"I will blow his brains out in the street, and then I will have satisfaction."
A young Brooklyn woman, wronged by a married man, scalded him with sulfuric acid, according to an article in the August 24, 1891 Brooklyn Daily Eagle. An excerpt:
“Mamie Roach, a young woman who claims to have been wronged by the man whom she trusted, took justice into her own hands last night and marked the man for life by pouring vitriol on his face and neck. She was arrested, locked up over night and she fainted in court this morning, but she was discharged from custody. As she was driven out of the yard of the court in a handsome coach with prancing steeds she appeared, to the unfortunates who were driven through the same gate, to be quite happy, although the flesh of her own hand and arm had been burned by the fluid that she procured for her victim, Charles Gebhardt, a conductor on the Union Avenue car line.
Mamie is 19 years old. She lives with her widowed mother at 27 Maujer Street, and is employed in Thomas’ shoe factory on Hewes Street where she earns $6 a week. She says James Preston, a young man who lives on Manhattan Avenue, near Newton Creek, kept company with her and Gebhardt was Preston’s friend. She quarreled with Preston three weeks ago, and since then she received attentions from Gebhardt. Last Friday, she alleges, he asked her to go to Rockaway with him. She refused, but she did go with him to the Novelty Theater. Her mother sat up all night waiting for her return. At noon on Saturday the mother received the following letter:
"Gebhardt cried aloud with pain and he ran to Nicot's drug store, where oil was poured on the burns."
DEAR MOTHER–I now write a few lines hoping you will get this note. Last night I met Charles Gebhardt and we went to the theater. After coming out we went through Broadway to a saloon. He made me go in and drink champagne. I had such a feeling come over me that I was not able to walk. Then we took some car, though I don’t know which car, but the first thing I found myself away in some hotel on Myrtle Avenue. When I woke up I was struck dumb. I then told him I would not go home. Then he said, ‘Well, I would tell you the truth.’ He is a married man with three children. Well, you know I did not want to go home. You can’t blame me. Maybe by the time you get this I will have got rid of myself if I can easily do so. Oh, I think that must have been a put-up job between he and Jim, but never mind. I will be out of that. If I can get on his car I will fix him if I can. I will blow his brains out in the street, and then I will have satisfaction. Mamie.
Mrs. Roach hastened to the lower end of Union Avenue as soon as she had read the letter. There she found Mamie weeping on the sidewalk. ‘Mamie wanted me to go with her to see Gebhardt,’ said Mrs. Roach to an Eagle reporter. ‘I went out with her last evening to board his car. I did not know she had any vitriol. We got on his car at Messerole Street and as soon as Gebhardt came to where we sat Mamie screamed and dashed something in his face. She was very nervous and the fluid fell upon her and upon the dresses of several ladies. The poor child did not know what she was doing.’
"When the girl threw the vitriol there was an exciting scene."
When the girl threw the vitriol there was an exciting scene. Gebhardt cried aloud with pain and he ran to Nicot’s drug store, where oil was poured on the burns. Policeman Sweeney arrested Mamie. She and her victim were treated by the same surgeon at St. Catherine’s Hospital, and then Mamie said that Gebhardt had given her drugged champagne in a Broadway saloon and she knew nothing more until she awoke Saturday morning in a strange hotel on Myrtle Avenue, near the city lines. Her mother, she added, had induced her to take the revenge she had. She was searched and a bottle of laudanum was found in her pocket. She said she had intended to poison herself after she burned Gebhardt’s face. The police doubt she had any intention of taking the poison.
Gebhardt went home to his wife and children at 834 Flushing Avenue. He admitted that he had gone out to the Myrtle Avenue hotel with Mamie, but claimed that she had gone willingly and denied that he had drugged her.”
