Amy Archer Research Paper

Amy Archer-Gilligan was originally born Amy E. Duggan October 1868. Her parents James Duggan and Mary Kennedy had 10 children, Amy was the 8th. She grew up in Milton Connecticut and attended school at the Milton school. In 1890 she attended the New Britain Normal School. Apart from this very little known about Amy’s childhood, this partly has to do with the fact that she had many siblings and little documentation was kept at the time. After her schooling Amy married James Archer in 1897 and just a few months later had her daughter, Mary J. Archer in December 1897. Amy and James got their first caretaking jobs in 1901. They took care of John Seymour in Newington, Connecticut. Seymour was an elderly widower and he died in 1904. After

One of the deaths was Franklin Andrews who was seemingly healthy at the time of his death. Another suspicious aspect was all the death occurred shortly after the victim signed over a lot of money to Archer. This left many people suspicious including Franklin Andrews sister Nellie Pierce who inherited his personal paper. She heard that he had just recently given Archer a large sum of money. Following the incident of her brothers death Pierce reported to the local attorney. The attorney ignored her claim. Peirce then wrote to The Hartford Courant, the new paper published the first of many stories known to be “Murder Factory”. After the stories were published the police began investigating. The investigation had a longevity of over a year. They noticed a pattern in the deaths of Gilligan, Archer, and three others who died in the Archer House. They took notice of the fact that all were poisoned with arsenic or strychnine. They then followed up with local merchants to find that Amy had been purchasing large amounts of arsenic and strychnine she claimed it was to kill