Theodore Durrant
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Theodore Henry Durrant (1871 – January 7, 1898) was a man convicted and hanged for two murders at Emanuel Baptist Church in San Francisco in 1896.
In April 1896, the bodies of two young women were discovered in Emmanuel Baptist Church where Durrant was the assistant Sunday School superintendent. The grisly murders, which were compared to the crimes of Jack the Ripper, received sensational and sometimes speculative coverage in the California press. Over 3,600 potential jurors needed to be examined before twelve could be chosen to hear the case. Durrant was found guilty in November 1896 and hanged at San Quentin State Prison on January 7, 1898. [1]
He maintained his innocence. His sister was the dancer Maud Allan.
Contents |
[edit] Early life
Theodore Durant was born in Toronto, Canada to William Durrant, a shoemaker, and his wife Isabella Hutchenson Durrant. The family emigrated to San Francisco, California, USA in 1878. He had one sister, Beulah Maud Durrant, born in 1873, who became an actress and interpretive dancer and later changed her name to Maude Allan. At the time of his arrest, Durrant was a twenty-three-year-old medical student at Cooper Medical College in San Francisco, assistant superintendent of the Sunday school at the twenty-first street Emanuel Baptist Church and a member of the California Signal Corps.
[edit] Blanche Lamont
Blanche Lamont (1875-April 3, 1895) was a twenty-year old who had been teaching at a one-room school in Hecla, Montana. She had moved to San Francisco to further her education at Normal School and Lowell High and was living with her aunt Mrs. Tryphenia Noble on 21st street in the Mission district.
On April 3, 1895 Durrant met Lamont at the Polk Street electric trolley stop just after 2:00 p.m. They rode together to the twenty-first street stop. Other people on the trolley stated that they were very close and that Durrant was whispering into Lamont's ear and tapping at her lightly with her leather gloves. They got off at their stop and were seen by a Mrs. Mary Noble walking down twenty-first street to the Emanuel Baptist Church. A Mrs. Caroline Leak saw them enter the church together. Mrs. Leak, who later testified at Durrant's trial, was the last person known to see Blanche Lamont alive. George King, the church choir director and organist, who was practicing hymns on the organ, testified that Durrant came downstairs at 5:00 p.m. looking pale and shaken and asked him to go get a medicine at a nearby store.
Mrs. Noble came to the church looking for Lamont a few hours later during the evening prayer service. Durrant approached Noble and inquired about Blanche, who told him that she was worried about her. Durrant told Noble that he was sorry that Blanche was not there but that he would come to her house later to bring a book for her. Mrs. Noble said that he did come by later with the book and suggested that Lamont might have been kidnapped to be forced into prostitution.
The next day Durrant had tried to pawn some women's rings in the San Francisco Tenderloin district. That same afternoon Noble received a package with the name George King, who was the church choir director, written on the wrapper with Blanche's rings inside. It was three days after Blanche's disappearance before Mrs. Noble had reported her missing to the police. Police questioned Durrant because he was the last person she was seen with and also because a young woman of the church said that she had once came upon Durrant nude in the church library. Police did not have a body or any evidence that anything had happened to Blanche so she remained listed as a missing person.
[edit] Minnie Williams
During this time Durrant began focusing his attentions on twenty-one-year-old Minnie Flora Williams (August 1873 - April 12, 1895) also an Emanuel church member. On April 12, 1895 nine days after Lamont disappeared which was Good Friday at 7:00 p.m., Williams told her friends at her boarding house that she was going to a church member meeting at the home of a church elder named Vogel, whose wife Mary had seen Durrant walking with Blanche Lamont the day she disappeared. A few minutes after seven p.m. Williams was seen in a heated discussion with Durrant in front of the church. It was loud enough to alert a passerby named Hodgkins to stop and intervene. Hodgkins later testified that his manner was not becoming to a gentleman and that the pair did calm down and enter the church door together. At 9:00 p.m. that evening Durrant arrived at the church elder's house for the scheduled meeting.
[edit] Conviction
On Saturday April 13 the women of the church were decorating the church for Easter Sunday. One of the ladies went to a cabinet to get cups and when she opened the door she found a mutilated female body inside. The police were called and the body was identified as Minnie Williams. The church and grounds were searched for any clues and for Blanche Lamont whom police now suspected to be there. Nothing was found until a church member remembered that they had not searched the belfry. Police went up into the belfry and found Blanche Lamont. She was badly mutilated and nude with her head wedged between two boards. Police immediately began a search for Theodore Durrant, who was the last one seen with both murdered women.
Durrant had left town to join his Signal Corps unit, where he was apprehended the next day, Easter Sunday. He was charged with the murders of Blanche Lamont and Minnie Williams. The trial was covered by major newspapers all across the US. His attorney defended him by citing lack of blood on him or his clothes and shifting blame to the church pastor, but Durrant was convicted and sentenced to be hanged by Judge Carroll Cook. Durrant never confessed to the murders, and stated he was innocent to his death. The execution was carried out on January 7, 1898 at San Quentin prison.
[edit] External links
- Daily Bee News April 26, 1895
- Durrant's last words
- Library of Congress Blanche Lamont
- Crime Library
- Find a Grave: Blanche Lamont
- Find a Grave: Minnie Williams
[edit] Notes
[edit] Sources
- Sympathy for the devil by Virginia McConnell: The Emanuel Baptist murders in old San Francisco ISBN 027597054X
