Truly Shattuck (1876-1954) was a vaudeville star, stage actress, and subsequent bit player in films with a career spanning from the 1890s to 1920s. While her later life was plagued with drama of its own (such as a widely-publicized shoplifting arrest in 1929, after her career had dried up and she was essentially destitute), the most scandalous incident, and the one that made her famous, took place in 1894 when her mother murdered Truly’s fiancé.
During the month of November, 1892, Miss Truly Shattuck was employed in a store called the “Vienna Bazaar,” at 1132 Market Street. She was a girl of striking appearance and had admirers galore, but her favorite seemed to be a young man named Harry Poole, who, on the death of his grandfather, Mr. Gerlack, expected to inherit $100,000.00.
In 1893 Truly secured an engagement as a chorus girl in the Tivoli Opera House. She and Poole gradually became more intimate and on June 4, 1894, Mrs. Jane Shattuck, the mother of Truly, addressed a note to Poole, in which she requested him to declare his intentions toward Truly. This note resulted in a bitter quarrel between Poole and Mrs. Shattuck.
On Sunday morning, July 7, 1894, Truly Shattuck returned to her home at 413 Stevenson Street. She admitted to her mother that she had spent the night with Harry Poole, but attempted to pacify her by saying that they were to be married on the following Monday.
Mrs. Shattuck then ordered Truly to write a note to Poole, which the mother dictated as follows:
Dear Harry:—For God’s sake come down at once for Mama is dying and wants to see you. My darling, if you love me, come quickly, or you may not see her alive.
With love, Truly
P.S.—Harry, you can afford to forgive her, and for love of heaven come quickly.
This note was sent by a messenger and Poole called immediately. He found Mrs. Shattuck propped up on pillows in her bed. She told Poole that he and Truly had done wrong. Poole began stroking her left hand, which was outside of the bed covers, and admitted that the accusation was true, but stated that on the following day he would make amends for the evil he had done by making Truly his wife.
Truly left the room at this moment, and the next instant a pistol shot rang out. She rushed back to the room and found Poole lying on the floor dying, with a bullet hole in his temple, while Mrs. Shattuck had a revolver in her right hand which she had previously concealed in the bed. She was hysterical and declared she had killed Poole because he had taken her “baby girl.”
She was tried before Judge E.A. Belcher, and was found guilty of murder. [She] was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Her defense was insanity and a new trial was subsequently granted by the Supreme Court, with the result that on December 15, 1895, she was acquitted.
Truly took advantage of the notoriety she gained following this tragedy and procured an engagement as a singer on the vaudeville stage. Her beautiful face and figure, and fairly good voice, made her quite an attraction in both America and Europe, but a critic has recently referred to her as “Truly Shattuck, with a voice truly shattered.”
(From “Celebrated Criminal Cases of America” by Thomas S. Duke, 1910)
