Amy Archer-Gilligan's Murder Factory

Born Amy Dugan in 1873 in Milton Connecticut. She was 8th of ten children and for the most part led an unassuming life. Normal family, normal upbringing, no noticeable red flags. She married James Archer in 1897 at the age of 24 and they very quickly had a daughter, Mary.

In 1901 The Archers moved to Newington, Connecticut after being hired by the family of John Seymour to care for the elderly widower. After Mr. Seymour's death in in 1904 the family decided to convert the home into a boarding home for the elderly and keep The Archers on as caretakers.

Sister Amy's Nursing Home for the Elderly ran for 3 years until the Seymour heirs decided to sell the property in 1907, seemingly without incident.

Using the savings they had amassed as caretakers The Archer family relocated to Windsor Connecticut, purchasing their own property on Prospect Street. Soon after the purchase they turned the property into yet another business, The Archer Home for the Elderly and Infirm.

James took ill and died in 1910. The coroner declared "natural causes"; officially Bright's disease (generic blanket term for kidney diseases) took him to the afterlife. Although almost psychically Amy had taken a life insurance policy out on her dear husband just a few weeks before. With the money collected from the policy she was able to continue running The Archer Home.

Amy would go on to remarry in 1913. This time to well-off widower Michael Gilligan. Michael had 4 adult sons and an interest in helping Amy continue running the home. Tragically after 3 months of marriage Michael would be taken from the world by an "acute bilious attack", or a hell of a case of indigestion. Once again however she was financially set. Fortunately for Amy, her beau had quickly drawn up a new will during their short romance leaving the entire estate to her. There was something suspicious about Michael's new will but we aren't there just yet.

You see her husbands were not the first to die in her care and likely not the first to do so at her hand.

The Archer Home totaled over 60 deaths in 10 years. The first 3 years of operation saw only around 12 deaths total. Boarders were said to trade one large lump some of cash or sign over life insurance policies/wills in exchange for a lifetime (albeit usually a short one) of care. Countless male and at least 4 known female boarders signed over everything only to die a short while later. Suspicions began to arise as the deaths seemed to take a sharp uptake. One death in particular stood out, Franklin Andrews. He was a seemingly very healthy man. In fact he had been doing gardening for The Archer Home not 24 hrs. before his untimely demise. The man deteriorated in a matter of hours. His cause of death was declared as a gastric ulcer.

Unfortunately for Amy the siblings of Mr. Andrews were instantly suspicious, particularly his sister, Nellie Pierce. After his death she gained possession of his items including personal letters where she noticed several occasions in which Amy was pressing her brother for money. One letter alluded to a loan to the tune of $500, a significant amount of money at the time. She also pieced together that several of Amy's clients had a habit of dropping stone dead after gifting her with large sums of money. Nellie took all of this evidence to the local D.A. who promptly ignored her likely because it was the early 1900's and she was a woman. Being determined to seek justice for her brother and others and not taking no laying down, she took the story to the paper. The Hartford Courant to be specific. The paper ran several articles on the matter dubbing the home, "The Murder Factory".

After several months of these stories being published and amidst growing suspicions amongst the public, the police finally started an investigation, one that took nearly a year to complete.

A total of five bodies were exhumed and examined. These included second husband Michael Gilligan, Franklin Andrews, and three other boarders. The coroners new findings were not all that shocking, all five had died of poisoning, either strychnine or arsenic. First-husband James' death was never connected to Amy nor his body exhumed, but it was highly speculated that she poisoned him as well.

During the investigations, local grocers and merchants testified to police that not only had Amy been purchasing large amounts of arsenic to "kill rats", she had sent some of the boarders themselves to buy and sign for the very thing that was killing them. This discovery allowed police to finally arrest her.

At her trial Amy was originally tried for 5 counts of murder however her lawyer argued it down to one by the end. That of Franklin Andrews. The trial also revealed that the will of Michael Gilligan was in fact a forgery written by Amy's own hand. She was sentenced to death in 1917. Luckily for her she was granted an appeal and new trial in 1919 where she pleaded insanity. Her daughter Mary testified that Amy's supposed morphine addiction was the cause of all of this. Amy's death penalty was reduced to life imprisonment.

In 1924 after a few years in prison Amy was declared temporarily insane. She would be moved to the Connecticut Hospital for the Insane, where she remained until her death in 1962 at the age of 88.