Louise Vermilya is one of history’s most notorious serial killers. Being a woman, the country was shocked when it was discovered that she had poisoned and killed nine people. During the time of her initial confinement within her home, newspapers around the United States filled with stories about her life and actions. This particular article delves into her fascination with dead bodies.
Death Fascinated Woman of Mystery
She Enjoyed Being Near and Handling Corpses
Undertaker Tells Weird and Revolting Story of Mrs. Louise Vermilya
Autopsy on Bisonette’s Body Completed
While the relatives of Policeman Arthur Bisonette are demanding a full investigation into his death and the detention of Mrs. Louise Vermilya in connection with it.
While the ghosts of past loved ones are rising up to accuse the woman who is involved in a web of strange and sudden deaths,
A tale more weird, and more revolting in its weirdness, than any that Edgar Allan Poe ever dreamed of, is being told of this woman of mystery, whom police are guarding in her home.
It is that death, death in its most horrid forms, and even the cold bodies of the dead had an overpowering fascination for Mrs. Vermilya.
The story is told by E. M. Blocks, an undertaker of Barrington, Ill., where Mrs. Vermilya once lived, and where her first husband, Fred Brinkamp, died suddenly and mysteriously.
“Mrs. Vermilya revealed in death. She loved to be near dead bodies,” sad Blocks today.
“I do not know just what it was about a dead body that so fascinated her, that drew her so powerfully that she outraged convention, but there was something about handling a dead body that she seemed actually to enjoy.
“It began when her first husband died. I was the undertaker. Mrs. Vermilya came to me and asked me to allowed her to help in preparing the body.
“Of course, I could not refuse a widow such a request as that very well, although even then I thought it strange.
“She helped with her husband’s body, and always after that she was hanging about my place.
“Whenever she heard that there was a new dead body in my pace she would come down right away, and she would ask to help.
“After a time the fascination seemed to grow upon her. She got so she would race off to a house in which a death had occurred the moment she heard about it.
“She would tell the relatives she was employed by me, and would take immediate charge of the body, handling it and preparing it for burial.
“She reveled in the embalming of a body, and even I, who am a professional undertaker, do not lot like that work.
“She told lots of people in Barrington that she was employed by me. And that was not true. I never hired her. But I could not keep her out of my place.
“And I got into trouble with my wife over it, too. She wanted to know what that Brinkamp woman was always hanging around me for. What could I say? The thing nearly broke up my home. Then she married Vermilya and didn’t come any more.
“I cannot explain why Mrs. Vermilya so liked to handle and embalm bodies. I can only tell what she used to do.”
Mrs. Vermilya is as stoical as ever. She is guarded night and day by two detectives, but she seems utterly unmoved by there presence in her home.
A report was circulated today that she attempted to end her own life last night. This is not true, and from the way she acts, it is a thing she never has entertained a thought of.
It was discovered today that Policeman Arthur Bisonette, whom Mrs. Vermilya says was engaged to her, was engaged to Lydia Rivard, of Marshall, Minn., at the time of his death.
The examination of the viscera of Bisonette was completed today. The experts who made the analysis of the contents of the dead policeman’s organs have not yet turned in their report to the coroner.
On that report depends whether Mrs. Vermilya shall be arrested and charged with connection to Bissonette’s death, or once more become a free woman, relieved of the constant police guard that has surrounded her since the beginning of the investigation into the chain of deaths in her past life.
Source (1911, November 02). Death fascinated woman of mystery. The Day Book, pages 7-8.
