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Monday, September 30, 2013

Robert N. Maloney -- Willard the Wizard

Unemployed for a month since last performing his magic act in Hancock, Maryland, Maloney (billed as "Willard the Wizard"), with his wife Othello and their one-year-old daughter, Frances, moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, in November 1913.  In the Queen City, the 27-year-old magician stayed on a month-long drinking binge, often consuming a quart of whiskey a day.  In the early hours of December 29, 1913, a drunken Maloney returned to his room at the Hotel Walton and loudly accused his wife of being unfaithful.  During the ensuing argument (according to Maloney's police statement), he saw the "devil" in Othello's eyes and in the sacred pictures on the walls of the hotel room.  The crazed magician produced a gun and rapidly fired three shots into his wife, striking her in the stomach, right temple, and both ankles.  Seeing similar devils in his child's eyes, Maloney shot Frances in the back of the head, and crushed the infant's fingers with the butt of the pistol.  "I beat them like you'd beat meat and potatoes," he told sickened detectives.  Maloney was apprehended one hour later running through the streets in his underwear.  A court-ordered psychiatric evaluation of the double-murderer concluded:  "Insanity due to excessive drink, taking the form of delusions of infidelity on the part of his wife."  Awaiting trial on two counts of first-degree murder in the Central Station Jail on June 21, 1914, Maloney climbed to the second-floor tier of cells and shouting, "I said I was going to do it, and I'm going to!" dove headfirst to his death on the concrete courtyard forty feet below.

1 comment:

  1. You gotta be really pissed off in order to shoot your wife in the back of the head with a .45 pistol and then use the same gun to smash your little baby's fingers. Looks like Willard The Wizard might have had too much of that Pixie dust. Mix that with alcohol and you might as well get the fuck outta Dodge. When Willard shot his wife, Frances, he was not in his right state of mind. What's even worse was that he mangled his kid's hand with the same pistol he used to kill the boy's mother. Bloody fucking hell, man. If I were him, I woulda just beat my own ass. Because that's he shoulda done for being stupid. And then diving out the window? Um, dude, you do know there ain't no water there, right? But it is what it is. But seriously, poor baby. He broke that baby's fingers with a gun. Ouch! If that's how he behaves, then I'm glad he's dead. Moral of the story? Don't grab a fucking pistol and kill your wife and then break your child's fingers. Go to therapy if you have to. But definitely don't do that. And one more thing. Willard, if you're reading this, burn in Hell. That was very petty of you. Willard The Wizard. More like Willard The Whacko. Who's with me? Yes? No? Maybe? Please go fuck yourself? Alright then, bye.

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