Pearl Bryan:1896, Fort Thomas, Kentucky
Pearl Bryan was born to Susan Jane Bryan and Alexander S. Bryan in 1874. (Her exact date of birth is not known.) They were a farming family living near Greencastle, Indiana. That’s the home of DePauw University.
She and her family were comfortably middle class. Pearl graduated from Greencastle High School and was a Sunday School teacher. Pearl was raised in a time when young women were supposed to get a little education, be charming and have extensive housekeeping skills in order to marry well. That meant marrying a man who had a good job and money. In order to marry well, the young lady would need to be a virgin and free of scandal.
Many young women wore white on their wedding days and were not virgins. They walked down the aisle with a secret. That was frowned upon but humans are humans. Young people have human desires. The patriarchal framework of social rules and mores just doesn’t always fit with human hormones.
Pearl Bryan was terrified that year. She had a terrible secret. She knew her family and friends must not find out. She knew her parents expected her to be a lady and to marry very well. Pearl was five months pregnant. It was winter and she was doing a good job of hiding it under bulky clothes. Soon, however, she would begin to really show and then everyone in Greencastle would know. She would be ruined. Her parents would be upset and disappointed in her.
In her day and age having a baby out of wedlock was a shameful thing. Her family’s reputation in the community would be ruined. Pearl didn’t feel she could tell her parents. Sometimes when young women became pregnant they would be sent away to stay with relatives or to a home for unwed mothers. There the young woman would stay until she gave birth. The baby would be given up for adoption. The young woman would return home and try to resume life as normal.
The father of Pearl’s baby, Scott Jackson, had likely urged her not to tell her parents. He probably did not wish to be forced to marry Pearl. Maybe he told her that there was an operation to end the pregnancy. He was in dental school and he knew doctors. He would find someone to perform this procedure. Maybe he said they would marry later, once he had graduated. Perhaps he told Pearl to come to Cincinnati and they would elope. Maybe Pearl did not want to marry him but also did not want to have a baby yet. It’s hard to say what their plan was.
Pearl and Scott Jackson had been close when he lived in town. His mother and sister lived there. His sister was married to a local Professor. They attended parties and socialized with other young people. And Pearl believed him when he said he loved her. They carried on the relationship in secret. Was that secrecy at his urging? She believed him, I imagine, when he said she wouldn’t be able to get pregnant the first time. She trusted the wrong young man. Now he lived in Cincinnati and she was pregnant in a small town.
So, Pearl concocted a lie. She said she was going to go visit a lady friend. She would take the train. She would return in just a few days. Her parents agreed and saw her off at the station.
Indiana had lots of passenger rail transportation then. It was an inexpensive way to get around. When capitalists decided we all needed to buy cars and that they would sell them to us…the trains and the tracks disappeared.
Pearl boarded a train on January 28th 1896 but did not return. She had not gone to stay with friends. The day that she was supposed to come home had come and gone. Pearl was usually good about writing or sending a telegram if something happened and plans changed. But there was no word from Pearl Bryan.
It was cold and snowy near Fort Thomas, Kentucky on the banks of the Ohio River on February 1st, 1896. The sight of all that bright red color on the snow was too shocking to miss. As Johnny Hewling approached he saw what the red color was. The headless body of a young woman lay in the snow on the side of the road. After he recovered from the shock of this sight, the 17 year old farmhand went for the police.
The headless young woman was not identified at first. An autopsy showed that she was young, and Caucasian. Her clothes were described in great detail in the newspapers. The assumption was made early on that she was from Cincinnati and had been brought to Kentucky. The medical examiner judged that she was alive when they decapitated her and that the murder occurred where her body was found. Her clothes and shoes were described in the newspapers. Her shoes had a label and that was traced back to Pearl’s hometown. Word got around. Soon, Pearl Bryan’s brother and a local Greencastle undertaker were traveling to view the headless body. Her brother identified her by a mole on the body and a wart on the left hand.
Pearl was brought back to Greencastle, Indiana for burial at Forest Hill Cemetery.
But who had killed her? Why had they beheaded her? Where was her head?
Pearl had a cousin in town named William Wood. The two were very close confidants. He spoke up and told what he knew. He told authorities about Pearl’s secret boyfriend, the dental student. He told about Pearl’s pregnancy and fear of disappointing her family. He even knew that visiting friends had been a lie. Pearl had gone to visit the dental student and she hoped to elope or get some sort of other remedy for her trouble.
But the dental student, Scott Jackson did not take her to a doctor for an abortion. He didn’t elope with her either. There was no secret wedding. Instead, he and a friend, Alonzo Walling, murdered Pearl. One theory is that the two men decided to try to perform an abortion. Another theory is that the two men decided just to do away with Pearl and the whole pregnancy and marriage problem. They began by slipping cocaine into her drink at a local tavern rendering Pearl unconscious.
Either they simply murdered Pearl and did not even attempt the abortion or they botched the surgery. I lean toward the theory that they simply murdered her and took her across the river to Fort Thomas, Kentucky. Once there, they began to dismember her. They started with her head.
But Pearl hadn’t died from the cocaine they slipped in her drink earlier. They only thought she was dead.
After removing her head they disposed of it. Walling said that Jackson buried it in a sandbar along the Ohio. (Their stories about the location of Pearl’s head changed as time went on.) Then they left. I think the sight of the arterial spray of blood terrified the two men when they decapitated her. I think they were also increasingly nervous about getting caught. Maybe they simply got tired. For whatever reason, the two did not continue dismembering Pearl. They didn’t move her body into the river either. They decided to leave her headless body there in the blood soaked snow.
The dental students, Scott Jackson and Alonzo M. Walling, were eventually arrested. The blood soaked coat of Scott Jackson was reportedly found in the sewer along Richmond Street where Alonzo Walling had directed police to look. They attempted to deny the crime. But, the evidence against them was overwhelming. People had seen them with Pearl in Cincinnati. Pearl’s cousin knew that the two had dated secretly.
Pearl Bryan’s murder was the “crime of the century” in the papers for a while. Another crime of the century would come along soon enough and all eyes would be on that story. But for a while the public couldn’t get enough of the story. People have always been curious about true crime. A song was written. Sheet music was printed and the song was popular even into the 1930’s.
https://youtu.be/yS7uYc38nII?si=-cShl7SrrFT3go0V
One part of this story that often gets glossed over and forgotten is that a young African American woman was accused of the crime and demonized in the Indianapolis press. May Hollingsworth was accused of performing an abortion in Indianapolis on Pearl and putting her on a train to Cincinnati. She was also accused of the beheading. (Did she travel to Cincinnati just to behead Pearl?) It’s a ridiculous tall tale. The February 11th,1896 edition of The Indianapolis Journal splashes these allegations all over their front page.
The earlier February 8th edition of the same paper makes no mention of May Hollingsworth at all. It only speaks of Scott Jackson and Alonzo Walling in connection with a possible abortion and the murder.
I found two women with that name and of the right age. One lived out her life near Paoli. The other Mae Hollingsworth lived to old age and in the 1950 census is staying at The Stancomb Nursing Home. So, it appears that the accusations went nowhere.
I’m sure young women everywhere whispered about Pearl and hoped desperately that they never got pregnant before getting married. The danger of trusting the wrong young man could simply be scandal and ruin or it could cost you your life.
I visited Pearl Bryan’s grave a few years ago with my daughter. She was obliging enough to let me take a little side trip on the way home from visiting relatives. We took the Putnamville exit off I-70. (That exit is the site that two bodies were found, years apart, in two different murders that I have written about. It is unsettling to drive past it.)
It was a sunny day as we drove the curving hilly road to the very lovely Victorian style cemetery that holds Pearl Bryan’s grave. There are so many beautiful mausoleums and ornate headstones. It’s a hilly cemetery with many mature trees and flowering shrubs. A young woman in a bridal gown and veil was having photographs taken. Perhaps they were for her upcoming wedding or maybe just an art project. A woman in a wedding dress and veil did look quite spooky for a second until we saw the photographer.
We had trouble finding Pearl’s headstone at first. I kept looking for a big ornate headstone. I should have known her parents would have purchased something small. I’m sure that they wanted something nice for Pearl but were eager not to make a big show of her grave.
Hazel and I found the spot that it should be and we found other nearby Bryan family graves. Finally, we realized that the plain rectangle of stone with the metal nameplate missing was Pearl’s headstone.
Vandal souvenir hunters had likely taken the bronze name plate and left behind only the low stone rectangle. Other visitors had left copper pennies on the gravestone and we did as well.
Pearl Bryan was a victim of a young man who didn’t respect her. Pearl Bryan was a victim of murder. But, she was also a victim of impossible societal standards and expectations.
So much was expected of a woman then. She had to be better than good and marry well. Once married she had to cook all the meals, clean all the messes, sew all the clothes unless the family could afford store bought clothes. She had to keep a garden and grow most of the family’s food. She had to can and preserve that food all summer so they wouldn’t starve all winter. She had to teach her children until they were school aged. She had to make sure they all went to church and made something of themselves. She had to bear all the children and care for them. Women often died young. In the days before antibiotics, antiseptic and anesthesia; they mostly died in childbirth or from infections or other complications afterward. Their husbands simply married again and some other lady came into the home to do all that work.
Maybe Pearl wasn’t quite ready for that life. She knew she was pregnant and she knew what that might mean. Maybe she knew the dangers of an abortion and maybe not. The dental student surely knew the risks. Who knows?
I’m really glad that single motherhood is not treated as such a great shame anymore. It shouldn’t be. Humans are attracted to one another. Sex is natural.
In some places premarital sex and pregnancy is still seen as scandalous. Sadly, you see stories of girls and women who feel compelled to hide a pregnancy from their family. Finding an abandoned baby used to be a fairly common news story in the United States. They would always search for the Mother and seek to prosecute her. The fathers of these babies really never saw any prosecution. They abandoned a baby too. But they always had a way out.
Pearl was caught in a no win situation. I imagine that’s what it felt like to her anyway.
Tragically, searchers never found Pearl Bryan’s head. They did try. They even drained the water works in town.
Scott Jackson and Alonzo M. Walling were hanged on March 20th, 1897.
We will never know the dreams that Pearl had for her own future. Her potential achievements were never realized. Maybe she hoped to marry Scott Jackson. Maybe she hoped they would raise their baby together. Her future, whatever it might have held, was stolen from her.
Pearl Bryan is buried near her hometown of Greencastle. It’s a peaceful place. Her grave is high on a hill overlooking farmland that resembles a painting in a museum. There’s a forest nearby that must be absolutely beautiful in the Fall. She’s near her family.
Rest in peace, Pearl.
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