Dr. Linda Hazzard & The Starvation Heights

Linda Hazzard was viewed as a woman ahead of her time by some; she stood up for her gender, challenged the medical establishment and promoted for natural ways of healing. She said that drugs and surgery were not the best cures. Some would even call her brilliant and a gifted healer, and others were certain she was a fiend.

She was in realty a sadistic and greedy quack; convincing her patients that they could regain their health and be cured if they starved themselves for months. Many of these patients, unsurprisingly, died from starvation.

She operated her "sanitarium,' in the small town of Olalla in Kitsap County, it was dubbed Starvation Heights by the locals, the same locals who would sometimes see skeletal escapees wandering down the road begging for food.

Hazzard and her husband, Sam, also grew a habit of helping themselves to patients' assets through fraud, forgery, and theft.

Early Life

Linda Hazzard was born in Carver County, Minnesota in 1867. She would marry at 18 and have two children, in 1898 she would leave her first husband and children to pursue her career in Minneapolis; here is appears she would kill her first patient in 1902, around the time her divorce was finalized.

The coroner determined the cause of death was starvation and tried to get Hazzard prosecuted, but she wasn't licensed to practice medicine, so she avoided accountability for the death. When investigators discovered that the patient's valuable rings were missing, they questioned her and she was evasive.

She met and married the man of her dreams, Samuel Christman Hazzard, a West Point Graduate who ruined his promising military career by misappropriating Army Funds; this caused more bad publicity around Linda Hazzard. He was a drunk, lecher, and a swindler, married twice before, and he didn't bother to divorce at least once of his former wives when he married Linda. This would start a highly publicized trial for bigamy that ended in a two-year prison sentence for Sam.

When Sam finished his sentence in 1906, the two moved to Washington State to start over. Linda would begin practicing in Seattle, she would commute by ferry from a 40-acre spread in the Kitsap County town of Olalla, she named it Wilderness Heights. It was here she planned to build a sanitarium.

Her Alternative to Healing

Hazzard wrote several books, one being Fasting for the Cure of Disease. She had a little training as an osteopathic nurse, but she still called herself a doctor. During her trail she even snapped at reporters, correcting them and saying "It is Doctor Hazzard."

Even with her lack of holding a medical degree, she was licensed to practice medicine in Washington. This was due to a loophole in a licensing law that revolved around those practitioners of alternative medicine.

Hazzard said that a person could be cured of any disease if they fasted. Saying that allowing their digestive system to "rest" and be "cleansed," would remove any "impurities," from their body. She would claim fasting could cure anything from a simple toothache to tuberculosis, that the real source of all disease was "impure blood," brought on by "impaired digestion."

There were other popular proponents of fasting during this time, but Hazzard added some embellishments of her own. Her methods included enemas that went on for hours and used 12 quarts of water. Patients were known to cry out in pain during these procedures. One other method was a massage that consisted of Hazzard, who was said to be a wiry woman stronger than the average man, beating her fists against a patient's forehead and back. One witness even reported her doing it vigorously while shouting "Eliminate! Eliminate!"

More Victims

There were locals who embraced her medical theories. One of them was known as Hazzard's first victim in Washington, Daisey Maud Haglund.

Daisey died on February 26th, 1908 after a 50-day fast under Hazzard's direction. She was 38 and left behind her 3-year-old son, Ivar Haglund. Ivar would go on to make his name and fortune by feeding millions of people as an owner of successful seafood restaurants.

More victims followed, including Ida Wilcox in 1908, Blanche B. Tindall and Viola Heaton in 1909, and Mrs. Maude Whitney in 1910. In 1911, civil engineer, Earl Edward Erdman, took the cure and passed away of starvation three weeks later. The Seattle Daily Times would write an article titled Woman 'M.D.' Kills Another Patient.

Even with this publicity and deaths, more patients sought her out for care. Frank Southard, law partner in the firm of Morris, Southard, and Shipley, as well as C.A. Harrison, publisher of Alaska-Yukon magazine, both died under her care a few months later. Then, Ivan Flux, an Englishman who immigrated to America to purchase a ranch, fasted for 53 days under Hazzard's care. While he was fasting, Hazzard gained control of his cash and property. At the time of his death, his family was told he only had $70 left in his name.

Authorities didn't step in until Lewis Ellsworth Rader, a former legislator and publisher of a magazine called Sound Views, started to visibly waste away. Hazzard was treating him at the Outlook Hotel in 1911, health inspectors attempted to convince him to leave, but he would refuse. Hazzard would move him to a secret location, it was here that the 5 foot 11 inch tall man died, he weighed less than 100 pounds.

Her Deadly Therapy

The health director of Seattle said that he was unable to intervene, this was due to Hazzard being licensed and her patients were all willing participants. She had many loyal followers, and a commanding personality. Even if some of her patients feared her, they couldn't bring themselves to disobey her. The health director did keep an eye on her, however, in case she treated any children, saying that was when he would step in.

Her pattern was becoming familiar, she would put patients in Seattle hotels or in cabins on her Olalla property. Autopsy reports would all list starvation as the cause of death, unless she performed the autopsy, in which case anything but starvation would be listed as the cause of death.

But, there was one exception to her pattern. This was in 1909, when the decomposing body of 26-year-old Eugene Stanley Wakelin, son of a British lord, was found on her property. He had died from a bullet to the head. It was presumed to be a suicide. Linda Hazzard had power of attorney over Eugene's estate and she wired his lawyer, complaining that she needed more money to pay his bill at the mortuary. The British vice-consul in Tacoma would later on speculate that he was shot by the Hazzards, who were frustrated that even with his aristocratic family, he wasn't rich.

The Wealthy British Heiresses

In 1911, Dorothea and Claire Williamson, two sisters in their early 30s, were wealthy, however.

The two were hypochondriacs who came across an advertisement for Hazzard's book in a newspaper while visiting Victoria, B.C. They ordered it and also received a brochure promoting her Institute of Natural Therapeutics in Olalla.

They decided to head to Hazzard's sanitarium to receive the revolutionary fasting treatment from Linda Hazzard. They didn't tell their relatives, since they were already scornful of their interest in unorthodox medicine. They met Hazzard at her office in the Northern Bank and Trust Building, where she told them the sanitarium wasn't ready yet, so she would set them up and treat them in Seattle.

The sisters were settled in at the Buena Vista apartments, they were under the care of Hazzard's osteopathic nurse. They were surviving off of a thin vegetable broth. Hazzard would visit regularly to provide the hours-long enemas and pummeling massages. She would also start to inquiry about the two's business affairs, offering to store the women's diamond rings and estate deeds in her office safe.

The sisters were emaciated and delirious by April, they were transferred to Olalla by twin ambulances and a private launch. Moments before the ambulance sent out the dock, Hazzard's private attorney obtained a shaky signature from Claire. This would leave her monthly stipend of 25 pounds sterling per year to the Hazzard's "Institute," and added that in case of death, she wished for her body to be cremated under the charge and direction of Linda Hazzard.

On the 30th of April, the sisters' childhood nanny, Margaret Conway, received a rather cryptic telegram telling her to visit them in Olalla. She set sail from Sydney, Australia and arrived in Seattle on June 1st.

Sam Hazzard met the boat and took Conway to Linda's office. Here, Conway was informed that Claire was dead and that Dorothea was now insane. She was taken to the E.R. Butterworth & Sons mortuary and shown Claire's body, she did not recognize her. She was then taken to Olalla to be reunited with Dorothea, who was now a human skeleton living by herself in a cabin that was no better than a shack.

Dorothea begged to betaken away, but the following day she withdrew her request and rather insisted that the cure was doing her a world of good. Margaret stayed with her, hoping to convince her to leave, sneaking her rice or flour into her main nutrition, a broth that was made from canned tomatoes.

The patients were typically separated from one another, but on the 4th of July, they were let out for a celebration. Two of these patients approached Margaret Conway and begged her to get them out of the place, telling her they were prisoners rather than patients.

Margaret also noticed that Hazzard was wearing Claire's silk dressing gown as well as her favorite hat. She also discovered that Dorothea had given the Hazzards power of attorney, allowing them to help themselves to her funds. She informed Hazzard that she would be leaving and taking Dorothea with her, but Hazzard told her that Dorothea was not free to leave, that they had obtained legal guardianship over her, explaining that she would be spending the rest of her life with them.

Margaret snuck off the property to cable and inform the sisters' uncle in Portland, Oregon of the situation. He came to rescue them. Dorothea weighed only 60 pounds at this point. The Hazzards presented her with a bill for $2,000, saying that they wouldn't allow her to leave without some cash; her uncle negotiated a smaller amount.

Exposed

The British vice-consul in Tacoma once again stepped in, pressuring Kitsap County to prosecute Hazzard. They said they couldn't afford it, so Dorothea offered to pay for the prosecution. Linda Hazzard was arrested in August of 1911. The headline covering it read: Officials Expect to Expose Starvation Atrocities: Dr. Hazzard Depicted as Fiend.

Hazzard would claim she was only being persecuted because she was a successful woman, that a cabal of traditional doctors resented her success and opposed natural cures. Her lawyer decided to keep her off the stand, but judges admonished her for signaling to witnesses. There was damning medical testimony as well as a paper trail, including a forged diary entry that said Claire wanted Linda Hazzard to have her diamonds, this made it clear that the Hazzards were crooks.

Hazzard's defenders included loyal staff members and even patients. John Ivar Haglund even testified that even though his wife Daisey was Hazzard's first victim, he had faith in her and even brought his son, Ivar, to her for treatment three times a week, even after his wife had died. But, the jury came back with a verdict of manslaughter. Press would theorize that if she had been a man, the verdict would have been murder.

More Treatments

Even while awaiting sentencing, she managed to kill two more patients. She eventually served two years in the state penitentiary at Walla Walla. After, she and Sam moved to New Zealand, here she operated under the titles of physician, dietitian, and osteopath, wrote another book, and made plenty of money.

She had made enough money by 1920 to move back to Olalla and build her dream sanitarium. The state of Washington had pulled her medical license, so she instead called it "a school of health." This lavish building included a basement autopsy room. She continued to starve people to death.

Her dream sanitarium burned down in 1935, three years later, she died. She hadn't been feeling well so she embarked on her own fasting cure.

Her total number of victims is unknown, but could be at least a dozen people.