A Fatal Can of Chili?

Posted on September 9, 2009 by lmharnisch
Sept. 9, 1909, Venice
Sept. 9, 1909: Follow the crowds to Venice!

Sept. 9, 1909, Poison

The
city chemist's failure to analyze a half-empty can of chili con carne
before it spoiled — preventing a test for food poisoning — figures in
the murder trial of Harper E. Bennett. Prosecutors accused Bennett of
killing his wife, Eugenia, because he was having an affair with Midge
Molster, the wife of E.P. Molster. A chemical analysis found strychnine
in the dead woman's exhumed body, but a doctor testified that he gave
her a mild shot of the poison to steady her heart.

A mistrial was declared when the jury deadlocked and Bennett evidently
left for Mexico before he could be retried. In September 1910, E.P.
Molster won a divorce from his wife, charging that she "had been guilty
of adultery with Harper E. Bennett at the Hotel Dakota at divers and
sundry times within the past two years."

P.J. Durbin, Vernon's city trustee, says his political enemies are trying to poison him with strychnine.

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About lmharnisch

I am retired from the Los Angeles Times
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