14. A Rich Scion Who Scandalized Massachusetts
When he was in his early twenties, Albert Jackson Tirrell, the scion of a rich family from Weymouth, Massachusetts, scandalized society. He left his wife and two children to be with Maria Bickford, a married prostitute who lived in a Boston brothel. Tirrell fell in love with Mrs. Bickford, who seemed to return the affection, although it did not stop her from continuing her profession. That did not sit well with him, and it was a constant bone of contention between the pair throughout their relationship. That relationship came to an end on the night of October 27th, 1845, when loud noises were heard from Mrs. Bickford’s room.
Soon thereafter, the brothel owner awoke to the smell of smoke and discovered that somebody had set three fires in his establishment. After he doused the flames, the proprietor entered Mrs. Bickford’s room, to discover that she had been brutally murdered. She had been savagely beaten, and her throat was slit from ear to ear with a razor that cut so deeply it almost severed her head. Suspicion immediately fell on Tirrell, who as per multiple witnesses was the last person known to have seen her alive. He had been seen to enter the victim’s room that evening after her last customer had departed.
