Mary Frances Creighton
Mary Frances Creighton (July 29, 1899 – July 16, 1936), was a housewife, who along with Everett Applegate, a 36-year-old former American Legion official, was executed in Sing Sing Prison's electric chair, Old Sparky, for the poisoning of Applegate's wife, Ada, in Baldwin, New York on September 27, 1935.[1][2] She had passed out before the execution, and was executed in an unconscious state.[3]
Mary Frances Creighton | |
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| Born | July 29, 1899 Rahway, New Jersey, U.S. |
| Died | July 16, 1936 (aged 36) |
| Cause of death | Execution by electric chair |
| Nationality | American |
| Conviction(s) | First degree murder |
| Criminal penalty | Death |
While living in Newark, New Jersey, Creighton was also suspected of poisoning her mother in-law, Anna Creighton, in 1920, her father in-law, Walter Creighton, in 1921, and her younger brother, Raymond Avery, in 1923. Creighton and her husband, John, were tried for Raymond's death in 1923, but were acquitted due to a lack of witnesses. The Anna Creighton murder trial, which was held in 1923 as well, also ended with Creighton being acquitted, again due to a lack of witnesses, and also due to the testimony of toxicologist Alexander Gettler, who found only a trace amount of arsenic in Anna Creighton's system.[4]
After her arrest for the murder of Ada Applegate, who Creighton claimed to have poisoned so that her fifteen-year-old daughter, Ruth, who she had been pimping out to Mr. Applegate, could legally marry, she repeatedly confessed to and denied killing both Anna and Raymond.[4]
References
- "Mrs. Creighton Dies For Poison Murder. Applegate Follows Her to the Death Chamber for the Slaying of His Wife". New York Times. July 17, 1936. Retrieved 2010-05-12.
- Jon Blackwell. "Frances Creighton". Notorious New Jersey. Archived from the original on 2010-11-05. Retrieved 2010-05-12.
- Mark Gado. "An Immoral Woman". Archived from the original on 2012-07-19. Retrieved 2012-06-09.
- Gado, Mark. Death Row Women: Murder, Justice, and the New York Press, p. 94. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2008. ISBN 9780275993610. Accessed July 26, 2019. "Of all of the women executed in New York during the twentieth century, Mary Frances Creighton received the least sympathy from the public -- and this may be deservedly so.... Frances moved to Newark when she was fifteen, and finished her education in public schools."