In 1948 the California gold rush led to a rise in population and immigration – between January 1848 and December 1849, San Francisco saw an increase from 1,000 to 25,000 inhabitants. This fast growth continued, and during the 1860s and 1880s, San Francisco started to become a major city.
During this time, the Benhayon family arrived in San Francisco from Germany. Mrs Benhayon had been a widow with a young daughter named Cecilia when she married Mr Benhayon, and after their wedding, they welcomed a son, Henry. Together, the four of them started their new life in San Francisco with little idea that by 1887, Cecilia and Henry would both be dead. Their murders led to a divide in opinion, and even investigators couldn’t agree – was the same person responsible for both murders?
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Source: McIntyre, Sterling C. – 1851
This image is available from the United States Library of Congress‘s Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID cph.3g07421.
Cecilia Gets Married
Cecilia’s first husband was a man called Sylvian Levy, and before their divorce, they had a daughter, Tillie. In July 1881, Cecilia married her second husband, a doctor named Milton Bowers. The marriage caused a rift in the Benhenyon family. Cecilia’s mother disliked her daughter’s new husband, and as a result, Cecilia became estranged from her family.
Four years into the marriage, Cecilia fell sick and was cared for by her husband. Her illness brought her family back together as they visited her sickbed. However, Cecilia’s mother wasn’t happy with Dr Bowers treating her daughter, and she demanded that Cecilia see another doctor. At first, Dr Bowers refused, but Cecilia’s mother insisted, and a new doctor was appointed. Cecilia’s condition didn’t get any better. Her mother, determined not to give up, called a second doctor. Both doctors agreed that Cecilia was suffering from an abscessed liver.
The Mysterious Man
A few months after Cecilia fell sick, a man walked into the American Legion of Honor to inform them that a member was unwell. He claimed that it was due to foul play and said she would soon die – he left the building without giving his name. Why was Cecilia Bowers a member of the American Legion of Honor? It was where her husband had taken out a $17,000 life insurance policy on her life.
Several days later, Cecilia died. An anonymous letter arrived at a San Francisco coroner’s office notifying them of her death. The letter also implied her death was suspicious and claimed she hadn’t died from natural causes.
There was an inquest into Cecilia’s death. The doctors who treated her confirmed she died from an abscessed liver, and a nurse who had looked after Cecilia vouched for Dr Bowers. The nurse, Charlotte Zeissing, also claimed that Cecilia’s last request was that there be no autopsy.
The inquest concluded that there was nothing strange or unusual about Cecilia Bower’s death, but an agent from the insurance company objected and demanded an autopsy.
Rumours started to circulate. Cecilia wasn’t the first wife of Dr Milton Bower, who had died in puzzling circumstances – she was the third. His first wife, Fannie Hammond, died in 1874 of undetermined causes a few years after getting married in Chicago.
When his house burned down, Dr Bowers moved to New York, where he met his second wife, a beautiful actress named Theresa Shirreck. Together they moved to San Francisco, where Dr Bowers set up his medical practice, and Theresa Shirreck became a successful writer. A few years after their move, Theresa died after a short illness that Dr Bowers attributed to a kidney complaint.
The Strange Autopsy
The following day after the inquest, a city doctor arrived at the undertaker’s to carry out the autopsy. The body was not there. Dr Bowers had his wife buried after her funeral. Despite some difficulty with cemetery officials, the coroner managed to get her body exhumed.
The autopsy found no signs of an abscessed liver, but it did find something very unusual. Cecilia’s stomach contained traces of phosphorus that caused it to glow in a darkened room. Cecilia had been poisoned.
Despite his claims of innocence, police arrested Dr Bowers for the murder of his wife. During his trial, medical experts argued over the validity of the phosphorous diagnosis and the motive of Dr Bowers was questioned. Witnesses, including Cecilia’s family, spoke of Dr Bowers’s affairs and abusive treatment of his wife. Cecilia’s brother’s testimony was particularly damaging – he claimed that tablets taken from Cecilia’s bedside had tested positive for phosphorus.
Dr Bowers maintained that he hadn’t killed his wife, and two women fiercely defended him in court – his nurse, Charlotte Zeissing, and his former maid, Theresa Farrell. The trial lasted six weeks, and after just 35 minutes of deliberation, the jury found Dr Bowers guilty of first-degree murder. The judge sentenced him to death by hanging.
Dr Bowers appealed to the Supreme Court. His appeal was successful based on insufficient evidence, and they ordered a new trial.
The Room 21 Mystery
In October 1887, almost two years after the death of Cecilia Bowers, a young man walked into a boarding house looking for a room to rent. Mrs Higgson, the landlady, showed him multiple rooms, but he was only interested in one – room 21.
Mrs Higgson informed him that the room wasn’t available until Saturday, and the man left. The following day a different young man entered the boarding house. He asked to rent room 21 from Saturday and paid a $5 deposit.
A few days later, the coroner received a call from Mrs Higgson – there was a dead body in room 21. The landlady did not recognise the man, and it was neither of the men who had inquired about the room.
When police arrived, they found a bottle of cyanide and three letters beside the body. It seemed as though the man had committed suicide, and in one of the letters, the man confessed to killing Cecilia Bowers. The body was that of her brother, Henry.
The confession revealed that Henry Benhayon had planned to kill Dr Bowers but had poisoned his sister when she discovered his plan. Could Cecilia’s brother be the one responsible for her death? Opinion was divided, even among the detectives, and immediately there were doubts that this was a suicide. The bottle of cyanide found by the body was still tightly corked, and it seemed as though somebody had positioned the body. The pen left by the letters was also unused, and Henry’s friends claimed that the handwriting in the letters did not belong to him.
These strange details piqued the interest of one of the investigators, who believed that it was a ploy to get Dr Bowers free. Together with his partner, he examined the visitor records to Dr Bowers’ cell and found that Charlotte Zeissing and Theresa Farell visited him almost daily. Another frequent visitor was John Dimmig, the husband of Theresa Farrell. The inspector brought this information to Mrs Higgson, who identified John Dimmig as the man who had given her the $5 deposit for room 21.
John Dimmig was arrested and charged with murder. Despite changing his story multiple times and evidence to suggest he had purchased cyanide, Dimmig seemed to have an innocent explanation for it all. The jury was deadlocked, and despite the evidence, he was acquitted at his retrial.
The Fate of Dr Bowers
Did Dr Bowers orchestrate the murder of Henry from jail to free himself? If so, it worked. Eight months after John Dimmig’s acquittal, the district attorney dismissed Dr Bowers’ case claiming it would be impossible to obtain a conviction after the acquittal of Dimmig.
California Digital Newspaper Collection, Center for Bibliographic Studies and Research, University of California, Riverside.
Dr Bowers was released and he returned to running his doctor’s practice. He later moved to San Jose and married for the fourth time – this time, his wife outlived him, and he died in 1904.
Sources & Further Reading
Murder by the Bay: Historic Homicide in and about the City of San Francisco By Charles F. Adams
Dr. Milton Bowers, Wife Killer by Thomas Duke (1910) on Historical Crime Detective.
A number of articles from the California Digital Newspaper Collection
The Bowers Case
Still A Mystery
Grave Suspicions
The Bowers Mystery
Mrs Bowers Death
