A true crime connection to a Virginia cemetery

 

I have a writing project underway and today's story is more of an aside to that work.

This tree is sort of spooky but not really.

It has piqued my interest enough so that I am reading Three Sisters in Black: The Bizarre True Case of the Bathtub Tragedy (1968) by Norman Zierold, which was an Edgar Award Nominee for Best Fact Crime (1969).

The story concludes with one of the most notorious criminals in 1910 being interred in an unmarked grave at Sunset Cemetery in Christiansburg, Virginia. 

While I'm not supposed to side with a killer, I have to admit that the wardrobe of the sisters is what originally interested me.

Known as the "Black Sisters," the women were seen as a peculiar family of sisters who wore all black clothing and black veils to hide their faces. As someone who wears black, I don't find this peculiar. There were other strange aspects to the sisters. They had odd eating habits where they wouldn’t touch any food until it was a day old. As someone who likes food, I find this very odd.

Newspaper: The Standard Union, August 12, 1910.

In 1909, a bathtub drowning in New Jersey became one of the most bizarre criminal cases in American history when police discovered the emaciated and abused body of Ocey Snead. The young woman was face down in the bathtub. Her death was said to be an apparent suicide by drowning. There was even a suicide note left behind. 

Ocey’s alleged suicide note, 1909, Public Domain Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Newspaper: The Knoxville Journal, April 21, 1946.

As the truth slowly came out, and hundreds of suicide notes written in the same handwriting were discovered, it became clear that Ocey’s mother and aunts, "The Black Sisters" were involved in the crime.

One of these sisters, Virginia Wardlaw ran the Montgomery Female Academy in Christiansburg. She was said to possess "hypnotic control" over young girls. Investigators believed that the murder was planned and intentional since Wardlaw, at the time she inquired about renting the house, asked specific details about the size of the bath tub.

Wardlaw also insisted that once she took possession of the house, she did not want the owners visiting the space. She also wished to move all of her belongings at night.

Wardlaw and her sisters, Caroline and Mary, were accused of murdering family members for insurance money.

In order not to be convicted, Virginia Wardlaw starved herself to death before the judge in the case could rule against her. 

Wardlaw's body was sent back to Christiansburg, Virginia to be buried in a private family funeral. 

Today the grave is not marked, or perhaps over the years it was damaged. I've seen various stories about that and about the place being haunted. Virginia Wardlaw's Find A Grave profile includes some spooky stories in the biography, which aren't included in this write up as I could not find a source. Trust me, I really wanted to find an old newspaper article about the sisters going to the cemetery "making gestures skyward and murmuring incantations" but I did not find a thing in the papers.

President Monroe's "Gothic Temple"

I admit, I have never cared to call President Monroe's grave "the birdcage" as some Richmonders do, and have always tried to use the National Parks Services' description by calling it “a granite sarcophagus surrounded by a flamboyant Gothic Revival cast iron canopy” but that's a mouthful. This morning, I stumbled upon this article from the Richmond Dispatch, May 30,1859. Now, I will refer to it as James Monroe's Gothic Temple!

In 1859, the Commonwealth of Virginia installed Alfred Lybrock‘s design. Monroe’s tomb firmly established Hollywood as one of the foremost places of burial in Virginia.

Here's a picture that I took in 2017 after President Monroe's grave in Hollywood Cemetery had been restored.

 

a cemetery ghost story told in newspaper clippings

The story begins that there is a thrilling sensation of a ghost in Hollywood Cemetery (Alexandria Gazette, June 15, 1870) but sadly while some believe it is a real ghost, it's probably the fiancee of one of the individuals who was at the Virginia Capitol collapse on April 27, 1870, when several hundred people were crowded onto the second floor when the gallery gave way and fell to the courtroom floor, which killed 62 people (including a grandson of Patrick Henry) and injured hundreds others. This article presumes that this woman who keeps returning to Hollywood is the fiancee of one of the individuals killed (The Baltimore Sun, Jun 15, 1870). But real life is more frightening than fiction because this poor woman keeps returning to her lover's grave and even digs a hole making a little bed for herself until the superintendent of the asylum takes her in (Memphis Daily Appeal, Jun 26, 1870). And even a stay in the asylum does not make her better (of course not, it was 1870!) so this poor woman with the last name Smith is taken to the Henrico jail (Richmond Dispatch, August 19, 1870.)

Alexandria Gazette, June 15, 1870

The Baltimore Sun, June 15, 1870

Memphis Daily, June 26, 1870

Richmond Dispatch, August 19, 1870

Bernie visits W.W. Pool in Hollywood Cemetery

 

It’s cold out there, Richmond! When you’re visiting W.W. Pool and Hollywood Cemetery, bundle up!

credit: Sharon Pajka

Bernie meme creator: Selena Miller

Physically distancing in Hollywood Cemetery

 

Blandford Cemetery-second largest cemetery in Virginia

 

Blandford Cemetery is located in Petersburg, Virginia. The oldest stone reads 1702. The cemetery is 189 acres, which makes it the second largest cemetery in Virginia with Arlington National Cemetery as the largest. The cemetery was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1992.

Exiting Mount Hebron, Winchester, Virginia

 

Returned to this beautiful cemetery again today. I don’t have a fancy phone holder so I hooked this to my visor. The view was just too breathtaking not to capture. Also, yes, I know, I need to clean my windshield.