Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 October 1890 — SHOT BY AN INSANE MAN [ARTICLE]

SHOT BY AN INSANE MAN

MARY ANDERSON’S CRAZY LOVER COMMITS MURDER. fame* D. Dougherty Shoot* and Kill* Dr. George Lloyd of the Fiatbush Insane Asylum—He Plan* Wholesale Murder and His Own Suicide, but Is Arrested. [New York dispatch.] Dr. George W. Lloyd, the Assistant Superintendent of the Fiatbush Insane Asylum, was killed by James D Doughsrty, Mary Anderson’s crazy lover, who had been generally regarded as a harmless crank. Dougherty escaped from the asylum about two months ago by means of a false key. Since then he has been frequently seen on Broadway in this city, and occasionally at Fiatbush. He appeared there with a big revolver on Sept. 23, and by threatening the life of Superintendent Fleming got his clothing which he had left behind when he escaped. Ho was seen trudging through the miry grounds of the asylum late this afternoon. He walked up the wide stone steps of the main entrance to the asylum, placed his blackthorn stick and his cloak in the hailway, *and appeared suddenly upon the vision of four startled men In the office on the right of the corridor. They were Dr. Lloyd, Dr. Thomas J. McGreal, the druggist of the institution, young Dr. Edwin W. Ashford, of Washington, who is superintending the taking of the Federal mortality census in Brooklyn, and Drug Clerk Schneider. The spectacled crank stood, bareheaded, In the doorway of the office, with a big, brand-new, glistening revolver in each hand. His eyes were gleaming with the light peculiar to a dangerous lunatic, and the young physicians instantly recognized that they were in-ex-treme peril. Their first thought was to pacify the madman by soothing words, and then overpower and disarm him. He stood in tho doorway for a moment glaring at the frightened men, and then said, lu a savage tone: “Where is Dr. Fleming?” Dr. yoyd nervously fingered the paper before him and answered: “Dr. Fleming has just put on his coat and hat and gone out. ” Dougherty remarked gruffly, still glaring at the young physician, “I don’t believe it.” Then ho walked to the door of tho pharmacy, which adjoins the office on the north, and backed in, covering the four men with his revolvers. “He is not in there, anyhow,” he said. Dr. McGreal, white as plaster, stood directly in range of the weapons, with his back to the lunatic. It was only a few seebnds that Dougherty was behind him, but he says It seemed like half an hour. Dougherty moved toward Dr. Lloyd, who was still sitting at his desk in the middle of the room. The Doctor said, in a conciliatory tone, looking calmly into the muzzles of tho two self-cockers: “Dougherty, you ought to be ashamed of yourself to want to hurt Dr. Fleming; he has always been a good friend of yours. ” The lunatic said nothing. He coolly walked up to the Doctor’s chair, placed the muzzle of the large revolver (which is nearly a foot long) almost against the Doctor’s left, side and fired. The bullet pierced the young physician's heart and went clear through his body. He threw up his hands, arose convulsively from his chair, and exclaimed, “Oh, Dougherty!” While lie was toppling, with his life already gone, the assassin, sent another bullet through the Doctor’s neck. Dr. McGreal ran through the corridor Into the street and shouted “Police!” There are no police within half a mile of the asylum, but tho druggist didn’t think of that in his excitement. As Dougherty passed Dr. Ashford in the hall the young Washingtonian noticed that ho was remarkably cool. He still held the revolvers in his hands, and as he went out of tho door he warned Dr. Ashford to keep back. But Dr. Aslifoid is a man of nerve, and, although unarmed,, he determined to follow Dougherty and have him arrested. For nearly threequarters of a mile he kept less than a block behind the murderer on a deserted road.

Every now and then Dougherty would stop, point his weapons at his plucky pursuer, and warn him back. But he kept right on when Dougherty resumed his flight, sticking his pistols in his hip pockets. Dougherty stopped a moment at tho Kings County Hospital, near the asylum, and inquired for Dr. Arnold, whom he also intended to shoot. Dougherty was finally arrested after crossing the Brooklyn bridge. The policeman who captured him took him around to the Oak Street Station and turned him over to Acting Captain Gahan, to w'hom he unfolded his plan of wholesale murder. He intends to kill ten or a dozen people, beginning with Dr. Fleming. Dr. Hoyt, the Secrotary of the State Charities Board, was also to be a victim. He snuffed out the promising life young Dr. Lloyd because Dr. Fleming wasn’t around. He is said never to have been violent except on the occasion of Mary Anderson’s return from Europe, and then he raved about the hallway at night until Night Clerk AVaddell had to call in two policemen to quiet him. He would stand for an hour at a time in the hotel din-ing-room surveying a portrait of Mary Anderson. From a letter written to Louis Spader, a guest at the hotel, it seems that Dougherty contemplated suicide after his campaign of murder. He said it was not worth while to ship his body to his home at Olean, Cattaraugus County, N. Y. Dougherty gained wide notoriety hy his mad infatuation for Mary Anderson. He followed her to Europe and disturbed her here and in other cities while she was acting by his attentions. He met her once when she returned from abroad, and was arrested for the effusiveness of his devotion. Chambers County, Alabama, has a 12-year-old negro girl who has been gradually turning white for the past five years. The doctors say she has lucopatliia, an acquired non-hercditary skin disease. In the Alliance procession at Hutchinson, Kan., was a monstrous wagon containing fifty or sixty children, Over the vehicle was a banner bearing the inscription: “Overproduction.” Tn.E Potsdam Sporting Club has just come from an annual squirrel hunt. One member of the club killed 755 squirrels, another killed 605, and the total number of the slain was 4,500. A Vassalboro, Me., farmer raised 100 bushels, of nice potatoes from a scant half acre of land. The crop of potatoes la excellent all through the State.