Sympathy for the Devil: The Emmanuel Baptist Murders of Old San Francisco [Hardcover]

Virginia A. McConnell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 30, 2001 | ISBN-10: 027597054X | ISBN-13: 978-0275970543

On the day before Easter Sunday 1895, four women entered the Emmanuel Baptist Church in San Francisco's Mission District to decorate the altar with flowers. When they opened the door to the little room containing the library, they were greeted with a horrible sight: the stabbed and strangled body of 21-year-old Minnie Williams, her blood coating the floor and spattering the walls. A search of the church revealed another grisly discovery in the belfry: the decomposing body of another young woman, reported as missing ten days before. She, too, had been strangled. But unlike the victim in the library, Blanche Lamont was lovingly laid out as if for burial. Clues led the police to a friend of both victims, a medical student who was also the assistant superintendent of the church's Sunday school. But those who knew Theo Durrant denied that this highly respectable young man could have had anything to do with these horrible crimes. The young man who committed these two apparently motiveless murders was depicted by the popular press at the time as a monster, a devil in disguise, only pretending to be religious. McConnell demonstrates that he was exactly what he seemed to be: a genuinely good man whose life went terribly wrong because of the biological, genetic, and mental problems from which he suffered -- problems he was not even aware of. Sympathy for the Devil examines the extensive and sensational press coverage of the case (criticized by the Governor and by the California Supreme Court), the effect of the murders on San Francisco, and also analyzes what turned an apparently upstanding young man into a vicious murderer.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Virginia McConnell reconstructs in powerful detail the 1895 church steeple slayings of two young girls in San Francisco. This double crime, for which Theo Durrant went to the San Quentin gallows, still holds fascination after more than a century. McConnell not only captures the horrors of the events; she also illuminates striking contrasts between the law enforcement and judicial concepts of that era and the present.”–Harry Farrell, author of Edgar Award winner Swift Justice: Shallow Grave in Trinity County

“With this, her second book, Virginia A. McConnell establishes herself as the leading raconteur of Victorian true crime.”–Hal Higdon, Author Leopold & Loeb: The Crime of the Century

About the Author

VIRGINIA A. MCCONNELL, a native of Syracuse, New York, has degrees from The College of St. Rose in New York, Purdue University, and Golden Gate University School of Law. She has taught high school in upstate New York and in Sacramento, California, and has practiced law in San Francisco. Currently, she teaches English, Literature, Speech, and Criminal Justice at Walla Walla Community College's Clarkston Center in Washington, and lives on 30 acres of land in Idaho. She has been researching crimes from the past for many years and would like to become the "Ann Rule of Victorian true crime." Her 1999 debut, Arsenic Under the Elms (Praeger), earned a starred review in Kirkus Reviews.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 376 pages
• Publisher: Praeger Trade (September 30, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 027597054X
• ISBN-13: 978-0275970543
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,901,956 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Thorough and engrossing, April 18, 2002

By 

A. Felton "voracious reader" (Sacramento, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sympathy for the Devil: The Emmanuel Baptist Murders of Old San Francisco (Hardcover)

Well researched and cleanly written, Sympathy for the Devil relates the events of 2 murders in San Francisco in 1895. The author painstakingly recreates the events leading up to the murders, the media coverage to rival that of the OJ trial, the trial itself, and the subsequent appeals. You can tell the author did her homework. Each chapter is filled with footnotes that provide not only the source of the information, but at times additional facts about the time period, the city, and the mores of the time. It was fascinating to read about a city I visit regularly and recognize some of the places mentioned.

However, the most fascinating part of this book was the trial itself. The media circus surrounding the trial was phenomenal; the 3 major newspapers took turns printing sensational accounts of the murder, the trial, and the defendant as well as out and out lies in the form of forged letters and false testimonies of people involved in the case. Additionally, the differences between trial procedure and proper behavior then and now are astounding. For example, in the trial, jurors actually stood up and asked questions of the witnesses.

The only negative comment I have is that the author waited until the very end of the book to discuss the possible reason behind the murders. Granted, this was her opinion (though backed by facts) so I can understand why she placed it outside the narrative of events from murder to trial, but it was frustrating at times to read the story without any idea why these murders occurred.

Despite this one drawback, I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in mysteries, history, and human behavior.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Marching from Victoria, December 14, 2002

By 

Jack Maybrick (Shuttling between the streets of Whitechapel and the shadow of Coogan's Bluff) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sympathy for the Devil: The Emmanuel Baptist Murders of Old San Francisco (Hardcover)

What exactly is a Victorian murder case anyway?

There's a mystique about "Victorian murder cases" that is possessed by devotees of true crime non-fiction, but it sounds as though all that must happen for a murder or series of crimes to be so regarded is that they take place during the Victorian Era (1837-1901).

Of course, the Jack the Ripper murders from 1888 are regarded as the best and the darkest of all Victorian murder cases. The brutal serial killings of prostitutes, the sexual nature of the crimes themselves, accentuated by the certain body parts which were particularly violated by the Ripper's knife, the exposure of proper British society to the world of prostitution and the seaminess of London's East End - even today, all of these cause right-minded people to solemnly nod their heads and remark on how atrocities are regularly caused by the hypocrisy of blue-blooded aristocrats toward sexual matters. But does the Theo Durrant case, circa 1895, really fit neatly into this same criminal category just because of its chronology?

For the most part, Virginia McConnell is to be commended for her well-researched and comprehensive presentation of the Emmanuel Baptist Church murders. Durrant was regarded by his contemporaries and by many later researchers simply as a monster, and McConnell's contrary theme, as hinted by the title, is that Durrant was a decent man and a genuine religious devotee of decidedly non-murderous disposition for whom these two murders were isolated acts that likely would not have been repeated.

Notwithstanding her moral judgment, she is unsparing in her examination. She marshals the facts impressively and in chronological order, particularly the testimony of the witnesses who observed Theo Durrant in the company of Blanche Lamont as he escorted her to the church, in which belfry her body was later found. The circumstantial evidence which led to the quick conviction of Durrant for the murder of Blanche Lamont (in light of the death sentence imposed upon him, he was never tried for Minnie Williams' death) is impressive for its volume and its probity. The evidence proffered by Durrant and his attorneys in defense is shown to be wanting; and there is even a suggestion of one or more aborted private confessions by Durrant.

McConnell also provides several interesting scenarios as to how and why Durrant murdered the two young women and plausibly maintains that neurological influences (Durrant had suffered from bacterial meningitis) and biochemical influences (she diagnoses Durrant as manic-depressive) likely accounted for his uncharacteristic behavior. But she also seems inclined to portray the murders as peculiarly Victorian crimes - erotic bloody affronts to a repressive 19th century society, in which some elements were struggling for freedom.

However, apart from chronology, it's difficult to see why the Bell Tower murders would be thought of as Victorian crimes. Apparently, it's not even necessary that a crime be committed in Victorian ENGLAND to be so classified. The Emmanuel Baptist Church in San Francisco's Mission District was a good 6000 miles away from Windsor Castle. More importantly, 19th century San Francisco, with its gin joints and Barbary Coast dens of iniquity, frequented openly by all classes, must have been equally distant from Victorian London in the cultural sense.

While McConnell delves extensively into Durrant's family life, she seems to largely overlook its significance. Papa Durrant was a weak impotent father figure, and Mamma Durrant was an overbearing overly-possessive mother whose affection for her son (as well as the affection that she demanded in return) was unhealthy and unnatural, just the sort of mother that has produced monsters on many other occasions. Yet McConnell barely acknowledges these elements as contributing factors to the murderous personality that Durrant temporarily developed.

The fact is that as over the years that have elapsed since the Bell Tower case, as fatherlessness has become more and more prevalent, the combination of overbearing mothers and weak or absent fathers has been the cause of many thousands of particularly brutal murders and perhaps at least one presidential assassination. The Durrant case isn't a Victorian murder case at all; it's a 20th century murder case reflecting what would become that century's principal social epidemic.

On the other hand, what exactly was Theo Durrant's precise role in the deaths of the two women? As convincing a case as the author makes for his guilt, she passes lightly over the possible role played by a figure whose shadow never seems entirely absent from this case: the mysterious Reverend J. George Gibson, pastor of the Emmanuel Baptist Church.

A man of very peculiar tendencies, a man who seemed overly eager to protect the church's reputation by hiding the murders from the authorities, a man who brought in handlers from the outside specifically for the purpose of handling inquiries from a suspicious press, a man who indeed should have known the contours of the church at least as well as Theo Durrant (though he denied this in his testimony), Reverend Gibson was widely suspected at the time and was named by Theo's partisans as an alternative suspect.

And as unlikely as that might appear, McConnell runs too lightly over Gibson's tendency to "hide, ostrich-like and pretend that nothing had happened". She runs too lightly over his flippant and suspicious testimony at the inquest and preliminary hearing and passes these things off as products of his fragile and eccentric nature. This is particularly faulty in light of her own curiosity as to how Durrant managed to carry Blanche Lamont's body to the belfry by himself. Her later explanation that adrenaline gave him the strength to do so is not necessarily satisfying. Was Blanche carried to the belfry by two men?

McConnell's book is an impressive work whose narrative delivers slightly less than the research promises. But it may yet prove to be the Warren Commission Report of the Bell Tower murder case - a weighty tome that is the start of all inquiries but which raises at least as many questions as it answers.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Version Of This Case Since 1895:, October 18, 2001

By 

H. M. Barrett "mimereader" (San Francisco, California USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Sympathy for the Devil: The Emmanuel Baptist Murders of Old San Francisco (Hardcover)

As I have been constructing my own version of this story for years, and have at least developed an experienced sense for what is credible and what is not along the way, I am honored to be the first customer to review Virginia McConnell's book.

To begin with, this is the best book cover anyone ever used for the case - and I have almost every important image ever published on it - because it is the first cover to ever show the unusual red-ocher color of the church and the great shadow it cast onto Bartlett Street. I actually spoke to a witness who claimed to see this in his youth, so it's quite impressive that someone got it right.

The text of this book is just as pleasing, as it not only accurately relates what was known - expertly navigating through the contradictions and pitfalls long associated with this case - but goes well beyond by adding in documents previously missing.

I was particularly impressed at the many firsts achieved here: Previous authors said the first victim, Blanche Lamont, was beautiful, but McConnell actually delivers the best photo to prove it.

Blanche's face reminds me a lot of women like Britain's Kate Winslet and San Francisco's Alma Spreckels. And no other published image ever made that kind of impression on this Titanic fan.

Previous authors only mentioned the mysterious Flora Upton, making it sound as if she disappeared forever, but Ms. McConnell not only traces her movements but provides us with another amazing photo. Yes indeed, Flora had an exquisite face as well.

As Ms. McConnell managed to find these pictures, frequently by finding the relatives in possession of them, she was also able to flesh out the characters of the people better than they were at any time since 1895.

Previous authors merely claimed there was a controversial (but apparently lost photograph) of the murderer taken at a picnic, Ms. McConnell at least provides the newspaper drawing based on it and lets you make of it what you will.

Hopefully, if and when I finish my own book, a publisher will appreciate what I have discovered as well, but Sympathy for the Devil just raised the standard in a big way.