On the morning of February 7, 1893, Martha Place heard her husband leave for work after a quarrel that had ended with him striking her in the face. He had confronted her about stories his daughter had told him, stories Martha insisted were false, but William Place did not believe her. The atmosphere in the house at 598 Hancock Street in Brooklyn was poisonous, and Martha knew it. She went to the bedroom of her seventeen-year-old stepdaughter, Ida, and demanded to know why the girl had made up tales about her.

Ida dismissed her. Martha left the room, slamming the door, and went to her own bedroom, but she could not compose herself. Years of jealousy and resentment had been building inside her. She had been a strict and disciplined woman all her life, quick to anger, and the sight of her husband doting on his daughter while refusing to let her own son live with them had eaten away at her.

Without thinking, she picked up a bottle of carbolic acid from the shelf and rushed back to Ida’s room. As the young woman turned, Martha threw the acid in her face. Ida screamed. Martha hit her, then smothered her face with a pillow until the girl was dead.

Martha Place had come a long way from her difficult beginnings. She was born on September 8, 1849, in Reddington Township, on the eastern side of Hunterdon County, New Jersey. Her father was Isaac, her mother Ellen, and she had been raised strictly. After finishing her education, she worked as a dressmaker and married a man named Wesley Savacol.

The marriage was unhappy, and the couple argued often. The birth of a son, named Ross, seemed to bring them closer for a while, but by the time the boy was three, the relationship had deteriorated beyond repair. Wesley left and moved away from New Jersey. Martha was relieved to see him go, but his departure left her in dire financial straits.

Unable to provide for her child, she reluctantly allowed Ross to be adopted by Mr. and Mrs. William B. Aschenbach, a successful couple in Newark whose own son had recently died.

They informed Martha they would rename the boy William, though they did agree she could visit him. Martha set up a dressmaking business with her sister, but the income was not enough, and she struggled to pay her rent and bills. In 1893, she applied for a position as housekeeper for William W. Place, a widower who lived at 598 Hancock Street in Brooklyn with his teenage daughter, Ida.

Ida was pretty, well educated, and charming, and Martha seemed genuinely fond of her at first. The two spent much time talking, and Ida often found it easier to discuss things with the new housekeeper than with her father. Martha ran the house in a disciplined and respectful manner, and William was impressed. He had found it difficult to adjust after the death of his wife, but having Martha in the house helped him cope.

He was a pleasant, hard-working gentleman with a good position in an insurance company, and he wanted his daughter to have every opportunity. It did not take long for William to develop feelings for his caring and amiable housekeeper. Only a few months after she joined the household, he proposed. Martha accepted.

Not long before, she had been in terrible circumstances, forced to give up her son for adoption. Now she would be the mistress of a fine house and the wife of a respectable gentleman. She thought she might even bring Ross to live at 598 Hancock Street. William’s relatives and colleagues were not convinced.

His brothers had advised him not to become romantically involved with the housekeeper. They did not know her well, but they considered her stern and disciplined, not the caring woman William described. Despite their reservations, he married Martha in 1893, and she became Mrs. Martha Place.

At first, everything was fine, but as time passed, the relationship deteriorated. Martha was a fine housekeeper, and neighbors wondered if that was the real reason William had married her. Ida was growing up, attracting the attention of young gentlemen eager to court her, and Martha resented both her stepdaughter’s popularity and the close bond between Ida and her father. William doted on Ida, spending as much time in her company as he could.

She was a good pianist and would often play in the evening while her father stood by the piano and sang. They also went out together to take photographs, a hobby William pursued with enthusiasm and Ida shared. Martha tried to persuade her husband to let her son Ross come and live with them, but William always refused. This caused her much distress.

She hired a housekeeper named Hilda Janz and no longer had the burden of running the house, but arguments between Martha and Ida became regular occurrences. Martha thought Ida was becoming disobedient and disrespectful. Ida considered her stepmother an ill-tempered and quarrelsome woman. The more Martha tried to discipline her stepdaughter, the more Ida disobeyed, knowing her father would invariably side with her.

Martha became particularly annoyed when William transferred ownership of the house at 598 Hancock Street to his daughter. She had not forgotten how hard life had been when her first husband left her, and she wondered what would become of her if anything happened to William. As his wife, she thought she should inherit the house in the event of his death. William, meanwhile, was growing increasingly tired of Martha and her erratic behavior, especially toward his daughter.

Unbeknownst to her, he had hired a private detective to follow her, hoping to obtain evidence that would allow him to divorce her. The detective uncovered nothing suspicious. Then came the morning of February 7, the argument, the blow to Martha’s face, and the murder of Ida. After killing her stepdaughter, Martha composed herself.

The commotion had been heard by the housekeeper, who knew her mistress and stepdaughter often argued but sensed this time had been worse. She went to the top of the stairs just as Martha came out of Ida’s bedroom. Martha told her to go back to the kitchen, insisting she and Ida had merely had a little quarrel. She spent the rest of the day tending the house, sending the maid out on errands so she would not discover the body.

She also fetched an axe from the cellar. William came home shortly after six o’clock. As he closed the door, he saw Martha rushing toward him with the axe. She struck him and knocked him to the floor, then struck him again before running upstairs.

Whether she believed he was dead is unclear. William managed to get to the door, opened it, and fell onto the sidewalk, semi-conscious and bleeding from the head. Neighbors immediately contacted the police, who rushed to the house. Upon entering, they noticed the distinct smell of gas.

They soon found Martha Place unconscious. She had tried to take her own life by turning on the gas taps, wrapping herself in a blanket, and covering her face with pillows. In an upstairs bedroom, the police discovered the body of seventeen-year-old Ida Place lying on her bed. Martha was arrested and taken to hospital.

When she was well enough, she was transported to police headquarters, where she was questioned and made a statement. She was then taken to the Gates Avenue police court and charged with the murder of her stepdaughter and the attempted murder of her husband. Her trial began on July 5, 1898. The press and public found the case of particular interest: a jealous wife who had murdered her stepdaughter and attacked her husband with an axe.

Despite the overwhelming evidence, Martha pleaded not guilty. Her brother told the court that as a child she had fallen from a sledge and smashed her head. He said she had never been the same since, that the accident had greatly affected her mental stability, and that she often complained of pains in her head. In court, Martha adopted the same attitude she had always shown: upright and stern, showing no emotion and seemingly unrepentant, an attitude that attracted little sympathy from the jury.

Witnesses, including William Place, the maid, neighbors, and friends, all described a jealous, quick-tempered, quarrelsome woman who could not accept the close relationship between her husband and his daughter. The jury was sent out and returned four hours later with a verdict of guilty of murder. The judge sentenced Martha Place to death. She was taken to Sing Sing Prison to await her fate.

Her sentence was appealed, and a report was commissioned to ascertain whether she was insane. The report concluded she was not. Governor Theodore Roosevelt refused to commute her sentence. On March 20, 1899, forty-four-year-old Martha M.

Place was executed, becoming the first woman to die in the electric chair. Her husband, William, fully recovered from her attack and died in 1923 at the age of seventy-one.