Mary Farmer’s Diabolical Murder of Sarah Brennan Called “One Of The Most Atrocious In The Criminal Annals Of Northern New York,” Dubbed “The Trunk Murder.”

One of the most infamous murders of its era, involving a woman, Mary Farmer, made national headlines and kept the North Country enthralled for weeks in 1908 upon discovering the mutilated corpse of Sarah Brennan, her neighbor and landlord, in a trunk. The investigation into the crime would reveal a twisted, diabolical plot that would send Mary Farmer to the electric chair in Auburn, New York, the following year.

The story began the previous year, Halloween of 1907, when Mary Farmer made a trip into town under the name of Sarah Brennan. Mrs. Brennan, not quite 30 years senior to Mary Farmer, was Farmer’s neighbor and landlord. In town, Farmer would visit the office of Burns & Burns and place the deed for Mrs. Brennan’s property into her name.

For months, rumors swirled about the area where the Brennans had sold their property to the Farmers, something Sarah Brennan repeatedly denied. Not much thought was given otherwise as the Brennans remained in their home and the Farmers in their rented property next door. With no suspicion given and the deed signed by Mrs. Patrick Brennan, the paperwork proceeded and was filed with the city clerk’s office.

It wasn’t until April 23 of the following year when, before leaving for a dentist appointment, Sarah Brennan made the fatal mistake, for unknown reasons, of visiting Mary Farmer next door at approximately 10 a.m. She would never be seen alive again, or so it was believed…

Shortly thereafter, Mary Farmer would take possession of the Brennan household and begin moving their possessions into the house after informing her husband, James, of their acquiring the deed and house while Sarah had decided to leave town, though Mary’s story would change several times.

Suspecting nothing, James and his brother moved items into the house including the trunk which held Mrs. Brennan’s mutilated corpse. Farmer had instructed it be moved with great care, that its contents included expensive China. It was later reported that Mary Farmer was very nervous during the move, and copious amounts of alcohol were purchased and consumed throughout the day.

In the April 28th Watertown Daily Times, it was mentioned that the move–

When the Farmer’s finished their moving they around more suspicion by the vigilance they exercised over a large trunk, bound with a clothesline. Philip Smith, a neighbor, helped Mr. Farmer moved and assisted in carrying the trunk to the Brennan house. Mrs. Farmer walked close by the trunk all of the way. Mrs. James Buckley, another neighbor, saw the trunk moved, as did Mrs. “Rod Lane” who lives near Brownville.

More rumors were added to these already disturbing the village and in the new reports the trunk played a part. Some advanced theory that Mrs. Brennan had been killed, but Mr. Brennan refused to believe so. On Saturday, on the advice of friends, he came to this city and consulted Attorney Floyd L. Carlisle of Brown, Carlisle & McCartin.

The deed giving the property to the Farms was found recorded at the Clerk’s office as Mr. Farmer had said. As far as the attorney could see everything was regular.

When “Patsy” Brennan returned home from work later that evening, he was refused entrance by Jim Farmer who claimed to have paid $2,000 for the home, money that supposedly came from Mary Farmer’s relatives in Buffalo, and that Sarah Brennan had said she was leaving and never to return.

With still thoughts of murder but a wife missing and desperate to find her, a search was conducted in Watertown and the surrounding area with nothing found. Patsy Brennan began to fear for the worst at this point. Little did he know he would soon discover to open up a chain of evidence.

That following Monday, Mr. Brennan would visit the offices of Burns & Burns where Francis P. Burns would recall the execution of the deed. As told by the Watertown Daily Times–

Mr. Burns remembered the execution of the deed. He even remembered the woman who signed it and he described her as beset he could. His description was not that of Mrs. Brennan, but tallied closely with that of Mrs. Farmer.

Armed with reasonable suspicions, investigators would descend upon the Brennan home. The officers conducted a thorough search and found no signs until one of the last rooms to be checked was two large trunks, one on top of the other. Asked about the trunks, Mary Farmer said the top belonged to her and the bottom to her husband. “That’s a damn lie,” exclaimed Mr. Farmer. “The top one belongs to me, and the bottom to you.”

Mary Farmer admitted so, stating it was filled with clothes and boxes. According to the Watertown Daily Times–

One of the officers lifted it and found it rather heavy. The rope was untied, but the trunk cover would not budge. It was locked and the Farmers averred that the key was lost, or at least that they could not find it at that time. Thereupon Sheriff Bellinger broke the lock with a hammer and opened the cover.

Odor of Decaying Flesh

The sickening odor of decaying flesh pervaded the room. At the first glance it seemed that the woman’s statement had been true, for a black cloth covered the contents of the trunk, which was little more than two-thirds filled up. But when the cloth was pulled back a trifle the stocking outlines of a human foot and leg protruded. The cloth was the black skirt of a woman.

The body was resting upon the face, the legs bend at the knees and the feet sticking upwards nearly to the top of the trunk. One end of the trunk was smeared with blood and here the horrified officers disclosed the head, blood-clotted, the back crushed in as with a blunt instrument. There was considerable blood in the bottom of the trunk and some of it had oozed through upon the floor in the corner.

Mr. and Mrs. Farmer disclaimed all knowledge of the body. They knew nothing about it, they said.

Finding an Axe

Among the first finds made by the officers was an axe in the back yard which was turned over to Coroner Pierce and will probably be submitted to Dr. Isabelle Meader for analysis. The axe was discolored, but whether from rust or blood could not be told.  There was also some substance upon it that might have been brains.  Sheriff Bellinger found the axe.

After initially denying anything, Mary Farmer then gave two conflicting accounts. First, she took the blame and, according to the Watertown Daily Times, said–

…that Mrs. Brennan came to the house and while standing in southeast room went to the door to see some people that were passing. Then, Mrs. Farmer is said to have stated she hit Mrs. Brennan in the back of the head with the axe, killing her.  She put the body in the trunk, which she had ready.

The statement would contradict her second account which implicated her husband–

She said the murder happened in the next, or middle room and that he hit Mrs. Brennan with the axe in the back of the head. The body fell upon a piece of felt, which was later burned so the blood marks would not be found. She did not see the blow struck, she said, in answer to questions from Sergeant Singleton, but saw the body upon the floor and saw her husband put it in the trunk.

“I might as well tell the truth,” she said. “I didn’t have anything to do with it.  Jim did it.”  When he hit her Mrs. Farmer said he swore and said, “I’m done with you now.”

Not helping Mr. Farmer’s matters was a witness who had overheard him say regarding Mr. Brennan likely to be unhappy once he found out the house was deeded to the Farmers without his knowledge, “I don’t give a shit.” When questioned about the previous October trip to Burns & Burns, Mary Farmer also denied that.

Regardless, Mary Farmer and her husband were arrested and hauled away via a trolley to Watertown as about a crowd of 100 persons had gathered to watch the proceedings as the investigation continued.

While the Farmers were held prisoners in the Jefferson County Jail, the post-mortem on Mrs. Brennan’s remains would reveal her skull was fractured at the front of the head, not the back as it initially appeared. The scalp on the back of the head was cut and badly bruised.  Her left ear was severed, her face badly cut and her jaw was broken. It was the opinion of Coroner Pierce that the fracture, while sufficient to cause unconsciousness, would not cause instant death. He “intimated that death was due to blows about the head and face.”

Surprisingly, James Farmer had one person on his side: the victim’s husband, Patsy Brennan.

Believes Mrs. Farmer Guilty

In speaking of the crime Mr. Brennan said this morning:

“I don’t believe Jim Farmer killed Sarah. I have known Jim all my life. We were boys together, went to school together and have been good friends always. When they opened the trunk before him and his wife, I turned to him and said, ‘My God, Jim, can it be that you have done this?’ Jim answered me: ‘So help me, God, Patsy, if I was to die this minute, I don’t know nothing about it.’

“No, I cannot believe Jim Farmer killed my wife. But I do believes Mrs. Farmer did, and I wasn’t to see her get the electric chair for doing it. If Jim did have anything to do with it, I want him to pay the penalty, too.”

Aside from Mary Farmer’s inconsistencies, several witnesses stated they had seen Sarah Brennan after she was reportedly last seen entering the Farmer’s residence the previous Thursday morning.  According to the Times–

Persons were found in Brownville yesterday who claimed they saw Mrs. Brennan on the streets of the village Thursday morning between 9 and 10, again at 11 a.m. and still again at 12:45 pm. If her appearance on the streets on the opposite side of the river from her home can be verified at the hours stated, the statement of Mrs. Farmer goes for naught, and shows that the murder was not committed until afternoon anyway.

The appearance of the trunk when found also shows, the officials claim, that the body was not placed in it on Thursday. There was very little blood in the trunk. Had the body been placed there immediately after the crime, with the wounds in the head, face and arms flowing freely, the bottom of the trunk would have been thoroughly saturated.

Another feature of the case that leads the authorities to believe that Mrs. Brennan did not meet her death Thursday morning, and which also bears out the assertions of the people who claim they saw Mrs. Brennan on the street Thursday morning, is the fact that home, girl, living near the Farmer house by the name of Edith Blake, spent the afternoon caring for the Farmer baby. During the afternoon she had the baby in the Farmer and the Brennan homes, going from one to the other several times.  The girl is sure she saw Mrs. Brennan during the afternoon.

Another piece of evidence that pointed to Jim Farmer was the discovery of a pair of trousers, “carefully hidden in the Brennan home, on which a number of gray hairs and indications of blood stain.” A calico apron was also found, apparently stained with good, which was thought to have been worn by Mary Farmer when the murder was committed.

The Times article would also go on to report that Mary Farmer would give yet–

Another Confession

Closeted with Coroner Charles E. Pierce, Mrs. Mary Farmer last night at her cell in the county jail, made a full and complete confession of the murder of Mrs. Sarah Brennan Thursday morning at the Brennan home in the village of Brownville. This statement, which is supposed covered all the details of the crime and the transferring of the Brennan property to the Farmers, was taken down by the coroner in shorthand as related by the woman.

The contents of this, her fifth confession, the coroner refuses to make public at present, but it is known that her story implicates herself and clears her husband, and that she declares she committed the crime in a fit of anger.

The only problem was, this being her fifth confession, another round of verification would be needed to confirm these to be facts rather than lies from a participant who had repeatedly changed their story. And once again, certain facts would complicate matters: the analysis by Dr. Isabelle Meader performed on the axe found at the rear of the Farmer’s home and supposedly used as the weapon showed no blood stains upon it.

The following week, Mary Farmer’s behavior in jail would have the authorities themselves conflicted as to whether she was “putting up a bluff” as she demonstrated intermittent symptoms of criminal insane.

The ambition to be in cleanly surroundings is diametrically opposed to any disposition her shown by her before she was arrested.  Her home was disorderly and ill kept in the extreme. Rubbish of all kinds littered the rooms; the yard about her home was a dumping ground for all kinds of unsightly material. Why this sudden appreciation of cleanliness?

Another development during her confinement that leads the authorities to wonder as to her mental condition is the fact that she has written a number of letters to her husband, who is locked up in a cell on the floor below her. These communications, of course, have never reached him, but are held by the officers at the jail.

In them Mrs. Farmer addresses her husband in the most affectionate terms, employing words of endearment that ordinarily are foreign to her vocabulary. She appears to have undergone a complete change of disposition. If sincere this change is thought to be due to a deranged mind. If a fake, it is played by one of unusual cunning.

Meanwhile, Jim Farmer would remain locked up, speaking little other than to proclaim his innocence, and knew nothing of the murder until seeing the trunk opened.

The coroner’s verdict would be made public on Friday, May 8th, the Watertown Daily Times noting that–

Mrs. Sarah Brennan came to her death through blows inflicted by Mary Farmer at the latter’s home in the village of Brownville on the morning of Thursday, April 23, is the verdict reached by Coroner Charles E. Pierce after a careful investigation of the case, which he has been conducting since the body of Mrs. Brennan was discovered in a trunk at the Brennan house on the afternoon of April 27.

The name of James D. Farmer, husband of Mary Farmer, is not mentioned in the decision, Coroner Pierce evidently leaving to the grand jury the question of whether or not the husband was an accomplice.

The coroner apparently concludes that Mrs. Brennan met her death almost immediately after entering the Farmer home on the fatal Thursday. “That the deceased came to her death by wounds on the head inflicted by one Mary Farmer, of the town of Hounsfield, Jefferson County, N.Y., in a back middle room of what is known as the old Barton house, the home of the said Mary Farmer, situated on what is known as Paddy Hill in the town of Hounsfield, Jefferson County, N.Y., on April 23, 1908, between the hours of 8:30 and 9:30 in the forenoon.

That the said Sarah Brennan came to her death by said wounds produced by said Mary Farmer with a hammer, hatchet or similar instrument.

Witness my hand at the city of Watertown this 8th day of May, 1908.

CHARLES E. PIERCE

Coroner.

Before the verdict, it was revealed that Mary Farmer, in her confession to the Coroner, said the crime was committed with a hammer, yet no evidence linking any hammers in the vicinity of the crime scene was found.

On Monday, May 11th, the Watertown Daily Times reported a hatchet was found hidden away in the barn behind the Farmers’ house by a father and son who assisted in their moving items into the Brennan home after Sarah Brennan’s murder. The hatchet was turned over to Patsy Brennan who gave it to the Sheriff, who, in turn, gave it to Dr. Meader for analysis.

On Friday, May 15, a little over three weeks since Sarah Brennan’s murder, the special grand jury handed Justice Watson M. Rogers four open indictments. The indictments charged both Mary and James Farmer with murder in the first degree.

Mary and James Farmer would be sentenced to death and sent to the prison in Auburn, N.Y. to await their fates via the electric chair. With Mary Farmer’s execution set for March 29th, 1909, appeals would be made. The first would be made in November, the Syracuse Post-Standard reporting–

The appeal in the case of Mrs. Mary Farmer has now been printed, the matter filling two volumes, one of 430 pages and the other of 481 pages. The maps and the panoramic pictures of the Brennan cottage and the old Barton Tavern stand at Brownville, the homes of the Brennans and Farmers, respectively, are made a part of the record. It is expected that the case will be argued before the Court of Appeals just before or after the holidays, and a decision will, it is expected, be handed down within two weeks after the argument as to whether the woman can have another trial or not.

On February 9th, Mary Farmer would lose her appeal, the headline in the Watertown Daily Times reading “MUST PAY DEATH  PENALTY COURT SAYS.” The case was argued at Albany and noted that “only the Governor can alone save woman now.” The Syracuse Post-Standard would report “It is understood that an appeal to Governor Hughes for executive clemency will be made by Mrs. Farmer’s attorney in the near future.”

Three days later, Mary Farmer was unaware of her fate. Per the Watertown Daily Times, she had yet to be told that her appeal failed. Her lawyer, E. Robert Wilcox, would visit her five days later and become convinced to plea for insanity and attempted to secure evidence–

Mr. Wilcox secured a statement from the prison physician and then saw the Farmer woman. After his interview with her Mr. Wilcox expressed himself as more than ever satisfied of the woman’s insanity. He said that she did not recognize him and showed not the slightest gleam of recognition when he extended his hand to her in her cell.

Wilcox would get his opportunity to appeal to Governor Hughes, but on March 22, one week before the scheduled execution, the Governor refused to interfere with the execution, stating “Executive must not repeal law” and “I find now ground upon which I would be justified in granting clemency and therefore deny the application.”

The night before her execution, Mary Farmer would spend a good portion of it in prayer and be allowed to speak with her husband for an hour. The day prior, she had written a final statement that exonerated her husband–

To Rev. J. J. Hickey:

My husband, James D. Farmer, never had any hand in Sarah Brennan’s death nor never knew anything about it until the trunk was opened. I never told him anything what had happened. I feel he has been terribly wronged. James D. Farmer was not at home the day the affair happened, neither did James D. Farmer ever put a hand on Sarah Brennan after her death. Again I wish to say as strongly as I can that my husband, James D. Farmer, is entirely innocent of the death of Sarah Brennan, that he knowingly had no part in any plans that led to it and that he knew nothing whatever about it.

Mary H. Farmer.

Subscribed and sworn to before me this 28th day of March, 1909.

B. F. Winegar, Notary Republic, Cayuga County.

At approximately 6:05 a.m. the morning of March 29, 1909, electrical current was applied and Mary Farmer was almost instantly killed. The execution of Mrs. Farmer, the second infliction of the death on a woman by electricity in New York State, was “effected without sensational incident” and death was pronounced at 6:15 a.m.

It was noted by Father Hickey, who proclaimed the mental condition of Mary Farmer was such that she should not have been executed, that her final words to her husband were “Good-bye, Jim. If I don’t see you in this world I will in the next.” It was reported the following day that–

While removing the dead woman’s clothing, preliminary to the autopsy, the photograph of the 2-year-old son, Peter Farmer, now with his uncle in Watertown, was found snuggled under the corsage of Mrs. Farmer’s Dress.

The photograph was buried with the woman.

In early June of the same year, just a few months after Mary Farmer’s execution, James Farmer’s appeal case would be argued in Albany. In his defense was his deceased wife’s exoneration of any involvement on his part in the murder of Sarah Brennan.

District Attorney F. B. Pitcher would argue against granting a new trial, contending that–

Farmer, at all times, was within three minutes’ walk of his home the day of the murder; that he profited by having a forged deed recorded, transferring Mrs. Brennan’s property to his baby boy prior to the murder; that a piece of his hair was found in the trunk in which Mrs. Brennan’s body was placed and that his clothing was stained with human blood.

On October 19, 1909, the New York State Court of Appeals reversed the decision and granted James Farmer a new trial. On December 7, 1909, the indictment for murder would be quashed, leaving other charges, forgery and secretion of the Brennan remains at hand.

On March 2, 1910, the jury found Farmer “Not Guilty,” acquitting him of being an accessory to murder and setting off applause from the crowded courtroom. James Farmer would spend the rest of his life a freedman, if in bodily terms only, as a mill worker in Brownville.

What Was The Motive?

One thing that has long been at question regarding this macabre case is motive?  Why was Mary Farmer, who, along with her husband, generally lived respectful and decent lives, driven to murder?  In the April 29, 1908 article in the Watertown Daily Times shortly after Mrs. Brennan’s remains were discovered, something else was also found.

A Letter In The Oven

That an unsatiable (sic) desire to own and occupy the Brennan home had possession of Mrs. Farmer is shown in the fact that an unlawful transfer of the property was made in the office of Attorney Francis P. Burns on October 31 last, and in the fact that the farmers moved into the Brennan home as soon after the murder as the could conveniently do so and procure assistance from neighbors in transferring their household effects.

Another evidence of the desire on the part of Mrs. Farmer to occupy the Brennan home was disclosed this morning when in making a search of the house in which the Farmers lived at the time the murder was committed, an envelope was found carefully concealed in the oven of an unusual stove. The envelope contained a pamphlet from a Rochester building company, the outer page of which contained the following:

“Did it ever occur to you that you can get a home

of your own without its costing you a cent?”

The inside of the pamphlet contains an interesting appeal to people who live in rented homes, picture the joys and pleasures of owning your own home. Among other things it says, “A home is an anchor. A rented apartment can never be anything but a temporary place of abode. A man who owns a home wants to improve it. He has flowers and vines and a well-kept lawn.”

While it may never be known what the true motive was for Mary Farmer’s murder of Sarah Brennan, it is worth exploring, and asking the question, would somebody in their right mind do such a thing?  Or was it simply a matter of cold, calculated murder to get what one wanted?

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