Murder victim. Born circa 1850, 14-year-old George Whitfield Struck was the third of seven children born to Edward Struck, a former member of New York City's Metropolitan Police Force, and his second wife, the former Lydia Danbury--eventually to become infamous as the Victorian era serial killer Lydia Sherman. Unlike his younger siblings William, Edward, and Martha, George was not initially considered a burden by his self-absorbed widowed mother, as he earned $2.50 a week as a painter's apprentice. Unfortunately, however, he developed "painter's colic", which prevented him from working. When he did not recover within a week---the time she arbitrarily allotted---she poisoned him with arsenic-laced tea. Predeceased earlier that same year by his father and three younger siblings---all victims of arsenic poisoning, and an eldest sister Josephine, who'd died in infancy in the 1840's, probably of natural causes, neither his nor their deaths raised suspicion in an era when half of all children born did not survive to adulthood, and diseases such as tuberculosis and typhoid were both common and fatal. Horrifyingly, his mother went on to poison his two surviving full-siblings and two subsequent husbands, among others, before being apprehended. The Struck children are buried here with their father in Trinity Cemetery in upper Manhattan.
Murder victim. Born circa 1850, 14-year-old George Whitfield Struck was the third of seven children born to Edward Struck, a former member of New York City's Metropolitan Police Force, and his second wife, the former Lydia Danbury--eventually to become infamous as the Victorian era serial killer Lydia Sherman. Unlike his younger siblings William, Edward, and Martha, George was not initially considered a burden by his self-absorbed widowed mother, as he earned $2.50 a week as a painter's apprentice. Unfortunately, however, he developed "painter's colic", which prevented him from working. When he did not recover within a week---the time she arbitrarily allotted---she poisoned him with arsenic-laced tea. Predeceased earlier that same year by his father and three younger siblings---all victims of arsenic poisoning, and an eldest sister Josephine, who'd died in infancy in the 1840's, probably of natural causes, neither his nor their deaths raised suspicion in an era when half of all children born did not survive to adulthood, and diseases such as tuberculosis and typhoid were both common and fatal. Horrifyingly, his mother went on to poison his two surviving full-siblings and two subsequent husbands, among others, before being apprehended. The Struck children are buried here with their father in Trinity Cemetery in upper Manhattan.
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