The Servant Girl Annihilator
From December 30 1884 until December 24 1885 six women, one girl and one man were brutally murdered. The murderer was never found. Except for old Texas newspapers on microfilm and the microfilm from out of town papers such as San Francisco and New York City, all recorded documentation of the murders was destroyed. Some person or persons systematically culled through all city documents and eliminated any reference to murders that put the relatively small town of Austin Texas on the map.
Mrs. Phillips, the wife of a well known architect, living at No. 806 West Hickory Street, was awakened by the cries of her young grandson. Her son, James Phillips, with his wife and child, Thomas 23 month old, occupied a room across the hall. Mrs. Phillips, the mother, had been in her son’s room only an hour before. She lit the lamp and crossed the gallery porch adjoining the main house with an adjoining wing. As she answered the baby’s cries, a horrible sight met her gaze in her son and daughter-in-law’s room. The little boy, who had been sleeping between his parents, was standing up on the bed, his night clothes crimson with blood holding an apple and unharmed. The youngster’s father lay in a stupor with a gash in his head and neck. James’ wife, Eula was missing, her pillow bloody and the covers thrown back. A bloody trail was found leading on to the gallery, then through the back yard and next to the outbuildings. Eula’s lifeless body lay in a pool of blood, nude. Across her bosom was a heavy rail, pinning her arms down. She had been dead perhaps half an hour, struck in the forehead with an ax. The skull was broken an she had been outraged.
Her husband was immediately the #1 suspect.
Every woman murdered who was married or had a partner, became the #1 suspect. None would be found guilty.
Also keep in mind that this was a time when women couldn’t vote, or own land. A woman’s perception of herself and her options were different than in America today.
She was pretty, she was probably the flirting sort, but that doesn’t make her a prostitute.
” Eula started having a not-so-discrete affair with 27-year-old John Dickinson. Dickinson was single, attractive, wealthy and well-connected, and he held the prominent position of Secretary of the Capitol Commission, the agency overseeing the construction of the state capitol building then in progress.” from the website https://www.servantgirlmurders.com/about-the-victims/
Dickerson was also the man who stayed with her for two nights after she and Delia ran from their house. (You know… the night Jimmy came home drunk and for some reason went into his sister’s room and said or did something that moved her to hit him in the face with a shovel and then lock herself in a room. After which he kicked the door in and she and Eula ran to the police and then briefly to Fannie W.’s before hiding at May’s.)
At which time James went around town telling everyone he was going to “kill whoever was harboring his wife.”
Eula and Jimmy lived at the Phillips’ because Jimmy was incapable of keeping a job due to the fact that he drank too much. At one point they went to Williamson County, where Eula’s father lived, to get Jimmy away from the saloons and because there was a job available. The two were actually attempting to “go to housekeeping” but of course, it didn’t work out. They were back in Austin several months later.
The Phillips family hired a fancy (high-powered) attorney to prove that their son had every right to kill his wife because she was unfaithful. In the end
“On the night of Christmas Eve, after the Phillips household was fast asleep, Eula slipped out of the house and accompanied by someone unknown, arrived at May Tobin’s, where she had previously spent time with John Dickinson. Eula asked Tobin for a room, but none were available and Eula left. Within an hour Eula was dead. May Tobin and whoever accompanied Eula were the last persons to see her alive”. from the website https://www.servantgirlmurders.com/about-the-victims/
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