A
talented writer with an incisive wit, Trenerry chronicles sixteen famous
Minnesota murder cases from 1858 when Minnesota became a state to 1917,
revealing the gradual changes in social attitudes from the frontier justice of
the 1850s to the abolishment of capital punishment. —Michael B., Amazon.com
reviewer
Immigrants
from Lombardy settled around the Great Lakes region in small numbers from
approximately 1850 to 1880, after which the numbers picked up from
approximately 1890 to 1920. Duluth, Minnesota, along Lake Superior, was one
such location where Lombardians settled and is worthy of note. However,
Wisconsin and Michigan were locations of considerably more Lombardian
influence; but the basic way of life was no different.
Although
the cases presented in this book have no direct connection to Lombardians, I
thought it gave many clues of what life was like from the period mentioned
above. It also gives many clues about the lives of other European immigrants
(Germans, Scandinavians, Irish) settling in this region, so I believe that it
was worth reviewing as well as noting many of these clues as they could have pertained
to Lombardians around the Great Lakes.
Walter
N. Trenerry was a retired lawyer and former professor at the St. Paul College
of Law when he wrote this book as an amateur historian. He chose fifteen famous
cases to include in the book. On the back cover description of the book,
Trenerry wrote: My investigation of Minnesota murders over the years revealed
no new motives for killing anyone. The old ones were perfectly satisfactory. I
thought that made for a thought provoking quote.
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| The original Ramsey County courthouse 1859 |
“Lynch
mob culture”
One
observation that I made early on was the insincerity of the lynch mob
mentality. A few of these cases were
from the very early period of Minnesota statehood, and the victims were very
recent settlers. Yet the lynch mob seemed to clearly and passionately take the
ingenuine stand as like “ohh, he killed my best friend.” I know, that’s a
lessor aspect of a reaction to a murder. Still, when reading about these
accounts, it felt like such a misguided reaction that I thought was worth
noting. A very immature reaction.. a rush to judgement without the facts, which
sometimes were in dispute. Minnesota probably did have much less of a lynch mob
mentality, which was an American phenomenon, than other states… probably
because most of the people were immigrants more so than American settlers.
Part
of the theme of this book, published in 1962, was the progression from lynch
mob mentality, to state sponsored hangings, to the abolishment of the death
penalty, to the rehabilitation concept. In Europe it’s very different. Police
can legally beat a suspect with impunity, and yet murderers go free after only
a few years. I think we can at least say that the American system has been much
better.. at least in that way.
I
read a book entitled ‘The Lombard Laws’, which was about the post-Roman laws of
the Langbard Kingdom. The laws were initially set up in northern Europe, where
the Lombard tribe was made up of clans of related families. If, for example, a
woman from a certain clan was raped, her clan were go berserk! A terrible bloodbath
would occur, and the tribal chieftains had to do something to prevent these
blood feuds. Theoretically, if you had a peaceful, harmonious, homogenous, fair,
spiritual, non-violent society; you could possibly operate without laws or
prisons… up to a point. However, the revenge factor would probably be the one
thing which would demand some type of criminal system.
Chapter
3, entitled ‘Not to Foster, But to Slay’ (The Murder of Stanislaus Bilansky,
St. Paul, 1859), was for me the most memorable chapter in the book. The basic
gist of this case was fairly simple. Older man, younger wife, no children, wife
has younger lover, and poisons her husband so she can marry her younger lover
and gain the inheritance.
On
the surface, the case seems fairly cut and dry. A total betrayal in every way,
and a person not worthy of any consideration. To backtrack a bit, in many of
these cases, I found the guilty party to be of particularly unsavory character.
However, in this case, the guilty party wasn’t just any ordinary murderer. Mrs.
Ann Bilansky was apparently a real chip off the old block.. a real character. I
found that I at least gained some sympathy for her, and evidently the public
felt the same way at that time; which is saying a lot since this was during the
days of the “lynch mob mentality.”
Minnesota
was, of course, a mere frontier in 1859.. only one year after gaining official
statehood. However, the Minneapolis-St. Paul area was already an impressive
settlement; and even had its own element of sophisticated, upper class
“socialites.” The Bilanskys were at least on the fringes of that social milieu.
There’s not really anything which could be said on her behalf as far as the
crime, although some believe that there was reasonable doubt. She did what she
did, with any justification whatsoever beyond simple greed.
Stanislaus
Bilansky was apparently a divorced Polish immigrant of mild wealth, living in
St. Paul. Evidently he was in his fifties, and was both gruff and hard to get
along with as well as being lonely, not in especially good health, and
vulnerable as a result. Ann Bilansky was a tall attractive well-dressed blonde
widow from North Carolina who was thirty-four when she came to St. Paul. She
was vivacious and talkative, and to quote the author.. although St. Paul was a
substantial small city by 1858, one can imagine that this striking Southern
woman would attract attention on the streets of Minnesota’s new capitol.
Had
Mr. Bilansky not been murdered, one may find this mismatched couple rather
humorous. I don’t recall if the book mentions what I have already heard
numerous times, that poisoning has historically been a woman’s method of
getting rid of someone. Although I cannot go through the entire long chapter
here, suffice to say that Ann Bilansky’s sassy-flirty personality along with
her dress and manner really came through as I read it.
As
silly as it might seem, it appears that she had some affect on the male public.
On one evening, the jail guards at the Ramsey County courthouse actually
allowed her out of her cell so they could converse with her. Later, as they
tired, she simply walked out of the courthouse and walked away. Some time
later, she was found and arrested again.
At
another point during her trial—and remember this was a murder trial where she
would likely be hanged if found guilty—some of the witnesses were being cross
examined, and Ann Bilansky was seen laughing when one of them got her facts
confused slightly.. and appeared amused throughout much of the questioning.
The
whole long process in which she was found guilty and there was much support for
her, mostly because society at large did not want to hang a woman. Many men in
high positions took her side to the point of trying to commute her sentence. I
won’t give away what happened, but you may read a short account of it here,
including the result.
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