No-fault divorces are a relatively new phenomenon in the United States. Prior to the 1950's and often after, divorces had to be granted by the court after establishing some injurious behaviour on the part of an offending spouse, and the closest thing to a no-fault divorce most couples could attain was the typical situation in which a wife unenthusiastically stated that her husband was an adulterer, alcoholic, and woman-beater while the husband nodded in agreement and onlookers more or less read between the lines.
In this environment, "desertion" was a common path to fault attribution, allowing couples to be granted divorce. Desertion is the voluntary abandonment of one spouse by the other in such a way that the court is satisfied as that the abandoned party did not provoke or consent to the other's departure. Criminal desertion, for which a party could be imprisoned, was abandonment of a spouse- usually a wife- who was dependant on the other for health, safety, or financial support.
How to get charged with criminal desertion
Jim Schmidt died of consumption in 1903. His remains were sent to his wife's house (whose present-day location is the exit 1 overpass of the Major Deegan expressway in the Bronx). But his wife Bridget, in her grief, was never able to actually look at the body. She should have.
In the July 29, 1905, edition of the New-York Tribune appears a story entitled "Dead Husband" Walks. Woman Has Man Arrested- Charged with Desertion. As Frederick Washburn walked to work on the morning of the 29th, Bridget Schmidt flagged down an officer and screamed for Washburn to be arrested for criminal desertion. On the insistence of Mrs. Schmidt, Washburn was taken in and held on the charge that he was actually James Schmidt and had changed his name after faking his own death- all as a means to abandon his wife.
Magistrate Finn was the judge in the case, and took Mrs. Schmidt's claims very seriously. He asked her if Washburn would have any marks on his body that might prove he was James Schmidt; she indicated a couple of marks on his body that would identify him, neither of which checked out. Even still, Mrs. Schmidt was so insistent that Washburn was her husband that Magistrate Finn ordered he be jailed overnight on $200 bond, giving Bridget Schmidt enough time to collect witnesses who would affirm her claims.
Even the compassion and good faith of Magistrate Finn would not be enough, however, to keep the case going. A court officer dug up the death certificate of James Schmidt, and the judge had to let Washburn go, despite the cries of "papa!" from Mrs. Schmidt's 11-year old son.
Magistrate Finn must have sympathised with Mrs. Schmidt and believed that she was on to something. He held Washburn for over a day and outwardly regretted having to throw out the case out. He even let Bridget Schmidt know that the case was disposed with no prejudice, so that in the event that she could produce another witness, he would drag Washburn back in.
On one hand, courts prior to 1950 appear to have been especially accommodating to women who were alleged victims of abandonment. In this case, for instance, a perfect stranger may have spent a night in jail on the mere accusation of a widow. On the other hand, if Washburn had actually been James Schmidt, then his treatment would be not much unlike any of a host of contemporary cases in which husbands attain legal divorces and later fail to pay child support or alimony.
We'll never know if James Schmidt faked his own death and was guilty of criminal abandonment of his dependent wife, or if Bridget Schmidt was hysterical and accused the wrong man of desertion. But we do know that either case is not unheard of.
Three women who had strangers they mistook for their husband arrested for wife desertion
1. A title in the December, 9th 1922, Woodville Republican reads "Has Wrong Man Arrested". May Harrison passed by Joseph Pierce while he was playing cards and promptly had him arrested. She would later explain to Magistrate Dooley of Brooklyn Family Court that she believed the man to be her husband. Upon being questioned further, she backed down a bit saying: "I'm almost sure." Questioned a second time she concluded: "I can't swear to him out and out." The case was thrown out.
2. The October 26th, 1901 edition of Melbourne's The Argus reports that Catherine Reade spotted Joseph Nobbs on the street and convinced an officer pull him in to be prosecuted for wife desertion. Nobbs denied the charge and said he didn't know the woman. Luckily, the real Mr. Reade in Sydney had already confessed to the crime and word was a just little slow to reach Melbourne. Nobbs was free to go, and "Mrs. Reade [would], no doubt, be quite satisfied to transfer her unwanted attentions to the man who admit[ed] having married her."
3. The New York Times of February 19, 1871, reports that a Polish woman named Jane Goldsmith was angry. The Tombs Police Court resonated with outbursts of angry Polish after Jane, with the help of her council and one of the witnesses in the case had Wilhelm Goldstein arrested for desertion. She testified that Goldstein's real name was Lewis Goldsmith, that she had known the defendant for several years, and that he had abandoned her shortly after she became pregnant with their daughter, who was now six. One witness testified that he had seen the two marry and that the defendant was Goldsmith. Three other women gave similar testimonies, but these were later thrown out by the magistrate as inadmissible. For his part, Goldstein produced an Austrian passport to prove his identity. Angered, Jane held her child up by her shoulders and shook her, yelling in Polish: "Look at your daughter!"
The key evidence in Jane's case was a photograph of Lewis which Jane claimed she had received in a post-card. It was later uncovered that she had never received a post-card at all, but had gotten the photograph of her husband from a friend after arriving to The States and thought that it looked like Goldstein. The judge examined the picture and let Goldstein go, noting that: "though the general outline of the features were the same, the defendant's forehead was much lower."
Now, for the sake of fairness, here are three stories that validate Bridget Schmidt's suspicions.
Three men who faked their own deaths to leave their families
1. The Miami Daily News of November, 29, 1959 reports that
Toronto teacher Alfred Greene had been discovered alive after living for
over a year in St. Louis. In order to start a new life with his
also-married lover Beatrice, the father of four faked his own death by
crashing his car, staining it with blood, and leaving behind a rifled wallet.
He would have gotten away with it if only Beatrice hadn't
contacted her husband to petition for a divorce. Instead of granting the
divorce, Beatrice's husband called immigration officials and had his
Australian-born wife arrested. Beatrice was then coerced by law
enforcement to lay a trap for Greene.
2. The Huntington Daily News of July 30, 1959 carried a story entitled Former Pitt Instructor is Indicted.
Ronald Fields, an assistant instructor at University of Pittsburgh was
found alive in California less than a month after faking his death in
order to gain a fresh start with his mistress. As with Alfred Greene,
the mistress was a student, this time an 18 year-old coed from
University of Pittsburgh. Like Alfred, Ronald crashed his car and left
blood stains to trick police. And as with Alfred, Ronald's girlfriend
cooperated with authorities.
Although the police
brought no charges against Ronald for his deception and evasion, he was
held for criminal desertion of his wife and children and brought back to
Pennsylvania to stand trial. His wife was granted $12,500 from the
inheritance of Ronald's father, who had passed away during the stressful episode.
Somewhat
ironically, the man who faked his own death by wrecking his car to
trick law-enforcement would eventually act as safety consultant for the
Automobile Club of Southern California and, in that capacity, award
local police departments with the club's "No Fatalities Award".
3. When James Douglas Pou was eulogised at his funeral in 1987, the airman was celebrated as a hero. Indeed, his record as a pararescuer included that he saved the lives of 12 men. But James Doug Pou wasn't actually dead. He had left a wallet a shoe next to a river and let the Air Force, along with his wife and children, believe that he had drowned.
After disappearing, Pou took the name of a 10 year-old boy who had died some years earlier, began a successful wooing campaign for the heart of an unwitting love interest- complete with throwing pebbles at her window late at night, and then operated a successful business renovating houses. According to the October 28, 1992 LA Times, things only started to unravel five years later when Pou impregnated his neighbour. The angry second wife did some investigating and uncovered Pou's lies, subsequently turning him over to the Air Force to be tried for the other kind of criminal desertion- and bigamy.
While being held in the brig, Pou was brought up on additional charges related to a bank robbery he committed while pretending to be dead which was now attributable to him. Pou was quoted as saying that his cell in the brig could not contain him and that he could leave at will.
He was right. Pou escaped and lived free for two weeks camping in the woods before tiring and returning to base to turn himself in. He was sentenced to six years in prison.
Pou claims that he was motivated to leave his old life behind for fear that he would become an abusive father. Pou's own father was abusive and he says that he was afraid he would follow the pattern. To this effect, the Cleveland Plain Dealer of Thursday, January 28, 1993, reported that Pou's sister won a 10 million dollar judgement against their father for his abuse. In the proceedings, she recounted "incidents which involved men, including her father, standing in a circle around a fire with hoods, cat's blood, live cats, dead cats, candles, [and] chants and threats of violence".
You can learn more about the exploits of James Pou from the 1997 made-for-tv drama "The Lies He Told", where he was played by Gary Cole- Bill Lumbergh from Office Space.
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