WITH JUSTICE FOR SOME. Lise Pearlman
(future matinee idol) John Barrymore by getting Evelyn admitted to a New Jersey boarding school. White also warned Evelyn against Thaw. Evelyn remained at the school through the spring of 1903, visited occasionally by White, but also receiving presents and correspondence from Thaw, who kept proposing. In April, when Evelyn fell ill with appendicitis, it was Harry Thaw who rushed to her side oozing solicitude for the girl he nicknamed his “Boofuls.”
When doctors suggested that Evelyn convalesce following surgery, Thaw offered to pay for Evelyn and her mother to take a cruise to Europe. Thaw did not tell them before they embarked that he planned to join the pair in England. Once in Europe, the three traveled together to Paris in June. Thaw again proposed and Evelyn emphatically turned him down, convinced that he would not want her. At Thaw’s insistence, she tearfully confessed her reasons. Stanford White had taken her virginity when she was sixteen and kept her as his mistress. Soon after, Thaw succeeded in alienating Mrs. Nesbit and sending her home on his promise to hire a chaperone to take her place. Instead, Thaw isolated Evelyn in a rented Austrian castle where he barged into her bedroom naked in a wild-eyed, drug-induced frenzy. He then beat her legs bloody with a whip, tore off her nightgown, and raped the terrified teenager, saying it was retribution for her past sins.
After they returned to America, Evelyn’s mother and Stanford White persuaded Evelyn to avoid all contact with Thaw as she resumed her career in New York. White also had Evelyn sign an affidavit accusing Thaw of abducting and attacking her. White’s lawyer kept it safe. Thaw’s detectives then gathered dirt on White, and White hired his own men to trace Thaw’s gum shoes to their source. Evelyn stayed under White’s strong influence for a time, but ultimately chafed at neither being the sole love of White’s life, nor in a position to marry anyone else. Thaw resumed the role of solicitous lover. He apologized for his attack on Evelyn and focused his anger instead solely on White.
After being showered with gifts and love letters, Evelyn succumbed to Thaw’s incessant pressure and married him in April of 1905. The news horrified Stanford White and greatly dismayed Mother Thaw, a woman devoted to religious salvation who forbade any mention of Evelyn’s shameless past. Evelyn soon lamented her decision, trapped in a household of Presbyterian piety that treated her with disdain. Harry Thaw’s obsessive jealousy continued unabated. He sent Evelyn to his own dentist to have every bit of dental work White had paid for removed and replaced. She was now his trophy, not White’s.
Back in Manhattan at a mid-town luxury hotel on the evening of June 25, 1906, Thaw dressed in his tuxedo and asked Evelyn to meet him at a nearby high-end restaurant for drinks and dinner. Thaw wore a long coat which easily concealed the hand gun he packed. They would be joined by two dinner companions: Tommy McCaleb, an old friend who accompanied them to New York from Pittsburgh; and Thaw’s new friend, Truxton Beale. Evelyn mistrusted Thaw’s fascination with Beale, who was rumored to have committed an honor killing in California. It fit in too much with Thaw’s morbid preoccupation with Stanford White. Yet Evelyn did not attach significance to Thaw’s first choice of Sherry’s for drinks and dinner, a showplace designed by White’s architectural firm. The evening took a different turn when Beale came dressed too casually for Sherry’s. Thaw then suggested the foursome go instead to another popular eatery, the Café Martin. By the time they left Sherry’s, Thaw had already consumed several drinks.
Evelyn spotted Stanford White entering Café Martin and tried not to react visibly. It now occurred to her that her husband was deliberately trying to force a confrontation. White headed to the restaurant’s porch with his son and a friend who were down visiting from Harvard. It would turn out to be the architect’s very last meal. Soon, Evelyn realized she could not disguise her angst. Evelyn borrowed a pencil from one of their dinner companions and wrote a brief note to her husband that “the B” had come and gone. Thaw was livid that he had not seen his quarry.
After dinner, the Thaws and their two friends headed for the new musical “Mamzelle Champagne” at the open-air theater atop Madison Square Garden. Thaw had purchased the tickets that same afternoon. He knew White had a regular table five rows from the stage and may have heard from his detectives that White was expected there that evening. The foursome was seated at a table further back in the crowd. They drank more champagne. Evelyn’s anxiety lessened when she saw that White’s table remained empty. But many people noticed how agitated Thaw appeared as he repeatedly got up during the show, paced, and looked around before sitting back down.
Just before 11 p.m., Thaw was once again out of his chair when Evelyn noticed that White had just arrived. White spoke briefly with the manager to remind him he wanted an introduction to the latest seventeen-year-old ingénue. The architect then headed for his table to catch the last few minutes of the show. When her husband came back to his seat, Evelyn nervously suggested they leave. Thaw and their two guests agreed. The show was painfully amateurish. Evelyn was relieved that Thaw apparently had not seen White enter. The couple headed out to the elevators with their two companions. Then Evelyn noticed her husband was gone; he had darted back into the theater.
By the time Thaw spotted him, White had been served a glass of wine and had his elbow on the table and his chin cupped in his right hand, apparently deep in thought. A male vocalist was just starting to sing “I Could Love a Million Girls.” Thaw looked pale as a ghost as he approached White, who likely did not see him coming. Thaw pulled the pistol from under his coat and came within two feet of White’s face. Thaw fired three quick shots. One entered through White’s left eye; one broke his jaw; and a third penetrated his arm. White’s elbow slipped and the table overturned, breaking his glass as the architect thudded to the floor. The singer stopped. Thaw raised his gun high in the air and attempted to reassure everyone he posed no further danger, exclaiming, “He had it coming to him.”5 Then Thaw left for the exit, holding the barrel of the gun, looking for someone to whom he could hand it over.
It took a couple of minutes for the audience to realize this was not part of the show. As blood pooled around White’s body, a woman leapt up and became hysterical. Others rose in panic as well. The manager jumped on a table, urging the performers to resume the musical, but the chorines were far too horrified. Then the manager announced that a terrible accident had occurred and asked people to try to leave in an orderly fashion. As patrons rushed for the exits, Evelyn Thaw hurried to White’s body and then ran back to her husband by the elevators, crying, “My God, Harry, you’ve killed him.” He asked her for a kiss, and they embraced.
A policeman responding to the sound of gunfire arrived to see White’s body on the floor and a woman who had fainted nearby. The officer asked Thaw if he had shot the man lying on the theater floor and Thaw said, “Yes, he ruined my wife.” Thaw then asked, “Is he dead?” The policeman told him that he was. Thaw responded: “Well, I made a good job of it, and I’m glad.”
Evelyn gave him another hug and kiss, whispering, “I didn’t think you would do it in this way.”6
Having killed the “Beast” who had deflowered his wife, Thaw seemed inordinately calm, some thought dazed. He gave his name to police as Mr. John Smith, though he carried calling cards which revealed his true identity. At the police station, he asked to have his lawyer notified and lit up a cigarette. A doorman familiar with White’s many young conquests told a New York Times reporter that the shooting came as no shock. He later testified at trial that the only surprise was that White was killed by a husband: “Everyone always figured it would be a father.”7
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Stanford_White_33_crop.jpg
Front page of the New York American newspaper June 26, 1906.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Kendall_Thaw
Harry Thaw around 1905 -- the year before he murdered Stanford White.
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