Charles Chapin

Overview

Charles Chapin (October 19, 1858 – December 13, 1930) was a New York newspaper editor. He was convicted of the murder of his wife and sentenced to a 20-year-to-life term in Sing Sing prison.

Timeline

• September 16, 1918 — Chapin shot and killed his wife while she was sleeping at the Cumberland Hotel.
• 1919 — Chapin was sentenced to a 20-year-to-life term.
• December 13, 1930 — Chapin died in Sing Sing prison.

Background

Chapin was born in upstate Watertown, New York. He began his career on a Kansas newspaper at age 14, and he later moved to Chicago to work for the Tribune, where he gained renown as a crime reporter. In 1898, he was hired by the World, a New York daily run by the Pulitzer family, which enjoyed one of the largest circulations in the country. Chapin became editor of the evening edition of the World and was renowned as a hard taskmaster.

During his tenure at the World, Chapin was said to have fired a total of 108 journalists. One of the dismissals was for daring to use the new-fangled word “questionnaire”. Among those victims was his own publisher’s son.

Opinions of Chapin differed. To many newspapermen, he was “the greatest city editor who ever lived”. Those who worked for him often hated him. When Irvin S. Cobb, a World reporter, heard that Chapin was sick, he was said to have looked up from his work and remarked, “I hope it’s nothing trivial.”

Andy Logan described Chapin as “terrible tempered” and said that, in the opinion of many of his staff, he had “a legendary imperviousness to human suffering, especially theirs.”

Notable journalism event

One of Chapin’s celebrated coups involved the publication of a photograph captured by an Evening World photographer showing the moment when New York mayor William Jay Gaynor was shot by a would-be assassin. William Warnecke, the photographer, had been lining up a portrait of the mayor and snapped the shutter just as Gaynor crumpled to the ground. When the developed photo arrived on Chapin’s desk, Chapin’s response was: “Blood all over him! And exclusive, too!”

Marriage and financial circumstances

Chapin’s wife was Nellie. The childless Chapins had enjoyed a long marriage. They wed at age 21, months after they met in Chicago. Nellie quit an acting career to follow her husband from one newspaper gig to the next.

Chapin was reported to have expected to inherit a fortune from his great-uncle, Russell Sage. Russell Sage died in 1906, leaving Chapin just $50,000 of his $70 million estate. Chapin had borrowed for years against his expected inheritance, and the will brought financial ruin to him.

Chapin sold his yacht, stiffed the Plaza for $2,000, and moved Nellie to the Cumberland Hotel, at 54th and Broadway. He lost the last of his equity when the commodities market tanked during World War I. By 1918, he was flat broke. He wrote that he was “Worse than that, I was ruined and dishonored”. He also wrote: “Suicide, the last resort of a moral coward, I decided, was preferable to never-ending disgrace, so I went about preparing for it.”

The offence

Chapin shot and killed his spouse while she was sleeping.

On Sept. 16, 1918, Chapin borrowed a revolver from a former police commissioner and shot his wife as she slept at the Cumberland on Sept. 16, 1918. He left two self-serving suicide notes:

“I have tried to think out what is best to do,” he wrote, “and cannot bear the thought of leaving my wife to face the world alone, so I have resolved to take her with me.”

After the shooting, Chapin rode the subway to Brooklyn, planning to shoot himself there. He got cold feet and surrendered to cops.

Investigation and legal position

Chapin claimed insanity. A number of reporters agreed that he may have been crazy all along. A lunacy commission cleared him for trial, and he was allowed to plead guilty to second-degree murder, which spared his life.

Sentencing

Chapin was sentenced to a 20-year-to-life term in 1919. He was sent to Sing Sing prison for a term of 20 years to life.

Aftermath in prison

Chapin wrote a memoir in prison and became renowned for the rose garden he cultivated in the grounds, acquiring the nickname “The Rose Man.” He edited the prison newspaper at Sing Sing for a short time.

Warden Lewis Lawes allowed Chapin to create a flower garden in a desolate prison yard. The garden was said to have inspired the inmates’ troubled souls. Someone said it inspired the inmates’ troubled souls.

Chapin died of pneumonia at Sing Sing in 1930.

Other details

Chapin explained:

“Gathering the news of a great city is a carefully thought-out and systematized piece of human machinery that operates under the personal supervision of the city editor.”

He was described as supervising with a cudgel.

Chapin bragged that he fired 108 newsmen in his career—one for using the new-fangled word “questionnaire” in a story and another for failing to show a telltale limp after he missed work due to a supposed foot injury.

Rewriteman Cobb described Chapin’s attitude toward money:

“He dearly loved money, not for the sake of hoarding it, but for what it could bring him in luxury and display,” said rewriteman Cobb.

Chapin was quoted about his wife:

“She was the sweetest, the truest, the most lovable woman I have ever known — full of fun and joy of living,” Chapin said of his wife. “All who knew her loved her.”

Andy Logan wrote:

“They had known he would be involved in a murder some day,” Logan writes, “but had always assumed he would be the victim.”

Chapin died on December 13, 1930. He had been born on October 19, 1858.