Stories

Sometimes, I run across an article which piques my interest, like the story of Annie Kane, the poor Cochise County girl who developed schizophrenia, and finally ended her own life in Tombstone, or Madam Irene Logan, who was shot to death by Madam Dora Garnett in the the latter's saloon in Brewery Gulch in Bisbee. They are good stories, which should be told, but they are too short to be books, and too long in the telling to be articles. The manuscript I recently submitted to McFarland & Co. is a collection of stories of this type, including the aforementioned tale of the death of Irene Logan. I am currently working on another collection of this type, which will include the story of Annie Kane and others.

The story of Louis V. Eytinge, which was given brief mention in a book by historian John S. Goff, was supposed to end up in this new collection, but as I read more about the man, I realized his story would be better told in a book. Eytinge was not from Arizona, but from Ohio. However, he spent a good portion of his life in the territory/state (albeit mostly in prison). Eytinge was quite the character - born into a good family, college educated, brilliantly intelligent, a gifted author, and as charming as could be. He was also a career criminal, beginning his life of crime in his late teens. He was a grifter and confidence man primarily, and was incarcerated four times - once in an asylum, once in a reformatory, and twice in the penitentiary before he traveled to the Arizona Territory.

Eytinge would probably be long forgotten had he not been convicted of murdering his roommate, John Leicht. It was an unusual case, as Eytinge allegedly poisoned Leicht out in the desert near Phoenix with a combination of chloral hydrate and chloroform. He then fled the territory, leading to one of the largest manhunts of the early 1900s in the Southwest. He was eventually captured in San Francisco, and returned to the territory for trial. After being convicted and sentenced to life in prison, Eytinge started a legitimate business (running it from prison) and became fairly wealthy. I am not going to give away the whole story of his life here, but suffice to say Eytinge's story does not end with his rehabilitation.

One of the reasons I find Eytinge fascinating is he seems to be a textbook example of a sociopath, though they did not have such diagnosis in that era. The word "sociopath," (the clinical diagnosis is Antisocial Personality Disorder) gets tossed around a lot nowadays but, in fact, real sociopaths are a rarity. Research suggests fewer than 4% of the general population are sociopaths, and not all of them are criminals. Some are very high-functioning, but have little or no empathy or compassion for their fellow human beings. One sees this in Eytinge. People only existed in his world to be used and discarded. As Eytinge had no beef with Leicht, some believed he killed him simply to experience what it was like to kill a man. When he was incarcerated in the Arizona Territorial Penitentiary, Eytinge was thought to have tuberculosis, so he was kept in isolation. However, one of the guards stated he was also segregated from the general prison population because he was "too damned smart." I think this will make a good title for the book.