Murder in Lyons, Iowa The Death of Fritz Dolph

Irene Dolph

The morning of February 29, 1908, started cold and gray over Lyons, Iowa. By noon, seventeen-year-old Irene Dolph had killed her husband, Fritz, and was halfway to Joliet, Illinois, telling her mother she was “in trouble.” That was an understatement.

Her mother, Ella Goldsmith, didn’t blink. Trouble had been the family business for years. She bought two train tickets back to Clinton and found a lawyer before the sheriff even heard the name “Dolph.” It was the most organized thing either of them had ever done.

 

Attorney F. L. Holleran told Sheriff T. J. Burke that Fritz Dolph “either murdered himself or was murdered.” The sheriff found out quickly which one it was. The Dolph house smelled like beer and gunpowder. Fritz was on the floor in a mess of sheets, his skull blown apart. A shotgun leaned against the wall with one shell missing. The Daily Times described it as “blowing out his brains,” which was accurate but not helpful to anyone trying to eat breakfast that morning.

 

Everyone in town agreed: Irene did it.

The two had been fighting for days. At a party that Thursday, Fritz said he was leaving her. Irene said she’d “slaughter him first.” People laughed because that’s what you did when someone said something awful and you didn’t want to deal with it. By Saturday morning, she was gone. By Sunday, the sheriff was standing over what was left of Fritz.

 

Fritz Dolph

It looked simple. A jealous wife. A drunken husband. One shotgun. Except Clinton County had never tried a woman for her life before, and County Attorney W. J. Keefe wanted to make an example of her. He planned on seeking the death penalty.

The problem was, Irene wasn’t cooperating. She didn’t confess. She didn’t cry. She didn’t even explain. The only thing close to a confession was what she’d told her mother, and the court couldn’t use that. Mother–daughter privilege. Which was ironic, considering what kind of mother she’d had.

 

The trial opened in April. Defense attorney M. V. Gannon told the jury he would tell them a story “that would make their hair stand on end.” He was right, but not for the reasons he expected. Irene’s life sounded like something no one wanted to believe could happen. She’d been born on a houseboat, raised by a mother who made her living on her back, and abused by a stepfather who didn’t wait for permission. By fourteen she was living with Fritz, who gave her a disease and then a wedding ring. By seventeen, she was on trial for murder.

 

Gannon didn’t say she was innocent. He said she was broken, and begged the jury to let her go, quoting Jesus for emphasis: “Go, and sin no more.”

 

The Evening News wasn’t as generous. Their headline read: “Defense will seek to excuse the crime because the girl is a degenerate whose life was ruined by husband and others.”

 

Dolph home in Lyons, Iowa

That wasn’t inaccurate, but still—it lacked compassion.

 

The prosecution’s version was easier to follow. Fritz liked to drink, brag, and humiliate his teenage wife. A few nights before the murder, he’d thrown a beer party, and told his friends how he’d “ruined” her when she was fourteen. She sat in the corner, quiet, watching him perform. The next day he went drinking again and told everyone he was done with her for good. That night, a friend stopped by the house. He heard Irene’s voice through the door, then silence.

 

The coroner said Fritz had been shot in the back of the head and then beaten. His mistress said Irene once hit him with a frying pan. Fritz’s sister said Irene told her, “I’ll shoot him before I let another woman have him.” The jury didn’t have to work hard to imagine how the story ended.

 

Then came the family testimony, which made everything worse. Fritz’s brother said no one ever took Irene’s threats seriously. Her mother, Ella, took the stand and made the courtroom go quiet. She’d been a prostitute for years, and arrested often enough to be on a first-name basis with the police. She admitted her husband had raped Irene when she was thirteen, and she’d “shared” her daughter with other men. She was drunk most of the time. And worse yet, she didn’t sound sorry.

 

A doctor said Irene was a “degenerate, but not insane.” Another said she was insane “sometimes.” Everyone agreed she’d been ruined by her life, though no one seemed entirely sure what to do about it.

 

Holleran tried one last desperate move. He said that a man named William Miller had shot Fritz through a window and run away. There was no reason, no witnesses, and Miller was conveniently gone. The jury didn’t buy it.

 

Irene was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced her to eight years. The newspapers treated it like an act of mercy. The Daily Times said her life “was what happens when the state fails to protect its people from the inevitable result—murder.” Humane Officer George Ellman said they’d convicted the wrong woman. “Her mother should have been the prisoner,” he told reporters. “She is the real murderess.”

 

Irene didn’t argue. She went to prison at Anamosa and kept quiet. She asked for parole in 1909 and was denied. She was released four years later.

 

Irene disappeared after that. Maybe she changed her name. Maybe she moved up the river, where no one cared who you’d been. Maybe she married again.