Boone County Tombstone Tells Troubling Tale Straight Out of Hollywood
Are you familiar with the YMCA in Loves Park on Orth Road? If you take Harlem to Orth Road and make a right, about a quarter of a mile down the road is this tiny little graveyard with maybe 8 tombstones.
I've always wondered who was buried there and why it was so small but have yet to pull over or do some research online. I wonder what I'd find?
Would it be as interesting as the story of Daniel Stott?
Matthew Ruedel shared a photo of Stott's tombstone on Facebook and after Googling it, he came across a very interesting and bizarre story behind Stott's death, "Poisoned by wife and Dr. Cream."
It's sounds like the plot of a horror film straight out of Hollywood.
According to Wikipedia, Dr. Thomas Neill Cream was a Scottish-Canadian serial killer who was known as the Lambeth Poisoner.
He was an actual doctor who had a medical practice in Chicago that offered abortions to prostitutes. That's where he met Julia Stott, Daniel Stott's wife.
Wikipedia goes on to say,
On 14 July 1881, Daniel Stott died of strychnine poisoning at his home in Boone County, Illinois, after Cream supplied him with an alleged remedy for epilepsy. The death was attributed to natural causes, but Cream wrote to the coroner blaming the pharmacist for the death after again attempting blackmail. Cream was arrested, along with Mrs. Julia A. (Abbey) Stott, who had become Cream's mistress and procured poison from Cream to do away with her husband. She turned state's evidence to avoid jail, laying the blame on Cream, which left him to face a murder conviction on his own. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in Joliet Prison.[5]
One night unknown persons erected a tombstone at Mr. Stott's grave which read,
Daniel Stott Died June 12, 1881 Aged 61 Years, poisoned by his wife and Dr. Cream
Pretty interesting, right?
In a Snap! Fitness