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JCHS Journal — Summer 2016
Larkin became enraged when she heard Peck’s account, screaming that she was a liar, and that Larkin had a notion to kill her neighbor. She claimed the baby was diseased, that this was the reason for the bruises and blotches, that she had never whipped it, though she had accidentally stepped on it once when she was backing up. She said the baby fell a lot, which caused the torn skin.
Dr. Katherine Berry Richardson, founder of the hospital with her sister, Dr. Alice Berry Graham, seemed taken with Helen. “The baby is just as bright as she can be,” she said. “But she hardly can live. The treatment we are giving her is prolonging her life … but
Bessie Armstrong, Mr. and Mrs. Larkin’s landlady, reported giving the couple a month’s notice in November, telling them they had to vacate because the constant wailing had become unendurable.
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udge Charles H. Clark presided at the arraignment in the Juvenile Court of Jackson County, in the basement of the Jackson County Courthouse, at Missouri Avenue and Oak Street. He ordered Larkin held without bail, saying, “If the child dies, a charge of murder will be placed against Mrs. Larkin.” Larkin objected that she had “a mother’s feeling,” would never hurt a child, and had a son from her first husband, though they hadn’t seen each other for three years. She also pointed out that she had ridden with the doctor when he had taken Helen to Mercy Hospital — why would she do that if she had treated Helen as charged? She was jailed. There she complained to fellow prisoners of being framed by welfare workers. Most people thought the charge would soon be murder. Helen’s chances were grave. While apparently feeling safer with the white-capped nurses, Helen became terrified when a woman wearing regular clothes stopped beside her bed. Nurses thought Helen must have perceived the woman as Elizabeth Larkin.
the chance for her recovery is so very slight it hardly can be called a chance.” Reporters discovered Helen’s sister Ruby was also at Mercy, also because of physical abuse by her foster mother, though nothing as harsh as what Helen had gone through. Christmas approached, and Larkin, according to the Star, spent her time sewing doll’s clothes as gifts. The Kansas City Journal said she was also making baby clothes for a Christmas charity. The Journal reporter who interviewed her for the Christmas Eve edition described Larkin as sewing “rapidly with skilled fingers on dainty muslins and knitted hoods.” The Star reported, “She continues to deny the statement of neighbors that she mistreated the child.” The doctors at Mercy Hospital planned to decide on Christmas Eve whether or not to operate on Helen. Eventually they decided
against it, feeling her condition was so grave that an operation would do no good, and she would probably die on the operating table. The Journal quoted Dr. Richardson as saying, “It was a ‘neighborhood murder.’ Everybody waited for somebody else to notify the authorities. Nobody did. All are equally culpable, but it is an old story, often told in Kansas City and elsewhere.” Hospital inspectors were convinced at least 30 people were “willing to swear — now —” that Larkin had brutally beaten Helen “on every possible pretext.” At Mr. Keller’s behest, Deputy Prosecutor Kilroy instructed police to arrest Larkin’s husband on a charge of assault with intent to kill. Mrs. Larkin had read some news articles and refused to meet with any reporters, screaming at a photographer, “You can’t take my picture! I won’t have it. Get out of here!” That evening Dr. Robert Schauffler said Helen’s condition had improved.
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n Christmas morning, Helen smiled.
The hospital ward had Christmas decorations — holly, mistletoe, paper bells, a tiny branch of a Christmas tree in the center of the ward. Some presents sat beside Helen — a rubber dog, a small doll, and a “kitty book.” Though with paralyzed legs, Helen propped herself on one elbow and gave forth what one nurse called “such an awakening gurgle from that sad little heart that I never heard anything that made me so sad and yet so happy.” Within the next few days Mr. Larkin was arrested. He acknowledged often questioning his wife about spots and bruises on Helen’s face and body, and that she admit-