first degree murder

Laura Belle Devlin, born September 7, 1874 murdered and dismembered her husband in 1947 at the age of 72.

On January 5, 1947 C.G. Butcher, a postman in Newark, Ohio delivered mail to the Devlin residence at 78 King Avenue. That day, seventy-two year old housewife and avid collector of old lace, Laura Belle Devlin, received a letter from relatives in Philadelphia informing her that her 75-year-old husband, Thomas Devlin, had passed away during a recent visit. Made suspicious by the fact that this letter had no stamp and a postmark which was obviously hand-written, C.G. Butcher took the widow to the local police station. When Mrs. Devlin was questioned, she admitted to having murdered her husband, Thomas, in the parlour of their two-story home.

Emotionless, she described the killing, saying she pounded Thomas Devlin with her bare fists until he was unconscious the attempted to break his bones with a sickle. Afterwards, she dismembered the body with a handsaw and burned parts of him in the stove. She scattered the rest of the pieces of her husband’s body in the backyard.

After being arrested on charges of first degree murder, she told police, “[Thomas Devlin] tried to kill me so many times that I decided to end his life.” then immediately asked, “And now can I go home?”. Mrs. Devlin was temporarily incarcerated at the Licking County Jail where she refused to be fingerprinted because, “That ink will make my hands dirty.”. In another attempt to take the 72-year-old killer’s fingerprints while photographers snapped pictures, she simply asserted, “NO!”. When informed of her incarceration, she just shook her head in disapproval of law enforcement’s decision on the matter and later told reporters she “disliked” jail. Despite her feelings on being locked up, she was described as “mild-mannered” throughout her incarceration. On January 11, 1947 Mrs. Devlin was admitted to the Lima State Hospital for the Criminally Insane for a 30 day observation period. There, she was diagnosed with “Senile Psychosis: Confused Type”, which is more or less an old-timey way of saying “Dementia”.

Sadly, on March 29, 1947 Laura Belle Devlin passed away at the Lima State Hospital from a bout of pneumonia which she had been battling for one week after having had an attack of influenza.

More original articles from the Laura Belle Devlin murder below. Photos courtesy Parajail.com

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At approximately 9:30am on Monday, March 9th, 52 year old Manuela Rodriguez murdered her infant granddaughter (reports range 7mo-9mo old) after the baby would not stop crying. According to the autopsy, baby Rose Herrera died due to “blunt force injuries to the head with suffocation from a sock being placed in her mouth a contributing factor.” The incident took place in the Little Village district of Chicago, Illinois on the 2800 block of South Avers Avenue where Manuela lived with her two daughters and their children (one child each). After Herrera had a sock forcibly inserted into her mouth and was severely beaten in the head with a pipe wrench, her throat was slit with a power saw, postmortem. Barry Quinn, assistant to the state’s attorney described, “Visible blunt force trauma to both sides of head, sock shoved into mouth. They [investigators] also observed deep cuts to baby’s neck, throat and chest.” Following the murder, Rodriguez called her sister and admitted to having killed Rose. Rodriguez was found by a relative in her home while in the process of slitting her own throat in an attempt to commit suicide. Although Manuela Rodriguez was on anti-depressants and had recently sought further mental health care, her neighbors say she had never exhibited any bizarre behavior before. Neighbor Maria Gentil said, “She would help everybody and if you needed a glass of milk or something, she would give it to you.” and Raul Chavez stated, “I can’t believe this. I knew them. I knew them real good.”. Manuela Rodriguez has been charged with first degree murder in the death of Rose Herrera and is currently residing in a mental health facility to undergo a full evaluation.