The Tragic Tale of Kate Van Winkle

Kate Van Winkle was born in 1860 and died in 1936. Her life was full of tragedy and despair fit for the silver screen. It's a story stranger than fiction and, until now, has been forgotten to time. Did Kate purposely shoot Dr. Collins that morning? We'll never know for sure, but at least we have unearthed this incredible story and have even brought a small amount of justice to some souls beyond the grave. 

Transcript

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What do dressmakers, skunks, and Danish royalty have in common? Stay tuned and find out on this episode of Forgotten Felonies! Welcome back to Forgotten Felonies. I'm Monica. And I'm Olivia. And this is where we take you back in time to rediscover the crimes that time forgot. The case we have for you today is one that has truly been forgotten. So how did you hear about this case, Monica? Well, so that's kind of a funny story. Remember our first episode about Bert Garrett using dynamite to blow up his house with the whole family inside? Mm-hmm. Well, he wrote his suicide note to Dr. William House and was blaming the family annihilation on the doctor because the doctor didn't believe that Bert was sick. So, a couple weeks ago, I was just looking up Dr. House in the newspapers because I wanted to see if I could find more information about his credentials. You know, just to see what kind of doctor he was. Well, I thought I would just be finding more articles related to the Burt Garrett case. But the article I opened was about this case. And I could not believe what I was reading. It's an insane case that happened just a month after Burt Garrett murdered his wife and daughters, and Dr. House testified as an expert in this trial. Wow. Yeah. And I was so excited to see that literally nobody had saved any of these old articles. And it is shocking. Because this case has so much drama. Like so much drama. It's really hard to believe that people are not talking about it or like didn't. Continue talking about it. So listeners, we are going to tell you about a woman who lived such a tragic life and at one point killed her husband or. Did she? But before I tell you that story, I have to tell you this one, because I can't think of a better place to start than with good old Mark Van Winkle. Oh, Mark. Oh, Mark. Mark Van Winkle was born December 19th, 1844, over in Indiana to Delia and William Van Winkle. Now, at some point, Mark wound up over in Oakland, California, and we really don't know much about, you know, when they made it over to Oakland. Yeah. All of these people involved had really not been researched before, so there was next to nothing about them. In any of the databases. And we really had to start from ground zero on all of this. Yeah, there was some really creative searching done to find everything that we did find. And what we did figure out is that when Mark Van Winkle was 32, we know that he was in Oakland, California, marrying 16-year-old Katie Kantz. It was September 27th, 1876, to be exact. Now, the couple soon moved to Oregon, and we know that on September 19, 1877, just about a year later, they welcomed a baby girl named Gertrude to the family. Gertrude was born in Portland, Oregon, and then on January 1st of 1879, they welcomed little baby Roy Van Winkle to the family. So these kids were just a year and three months apart. Now, by the time Roy was born, they were living in Oak Grove, Oregon. There's not a whole lot of detail about their life together, but we do know that they were living in Grants Pass, which is in Southern Oregon, by September of 1884. And this was right around their eight-year wedding anniversary when the kids were seven and almost six years old. And wouldn't you know it, Mark Van Winkle simply vanished. No, yeah, Mark Van Winkle completely disappeared. And that left his wife, Kate Van Winkle, all alone with Gertrude and Roy. Now, when I first saw this in a newspaper article, I said, 'You know, to Olivia here, oh my gosh, I wonder if we can figure out where Mark went.' And, oh boy, did we ever! No. Now, Mark's family members were just as shocked as Kate's when Mark disappeared, and they were very supportive of her. Now, he had at least... Know, a couple aunts and uncles living up in Portland, and they were all either lawyers or judges, or they were married to lawyers or judges. Now Mark's mother was Delia Stratton, and his father was William Van Winkle, and William was a lawyer too. So Olivia, tell us a little more about Mark Van Winkle's most famous relative in Portland. Of course. So one of his aunts was married to a very prominent Portland man who did quite a lot of notable things. His name was Parrish L. Willis. Parents should come to Oregon over the old Oregon Trail, and so did Mark Van Winkle's mother and all of her siblings. Back in the 1850s, the aunt that married Parrish was actually seven when their family came over the Oregon Trail. Parrish Willis and his wife both graduated from Willamette University and had been classmates there. Parrish was then appointed by the Oregon State Governor, Governor Gibbs, to be the state librarian in 1868. He was later the city recorder of Salem, and in 1879, he began working as an attorney in Portland. He was a state senator by 1890, and then he was appointed as the police commissioner in May of 1895. By 1899, he was elected as a judge in Portland. Both Parrish Willis and his wife, who was Mark Van Winkle's biological aunt, were incredibly supportive of Kate and her two kids. And by 1889, they had moved up to Portland just to be closer to them. Yeah, so Parrish Willis was a very powerful guy. And I'm sure he and his wife, who we really only know as Mrs. P. L. Willis, I'm sure they were— very horrified by Mark's treatment of his wife and kids. So Parrish, who by all accounts was a very, you know, responsible and upstanding guy and was a law-abiding judge, you know, by this point in time, he was doing right by Kate Van Winkle and Gertrude and little Roy. Now, I'm not sure when it happened, but I do have an idea. But by 1891, the mystery was solved and Mark Van Winkle had been located. Oh, yeah. So now Kate and a witness by the name of Mrs. Elizabeth Hunt went to court and she filed for divorce in February of 18. It was found that her deserter husband was now a plasterer living in Drain, Oregon. He had deserted his wife, two kids, seven years prior, 1884, and she was finally awarded a legal divorce as well as full custody. Not that Mark was going to argue, obviously. I mean, it's not like he wanted to see his kids. He went really far. Yeah. So he was, you know, he was a cad. He was a louse. He was an absolute skunk. A skunk. Yes, a skunk. Apparently, back in the 1880s and 1890s, a man who deserted his family was called a skunk. So he was Pepe Le Pew. Yes, he was stinky. He absolutely stunk. Oh, brother, this guy stinks. Yeah, I mean, something stinks in Drain, and it's Mark. Ew. Yeah, Mark. Yeah, so I was, man, I was so mad at Mark. I was really mad. So by the time she got her divorce in February of 1891, Gertrude was 13, and Roy had just turned 12 the previous month. So he had missed seven years of their lives and I feel bad for those kids. You do. Yeah. And so, man, I love newspapers . com because I can search for him and just find stuff. And you know what? I love how they just. put everything in the newspapers back then. Because in March of 1892, one year after the divorce, a little blurb in the Eugene Guard, which is known today as the Register Guard, says, 'Mark Van Winkle of Drain was in Eugene last night. He is a marshal of that village and also runs a blacksmith shop there. It makes me wonder. It's Kate and, uh... parish were like scouring newspapers like, where is this guy? Because they did put everything in there. Yeah, well, I mean, I don't know because they would have had, I mean, I guess in the mail they could have ordered newspapers, but... That would have been hard to do, probably. I mean, they would have had to. pay? I don't know. I mean, Well, yeah, but in some newspapers, they're like... Mrs. Jane... Oswald. came up from Yoncalla, Oregon to visit family members and blah, blah, blah. 725 Salmon Street. Oh, absolutely. They put stuff in like... you know, this family is having people from Florida for Thanksgiving. Like, and that's the entire article. Yeah, the thing that I just read, that was the entire article. It was just, he was in Eugene last night, he's the town marshal, and he has a blacksmith shop. That was it. Cool. Yeah. Yeah, just crazy how you can find stuff. But you know, searching through everything, there was nothing about him prior to that. I mean, the divorce thing in 1891, and then... Before that, nothing. Nothing. So he was like, 'Guess I can come out of hiding.' Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Then in October of 1893, so a year and a half later, there's another blurb that states Mark Van Winkle, the blacksmith, who is well known in Lane County, has a shop now near Lewiston, Idaho, and is doing well. So she wasn't. Yeah, he had moved to Idaho. And like I said, I scoured the newspapers. There's literally nothing prior to the. 1892 blurb at all, so he wasn't hiding. And I mean, trust me, I was looking at Olivia. Trust me, because I know by this time, I had an unhealthy vendetta against this dead guy, like I mean, I was really mad. I think maybe he, you know, was using a different name until they found him, and then she was able to get her divorce. I have no idea. But, yeah, he probably was blacksmithing. Had a different name and was trying to hide from his responsibilities. And, uh, you know what I mean? I was like, 'Ooh, this guy, this skunk.' Oh, man. He was hiding his stink until he couldn't anymore. Yeah. I wonder how he was outed. Ooh, I wonder. Maybe one of our ancestors. Yeah. And then, yeah, so there are several articles in Idaho about how he becomes this incredibly popular police chief over in Grangeville. And at least by 1903. and how everybody just loves him, and how he does such great things for the community, and how he's just shoveling snow off the sidewalks as an added touch. And then on September 27th of 1903, he got married to Abby Hare, which I find really, really maddening because he had been married to Kate on September 27th of 1876. So he was reusing the same wedding anniversary, September 27th. So I wonder if Abby knew that. I wonder if she had any idea that he had abandoned his two children and that they were awesome kids. From what I can get. I wonder how old she was. She was older. She was a widow. Her husband had died and she had a few kids. oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo Yeah. Interesting, Abigail. Yeah. So then, in December of 1903, so a few months later, he resigned as chief of police. Could be a blacksmith at the Atlas mine in Idaho. And then Abby was going to run the boarding house there. And the town of Grangeville published this, this article. About how they were so sad that he was leaving and it was going to be so hard to replace him and all of this stuff. And I was just like, oh, this guy, like, I'm so mad that he's popular. Okay. And then anyway, ooh, so this is extra maddening. Bye. Bye. So findagrave. Com, like, you know, of course, I find Mark Van Winkle on findagrave. com, and he did not even have Gertrude or Roy listed as his children. So I took it upon myself to add them. As his children. Yes, I found them. It was hard to find Roy, but I found him. I added them as his children. I also added an image of the divorce filing, which says that he abandoned them. It says 'abandoned' at Grants Pass and it says 'when he abandoned them and deserted them.' And so I added that to his memorial. Yes, I did. And in the bio, I put in when he abandoned them and that he ran off to Idaho and all this stuff. As you should. Yeah. Yeah, so any of you listening, if you want to go to findagrave. com and look up Mark Van Winkle. In Idaho. Who, let's see, when again was he born? It was 1844. I think it was. If you find him in Idaho, you will see my handiwork. Yes. You will see. So every time you say Grangeville, I had a roommate from college from Grangeville. She was actually cool. Her parents were carnies. Oh. Well, that's cool. Thank you. Yes, okay, so... They're not skunks. Nice. Good. Good. Yeah. Well, anyway, so yeah, everyone, go to findagrave. com, see my handiwork, and... You know, I just wanted there to be some accountability. I feel like I was channeling Kate a little bit. Didn't you say that someone was, like, not letting Roy be added for a bit? Yes. And so I had to keep putting in the edit and being, like, in the notes of why I was adding the edit. I had to put in all this detail until they finally approved it. And I'm like, this is his son. Here are some articles to prove it. This is his son. And yeah, I was just so mad. I wonder if it's one of the... Marks. Do they have more kids? No. He and Abby, apparently, there was an infant that passed away or something. It says infant Van Winkle. Well, maybe it's one of Abby's kids being like, no, do not tarnish the name. I don't know. I don't know. But anyway, so. To be tarnished. Yeah, making them take some accountability, even in death. You're not going to deny these kids anymore, skunk. Sorry, we're bringing back that word. I don't care. Okay. It's my new fave. All right. Now that that's out of the way, we need to talk about Kate because really this is about the tragedy that was Kate's life. This poor woman. She went through so much. So Olivia, please tell us what you were finally able to find out about Kate. It was so hard. It really was. We went through so much to find out about Kate. So tell us, what did you find? Okay. As we said, it was really hard to find Kate. Initially, the sources said that her maiden name was Canby, and that was found on Gertrude's death certificate. So I was like, 'Monica, look, Canby.' Maybe we can find something. Okay. But we actually had to find the wedding announcement to Mark Van Winkle, and he was marrying Katie Cans. And that was the clue that Candy might not actually be her maiden name. So after jumping through a whole lot of hoops, I found out that Kate was actually born Catherine Kantz, and she was born in 1860. She was born in New York to two German immigrants. And I'm going to butcher her parents' names, so please forgive me. Her father was named Franciscus Kantz, and her mother was Katharina... Dotsonburg. Catherine liked to be called Kate. And she had four siblings. I couldn't find out what happened, but her family seems to have moved to Oakland, California at some point. Her oldest sister and her descendants are all buried in Oakland. We know that Kate was married in Oakland when she was 16, and there is mention of her mother having been in Oakland in some of the articles that we found and read. Thank you. So, yeah. So Kate's husband, Mark Van Winkle, you know, he he up and disappeared in 1884 when Gertrude had just turned seven and little Roy was six. And so she decided that she was going to do what she had to do for her kids. Now, don't get me wrong. She struggled. You know, she had bad days, but she wanted her kids to be in the best schools. And she still wanted to live in, you know, the best neighborhoods. So Kate Van Winkle, she picked herself up by the girdle and she got busy and she started sewing for people. And she was actually a remarkable seamstress. You know, she was a dressmaker. I mean, she was making like amazing stuff. So she did custom sewing for like everyone around and she worked every week from Monday morning to Saturday night. Which is a lot of work. Yeah, a lot of work. So Gertrude and Roy, they absolutely thrived. And if you look up their names in newspapers. com, you find them over and over again. Getting mentioned by their elementary teachers for their perfect attendance and their excellent grades. Five years after Mark vanished, so we're talking 1889. Kate and the kids had to move up to Portland. Mark's aunt and uncle, you know, Judge Parrish Willis and his wife, they were up there and they had offered to help her out. And by now, Gertrude was about 12 and Roy was 11. Kate had been working hard and saving money. She was so smart and her seamstress business was thriving. And I mean, she was talented. I mean, I know I mentioned that, but I mean, she was so good and she was incredibly good with money. This is going to come up later in the story. Like she was really good with money. Her nerves. Strive to be. Yes. Her nerves though. Her nerves were not so good. And when she first got to Portland, she had to stay with the Willis family because now she was not doing very well at all. In fact, the reason. Kate and the kids had to move to Portland was actually because Kate had become quite ill. She was very high strung, to put it mildly. So things were getting to her. Now, for five years, you know, she had lived for her kids. She, you know, kept them in the best school. She'd been toiling away from Monday morning to Sunday. Saturday night with a needle and thread in her hands, and she had come to a breaking point. So Kate and the kids moved in with Judge Willis and his wife, and they actually had to watch her day and night for six weeks because she was, quote, afflicted with insanity. An article in The Oregonian, dated Tuesday, October 12, 1909,

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'She entirely lost her reason, having what is known as melancholia. She neither ate nor slept and was suicidally inclined.' So can you tell us what melancholia is? Well, I looked that up. So back in 1909, that was basically the word for major depressive disorder. But we can see that Kate's went beyond that. Kate had major depressive disorder with psychotic features. So remember, psychosis is when they're having hallucinations or delusions. And some people with major depressive disorder will have a severe form and they will have depressive episodes that bring psychotic episodes with them. Mm-hmm. So people who have psychotic depression, they're at a higher risk of suicidal thoughts and behaviors compared to those with depression without psychotic features. And I mean, depression by itself can have, you know, a lot of suicidal ideation. So with the psychotic features, it's even worse than that. So during that six-week period, Kate was really, really in a bad way. She had severe delusions and she believed the world was wicked. She believed that she had committed a murder. She believed people were persecuting her and she was carrying around a key. Like she believed this was the key to her bedroom, which it wasn't. But she thought that if she lost the key, people were going to be able to get in and hurt her. So after a while, she allowed the Willises to tie the key around her wrist with a string so she didn't have to constantly hold it in her hand. And then, once during that six-week period, they were sitting down and eating dinner, and she just randomly jumped up from the dinner table and ran out of the house crying hysterically because she said the house was on fire. And it wasn't. She said the world was ending. Another time, middle of the night, it's pouring rain outside. You know, it's Portland, Oregon. She just runs outside and, you know, she didn't even put a coat on. She's in her nightgown, didn't put other clothes on or anything. It just runs outside saying, you know, the world is ending. Can you imagine how scary that would be for her kids to see, though? Oh yeah, like something's wrong with mom. Yeah, that would be really scary. For sure. Um, so nine times during that six-week period, they called this guy named Dr. Josephie. He had come to try to treat her, and he had some kind of medication. I tried to figure out what medication they used to treat melancholia, and I couldn't find it. Some sort of liquid medication that she was supposed to drink. And she refused to take it because she said, when she was taking it, it made her stomach burn. And so other people would like take it, like to test it, to see if it was causing a burning sensation. And they said that it didn't cause that. And so that was just another like. delusion of hers. Um, You know, and so it wasn't actually causing that. But yeah, I don't know. It was just another psychotic delusion. But anyway, after six weeks of trying to help her. The paper says that her mother in Oakland sent for her. And so Kate went down there and I don't know how long she was down there, but eventually. She improved and the psychotic break passed. And then she was able to go back to Portland, pick up the pieces and, you know, raise her kids. So she resumed her sewing business, went back to making amazing dresses. She was sewing dresses for some of the wealthiest families in Portland. Yeah, she was making a lot of money and life was pretty good. She was doing really well for herself. So, I mean, thank goodness for the Willises and their patience and hospitality. You know, I'm still really mad at Mark. And I mean, I love that the Willises, they were Mark's family, you know, and they were like, 'We will take care of you.' Come on in. You know, 'We will watch out for you and pick up where, you know, Mark should be taking care of you, jerk.' And keep in mind, this was two years before she got divorced, you know. That darn skunk. But you know what? I have a thought, and this is just an idea. I have a feeling that maybe the reason she broke down is because maybe she had actually just discovered that he was alive. You know, that's my thought because, um, before that, I mean, he had just disappeared and they didn't know. So maybe, like, he'd been at work and he just went to lunch and like something had happened and he like died. Like she didn't know. Yeah. Maybe. A John Doe situation. Yeah. So unidentified. Yeah. I mean, just something, you know, I mean, but then to find out that he had actually on purpose left and was somewhere, I feel like, I mean, you know, so I feel like maybe that is, that would have been so. Just... Disheartening and stressful and just awful. So I feel like maybe that's what kicked it off and caused the depressive episode and everything. But that's just a hunch. I don't know. But I mean, keep on listening because you'll see why I think that might be what set her off. You'll see. But anyway, she got better and life went on. So Gertrude and Roy, they finished school. Gertrude Van Winkle went on to earn a teaching diploma from Portland University in July of 1896 when she was just about 19 years old. University is not the same thing as today's University of Portland. Portland University existed between 1891 and 1900 and eventually merged with Willamette University. Gertrude remained a single lady. She was unmarried and living at home with her mother, Kate Van Winkle. Roy, though, Olivia, tell us what Roy got up to in 1898. Yes. In 1898, Roy Van Winkle was 19 years old, and he was feeling very patriotic. The Spanish-American War began between Spain and the United States in April of 1898 when the USS Maine was sunk in the Havana Harbor of Cuba. The ship mysteriously exploded, and the U. S. and Spain had already been in a dispute over control of Cuba. So this just escalated things. Congress declared a state of war on April 21st, and it was four days later that President William McKinley asked Oregon for a regiment of infantry to go and fight this war. He specifically wanted these men to be from the National Guard. By May 11th, Oregon had organized and mustered in the 2nd Regiment, Oregon U. S. Volunteer Infantry. By May 25th, Roy Van Winkle and the rest of the infantrymen set sail for the Philippines, and this was the first time that members of the Oregon National Guard fought on foreign soil. I imagine Kate was both like really proud of Roy for taking up the call to fight for his country, but also scared to death for his safety. I was an army wife, you know, for 10 years. And I can tell you firsthand, it is terrifying when they go off to war. Because, you know, I was an army wife during the Iraq war. That is so much worrying. It's insane. Now, unfortunately, Roy Van Winkle died while he was in the service. The details are a little murky. I couldn't find exactly what happened. I know from the Oregon Encyclopedia dot org that out of all of the members of the second regiment, there were 16 killed in action or died of wounds and 48 dead of other causes. Most of the actual battles took place between February and June of 1899, and then they sailed for home, landing back in California. There are pictures of the Oregon Battery in California in 1899. So I know that they stayed in California for a while after they returned. And there's a newspaper article that says Roy passed away in California. So I imagine that they were doing military training down there. So probably, you know, live shells and all of that. But I mean, other stuff, too, because when people die in the military, sometimes I mean, I read a book where this guy, he had fallen off of, you know, a tank he'd been riding on and he got ran over. You know, I mean, there's, there's accidents, there's things. I mean, you know, I mean, so it could have been from anything. And I don't— I just don't know. I couldn't find the reason or, like, you know, the cause of what, what caused Roy's death. So I don't know what happened. Um, but anyway, there's an article in the Oregonian on March 7th, 1900, with the title 'Funeral of Battery Boy'. And it says that the commander urgently requests every ex-member of Light Battery, Oregon Volunteers in the city of Portland to assemble at the armory on March 2nd at noon for the purpose of attending the funeral services over the body of Roy Van Winkle. The services will be held at the residence of P. L. Willis at 1 p. m. But they need to gather at the armory at noon, so they have ample time to gather and march from there to the residence for the funeral. So Roy was buried at Riverview Cemetery. And you can imagine, you know, Kate Van Winkle took that pretty hard. And according to the newspaper, she had another bout of melancholia after Roy's death. So it was reported in quotes, it says, she had dreams which she believed were true, her senses failing to correct the false impression which they gave her. The streetcars did not run as far as Riverview Cemetery at that time, and she would walk out in bad weather and sit or lie for hours upon her son's grave in abject melancholia. Poor girl. I know. Very, very, very sad. So it seems whenever, you know, some sort of crisis hits. She just spiraled down into deep, deep depression. And with it came, you know, some psychosis. So that was in 1900. And then she continued to live with her daughter, Gertrude, and continued to sew and save her money. And again, she was really good at saving money. Mm-hmm. And so, looking in the city directories, I found later that Gertrude was a schoolteacher. And also we saw that she was listed as a schoolteacher. Kate was listed as a dressmaker, and that's just what they did. Yeah, that went back years and years and years of dressmaking. Yeah. But then Gertrude met Charles Garber, and in 1907, Gertrude got married. Gertrude moved out after the wedding, and that did not sit well with Kate either. So she had more bouts of melancholia. And one of her sewing clients later reported that, whenever Kate worked on a certain color of fabric, it would raise in her mind, quote, forebodings of danger. I wish I knew what color that was. I would guess it was red. I don't know. But I would guess. I was thinking black. Oh, maybe. Yeah. And another friend of Kate's said that, when they went to her house for dinner, Kate would pass the different serving bowls of food around the table without waiting for the dinner guests to actually dish themselves some food from the bowls. So, just really fast passing. Yeah. Just like keep it going. Like she just was like. checked out you know like just not able to like pay attention and she was staring blankly a lot so like she was just really going through another rough patch when Gertrude moved out. Ugh. I'm just imagining, like, Gertrude's like, 'Oh, yes, I... Finally married.' My mom's been having this psychosis. Yes. But, so, why do you think that... She got. so upset. when Gertrude got married and moved out. I mean, I get that she had empty nest syndrome or... whatever it was called then. But why would she have another bout of psychosis? Wouldn't she be excited to maybe become a grandma? Well, so here's what I think was going on for Kate. Women and girls, like, you know, females, we're very relational creatures. And we tend to put a lot of importance on the quality of the relationship. In our lives. Females do this a lot more than do males. If a female doesn't have a lot of good friends, we tend to internalize that and think that it means that we must be bad somehow. And it goes beyond that. So a female will actually wrap her very sense of identity into whichever relationship is the most significant in her life. For example, like if a woman's relationship with her husband is the most significant relationship in her life, right? Her identity will be. I am this man's wife. That's how she identifies. And if that man then becomes abusive, for example, it becomes very hard for her to leave him because she doesn't know who she is without him. And so a lot of times when you're like, 'Why doesn't she just leave him?' oh my gosh, why doesn't she just leave him? It's like, well, because it's not that easy. You know, it's not that easy. But anyway, that most significant relationship could be with anyone. It could even be with, like, a substance. I mean, a lot of times you'll see, you know, a mother who's like choosing— alcohol and drugs over her kids. You know, like, her kids get taken away. It's like, why don't you just stop doing drugs? You'll get your kids back. Well, it's not that easy. If that relationship that she has— that is the most significant, for whatever reason— is with a substance. You know, because she somehow is identifying, like, that's part of who she is. It's hard for her to let go of that. Because it's her identity. So anyway, in the case of Kate Van Winkle, I think the most significant relationship in her life in 1907 was with Gertrude, you know, her daughter. Mark skunked out on her, right? And then Roy tragically died in 1900 and Gertrude had been by her side living with her for the previous seven years. You know, I mean, they were two adult women. living together as roommates, but also mother and daughter with that relationship that a mother and an adult daughter, you know, have together. And I think they were really good friends. And Kate cherished that, you know? She was Kate's closest friend, and now Kate felt that she was losing a piece of herself, and that caused a bit of an identity crisis. Now, before Gertrude moved out, she and Gertrude had been living together on Washington Street. But then, you know, Kate moved to 566 Cooch Street. Which was a place where people could rent out rooms. It was like a rooming house. And all this time, she had been successfully sewing, making dresses, and saving up her money. And soon, she was sitting on $2, 000 in savings. Olivia, how much would Kate's $2, 000 in savings be worth today? It would be worth. Get ready. $70, 285. 49. Wow, that's not too shabby. Not at all. So in 1908, Kate was living at 566 Cooch Street. But now, I need to tell you about one of her neighbors. Thank you. Electropodes. Remove unpleasant bodily odors. Lick. Thank you. Thank you. Odors from the feet and armpits. Electropodes removes these odors by neutralizing the excess uric acid. Electropodes feed the body a gentle flow of... Thank you. And if after 30 days trial, they should prove unsatisfactory, your druggist will refund the $1 you pay for them. What are electropodes? Electropodes are metal infos worn in the heels of the shoes. One is of copper, the other of zinc. forming the two poles of a galvanic battery. The nerves of the body becoming the connecting wire. Buy Electropodes off your druggist, and if he cannot supply them, have him order a pair for you from Stuart and Holmes Drug Company. Wholesale Distributors, Seattle, Washington. All right, we need to chat about a man known as Dr. Collins. Olivia, please tell us a bit about Dr. Collins. I would love to. Dr. Collins was born Roy Asbury Milton Collins. He was born December 14th of 1874 in Kearney, Iowa. His dad was shot dead by a cowboy when he was just a baby. And then his mom remarried a man named B. J. Miles. His stepdad was a superintendent of Iowa State Home for Boys. So when Dr. Collins grew up, he graduated from Iowa Eclectic Medical College. He practiced medicine in Des Moines, Iowa. Thank you. So, in 1902, Dr. Collins was 28 years old, and he married a 17-year-old girl named Nora Lange. Less than a month later, she publicly accused him of adultery, and it really damaged his reputation. Was it true? Probably, but I don't know. I don't know. I feel like it's the people who... openly accused that are more at fault. I mean, we are going to talk about Nora in a while, and... My goodness. I mean, just both of them. Oh, listeners, you'll see. The drama. Oh, the both of them. They're both special people. Not skunks. Well. Dr. Collins was handsome. He was. He was handsome. But uh. He was kind of a dirtbag. Um, anyway, here we go. So, okay. She accused him of adultery and it damaged his reputation. They moved to Nebraska at some point and Nora was, she was incredibly jealous. She probably, you know, he probably wasn't cheating and she was just like, 'Oh, whatever you, you know, you looked at a girl, you cheated.' I actually found that they got married in Nebraska. Oh, did they? We did. Okay. Okay. So they got married in Nebraska. Well, she was incredibly jealous of any female patient that he treated. And she insisted that he not make professional calls, like house calls as a doctor, because, you know, they used to do that in the early 1900s. So don't make money. Yeah, if it was a female, she did not want him going to the house to treat the female patient. Now, in 1904, they moved to Portland, Oregon. And at first, he had to get a job as a salesman for Woodard, Clark & Company at a retail store, which was on 4th and Washington Street. Apparently. Nora had nothing better to do than lurk and loiter because several times while he was at work, okay, he's a salesman, she would publicly interrupt his sales to women customers because she thought he was talking to them for a little too long of a time. Like, it doesn't take that long to sell whatever it was. I don't know what he was selling. Like, it doesn't take that long to sell a couch. You know, hey, close this sale now. Her frontal lobe was not fully developed. No, not at all. Not at all. She's like, 'Hey, finish this up. Come on. Yeah. Finish. Yeah.' So around the time that they arrived in 1904, that's also the year that their child was born, little Donald William Milton Collins. I wonder if she just carried him and interrupted conversations. Yeah, yeah, I don't know, or just hugely pregnant. Hey! Get away from my man. Pay for your couch already and get out. Yeah, I don't know. Can you... By the way, listeners, Cooch Street is actually spelled like 'couch,' but it is pronounced 'Cooch.' Look it up. Okay. Anyway. Um, Yeah. Now they called little Donald William Milton Collins. They called him Billy for short. And according to Dr. Collins, Nora was not interested in taking care of Billy. So she was about 19 when he was born. And Dr. Collins had to tell her, like, you know, you should probably give him a bath. You should probably feed the child. You know, there's things you're supposed to do with a baby. She just didn't have those motherly instincts. And I mean, yeah, Olivia, like you were saying, I wonder where Billy was when she was stalking her husband at work. Like, I mean, what was going on? So eventually he was able to start up a practice in Portland, but. I don't know. Apparently it wasn't successful. It didn't take off. I could not find details about it, but he was not financially stable. I wonder if it was like, someone else's office that he was in. So it wouldn't have his name. Yeah, I don't know. But I know because he had his friend, Dr. Frisbee. I bet Dr. Frisbee was like, 'Hey, come on out here and try to get established.' Because, yeah, they went to medical school together. Anyway, so in 1908. Something crazy happened. I laugh because I know what's coming. So many crazy things. A blonde fellow from Denmark. A man of royal blood. I'm not making this up. Guys, I'm not making this up. His name was Count Viggo von Holstein Rathlow. Um, Yes. Viggo! And, I mean, I can't help but think of Ghostbusters. Viggo! But anyway, he happened to come through Portland, Oregon, and he caught the eye of a now 23-year-old Nora Collins, who promptly ran away with him. She ran away with a count. Count Viggo von Osteinrasbo. Here's what I found about that. Actually. Okay. Dr. Collins. Let Count Vigo stay with them. For a bit because Count Viggo was like, 'My parents haven't been sending me money.' And he's like, 'Until you get your money, come stay with us.' So then they started this affair. UGH! Oh, so the pattern started then. Yes. I'm just waiting on a check from Denmark. That's where it started. Yes. Except he took the wife with him. Oh, man. And they went to, like... Minneapolis. Nora and he did. They eloped there. Interesting. Mm-mm-mm. So it was... August of 1908, she ran off to Denmark to meet his family. His dad said, 'We will not accept this. You know, she's American. Get out of here.' Count Vigo was dead set on marrying her. So he was disowned. And they had to go back to America. Meanwhile, Dr. Collins filed for divorce in Portland, but she was not in the country at the time, so she couldn't even respond to the divorce filing, so he won by default. And the divorce was granted on September 15th of 1908. So Dr. Collins got his divorce and full custody of three-year-old little Billy. And he promptly gave Billy to his mother and stepfather who lived in Salem. Because, I mean, that's what you do when you win full custody. You give your kid away. Yeah, but when they came back to America, the Count and Nora, I refuse to call her a Countess, they came back to Portland. They got an apartment. Not right away, though. But they were in Denmark. And then they came back. Right. Later. We'll get to that. Later. Yeah, but no, they... So apparently, then, they came back to the U. S., but then his dad changed his mind and said, 'Okay, we will accept you.' And then they went back to Denmark for a while. Like it's, it's all wild. It's all there's— it's so crazy. I feel like they could have had. They could have their very own episode. This is literally like a reality TV show. No, it's like One Tree Hill. 1909 edition. Oh. It's, it's madness. Awesome Girl, 1909 edition. Yeah, it is. Like if you miss an episode, you miss the whole plot. You won't understand. It's madness. Okay. So, yeah, wild. So through this messy time, you know, he's getting the divorce figured out. He's giving his kid away. You know, Dr. Collins rented himself a room. Where? At 566 Cooch Street. And that's where he met Kate Van Winkle. Now, Dr. Collins was in a bad way. Not only was he humiliated by his wife's elopement with Count Viggo Holstein Rathlow from Denmark, but he was... in some really tough financial straits. Again, I can't find the details, but there were several articles saying his medical practice was in ruins and he had no money. And, I mean, that room at 566 Couch Street cost $12 a month, and he could not even afford to pay the rent. So he's not doing well. His friends described him as, quote, despondent and downhearted. But there was Kate Van Winkle, sitting on $2, 000 and feeling lonely, with nothing but love to give, and apparently Dr. Collins saw this as an opportunity. Now, let's look at the numbers here. Olivia, how old was Kate Van Winkle in 1909? 49. How old was her daughter, Gertrude? 32. How old was Dr. Collins? He was 34. Interesting. Okay. Just wanted to set the stage for the listeners. So Dr. Collins was a young doctor and he sees this 49-year-old dressmaker with a lot of money. And he starts reading to her every evening and he brings her flowers and he asks if she would like to go. go see movies. He takes her to the theater and he tells her he'll treat her ailments for free. He tells her she's on the brink of insanity and he can help. He helps her with that. He starts medicating her and she, she's paying his rent and she's lending him money here and there and everywhere. She falls madly in love with it. man who's giving her all of his attention and he is getting everything paid for. He's got his sugar mama and she's all doped up on love and pills. Oh, I shouldn't laugh. Oh, so. It really is just a crazy episode of a TV show. Yeah. Well, Kate Van Winkle is not on the right medications, and she's getting more and more unstable. I don't know what he was giving her, but it was certainly malpractice, any way you want to look at it. So he convinces her in February of 1909 that they ought to take an ocean trip to Hawaii and says this will be good for her health. She, of course, foots the bill, you know, to take her personal doctor with her to Hawaii to stay with her from February through May, because that would be cheap. And while they are in Honolulu, according to Kate, she told him that she couldn't live without him. And she said that he told her, at that point, that he would marry her if that was the case. Yeah, and so the two got married, and Kate Van Winkle became Mrs. Kate M. Collins. And then, well, he had access to all the money. Well, right off the bat, someone had to pay all the bills, and that bank account was drained so fast. And literally, they got back to Portland in May, and the bank account was empty by July. And after they got back, Dr. Collins met someone else. A beautiful young actress and opera singer by the name of Anna Lichter had come to see Dr. Collins seeking treatment for her throat. Anna Lichter was a prima donna. She was very, very popular in her day. She was a favorite at the old Tivoli, I'm not sure if I'm saying that right, in San Francisco. And she sang in many operas. In the spring of 1909, Anna was in Portland acting in The Patriot and The Toymaker. And I know I mentioned briefly Dr. Frisbee before. That had been Dr. Collins' best friend. She had initially been a patient of Dr. Frisbee, and it was he who had actually introduced Anna to Dr. Collins. Anna was also a divorcee. Right. A recent, very recent divorcee. Like, a couple months. Yes. So something happens with Anna's throat, right? I don't know what it is, maybe because she was singing. So maybe it was like. I don't know. Oh, yeah, maybe nodes or something. Or maybe she just had, you know, a sore throat. I don't know. But she needed to see a doctor. And somehow gets set up to visit with, you know, Dr. Collins. And Dr. Collins fell head over heels. And in fact, I don't know what she needed money for. Maybe he just wanted to give her a gift. I don't know. Kind of weird for a doctor to be giving a patient money. But he gave her about $300 of Kate's money. So that was so nice. And then you know what he did? Do you know what he did? He told Kate. Now, Kate thought that Dr. Collins was a god. Like, she used those very words to describe this man who treated her so well. He was doting on her, giving her flowers, reading to her every night. He was really laying it on thick, you know, to get at her money. And she loved him like she'd never loved before. bosom burned with passion for this man. And he just told her the truth. He told her he had never loved her, that he was in love with another woman, and he told her that she ought to leave him. He told her, you should divorce me. So, Olivia. What happens when Kate receives bad news? Melancholia. Yes, yes, melancholia. Her mind does not react well to crises. Kate. spirals. And let's not forget that she's being overmedicated already on the wrong medications because her very rude husband was plying her with meds. And I mean, this time was no different. Kate went into crisis mode. She told her husband she was going to kill herself. And she even told her husband she was going to kill him. I mean, she was absolutely. beside herself. Of course, he tried to calm her down. He told her, you know, she'd be fine. He told her she'd be happier without him, but he also told her he never loved her, and that certainly didn't make anything any better. So she reached out to one of Dr. Collins' very best friends, Dr. Frisbee. So again, they had gone to medical school together in Iowa and had known each other for quite some time. They were just super, super close friends. And everything really came to a climax in the summer of 1909. So stay with me, folks. This is where the dominoes really begin to fall, and it ends very, very badly. Kind of a bit of a whodunit. You'll see what I mean. Now, a man named Major Sladen and his wife, they were planning to leave on vacation for the summer, and they asked Dr. and the new Mrs. Collins to house— for them over the summer. So the newlyweds moved in and shortly after moving in, Kate spiraled into a very deep depression because, you know, now she's out of money and her husband keeps... insisting he doesn't love her and that she ought to divorce him. And I mean, he can't divorce her because he has no money to do so. So she's living off her sewing income and so is he. But the savings are gone. So now you remember Dr. Collins' ex-wife, Nora, right? You bet I do. Well, by this time, she's Countess Vigo. von Holstein Rathlow. Well, the Count and Countess have just come back from Denmark, and the Countess goes to visit Dr. Collins at his office on July 11th of 1909. What she doesn't know is that he has gotten remarried. So she also doesn't know that Kate is hiding in the closet at the office when she arrives. So the Countess and Dr. Collins have some heated conversation about the Countess wanting to see little Billy. Oh, she finally wants to be a mom? Yeah, she wants to see young Billy. So Dr. Collins also, during this conversation, tells her that he's really struggling financially. And the Countess offers to help him. Like, oh, we have money, she says. Which, no, she doesn't. But she was like, oh, we can help you. And he declines. Now, talking about this conversation later, the countess said, 'Admit that my conversation with him was not what it would have been had I known she was in an adjoining room, or even had I known he had remarried. Our conversation was largely about our little Billy. When we first separated, it was agreed I should have him three months out of the year. When I talked to him, he didn't want me to even see the child. Now, a couple days later, Dr. Collins contacted the countess where she and the count were staying in Portland, and that's when he told her that he had remarried. Then on July 16th, 1909, so like five days later. The Count and the Countess showed up at that temporary home where Dr. Collins and Kate were staying, okay, at 722 Flanders Street, where they were just house-sitting for the summer.' Now, Dr. Collins' mom, who was raising little Billy, she had brought Billy to the house to visit, you know, with his mother. So the countess was coming over to see Billy. Now, Billy, by this time, he was almost five years old. When the Countess arrived and walked into the living room, only Dr. Collins was in the room, and Dr. Collins said to Nora that they didn't want Nora to tell Billy that Nora was his mother. Now, I think that's because Nora had been gone since the previous September, right? And so... Like, Billy had been four when she left. He didn't remember her. So Nora starts to protest to this. She's like, what? But I am his mother. Kate comes charging in and she just flies off the handle and starts screaming at Nora. And Kate is quoted as saying, 'I will run you out of town.' My, how I hate. I will kill you one of these days. Now, despite all of that happening, Billy was allowed to go with Nora and the Count that night, and he stayed with them for a while. A long while, it turned out, but we will get to that. See, for a whole week, every day, Kate had been going to see Dr. Frisbee, her husband's best friend. She'd been pleading with him to please talk to Dr. Collins. Please tell him to change his mind about breaking up. Please make him love me again. And according to Dr. Frisbee, he did talk to Roy Collins about it. And every day, Roy Collins insisted that he had never, ever felt any sort of affection toward Kate Van Winkle, or Kate Collins, as she was now known. He said that he didn't know why he'd gotten wrapped up in it. He didn't know why he'd allowed himself to go through with it, and he never should have done it. For money. Now, in one article, Dr. Frisbee said that Kate always swore she'd kill herself if he wouldn't marry her, and Dr. Collins didn't want her blood on his hands. But every other article just says that he didn't know why he married her. Now, meanwhile, According to Dr. Frisbee, around July 18th or 19th, which would be a day or two after Kate threatened to kill Countess Nora, Kate actually pointed a loaded revolver at her husband, Dr. Collins, with the intent to kill him, and she had also attempted to kill herself. Dr. Collins and his mother then had a meeting with Dr. Frisbee and they talked about having Kate examined and potentially committed to an insane asylum. At the time, Dr. Frisbee took the revolver from Dr. Collins for safekeeping. Still, Kate continued to come to Dr. Frisbee day after day, begging him to help her change Dr. Collins' mind. He prescribed her a sedative and told her to take one teaspoon every three hours, but she was taking a swig from the bottle every hour or so, and it made her head swim even faster. So Kate started contacting her sewing clients to tell them she couldn't finish their sewing. She said, 'I am going away.' She contacted Judge Willis, so remember that was her ex-husband's uncle, and asked him to draw up some legal papers to leave all of her belongings to Gertrude. She said she was going away. And he recognized she was acting the same way she had been back when he and his wife had to watch her for six weeks straight. And he got the feeling that by going away, she meant suicide. Finally, on July 23rd, Dr. Frisbee told Kate that she ought to just leave Dr. Collins. And he told her straight up that Dr. Collins was not going to change his mind and she would be better off without him. And so she told him, 'Okay, I will give up Dr. Collins.' She said she was going to write a letter to Anna Lichter and tell her, 'You can just come and get Roy.' Remember, that was Dr. Collins' first name. And that she herself would just go away. On the morning of July 24th,

at 8: 59:24

30 in the morning, Kate M. Collins called Dr. Frisbee and said, 'Come to 722 Flanders Street at once. Don't waste a moment.' He tried to find out what was wrong, but all she would say was, 'Don't waste a moment, come at once.' So he called a taxi and headed over to 722 Flanders Street. When he got there, she was standing in the doorway and waving her arms. She said, 'Come in. He's gone.' She told him that Dr. Collins was in the basement. So he took her by the arm and they went to the basement together. He held her arm in one hand. And he used the other hand to determine that Dr. Collins was indeed dead. And then she started begging Dr. Frisbee to bring him back to life. I'm not stupid, I just got to poo. Many schoolchildren suffer from constipation, which is often the cause of seeming... It'll do your lessons. Chamberlain's stomach and liver tablets are an ideal medicine to give a child. For they are mild and gentle in their effect and will cure even chronic constipation. He asked her where the gun was and she pointed to a trunk a few feet away from the body. They had been in the basement packing because they had agreed that they would separate that morning and go their separate ways. Kate had indeed written the letter to Anna Lichter to let her know that she was free to have Dr. Roy Collins all to herself and that Kate was going away. Kate was planning to kill herself that morning. Dr. Frisbee opened the lid of the trunk and he saw the gun. Kate tried to grab it from the trunk and said she was going to kill herself, and Dr. Frisbee had to, quote, turn her hand down to keep it from her. Whatever that meant, I'm not sure, but it was enough to leave a bruise on her arm. He left it where it was, and he called the police. According to Dr. Frisbee, Kate said to him, 'I suppose you want to know why I did it?' And his response to her was, 'It would be better for you not to talk at all.' And then she insisted that Dr. Collins had been very unkind to her. What? It was. Yes, but I mean, she meant that morning he had started being very unkind. Um, when the deputy coroner arrived at the scene, he saw two bullet holes in the body. One was on the left side of the rib cage and one on the right. So at first they assumed two shots must have been fired, but there was only one shell casing. Well, it turns out that only one bullet was fired. It went into the left side of Dr. Collins, went through his lungs and the great aorta of his heart, and then it exited out the right side of his body. Mrs. Kate Collins was at the scene while the body was examined and everything. So she was there like the whole time. She fainted three times and she kept making. Statements that contradicted each other. Sometimes she would say, 'Why did he do it?' and other times she said, 'I am guilty. I did it.' Sometimes she didn't seem to realize that he was even dead. And sometimes she would start talking to the body. When she was asked how the shooting happened, she would say, 'I must have done it.' She just couldn't give a coherent statement. And she didn't seem to know what happened. So she was sent to an asylum that day after she had been questioned at the police station. And by that afternoon, she had attempted to take her own life twice. At one point, she had slashed into her arm and she had to be restrained and kept from hurting herself anymore. There was no doubt that she was not in her right mind. Now, the trial, surprisingly, did not meet expectations for 1909. On October 12, 1909,

the Oregon Daily Journal reported: 1:03:05

'The courtroom crowd is thus far not up to expectations.' At every session, there is an abundance of seating capacity, in contrast to most previous murder trials of recent date. It's like a movie review. I know. They expected there to be quite a crowd. We put up extra seats. Yeah, there's no one here. No one wants to watch this one. It's so weird. And it's crazy to me because apparently they missed out on quite a show. I mean, they were still reporting on it. And I mean, it sounds like. The theatrics were like wild in there. So every day in court, like Kate would attempt to stand and moan and she would like have, she had a veil over her. Face and stuff, and the drama— oh yeah. And so she had her daughter, Gertrude, on one side, and then her son-in-law, Charles, on the other side too. It strained her because she'd keep like she'd like stand up and try to moan, and they'd have to like pull her back down. And she would like collapse against one of their shoulders or the other, because she didn't like have the strength to hold herself up. She was really weak, and she would have outbursts, and say things like, 'You don't have to say it—I know it's true.' Or she'd say, 'My God.' Or like, just really loud whispers while trying to get to her feet and stuff. I'm gonna be st— Yeah. Or like she'd be pressing her handkerchief to her eyes with one hand, and then clasping her daughter with the other, as like details of the of the crime were recited in court and stuff. So, sounds like it was there were a lot of hysterics and and dramatics in the courtroom. So the defense, of course, was insanity. I don't think anyone— well, no, they did argue that. I mean—because of the fact that she did say things like, well, I suppose you want to know why I did it. So they were saying, well, that shows that she had a reasonable mind. That shows she, you know, she did it. She knew what she was doing. And so, a couple of days earlier, she pointed the gun at him. Right. And so, so they did, you know, the state was trying to say, no, she did it on purpose and she was going to do it before. And even, you know, cause she had even threatened to kill Nora. So they were like, she knew what she was doing. You know, she killed him on purpose. And so she was on trial for murder, but then there was a lot, there were so many people that came up and. Now, a really, really exceptional witness for the defense was Judge Parrish Willis. So Mark's uncle, who, you know, had to watch her like a hawk for six straight weeks, was a fantastic witness. So he talked about, you know, her suicidal tendencies at the time, how she wouldn't eat or sleep, how she thought the world was ending, and she ran out into the rain in the middle of the night without getting dressed. And even during that time, she had chased his wife around the kitchen with a butcher knife. So, yeah, he brought that up, too. And then he testified that, when her son Roy died, you know, in 1900, she would sit for hours at his grave and think her dreams were real and again, wouldn't eat or sleep. And how, when Gertrude got married in 1907, again, you know, she wouldn't eat or sleep and she acted so strangely. And how she, like, really had so much anger toward her new son-in-law for taking Gertrude away from her. So. Yeah. And then, you know, and then, like, right before the killing of Dr. Collins, she was again in crisis. You know, she was like, you know, he was in love with someone else and she was pacing constantly, having that wild stare in her eyes. And she even had said that she thought that Dr. Collins was crazy and she couldn't explain why she couldn't give any reason. For it, but it was just, you know, a paranoid delusion that she had. Now the defense's theory about what had happened, like what actually had happened on the morning of July 20th. Forth. They said that she had the gun and was going to kill herself with it and that Dr. Collins was probably trying to take the gun away from her and it simply went off in the scuffle. So, and, you know, just it shot, you know, went through the left side and came out the right side as he was trying to get the gun from her so she wouldn't shoot herself. Bitch. Would be an interesting way for it to happen. Because in my mind, if you're trying to get a a weapon from someone. You're facing each other, not... I mean, it depends. Was she pulling? I mean, was she trying to get it away? You know what I mean? Because if he was pulling and then she tried to yank it. Like she cut to the right or something and trying to yank it. Then it could have yanked that way, you know. I don't know. So, I don't know. But, yeah, it's possible. But, of course, the state argued that she shot him on purpose because she was jealous and possessive. But yeah, there was a jury of 12 men. And so when they go to deliberate, it always starts off with, okay, what's everybody thinking? Where's everyone starting out? the jury like you know what's everyone thinking right now and so when they first did that none of them wanted to convict her like six of them right off the bat that wanted to vote to acquit her, like just not guilty, straight not guilty. And the other six voted not guilty except for insanity. So that's where it started out. And so for an hour, they were deliberating over it. And finally, after an hour, they sent a question out to the judge and they said, what would happen? Like, what would, where would she go? What would, you know, the consequence be or the sentence be if we did say not guilty except for insanity? What would happen to her? And the judge said, 'Well, I can't tell you that.' I'm not going to tell you that because that cannot be part of your decision. So, except for insanity. The same as 'On the Grounds of Insanity?' Yes. Yes. So, just different states have different ways. And apparently, back then, it was 'ground of insanity.' But anyway, so that's what I meant to say. But yeah, and so six of them said, 'You know, she's not guilty.' And then the other six said, 'Well, pretty much she did it, but insane.' Anyway, they were deliberating over it, deliberating over it. So the first hour they sent that question to the judge and he was like, 'Well, I'm not going to tell you.' And so then it took another half hour and then they had their verdict. So finally the verdict was in October 14th, 1909, and she was found not guilty on the ground of insanity. So it took exactly an hour and a half. So after the verdict was read, the judge placed Mrs. Collins in the custody of her daughter. And he said that it was clear that she was very weak and unwell. And he thought that she would get a lot worse if he sent her to the state hospital in Salem. So it was best for her if she just stayed with her daughter. I feel so bad for Gertrude. Yeah. So it was, like, for the time being, and then, if she gets better, then, then we can revisit this, and then maybe we'll send her to the, and you know, to the asylum in Salem. So we can revisit that. I wish they would have sent her with the parish Willis. Instead of Gertrude. Well, I mean, maybe Gertrude was willing to take her. I don't know. Now, one of the jurors happened to be Reverend Charles T. McPherson from the Epworth Methodist Church. And the Sunday following the verdict, October 17th, 1909, he actually made the Collins trial the subject of his sermon. And he had this to say. The evidence of the trial showed Dr. Roy A. Milton Collins to be a worthless, shiftless, indolent man. He was shrewd and cunning enough to steal away the affections of a tender, sympathetic, loving woman at the time of life when she was longing for someone to love her. At the time of marriage, the bride was 49 years old, and the groom only 34. This was too great a difference in age to ensure continued happiness. To my mind, it was not proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Mrs. Collins... Firing of the fatal shot. The defense, instead of introducing Mrs. Collins' insanity, might have produced sufficient evidence to have justified the jury in bringing in a verdict of not guilty. However, the jury, after hearing all the evidence on both sides, had no reluctance in bringing in a verdict to acquit Ms. Collins on the ground of insanity. Judge Gatins made no mistake in committing the mother to the care of her daughter for the president. So yeah, that's the story. There is... more that you definitely left out. We kind of already threw in all this stuff about Nora though, but I mean, there is more. So, okay. Yeah. There's, there is more about Nora and the count for sure that we definitely should throw in. Tell them. All right. So, okay. So we've got, um, The Count and the Countess. So the Count actually adopted little Billy. And the three of them became a family. Well, they couldn't live in Denmark because they had been disowned. So they were in the States, and, you know, since they're cut off from the family. They had no money and no skills, obviously. They had nothing but their pretty faces. So, okay, for the first month after the death of Dr. Collins, they were basically paying for everything on credit. They had this apartment and in Portland, and they told the landlord. Like, 'Oh, we're just waiting on a big check from Denmark.' So, like all the food they ate, the laundry bill, the butcher, the expensive mahogany furniture that they bought to furnish their home. 326 10th Street, everything was on credit, and then they just disappeared without a trace in August of 1909. But, like before, they were even married, they had been arrested for swindling a guy out of $500 in New York, telling them the same line, that they were waiting on a check from Denmark that would arrive within an hour, and they would pay him right back. And then, like a few years later, in Colorado, they became fake beauty professors and they opened up a fake beauty school and swindled people out of tons of money and then just disappeared with the cash. And they were caught and arrested for it in Ogden, Utah, in February of 1912. So they did time in Colorado. They did time for larceny in New York. They did time for larceny. and Oregon. I don't even know where all they did time, but every time they were in jail, little Billy was in jail with them. Cause apparently that's just what they did back then. I don't even know, but he was quoted little Billy in one of the articles as saying, 'Which hotel are we staying in this time? Mother. Because she told them they were hotels every time they went to jail.' Now, I found one article from 1916 that said they were in New York waiting for deportation as undesirables. And I can tell you, they did get deported. Now, I also found on a genealogy website that someone from Denmark was researching and looking for information about Dr. Collins. So this person has the last name Holstein Rathlow and was looking for information about their American side of the family because they had adopted, remember, the count. Countess had, or the Count had adopted little Billy. Now, as I read through the thread, it turns out that after they returned to Denmark, Nora told the family in Denmark that she was actually an Austrian princess and had grown up in a castle in Austria. So the whole... Holstein Rathlow royal family, up until the year 2012, believed that Nora Lange, who was born in Iowa, was Austrian royalty. I wonder if Billy thought that too. He had to have. Well, him. I wonder if he remembers, because... So Dr. Collins died when he was five. So he would have been eight. In one of the times that they stayed in a... quote-unquote hotel, so he would have remembered America. Well, it was the arrest in 1912. When the count first told them in jail that she was the daughter of a crown prince in Austria. And they were just both, and you know, and he was royalty from Denmark. So they were just in America right now. And so I'm sure Billy grew up believing that. Yeah. It was so hard to find him, too. So on the FamilySearch website, he was under the name Holstein Rathlow, which I guess is his adoptive name. But it was so hard to find anything about him. So I finally connected him to... Dr. Collins. So that was... They're welcome. Nice. All right, so back to Kate. Now, life apparently went on. She went back to being Kate Van Winkle, and she lived in Portland. Her daughter, Gertrude, lived in Portland. In Washington with her husband. After that, I don't believe Kate ever went to the state hospital. She just went back to just living in Portland. Now, in 1932, when Gertrude was just 54, Gertrude died of a heart attack. She and her husband had never had children. And the little blurb in the paper about Gertrude's death mentioned that she was the daughter of Mrs. K. Van Winkle of Portland. So I know that she was still alive when Gertrude died. died. Now, after that, there is no mention of Kate ever again in any newspaper. Nothing about her life, nothing about her death. It's... was almost impossible to find anything about her. And it took us until literally yesterday to find when she died. I was on the phone with a cemetery yesterday trying to find her and she wasn't there. It wasn't the right one. So Olivia, tell us what we finally found about her death. Okay. Well, we had a couple different ideas of what could have happened. You found Katie Collins buried over in Pendleton by the Old State Hospital, and you called them to verify that the burial was indeed from the state hospital. Because we know that Kate doesn't handle fries as well. After Gertrude died, she could have lost her mind and been put in the state hospital. But a search through the public vital records... Didn't really back up that theory, and the date of death was before Gertrude died. And we know from the paper that she was alive when Gertrude died. So then I was thinking, maybe she moved down to California because her younger brother was still alive. The rest of her siblings died in the 1920s. but she still had one brother left. Slank. She didn't have any other family in Oregon, so she had... No reason to stay in Oregon. So I did some searching and I found a Catherine Van Winkle with Catherine spelled. Oddly. But she was listed as having died in Oakland, where most of Kate's siblings died, and where she had actually gotten married when she was 16. And this Katherine Van Winkle was listed as dying on April 12, 1936. That is four years after Gertrude died. So it lines up with our timeline. To fit with the theory, we needed to see where her younger brother was living at that time. I looked it up, and sure enough, he was there in Oakland. And even died there in 1944. So I think it's safe to say that we finally found our Kate Van Winkle. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like she was buried anywhere. She probably got cremated and put on a shelf somewhere. Because there is no record of her burial in any database. What a bummer. It would have been cool to find her actual burial and to be able to connect her. To her kids and everything. Yeah, I searched and searched. Oh my gosh, me too. I'm surged. Different spellings of Catherine, just Kate, Katie, different Van Winkle spellings. Oh, yeah. Nothing. And Kant's and like every last name, every possibility. I searched all through Oregon, all through California. Everything. I don't think I've ever researched. I feel like I'm related to these people now. I've done so much research into this family. It's wild. I did look. I was like... How am I related to this person? I'm related to Nora. Or guess who? Mmm. Interesting. So. But you know who the real villain of this story is? Who? Mark. Oh. Skunk. Because this wouldn't have happened. If he didn't leave! I know. If he had just been upstanding, like, you know, the other. Like he was in Greenshill. Yes. If he could have just been. Popular. In Grant's past, if he just could have been an upstanding, popular police chief. Blacksmith. Good guy. You found that his aunt that was married to Parrish. was actually younger than him. Yeah. Cause so, yeah. Um, his grandmother had 12 kids. And his mother was much older than his aunt. About 20 years. Yeah, it was, I think, 21 years. We'll just do the math from the years. But yeah, so 20 years older than his aunt. His aunt was three years younger than him. So the judge was probably around. Kate's age. No, because... Because Mark was much older than Kate. Mark was 32 and Kate was 16. Oh, you're right, you're right, you're right. Yeah. You are right. I forgot. And then. Judge was probably older than his wife anyway. They tended to be much older than their wives back in those days. Yeah, because Nora was 17 and Dr. Collins was like... 28. Thanks. A crime these days. Very much so. Yep. Well, big shout out to Ancestry. com. Newspapers. com, definitely. FamilySearch. Oregon Encyclopedia. My brother. For doing the ads. Heck yeah. Good job, Christian. Um... Follow our socials. Yes. Forgotten felonies on Facebook and forgotten underscore felonies on Instagram. Leave us a review. Send us a message, some fan mail. Bring back the word skunk. And we'll post. Pictures from the episode. Visit Find a Grave. See my handiwork. Yeah, shout out to Find-A-Grave, too. Heck yeah. Uh, but yeah. Thanks. Little felons. Wow. Don't commit any felonies. Or do. Who knows? I'm not judging. Stay out of trouble. Don't try any of this at home. Yay! Woo! Bye-bye. Thank you. Electropodes! Constipation. One of the two. Electropodes can fix that for you. I do love how it's cooch and not couch. I know. So funny. I'm glad that I looked up the house because I wouldn't know to say it that way. And it's like online, they're like, you can tell who the tourists are by the way they pronounce it. Well, I'm going to say it. I'm going to say it correctly then. I'm not a tourist. I love you. I'm just kidding.