On the morning of January 31, 1857, the body of Dr. Harvey Burdell was discovered in his Manhattan townhouse with fifteen stab wounds, and his killer had also strangled him to guarantee his death. Suspicion quickly fell to one of Burdell’s tenants, thirty-nine-year-old mother of four Emma Cunningham. A few days after Burdell’s death, Emma presented herself as his wife and attempted to collect his estate worth $100,000, but before she could get her hands on the money, Emma was indicted for Burdell’s murder.

The coroner’s inquest and Emma’s subsequent murder trial dominated the front pages—and then some—of nearly every newspaper in and around New York for weeks and was the “trial of the century” long before the term was even coined. Yet as sensational as it all was, there was no physical evidence tying Emma to the crime and the prosecution’s only argument was that the killer was left-handed and so was Emma Cunningham. Despite the lurid details of affairs, multiple abortions, and constant domestic violence, without evidence the jury moved to acquit Emma after deliberating for just two hours.

The story should have ended with the acquittal, but Emma wasn’t content to walk away with just her freedom; she still believed she was entitled to Burdell’s estate, and she intended to get it one way or another. What followed was a protracted battle for Burdell’s money and property that took place in the courts and the press, with a variety of antics that ranged from forging marriage documents to faking a pregnancy and even buying an infant that, when all was said and done, would end up in P.T. Barnum’s sideshow.

References

Feldman, Benjamin. 2007. Butchery on Bond Street: Sexual Politics and The Burdell-Cunningham Case in Ante-bellum New York. New York, NY: Wanderer Press.

Kappman, Edward W. 1994. Great American Trials. Detroit, MI: Gale.

New York Daily Herald. 1857. "Horrible and Mysterious Murder in Bond Street." New York Daily Herald, February 2: 1.

—. 1857. "The Bond Street tragedy; the close of the investigation." New York Daily Herald, February 16: 1.

New York Daily Times. 1857. "The Burdell murder: Second Day." New York Daily Times, May 6: 1.

—. 1857. "The Burdell murder; Dr. Carnochan's testimony." New York Daily Times, May 8: 1.

New York Times. 1857. "Terrible Tragedy." New York Times, February 2: 1.

—. 1857. "The Bond Street murder still a mystery." New York Times, February 7: 1.

—. 1857. "The Bond-Street murder; John J. Eckel and Mrs. Cunningham indicted." New York Times, February 23: 5.

Serratore, Angela. 2013.

The Desperate Would-be Housewife of New York.

June 13. Accessed November 13, 2023. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-desperate-would-be-housewife-of-new-york-140748/.

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