Dr. Bennett Clark Hyde’s Role as the Accused Murderous Physician

Missouri state law limits the amount of trials to three. This would prove crucial in this case. Dr. Bennett Clark Hyde, in 1910, experienced the cold steel of justice around his wrists for his suspected role in the murders of Colonel Thomas Hunton Swope and Chrisman Swope. Investigators had found traces of strychnine and cyanide in their bodies and alleged that Dr. Hyde had been responsible for poisoning them.

Frances Hyde, Dr. Hyde’s wife, remained supportive of her husband through all of the accusations. The motive had been to kill off the Swopes that populated the will. The nurses who cared for the people who had been under Hyde’s care had died from typhoid fever. They suspected that Dr. Hyde had something to do with their deaths but possessed no damning evidence.

At first, Dr. Hyde had been tried and the jury found the doctor guilty of murder. Judge Ralph S. Latshaw sentenced Dr. Hyde to life behind bars.

The dedicated wife Frances put up money to get new lawyers to have the trial carried out again. This time, a mistrial occurred. Was the third time the charm? Not exactly. No verdict surfaced. And of course the law intervened in January 1917.

After the series of suspicious deaths, the multiple trials, and the money that had been used in his defense, Dr. Hyde subsisted off of his wife’s dollar.

In a strange turn of events, Frances actually divorced Dr. Hyde upon her illness and his suggestion that he extend bedside manner in support of her life.

While Dr. Hyde may have escaped the electric chair or life in a cell, his own wife who had clung to him, offered money on his behalf to fight for his case, and moral fortitude throughout all of his ordeals.

Dr. Hyde was like the angel of death whom no one could prove to be guilty. The motive that placed him as desiring the Swope family fortune may have had some validity but it did not mean that he did it in the eyes of the law.

What makes the case so interesting is the amount of trials that took place. If there had been no prohibition on trials past three, how many times would the Dr. had been tried? Would he still have escaped life in prison or death? While no one will ever know what would’ve happened, Dr. Hyde walked away from the practice of medicine. Did he have a guilty conscience or did he feel genuinely that with the bad publicity of being accused of murder would hurt his client base?

The peculiar case certainly will forever raise suspicion and to some a search for justice. In these types of stories, it’s always important to ask whether Dr. Hyde looked for how the poisons got into the systems of Colonel and Chrisman Swope? What measures did he perform to help law enforcement to consider the amounts of strychnine and cyanide that were just low enough to not label Dr. Hyde as responsible for their deaths? Though he found himself in police custody, the evidence was weak and the doctor relied on the favor of his wife to see him through his literal tests and trials.

In all, Dr. Hyde’s case will forever be noted for its many trials and the macabre nature of another learned man accused of such evil. This does not mean that a schooled individual cannot commit a crime, in fact, scores of educated people have done worse. But the idea that an educated man was first convicted then avoided time behind the wall to live out his life on his wife’s dime continues to arouse interest.