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Middle-Aged Man Chose Suicide Over Non-Stop Demands From His 18-Year-Old Bank Robber Wife
A hapless man with a much younger wife ended up taking his own life after her nonstop requests wouldn’t stop even when she was behind bars
When Thomas Hitchings met a young woman 37 years his junior who cozied up to him at a speakeasy, he probably thought it was the luckiest day of his life. The pair got married, but a year and a half into their nuptials, the older man took his own life after his wife was sent to prison for bank robbery, and the never ending string of requests she demanded that he fulfill for her wouldn’t stop.
The suicide of the 55-year-old Hitchings, a justice of the peace and insurance salseman, was reported in February of 1929. After he was discovered, letters from him and his wife painted the bleak picture of why he had taken such drastic measures. The cause of taking his own life was considered so shocking that it became fodder for the news.
He had been married to 18-year-old Bernice for the past 18 months in what could only be described as an unmitigated disaster after meeting her in a speakeasy. She also worked as his stenographer leading up to them becoming romantically involved. A photo taken after their wedding commemorates their doomed union.
Only three days after they were married, she ran away and was arrested in a brand new automobile he had bought her for a wedding present (initially, he had presented her with a used car but she was so disgusted by it that he dutifully exchanged it for a new one). She was with another man named Newman Cox, and the pair were charged with the theft of the vehicle and for robbing a Vernon, Illinois bank of $3,200.
Bernice confessed that she and a cousin sat in the rumble seat of the car while Cox and other accomplices robbed the bank. As a result, she was sentenced to an indeterminate amount of time behind bars levied at one year to life.
After Hitchings’ death, a trove of letters was discovered from his wife that indicated she had him wrapped around his little finger and that the stress of trying to keep up with her numerous demands eventually sent him over the edge.
