A Brief History
On June 25, 1906, heir to a railroad and coal fortune, Harry Kendall Thaw of Pittsburgh shot and killed famed architect Stanford White. Thaw shot the man in front of hundreds of witnesses at the theater on the rooftop of Madison Square Garden.
Digging Deeper
Why would Thaw throw away a life of luxury by shooting a man? For a variety of reasons, including White’s prior involvement with Thaw’s wife, the notion that White was blocking Thaw’s social climb, and due to mental illness, shown by Thaw’s successful use of the insanity defense.
You may wonder why a person of wealth would throw away the good life, but rich people still do exactly that! Some examples include Cullen Davis and John Du Pont. Davis, alleged to be the richest man ever charged with murder, was tried for killing his stepdaughter in 1976. He was acquitted. Note: Davis was also later charged with hiring a hit man to kill his wife and their divorce judge! Davis was also acquitted of those charges.
Du Pont, heir to the Du Pont fortune, was convicted of murdering an Olympic wrestler in 1996.
Question for students (and subscribers) to ponder: Who would you include on this list?
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Cartwright, Gary. Blood Will Tell: The Murder Trials of T. Cullen Davis. Harcourt, 1979.
Scott, Gini. How the Rich Kill: The Many Ways the Wealthy Do It Differently. Changemakers Publishing, 2018.
The featured image in this article, New York American on June 26, 1906, is in the public domain in the United States because it was published (or registered with the U.S. Copyright Office) before January 1, 1930.
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