I love a murder, possibly because they are such dramatic stories and because the worst prejudices of people come out. On May 27, 1897 the body of Michael Colton was discovered inside his apartment at 216 W Washington. The door was locked and had to be broken down by the police. The key was inside, and it was assumed the key had been thrown through the open transom.
Michael Colton, a bartender, had two bullet wounds and the back of his head was caved in, supposedly with the hatchet that was handy nearby (with the load of wood his wife had apparently cut and brought into the house). The three rooms of the apartment looked as if a huge fight had taken place.
The table was set for two, with one place set with food. The coffee was not drunk and the food, except for one bite of bread had not been eaten.
Michael Colton and his wife, Anne, had been known to fight in the past. Anne was described as nearly six feet tall, about 200 pounds and a "decided brunette." Mrs Moberly, from the apartment across the hall, was quick to state that Anne had told her just a few days earlier that if she heard any shots not to worry, that Michael was just drunk and acting up. Another woman testified at the inquest that Anne had said to her that if Michael beat her again, she would shoot him and finish him off with a hatchet. One past neighbor said that she had seen Michael attack Anne, but that once cornered in the yard, Anne had taken off her slipper and beaten him into submission. This witness also testified that Anne was very industrious and that Michael never appeared to do any work or help at all. Another witness saw Michael attempt to choke Anne in an open yard. One woman said that Anne had dressed up in a man's clothes and suggested that she would make a "first rate railroad man in that rig."
A police witness said that there had never been any trouble from Anne, but that Michael had been arrested for drunkedness and that Anne had taken out a complaint against him. Stories were told of Anne's past -- that she had married once before and abandoned her husband and child -- that she had drunkenly caroused in Kankakee -- that she was not properly divorced from her first husband. Her father confirmed that she had married before, but he swore that he had seen the divorce papers. He was humiliated by the coverage of the murder in the paper, and had written off his daughter as a bad loss some time before.
What no one considered in this scenario was that Anne may have merely been defending herself against this abusive husband. There she was, making his dinner, cutting his wood and keeping his apartment. No one said the apartment was a filthy tip, and if it had been, the Pantagraph would have been the first paper to say so.
Luckily for Anne, she escaped detection although her photo was said to have been circulated to all the major papers. Anne's worst crimes were being an unfeminine woman of unusual size, drinking to excess (although no one in Bloomington could testify that she did), possibly abandoning her child and divorcing her first husband. Michael, on the other hand, was a flagrant drunk, an idler and a wife beater. there was never any suggestion that perhaps Michael had been more violent than before and that Anne had been justified in her actions, if she did indeed kill him.