Killings and Capture
Between 1907 and 1917, there were 60 deaths in the Archer Home. Relatives of her clients grew suspicious as they tallied the large numbers of its residents dying. Only 12 residents died between 1907 and 1910, but 48 residents died between 1911 and 1916. Among them was Franklin R. Andrews, an apparently healthy man. On the morning of May 29, 1914, Andrews was doing some gardening in the Archer house. His health collapsed within a day and he was dead by the evening. The official cause of death was gastric ulcer. His sister Nellie Pierce inherited his personal papers. She soon noted occasions where Archer-Gilligan was pressing Andrews for money. Archer-Gilligan's clients showed a pattern of dying not long after giving their caretaker large sums of money.
As the deaths continued, Pierce reported her suspicions to the local district attorney. He mostly ignored her. Pierce took her story to The Hartford Courant, a newspaper. On May 9, 1916, the first of several articles on the "Murder Factory" was published. A few months later, the police started seriously investigating the case. The investigation took almost a year to complete, but the results were interesting. The bodies of Gilligan, Andrews, and three other boarders were exhumed. All five had died of poisoning, either by arsenic or strychnine. Local merchants were able to testify that Archer-Gilligan had been purchasing large quantities of arsenic, supposedly to "kill rats". A look into Gilligan's will helped to establish that it was actually a forgery, written in Amy's handwriting.
Read more about this topic: Amy Archer-Gilligan
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