know. Who would have thought? Wow. Cool. And um... Ferdinand remarried. So life went on. For some. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But Margaret died in Orange County, California. So it looks like her and Ferdinand stayed there. Interesting. So, Monica? In your... Opinion. Why did Henry kill his kids? Well, I'm not going to lie. This story took me on a whole journey. I was racking my brain at first, thinking there had to be some kind of clue in the newspapers as to why he did it. I was looking for his own words, right? I wanted to see something, some kind of clue in his words. To give me something to go on, because I always look for something, you know, in their own words to give me something. But all I found was— I must have been crazy. Something must have come over me and made me do it. And that wasn't a lot to go by. So I had to, you know, I'm going through everything. What happened? What is going on? But further exploration brought me to the Peniel Hall Church. And several newspapers mentioned that Henry had gone to a church service the night before the murders and had worked himself into a religious frenzy. So, of course, I had to take a deep dive into this church to find out if it was a cult. And I mean, I got so excited. I wanted this to be a cult so bad. So I did some digging and it turns out that it was actually the very beginning of the Pentecostal movement. Like, kind of like the beginnings before the beginnings of the Pentecostal movement. And there was a little bit of drama between the three founders. So I already mentioned the. They were a married couple, and they really wanted it to be non-denominational. So they kind of wanted the Pineal Hall to be like a big club where anyone who was of any Christian faith could join and worship together. So, I mean, you could be Baptist, you could be Methodist or whatever, and just all come together and worship together and like, you know, do things together, like, you know, feed the homeless together and, you know, all of that. The third founder was a preacher from Texas, and he wanted it to be like a regular church where people had to join and be of the same faith. And so after a year, the guy from Texas got kicked out. And I didn't look much further into the guy from Texas, but apparently he had also been kicked out of the creation of the Church of the Nazarene as well. So, I mean, don't quote me on that because, again, I didn't look very deep into him, but it sounds like there was a lot of drama that kind of followed that guy. He's just like creating religions and then there's just like. Not you. Yeah. Thanks for your help, but no thanks. Bye. Yeah. So anyway, the Peniel Hall part was not a cult. So that was a huge letdown. I mean, good for you guys, but. But then I found out that in 1906, so two years before the murders, along came a minister, guy named William Seymour, who gave the gift of the Holy Spirit to one of the members of the Pineal Hall. And this caused that member to start speaking in tongues. So word spread, and then everyone from Pineal Hall went over to that guy's house to also receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. And this caused them to start speaking in tongues. And the whole town could hear all of the speaking in tongues. And so everyone had to move out onto the street to make room for all of the people who were arriving to see like what was going on. And this became known as the Azusa Street Revival. And so the Pineal Hall lost most of their members to this new group. And that was the real beginning of the Pentecostal. Movement. So, like, Peniel Hall was kind of like the predecessor of the Azusa Street revival that became the real like Pentecostal. Interesting. Yeah. It makes me wonder, though, the quote-unquote speaking in tongues, if they were just kind of like... or if they were actually speaking languages. Oh. That is the question. And it depends on who you ask. That is the question. Yeah. So I started to wonder when I found that out, I started to wonder if maybe Henry Dufty got wrapped up with with that and and William Seymour's group. But I think he probably didn't, because in 1908, when he was on trial. Mr. Ferguson, one of the founders of the Pineal Hall, he actually came to testify as his preacher. And it was Mr. Ferguson, you know, who went with him. Just before the murders, like a week before the murders, to the bank. You know, to take out or to get, you know, the safe deposit box and everything. So it sounds like Henry Dufty stayed loyal to the Pineal Hall. And also looking into William Seymour. He was a solid fellow. He was actually the son of two liberated slaves. Oh yeah, and I mean he was a solid guy. Total like awesome leader in his community and everything. Definitely not a cult. So um, Super solid guy. So I was back to the drawing board on what might have influenced our boy Henry to do such a thing to his family. It was not a cult that did it. Like religion was kind of part of it, maybe, but that was just personal to Henry's own mental illness and not anything that was like, his religious group did not tell him to do it. It wasn't part of, you know, what I mean. There was no religious group that said, you know, our beliefs dictate that you have to kill your children or anything. And it also wasn't like a Manson. Delio. Right, right, right. Yeah. Well, there were some more clues in the news. And so I went back to those insanity hearings to see if I could find anything else about his symptoms. Or, like, diagnoses that might make things a bit more clear about what was going on with him. And I saw words like chorea, which is spelled C-H-O-R-E-A, and locomotor ataxia, and agitated paralysis. And when I looked these up, they all came back to the same thing, really. Like there wasn't anything like mental about it. You know, just those twitches we talked about. His nervous disorder where he had those involuntary movements. You know, he's twitching a lot. His face is twitching. His arms and his legs are twitching. He's walking differently, and he didn't have full control of his body movements. So this was, you know, a documented thing and it was something you could easily observe, right? Well, in the December 22nd, 1908 edition of the Los Angeles Times newspaper, there's an article with the title, 'Murderer Sobs.' sentence, which reads, 'it was said that he was suffering from a sudden nerve storm or brain storm induced by his disease when he butchered his son and daughter. The brainstorm. Brainstorm. So let's talk about this brainstorm. I had to look up what a brainstorm meant back in 19... 1908. Basically, this is the term they used to describe a very severe and sudden psychiatric break. Now today we hear the term brainstorming. It's completely different, right? We're coming up with great ideas, you know? But back in 1908, it described something very serious and very scary. Not something you want to have happen. So the psychiatrists were saying that Henry Dufty's brainstorm, which they said was responsible for this horrific crime, was induced by his disease. Well, what disease did he have? Locomotor ataxia. So again, I run to Google and I look up locomotor ataxia and it's that disorder of movement. So this is when I Google, can ataxia cause psychosis? And that's when I strike gold. Yes. So I found that there are several types of ataxia. Spinal ataxia, also known as spinocerebellar ataxia, impacts parts of the brain. Types 1, 2, 3, 7, 10, and 17 can all be associated with psychosis, but to varying degrees. And it sounds like type 17 is the most strongly associated with psychosis. That's a lot of different types. Yes. And I mean, some of them, it's like very rare that it would be associated with psychosis. Like it's more common. It would be. you know, just depression would be part of it or something and just, you know, very rare. But when I found spinocerebellar ataxia type 17 or just SCA 17, and I read the symptoms, I was like, oh my gosh, this is 100% Henry Dufty. Now. To be 100% clear. I am not a medical doctor. I cannot diagnose anyone with anything. I certainly do not have access to any of Henry's DNA or his medical records. So this is all speculation. I will be giving you a really solid reason why this is most likely not SCA 17 after I tell you why I think it could be. So just bear with me. But here are the symptoms of SCA 17. As far as the ataxia goes, they have difficulty with coordination, balance, walking. So check. That's Henry. Cognitive issues. They have thinking problems, problems with problem solving, general cognitive decline. That's Henry. Involuntary movements, jerky movements. There's Henry. Psychiatric symptoms, depressions, anxiety, psychosis, other psychiatric disturbances. There you go. Variable onset. The age of onset can vary, ranging from childhood to adulthood, but most begin after age of 30. Check. And it's progressive. It gets worse over time. Yep, there's Henry. And life expectancy. After symptoms first appear, the patient will die within 20 years. Yep, that's right, because he actually died, you know, two years after he committed the murders. And we know, like, we know that he was at least it started in at least by 1899. Mm hmm. And so, yeah, and he died. Like within 11 years. Yeah. Interesting. So, I first saw this, it all checks out, and I was like, 'Oh my gosh, this has to be it.' But then I looked into it more. This illness, you know, it was not identified until 1999. That's a full 90 years after the murders happened. So there's no way that he could have been diagnosed with it at the time. So it definitely makes it possible that he had it and it was just not something they knew existed. So I mean, it's possible. It is possible that he had SCA 17. But now I'm going to convince you that it's very unlikely that he had SCA 17. The vast majority of cases of SCA 17 are found among Japanese people. However, there have been some cases found in English people, Italian people, Korean people, and Chinese people. And since it was discovered in 1999, fewer than 100 families have been reported to have it. So it sounds like it's very, very rare. So while it's still possible that he could be a case of SCA 17, I would say the odds are against it, right? You know. Nonetheless, I am convinced in my very non-medical opinion that he did have one of the spinocerebellar types that are associated with psychosis and that it was inherited because, you know, his grandfather was insane and committed suicide. His brother was. insane and committed suicide, so I think he inherited you know one of these spinocerebellar ataxia types and I would say that is why he ultimately went crazy and did kill his children. Hmm. You know, I want to look up. His dad's cause of death. Because that would be interesting to know if it was his grandpa, his dad, his brother. Mm-hmm. Because all we really know is that he was deceased. Mm-hmm. You know? He died when he was four. So yeah, that would be interesting to know. So yeah, that is the story. It would be very interesting. So I didn't know anything about this case before you sent it to me. But I know you know how, in newspapers. com, you can see when other people have like clipped an article. Yeah, so several people have clipped these articles. I would assume there are probably several other podcasts, like other people have like you know covered this. And so I have not listened to any of them, and so I don't know if any of them have also tried to figure out why he did it. But it would be very interesting to see. What conclusions they came to, and if they found, if they came to similar conclusions. You know, if they found, like, that similar, like illness or whatever. If they found that. And if they also looked into the Pineal Hall and stuff. So I think that would be interesting. Well? We'll have to see. Yeah. Yeah, it's an interesting story. For sure. And the way I found it was for your class, you were looking up family annihilators. Mm-hmm. And I found this guy. And then I also found... Spirits. Mm-hmm. Bye. Burt Garrett. Mr. Bertram. Yep. But yay. Shout out to newspapers. com. FamilySearch. Ancestry. com. Go follow our socials. Father. Join the Forgotten Felonies Facebook group. Follow us on Instagram. That forgotten underscore felonies. Yes, if you find us on buzzsprout. com, you can actually send us fan mail. Ooh! Yeah. Maybe we'll set up a P. O. Box. Probably not. But we will post pictures of Zeta. And I believe there are pictures of Henry also. Yeah, there's pictures of all four. So we can do that. Yeah. Totally, totally. Too bad there's not a picture of the axe. Maybe there is. Maybe. Thank you. Maybe. All right. Cool. We did it! Yeah, we did. Thank you. They never say what the... the... sex of the baby was. Yeah, they didn't take the baby out. I wonder if she had a coffin birth. Uh-huh. That's really morbid. Well, do you know what that is? That the baby would have come out. Yeah, like all the gases build up and then... Oh gosh. That is really morbid. Are we editing that out? I don't know, it's a true crime podcast. Ah, yikes. Oh, geez. Was it a coffin or a casket? Cascade. Fountain birth. Oh my goodness. Exude, exude, exude. If only just to figure out if it was a coffin or casket. Go on, your body training with a brave heart and figure out the shape. Probably. Anyways. Yeah. Okay. Anyways, so, now...