In December 1874, Scranton newspapers reported that a Newton farmer named Klein was robbed and shot dead in the Notch while his young son watched. Within days, the story had spread across the United States. There was just one problem. It never happened.
At daybreak on May 22, 1893, a man was shot to death in the backyard of a boarding house on Spencer's Hill in Dunmore. I set out to preserve his memory. Instead, I found the story of the woman at the center of it, an Italian immigrant whose life was harder than anything the newspapers ever printed about her.
In November 1874, a Scranton newsboy found a man dying at the foot of an embankment on Mifflin Avenue. What followed was a murder investigation that led straight to the city's own Chief of Police, and then, stranger still, a year-long political war over who actually held that job. This one has it all: a mob beating, a bribed mayor, three simultaneous police chiefs, and a family legacy that outlived the scandal.
The deeper I dug into the 1872 murder of John Garrity, the clearer it became: this was not just a story about a killing. It was a story about an entire community. Irish immigrants bound together by family, friendship, hardship, and secrets buried in the records of Scranton’s Notch.
The 1872 murder of John Garrity was an open-and-shut case. Part I follows the crime, investigation, and sentencing. But there was more. Part II uncovers the family story the newspapers never reported.
