It was a completely senseless tragedy.
People likely paid little attention to seeing 19-year-old Jessie White driving her horse and buggy up and down Chicago Street in Joliet, Illinois, on the evening of March 19, 1890. Until she stopped her buggy opposite the opera house and picked up a pasteboard box, she was carrying with her. The box contained a revolver which she then placed against her left breast before pulling the trigger. Witnesses later reported seeing her arms fly up in the air as she fell forward. The revolver dropped into the street, and an eyewitness, John McGraw, managed to catch Jessie before she fell out of the buggy. Though she was taken upstairs at a nearby hotel, a quick medical examination determined that she had shot herself through the heart and had likely died instantly.
So who was Jessie White, and why would she commit such a public suicide? Investigators searching her pocketbook found a suicide note which had been placed inside an envelope bearing the address: "To My Dearest Ones." The message she had left behind was succinct enough, stating: "I am tired of life and deny the letter-writer the pleasure of doing it. Three years is long enough to be tortured by him, and there is no prospect of any peace for us as long as I live, and inasmuch as he has promised to take my life, I really think he means to, but now he never shall. If he found any pleasure in torturing me I hope he will be satisfied now, for he has driven me to destroy my soul. All I have to say now is for you to forget and forgive me for the wicked act I am about to commit. Now, dear folks, I love you all so dearly I could not live if any of you were to be taken from me, so I want you to think it was all for the best I should leave this world."
To help explain the meaning of the letter, I am going to have to provide some history. Jessie Z. White was the adopted daughter of a respected carpenter, James S. White, and had been living quietly at the family home on Joliet's west side. By all accounts, she was a popular and vivacious young woman without an enemy in the world. Or, so everyone thought. In 1886, shortly after Jessie turned sixteen, she received the first of what would be a stream of anonymous threatening letters, all questioning her morals or otherwise trashing her character. Along with Jessie herself, virtually every young man she ever met at a party or social gathering would receive a letter as well, all of them denouncing Jessie and insisting that they stay away from her. The letters, all of which were turned over to Jessie's father and later to the State Attorney, were in the same handwriting and had been obviously written by one person.
While Jessie and her family assumed that the letters had been written by someone she had rejected, they had no idea how far the letter-writer would go in persecuting her. Soon after the letters were turned over to the State Attorney, every local newspaper received similar letters, all written in the same hand. One newspaper even received a postcard announcing Jessie's death. Stating that Jessie had died of consumption and that the funeral notice would come later, the postcard was purportedly signed by Jessie's adoptive mother and the newspaper, not realizing that it was a fake, dutifully printed the death announcement. A local funeral home got a similar message, and many of the same boys who had received letters received notes asking them to be Jessie's pallbearers.
But things became even worse when the same undertaker received an even more disturbing letter. This time, the letter read:
"Mr. Chamberlain: I have now laid my plans so that the family will have to grieve the death of their daughter Jessie. It seems as though she wants to live in single blessedness, for no strange man can win a smile from her. She passes us young fellows on the street without even looking at us. She is a little above medium height, has black hair, blue eyes, and a lovely figure; in all, she is a prepossessing young lady, or rather a blushing maiden of “sweet sixteen.” I have persecuted her by sending notes concerning her death to many prominent men in this city, all bearing the signature of her mother; but since that has failed to humble her I will pursue a different course. I always respected her for being shy of the men, but she carries her independence too far. This city is too quiet. It needs something like a murder case to make excitement, and it’s always catching before hanging. Your service will be needed soon, I think, if the execution of my plans are carried out all right. So look out for a tradgide [sic]. I am on the safe side, for my writing and spelling furnishes me a disguise."
Almost immediately afterward, Jessie got a letter which read as follows:
My Precious Doomed Darling: I did not intend to write to you any more persecuting letters, for your time of living is short without anything else to torment you, but I want to warn you again to be on your guard for I am going to shoot you this week. I think it is no more than right that I should let you know what danger you are in every day and night. You are a young and innocent girl, and I know that by shooting you I will be committing the most horrible crime that can’t be forgiven by God or man. I well know that I will be lynched, and I know I will richly deserve to be, but the sooner you and I are out of the world’s way the better it will be for both of us, for I don’t care to die if I had to to-morrow. The papers state that the villain ought to be lynched for what he has already done, but if they catch me it won’t be until I have accomplished my ends. I had a grand chance to pop you over last night when you was in the parlor with your sister but just as I was making aim at your heart you suddenly turned and left the room, but any way I stood where I could not be seen and listened to your sister playing “My Grandfather’s Clock” on the piano. I dropped my note when the front rooms were vacated. Well, this is my last letter to you, my doomed Jessie. You won’t receive letters after this week. Good bye, darling.
This was enough for the town's mayor to order a police detail to keep a constant watch on Jessie and her family. Though police quickly arrested one of Jessie's cousins, David White, when he came to the family home armed, there was really no evidence against him. When David's case was heard at the circuit court, many of the letters written to Jessie were read aloud in court while various family members testified that she had no known enemies. David White was acquitted due to lack of evidence though he was placed under a peace bond.
The letters kept coming, and Jessie's family finally sent her out East to live, but her tormentor somehow learned her address, and the letters reached her there as well. Finally, after three more years of letters, Jessie committed suicide. Along with her suicide note, she also left careful instructions concerning her funeral, including, as it happened, the use of the very funeral home that had received one of the letters. Six young men, all of whom had received letters, were asked to be pallbearers. Finally, after a funeral that drew hundreds of well-wishers, Jessie White was buried, and, as her family hoped, no more letters ever came.
Still, there were some disturbing hints about who wrote the letters courtesy of the very investigators who had been trying to protect Jessie and her family. First of all, when the mayor delegated police to watch Jessie's family home, he arranged for round-the-clock surveillance that would have seen anyone who approached (which was why David White was arrested). The mysterious letters kept arriving despite this constant surveillance, all of which suggested that the writer was either Jessie herself or another family member. Certainly, the way that the letter writer managed to learn of Jessie's address when she was sent East (something that only close family members knew) raised suspicions. That one of the final newspaper stories describing her death was titled, "Was Miss White Persecuted or Was She of Unsound Mind?" rather suggests that other people were suspicious of her as well.
Could Jessie have written the letters to herself as a way of seeking attention? And could the suicide have been meant as a way of avoiding public exposure? There are questions that will likely never be answered since the mystery of who really wrote the letters was never officially solved. There were certainly no other such letters after Jessie died. Make of that what you will...
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