Beach, Mary Knott: 1884

The sad case of Mary Knott Beach consumed the public in the year of 1884.  No other crime of the early years of Blair County so fascinated the media of the day; the trial and eventual execution of Dr. Lewis Upham Beach filled the newspapers with sensational accounts of every moment of the case.  The next conviction for first degree murder in Blair County was one of those cases which are usually referred to as “Crime of the Century.”  The murderer was a physician, Dr. Lewis Beach, and the victim was his wife.
Beach graduated from the Hahnemann Medical College in Philadelphia in 1869.  He was married previously; his divorced wife lived in Harrisburg.  He had arrived in Altoona in about 1873, and had built a fair practice as a homeopathist.  He was described as rather tall and good-looking, and married about 1883.  He was about 45 years old at the time of his crime.  He made a profession of faith and joined the Lutheran church on April 6th, 1884; his wife was present at the ceremony.   She was described as being a well-formed and stylish-looking widow.
Levi Knott, Mary Knott Beach’s brother, was at breakfast with his family on April 7, 1884, when her husband, Dr. Lewis Beach, burst into the room.  He was haggard and wild-looking, his eyes were crazed, and his hands and shirt were covered with blood.  He was breathless and unable to speak from running, but displayed his hands and pointed to his shirt as he tried to articulate why he had come.  Mrs. Knott fainted, and her family tried to revive her as Dr. Beach sat down.  He buried his face in his hands, then leaped up and began to pace around the room, his face now streaked with blood.  Finally he was able to get words out.
“Mary is dead.  I killed her.  Do what you please with me.”
Mrs. Knott, who had regain consciousness, fainted again.  One of the children ran screaming from the house, and neighbors arrived to investigate.  Knott left his wife in the care of some women and grabbed Beach by the arm.  He forced him from the house and to the mayor’s office, where he handed him over the city’s Chief Magistrate.  The doctor was locked up, and only then did police go to the Beach residence on Eleventh Avenue.
The front door was open.  The policemen and numerous spectators walked in the empty, silent house.  The only servant the Beaches kept had gone home for the weekend.  Everything was in order on the first floor, but the second floor was a scene of horror.  In the couple’s bedroom, they discovered the body of Mrs. Beach, dressed in her night clothes and lying crossways across the bed.  Her head had been nearly severed, and dangled over the side of the bed.  The bed and other furniture, the carpet, the pictures, and the walls were covered with blood.  Two surgeon’s knives were found near the body, each as sharp as a razor, and one nearly a foot long.  A butcher’s cleaver was also in the room, covered with blood and hair.
It was clear from the body’s position, and the blood splatters on the headboard and wall, that Mary Knott Beach’s throat had been cut while she slept.  Beach had then dragged her to the edge of the bed and struck at her with the cleaver.
An inquest was held in before noon, at which Beach was present.  He was still in an excited state, and made no effort to conceal his guilt.  “I did it,” he exclaimed, “Shoot me or hang me, and the sooner you do it, the better!”  The coroner’s jury had a simple task to enter a verdict of murder, and Beach was taken to the county jail in Hollidaysburg.  The transport was followed by a large crowd of shouting men, women, and children, howling for his blood.
Despite the public outcry, there was no lynching attempt.  During this chaotic trip from Altoona to Hollidaysburg, Beach was calmer than he had been all day, and showed no sign of fear whatsoever.  The impression that Beach was insane was already beginning to take shape.
*From the Sullivan Review, Apr17 1884
Dr. L. U. BEACH, who killed his wife in Altoona last week, was at one time a resident of this place. He married his former wife, a Miss SWEENEY, here, and they afterwards began keeping house in the building on Main Street, which burned down about three weeks ago. He left here about 15 years since.*
Early one winter morning in 1884, Levi Knott received a visitor at his home.  It was his brother-in-law, Lewis Beach.  Beach informed Mr. Knott that he had just come from murdering his wife, but that he had committed the act without being aware of what he was doing.
Beach was arrested, tried, and convicted.  His defense was directed by Mr. Spang and Mr. Stevens, and the ‘writer.’  Stevens and the writer had been directed to the defense by the court.  Honorable J. D. Hicks was the district attorney.
The defense’s argument was that Beach was insane.  Proof was presented that twelve of his blood relatives had either mental retardation or mental illness, and asking the court to accept that Beach therefore suffered from a hereditary taint.  The defense was apparently silent on how he was able to become a physician with these handicaps.  The defense wanted the court to reduce the offense to second degree murder.  Had this been done, Beach would have escaped the hangman even though convicted.
Judge Dean refused to accept the point.  After Beach’s conviction and sentencing to death, the defense attempted to have the decision reviewed by the State Supreme Court in Harrisburg.  They were unable to meet the pre-requisites, and the sentence was carried out on February 12, 1885.  Beach was forty-four at the time of his execution.