Thursday, February 5, 2009
The Lovely Lavinia: America's Prettiest Serial Killer
Lavinia Fisher is perhaps the most notable female serial killer in Carolina history. Lavina was indeed lovely. According to all accounts she was a startlingly beautiful woman with milky white skin, big blue eyes, and curly raven hair. We don't know what her husband looked like, he is largely forgotten, but the Lovely Lavinia lives on in fantastical tales and local legend. Lavinia, however, was never convicted of murder. Neither was her husband. Perhaps the legend is more interesting than the truth, but I don't think so.
According to local legend John and Lavinia Fisher owned and operated an inn on the outskirts of Charleston, SC in the 1800s. There is, however, no evidence that the Fishers actually owned or operated an inn. They did, nonetheless, frequent an inn known as the Six Mile House just outside of town. This inn was a favorite stop for wagon traders carrying their goods to Charleston, SC to sale. It was also a favorite haunt of a local anonymous gang of highway robbers. This gang was responsible for the brutal robbery of multiple wagon traders, and their enterprise threatened the prosperous Charleston wagon trade. As a result "lynch's law" was put into affect, and a mob of angry citizens set out to put an end to highway robbery.
Five Mile House, you guessed it--a neighbor of Six Mile House, happened to be the inn the gang had hunkered down in that night in the early months 1819. The angry mob forced the gang and other occupants out of doors and gave them 15 minutes to depart the premises before burning the Five Mile House to the ground. The gang of highwaymen were outnumbered and they knew it. They left without much fuss.
The next day the angry highwaymen set out to get their vengeance. They had heard that some of the mob members were staying at Six Mile House and sure enough when they showed up at Six Mile House, David Ross, one of the men from the mob, was outside guarding the premises. The highwaymen rode on up to Six Mile House accompanied by a beautiful woman. The unsuspecting Ross greeting this woman and was stunned by her reaction. She smiled and leaning down from her horse she wrapped her lovely white fingers around Ross' neck and began choking him. She also apparently ran his head through a window. This woman was none other than our Lovely Lavinia.
Shortly after Ross was accosted another man, John Peoples, rode up to Six Mile House to water his horse. One of the highwaymen asked to borrow Peoples' bucket and when Peoples refused the man flew into a rage. Nine or ten men and a woman then flew out of Six Mile House and beat Peoples pretty severely. According to Peoples the "beautiful woman" took a "large stick" and beat him over the head with it. She also stole about $40 from him.
Peoples barely managed to escape, and when he did he went straight into town and alerted the local police force. Lavinia, her husband, and 2 other men were arrested for highway robbery. Upon the searching the grounds of Six Mile House 2 bodies were found. The body of a white man and the body of a black woman, both suspected to have been in the ground for at least 2 years. There wasn't enough to proof to convict either Lavinia or her companions of these murders. The authorities knew that Lavinia and John frequented both Five and Six Mile House and they were both suspected of the murders. However, after 2 years of decomp, the bodies offered little evidence with which to prove it.
John and Lavinia Fisher were convicted of highway robbery, a hanging offense in 1819. John was convicted to hang. So was Lavinia. That is, until she said, "You can't hang me. I'm a woman." Well that caused quite a stir. A woman had never been hanged in South Carolina and there were quite a few people opposed to the idea. So Lavinia set smugly in her jail cell fully expecting to be pardoned for her crimes. On February 4th gallows were erected just past Meeting Street and the Fishers were marched to their deaths. Lavinia realized she would hang, regardless of her gender, and she was angry about it too. While John spent his last moments pleading for his life, Lavinia watched her husband hang with nary a tear in her eye. She cursed and screamed amazing profanities at the crowd and the governor. She pitched a royal fit and shocked the crowd into silence. Her last words, the most shocking of all, are perhaps the fuel behind the legend and are undoubtedly the reason that everyone remembers the Lovely Lavinia Fisher. She stared angrily down at the crowd and said, "If you have a message you want to send to hell, give it to me--I'll carry it!" And then she hanged. The crowd, a crowd that usually jeered and cheered while someone hanged, was silent and horrified. Lavinia died in seconds. Her legend, however, lives on.
9/1/2009 Update: I did all of the research on this article myself, simply because I am a history buff and I like spending time in dusty archives. One of my readers just emailed me. Apparently there is a book out that chronicles Lavinia's story, as well as a few others. The book is Wicked Charleston by Mark R. Jones. It can be purchased online or at the Preservation Society of Charleston.
