Infamous Harry Hayward

Shawn Francis Peters teaches in the Integrated Liberal Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He has written five books, most recently The Catonsville Nine: A Story of Faith and Resistance in the Vietnam Era.

• Introduction: “Under a Cloud of Moral Darkness”1. “This Woman Was Murdered”2. “Who Killed Kittie Ging?”3. “A Saturnalia of Crime”4. “Money Was My God!”5. “Go Out and Kill Somebody”6. “She Made No Sound, and Was Dead”7. “The Plot of a Fiend”8. “A Cursed Ghoulish Monster”9. “Don’t Under Any Circumstances Squeal on Me”10. “The Boldest Thing I Ever Heard of in My Life”11. “We Shall Be Able to Prove Everything”12. “You’ll Be Wearing Stripes Within a Year”13. “Evidence! Oh, What a Sham!”14. “Take Him to the Gallows!”15. “The Greatest Villain of the Nineteenth Century”16. “Stained With Blood”17. “A Kind of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Existence”18. “The Awful Finale”Epilogue: “I Had a Scheme”AcknowledgmentsSources and Suggested ReadingsBibliographyIllustration CreditsIndex

"The story of Harry Hayward is a portrait both of a genuinely chilling nineteenth-century killer and of a golden American city-Minneapolis in the 1800s-that provides a home to the darkness within us. Shawn Francis Peters does full justice to both light and shadow in this murderous tale."-Deborah Blum, author of The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York"At last, a great nonfiction storyteller has given this terrifying murderer the well-researched and vividly written treatment he deserves. The Infamous Harry Hayward places readers inside the disordered mind of a Victorian era killer-and won’t let them go."-Jack El-Hai, author of The Nazi and the Psychiatrist and The Lobotomist"The Infamous Harry Hayward is a riveting account of a dark chapter in Minnesota history-the murder-for-hire of a dressmaker, ‘Kittie’ Ging. The 1895 trial of Harry Hayward, a Victorian Era gambler and the murder’s criminal mastermind, grabbed lurid newspaper headlines in a case that pitted one brother against another."-John Bessler, author of Legacy of Violence: Lynch Mobs and Executions in Minnesota"The book unfolds as a play-by-play of the seven-week trial and reads much like the sensationalist reporting of the events at the time. The end result is an entertaining tale of crime and punishment from Minnesota’s gilded age and a great episode from the annals of yellow journalism."-Publishers Weekly"Peters’ scholarly, yet accessible, prose takes readers into the shadowy corners of Minneapolis and the sinister mind of a “man without a soul”."-Isthmus"If you’ve never heard of Harry Hayward you’ll love reading about this serial seducer, con man, gambler and crook. This nonfiction evocation of a sensational life reads like a thriller."-St. Paul Pioneer Press