This was my most expensive eBay purchase to date, but I had to have it. I was working on my 400-page history of the Smuttynose Island murder and needed to study the photo up close, and hold the origi. purchased this photo at no small expense in order to study it carefully, and to hold and authentic Victorian stereo view card in my hand.
It shows Louis Wagner, who had murdered two women in March during a failed robbery on the island He knew both the victims A third woman escaped and her testimony at trial sealed Wagner’s fate.
The day he was sentenced to death, Wagner picked the lock on his cell. He and two other prisoners climbed onto the roof, broke into the warden’s quarters (the warden was out of town), and wandered aimlessly for three days in the Maine and New Hampshire woods. After attempting to rob a house in East Rochester, NH, the convicts split up. Wagner was captured in Farmington, NH when he knocked on the door of a farmhouse, begged for food, and asked for directions to Canada.
Wagner (left, in shackles) is seen here after his capture with local sheriff A.J. Scruton and an unidentified man. Wagner was hanged two years later. It was during this second capture that Wagner spread the false rumor that Maren Hontvet, the surviving victim, murdered her sister and sister-in-law. That false statement became the seed of the novel and film Weight of Water. And yes, this is blatant self-promotion. My 15-year study of the Wagner case was released in available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook. According to records from the publisher, it has sold over 17,000 for which the author received 40 cents per sale.
My goal with this exhaustive study was to put an end to all the false rumors, misinformation, and conspiracy theories that have been swirling around the Smuttynose case since 1873. If you think Wagner was innocent, you’re dead wrong. How do I know? It’s in my book titled “Mystery on the Isles of Shoals: Case Closed on the Smuttynose Ax Murders of 1873.” And thanks to all those who supported and aided my work over the years.
Carl Austin Hyatt: In Search of the Soul of the World