Frances Kowlkowski might just be the most relatable murderer ever.
It’s Chicago, May 14, 1926 — exactly 100 years ago today. And Mrs. Frances Kowlkowski walks into a police station to confess poisoning her husband, Alex. Puts it right in his glass of water. He died ten days earlier on May 4th.
But here's where it gets complicated… even sympathetic.
He beat her. He cursed her. He blew his money while she worked the butcher shop and ran the house and buried half her kids. Twenty years of marriage. Thirteen children. Seven of them died.
"Twenty years I was married and never a pleasant word or a pleasant moment… I got tired of it. I couldn't stand it any longer."
That's her quote. Verbatim.
I went looking for something that might put a face to her world and found this: a butcher shop family in Hungary, 1926.
It's not Frances. But it could be.
In 1926 there was no such thing as a domestic abuse defense. No lawyer was going to stand up and argue that what Alex did to her mattered legally. All men in the courtroom, almost certainly.
I keep wondering if any of them paused even a little before deciding what Frances deserved. I don't know what happened to Frances after this, but I’d like to find out. Here’s the full article:
— Chris
And for the people in your life who don't read:
SOURCES: Newspaper: The Bismarck Tribune May 14, 1926; Image: Kossuth Lajos Street, Budapest, circa 1926. Fortepan Archive. Via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.