A Case of Uxoricide

by M.P. Pellicer | Stranger Than Fiction Stories
On March 17, 1906 a woman named Johanna Augusta Knudson died and was buried, but something was not right, even though the physicians who attended her said her death was due to natural causes. 

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Knute Knudson was accused of poisoning his wife in 1906

Knute Ole Knudson and Johanna Larson married on April 29, 1895 — this was only a month before she gave birth to their first child, Gustav Adolph on May 27, 1895. Two other babies were quick to follow: Anna in 1896 and Wilfred in 1898.

What went wrong during the decade-long marriage is unknown. Perhaps it wasn't the marriage, but Knut who was the problem, which is why Johanna's sister Sarah Weiser (Weisser) went to the coroner's office with suspicions about her brother-in-law. The coroner said her suspicions were groundless, but this did not stop Sarah.

Knudson had her arrested for slander, but the story reached the state attorney's office who had the body exhumed. The dead woman's stomach contents were analyzed, and found to have enough arsenic to "kill half a dozen persons." Her husband claimed the arsenic found in his wife's body was from the embalming fluid used to preserve her body for burial.

In August, 1907 Knute Knudson, who was a wealthy contractor was charged by the coroner's jury with poisoning his wife. Knudson said that he was innocent, and everything was trumped up by his sister-in-law and her husband, Charles, who were jealous of him. A judge refused to release Knudson on bonds of $100,000, which was the largest bail offered in Cook County in years. By September, Knudson, perhaps in a ploy to better his reputation, declared that if hanged for his wife's murder he would bequeath his body to "experimental scientists in the hope of destroying the value of circumstantial evidence in capital cases."

​He said: 

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... if they should find that the arsenic in the embalming fluid did reach the stomach then these medical 'experts' would see wherein they erred. Perhaps it might cause them remorse; perhaps they might be honorable enough to make amends by committing suicide. That is what they would do if they viewed their honor as a Frenchman does. He went on to give another reason why he would give his body up.

He said: 'Perhaps if I should be hanged and the experiments showed that these men who are supposed to be experts had ignorantly sworn my life away, the populace would rise in indignation and lynch them. If nothing further, it might result in the impeachment for incompetency of the judges and officials who took part in my trials.'

Several witnesses came forward to testify that Knudson refused to call a doctor to aid his suffering wife.

It was not surprising that at his arraignment he pled not guilty. The trial started in January 1907. The prosecutors charged that Knudson, a Norwegian, and a resident of West Pullman had killed his wife because "she had become unsightly in his eyes." There were hints that the prosecution were calling at least two women who would testify of their relations with Knduson. One of them claimed he would give her sums of $100 or more, and asked her to live in his home after the death of his wife. The state also claimed that the accused stood by the bedside of his dying wife as she lay writhing from the effects of the arsenic, and mocked her saying, "There is no use to send for a physician for you have got to die anyway."

It seemed that Mrs. Knudson foresaw what her husband's intentions were towards her, and brought into her home Helen Hesselfeldt to act as her spy. She allegedly saw him administer poison to her, and Mrs. Hylander, her sister also had damning evidence to provide. Mrs. Knudson had hired them as housekeepers since she was sick.

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Women and men sitting and standing in a courtroom during the Knute Ole Knudson trial c.1907

In total 43 witnesses were called by the state. At the beginning of the trial it was shown that Knudson had bought a life insurance policy for his wife in 1905, worth $2,000. In July 1906, he increased it to $25,000.

Ethel Van Ossenbruggen who worked at the home for 13 days during September, 1905 said, "The last days I was there Mrs. Knduson became ill at the supper table, falling back in her chair and saying she was sick. Knudson and I carried her into the bedroom, but he did nothing more to relieve her."

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Knute Knudson during the trial c.1907

Knudson would tell his neighbors that his wife was not very sick at all. Also he did not call a doctor for her until she lay on her deathbed, telling his sister-in-law, "If I see she is dying I will call a doctor." She asked him to get a doctor for her sister but he refused.

She testified: "Then he stood by the bed and shook it and laughed at her. She was suffering and turned in the bed. He shook it again and said: 'I will shake you up a little. You won't get well anyway. You are going to die.'" Then he gave her a red liquid medicine.

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Knudson was accused of being a devil worshipper as well as a murderer

Mr. Barbour the prosecutor outlined the following circumstantial evidence:

• Indecent haste to have his wife buried;
• Trickery in getting Mrs. Knudson to sign blank deeds for property and putting false dates on the deeds;
  
• Preference for an undertaker who used embalming fluid that contained arsenic;
  
• The presence of rat poison in the house, which was removed as soon as Mrs. Knudson died;
• Books of Knudson at the house with turned-down pages dealing with arsenic and other poisons;
  
• The finding of arsenic in the body of Mrs. Knudson by experts and the report that the organs of the body otherwise were normal;
• False reports as to the cause of death;
• Hiring detectives to get evidence for slander suit. Five neighbors of the Knudsons testified that Mr. Knudson never called a doctor to attend his ailing wife. 

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Knudson's three children, whose testimony saved him from the gallows

During the trial it came out that Knudson, for two years prior to his wife's death, had been "friendly" with Helen Westberg, and asked her to become his housekeeper only a few weeks after Mrs. Knudson's death. He had met her in a saloon in the red light district. She testified that he paid her from $2 to $150, and she visited him several times at his home after his wife's death. He even called her on the day his wife died, and asked her to attend the funeral, which she refused to do.

The judge in charge of the case in order to push through the trial with all possible speed, held several night sessions of court. Three doctors testified that the death of Mrs. Knudson was due to arsenical poisoning. The defense had the two older Knudson children testify. Gustave, 11 cried out from the stand, "Papa did not kill mamma. He is innocent." His sister Anna told of a happy home life, and kissed her father on her way out of the courtroom. The prosecution persisted that the motive for the murder was that Knudson had fallen in love with Helen Westberg, and had even brought his children to meet her even though she worked in a brothel.

​On January 19, 1907, the jury found Knudson not guilty of poisoning his wife. Many credited the testimony of his children with securing his acquittal. 

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Group portrait of (left to right) Gustav, Annie, and Wilfred Knudson, all smiling, gathered in a room in Chicago, Illinois. They were associated with the Knute Ole Knudson case. This image may have been taken at the Criminal Courts Building in the Near North Side community area of Chicago, Illinois c.1907

During the trial the prosecution compared him to Johann Hoch who the Chicago police dubbed "America's greatest mass murderer." A bigamist, he married at least 55 women between 1890 and 1905, taking all their money and killing some of them, many times using arsenic. He was thought to have killed at least 50 women, but ultimately was convicted of only one murder. Unlike Knudson, he did not escape the gallows and was executed on February 23, 1906.

In 1911, Knudson remarried. The newspapers while announcing the nuptials, also made mention that he had been acquitted of killing his wife in 1907. He told the newspapers that he had regained the fortune he lost when defending himself. Knudson was 42 years old. and his bride was 23. One of the strangest declarations made against Knudson by the prosecution besides being a murderer was that he was a "devil-worshipper", however this was never explained further.

​Just as strange was that he married Addie Morris of Hopkinsille, Kentucky at midnight on January 17, 1911.

Knut Knudson's second marriage to his young bride was short lived since he married a third time 8 years later. His bride was Matilda Erickson and they married on July 11, 1919 at Lake County, Indiana. She had her own son Verner, comparable in age to Knudson's sons, from a prior marriage.

The following year Anna Knudson married Harry S. Keliher on September 2, 1920. She had become a widow by 1934. One has to wonder if she ever gained knowledge of the evidence against her father, and realized he most probably murdered her mother.

Knut Ole Knudson died on Sept. 28, 1948 at the age of 81. Ironically he was buried in the same cemetery as his first wife Johanna.

Of the three children born of Johanna, at least two died of old age. Gustave Adolph (b.May 27, 1895 - d. November 16, 1970), Anna Olive Keliher (b. October 5, 1896 - death unknown), Wilfred "Willie " Leonard Knudson (b. September 24, 1898 - d. July 28, 1991).

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