Mrs. Emma LeDoux, who resided in Bisbee, Arizona in 1905 to 1906, received a guilty verdict and sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of a man named McVicker in Stockton, California.
Mrs. LeDoux came to Bisbee and went to work as a waitress in a restaurant, then running in the Pythian Castle, in 1905. She became acquainted and eventually married a fellow named Williams, a tool sharpener, working at one of the C & A mines. After a few months of wedded bliss, Williams suddenly became ill and died. The woman inherited $2,000 of her late husband's life insurance. It was always believe that Williams was poisoned, but never proven. Was Emma adding “other ingredients” to the meals she served at Pythian Castle?
Shortly after the burial of Williams, Emma met McVicker while she continued her waitressing job. McVicker worked as a miner at the Holbrook shaft, and lo and behold, they were soon married. The couple packed up and moved to California.
While living in Stockton, she murdered her husband, put his body in a trunk and shipped it off to San Francisco. Without blinking an eye, she boarded the same train as if nothing was wrong. As the trunk was about to be loaded onto the train, one of the baggage men notice blood oozing from within. The police were notified—the trunk opened—and the body was discovered.
As the train had already departed from the Stockton station, the officers telegraphed ahead and had Mrs. McVicker arrested. She was tried, convicted and sentence to death—the first woman in California to receive the death penalty. She appealed her case to the Supreme Court on a technicality that the sheriff of San Joaquin County was prejudiced in selecting a jury to try her. The Supreme Court granted her a new trial. While in jail at Stockton, her health gave way and it was learned she was suffering from consumption. She was forced to enter a hospital for a time. After recovering from her illness, the second trial was held. She pleaded guilty and was sentence to life imprisonment at San Quentin, California.
Emma LeDoux was said to be using the name of her first husband. She had married three times and all of her spouses perished—presumably by her own hand. She was comparatively young and said to be good looking by Bisbeeites who remembered her. McVicker had worked in the Bisbee mines for years and was well known and respected. How many other men did the Black Widow of Bisbee entice into her web of horrors? Maybe this is why the haunted Pythian Castle remains vacant!
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