The Strange Tale of Henry B. Mayo
A Seattle death, a suicide note, and a landlord's theory that a man took his own life to save a condemned killer from the gallows.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
A remarkable case of self-sacrifice comes to light in connection with the case of Dr. B. H. Howell, who has been in jail since last October under sentence of death for the murder of his wife. The second is even more remarkable. On Saturday last, Coroner O'Brien received a letter from Henry B. Mayo, the Seattle suicide. He was as good as his word, for a few hours afterward the man's body was found in a house filled with the smell of potassium. Three letters were found in the room, one addressed to the coroner and the third to a San Francisco paper. They stated that the woman had been poisoned by her brother, the writer, who was about to commit suicide because of his inability to marry the woman he loved. The letter also exonerated Dr. Howell from all complicity in the crime. The landlord of the house in which the body was found had previously stated that Mayo had told him he was going to commit suicide and that the notes which he was alleged to have written had been forged by the coroner for the purpose of saving Dr. Howell from the gallows.
“They stated that the woman had been poisoned by her brother, the writer, who was about to commit suicide because of his inability to marry the woman he loved.”
This 1887 story captures the extreme public anxiety surrounding death penalty cases and the desperate, performative ways people sought to influence the law. The ambiguity of the 'suicide note' evidence mirrors modern struggles with misinformation and digital-age forensic skepticism in high-profile criminal cases.
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