This Day in Crime History: FEBRUARY 24, 1981 : HARRIS IS CONVICTED OF MURDERING SCARSDALE DIET DOCTOR

Socialite Jean Harris is convicted of murdering Dr. Herman Tarnower, the author of the bestselling The Complete Scarsdale Medical Diet. Harris, the headmistress of an exclusive girls’ school, shot Dr. Tarnower at his Westchester County, New York, home on March 10, 1980. Harris claimed that she had been trying to kill herself but that Tarnower was shot when he tried to wrestle the gun away from her.

Harris and Tarnower had been a couple since they met in 1966. However, Tarnower was a notorious womanizer who never followed through on his vague promises to marry the 56-year-old Harris. In the late 1970s, Harris discovered that Tarnower was having an affair with a younger woman. Nonetheless, she assisted him in writing and editing The Complete Scarsdale Medical Diet, which became a surprise sensation, earning Tarnower wealth and fame.

Tarnower, however, was not the grateful type. He spurned Harris at the first sign of success. After this unceremonious dumping, Harris drove from her school in Virginia to Tarnower’s home late at night on March 10. She used her key to get in and went up to his bedroom with a loaded .32 caliber gun.

Harris later claimed that she went there with suicidal intentions. However, the fact that Tarnower was shot four times seemed to belie her defense. Rather than maintain that she had killed in the heat of the moment, which would have dealt a manslaughter conviction, Harris insisted that the shooting was an accident. Her gamble (or insistence on principle) failed when the jury convicted her of murder and gave her a life sentence.

Harris was a model prisoner who used every opportunity to bring attention to the plight of women prisoners. She wrote the well-received They Always Call Us Ladies about the prison system in 1988. Her sentence was commuted by New York governor Mario Cuomo in late 1992. After her release, Harris continued her work on behalf of female prisoners.

Article Details:

February 24, 1981 : Harris is convicted of murdering Scarsdale Diet doctor

• Author

  History.com Staff

• Website Name

  History.com

• Year Published

  2009

• Title

  February 24, 1981 : Harris is convicted of murdering Scarsdale Diet doctor

• URL

  http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/harris-is-convicted-of-murdering-scarsdale-diet-doctor

• Access Date

  February 24, 2016

• Publisher

  A+E Networks

Bit of South Africa History in pictures: Hartbeespoort Dam (Harties)

The possibility of building a dam in the Hartbeespoort, where the Crocodile River cuts through the Magaliesberg, had already been considered since 1902 although the water of the Crocodile River has been used since the Stone Age. For nine hundred years the Iron Age people utilized the clay, iron ore and flora for man and animal. In 1836 the white pioneers “discovered” the potential of the water. Fountains, brooks and rivers were harnessed for household and agricultural purposes and for mechanical power for mills. Fords and bridges were constructed and the rivers became the focal point of attention.

In those years already water was gathered from rivers and brooks and taken to the nearby fertile grounds by furrows. Sometimes small weirs were built in the streams and often retention dams were constructed in convenient positions to regulate the supply of water over dry periods. In the Brits and De Kroon area there were seven unlined furrows and weirs in the Crocodile River alone before 1863 which irrigated about 2000 ha of riverside land. These ‘old furrows’ were operated and maintained by owners until recently.

In 1898 Hendrik Schoeman (later general) built the first “grand scale” dam of stone and cement and dammed the whole Crocodile River in the Witwaterspoort. This ambitious scheme, which he called the Sophiasdam after his wife, cost him £10 000. In those years it was the biggest dam in the southern hemisphere. Unfortunately the engineer made a mistake in his calculations and the dam was washed away in a flood. Johan Schoeman, Hendrik Schoeman’s son, in 1902 revived the idea by rebuilding the furrows fed by a smaller weir higher up in the river. With this he irrigated 3000 ha of land. 

Between 1905 and 1910, various preliminary investigations were undertaken by the then Department of Irrigation of the Republic of the Transvaal, under Mrrs WL Strange and FA Hurley. With the establishment of the Union of South Africa in 1910, the investigations were temporarily suspended. However increased public interest resulted in the Hartbeespoort Irrigation Scheme (Crocodile River) Act (Act 32 of 1914). Act 32 of 1914 authorised the construction of the Hartbeespoort Dam on the farm Hartbeesfontein. Construction of the dam was however postponed due the outbreak of the First World War (1914 - 1918). 

Building of the dam started in 1918 when ground was bought or expropriated, roads, a suspension footbridge with a span of 60m, staff quarters, offices, power house, cement shed were built. A 15km cocopan railway line was built from the Brits West siding to transport cement, stone and sand to the Poort. The cocopans were drawn by oxen, horses and mules. Work also started on the building of the two cofferdams to dam up the river so that the dam wall foundations could be poured. These cofferdams however washed away during the flood of March 1921.

After the flood the department employed the engineer, FW Scott, who revised the plans by replacing the gravity structure (the same type of wall that was used at Sophiadam) with a varying radius arch structure, which would be supported against the rock faces on both sides of the Poort. This was done primarily to be able to complete the foundations and get the dam level above riverbed in one dry season and also to save costs on the volume of cement required. Initial estimates were that 800 000 bags of cement would be required but by changing the design of the wall this amount was reduced to 250 000 bags.

The cofferdams were reinforced in April 1921 but still more water that could be handled by pumps moved through the working areas. It was then decided to divert the river through an 80m long tunnel with dimensions of 1.8 x 3.6m. The water was guided into the tunnel from a weir upstream. The river was successfully diverted through the tunnel on 24 May 1921 making it possible for the foundations to be excavated. 

The first concrete was poured into the  foundations of the wall by 29 July 1921 and by 7 September 1921 7220 m³ of concrete had been placed, raising the wall 2m above the riverbed. The floods of the 1922/23 season were impounded and the wall proper completed in April 1923. The road over the wall, now the new main road between Pretoria and Rustenburg, was opened to the public in September 1923. The dam overflowed for the first time in 1925.

In 1970 the dam supply level was raised by 2,44 m by the installation of 10 crest gates on the spillway. Each crest gate is 10,06 m long and 2,44 m high.

Sources:

- Hartbeespoort Environment and Heritage Association (HEHA) CD-set - SA Irrigation Department Magazine: Hartbeespoort Dam, November 1923- Hartbeespoort Government Water Scheme, 1991 (DWAF)- The Damming of The Poort: The construction of the Hartbeespoort Dam, 1991 

This Day in Crime History: FEBRUARY 23, 1885 : A REMARKABLE REPRIEVE FOR A MAN SENT TO THE GALLOWS

On this day in 1885, a 19-year-old man named John Lee is sent to the gallows in Exeter, England, for the murder of Ellen Keyse, a rich older woman for whom he had worked. Although he insisted he was innocent, Lee had been convicted and sentenced to death by hanging.However, after the noose wasput around his neck and the lever that would release the floor beneath his feet was pulled, something malfunctioned and Lee was not dropped.Strangely, theequipmenthad beentested and found to be in working order. In facts, weights used in a test run plunged to the ground as expected.The hanging was attempted two more times, but when Lee stood on the trap door, and the lever was pulled, nothing happened. He was then sent back to prison. 

On November 15, 1884, Keyse, who had been a maid to Queen Victoria, was found dead in a pantry next to Lee’s room. Her head was severely battered and her throat cut. There was no direct evidence of Lee’s guilt; the case was made solely on circumstantial evidence. The alleged motive was Lee’s resentment at Keyse’s mean treatment.

The authorities, mystified at the gallows’ inexplicable malfunction, decided to ascribe it to an act of God. Lee was removed from death row, his sentence commuted, and he spent the next 22 years in prison. After he was released, he emigrated to America. The cause of Lee’s remarkable reprieve was never discovered.

Condemned prisoners no longer have a chance at such reprieves. Even when there are mishaps in carrying out an execution (in one case, an executioner failed to properly find a vein for a lethal injection), authorities follow through until the prisoner has been put to death.

Article Details:

February 23, 1885 : A remarkable reprieve for a man sent to the gallows

• Author

  History.com Staff

• Website Name

  History.com

• Year Published

  2009

• Title

  February 23, 1885 : A remarkable reprieve for a man sent to the gallows

• URL

  http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/a-remarkable-reprieve-for-a-man-sent-to-the-gallows

• Access Date

  February 23, 2016

• Publisher

  A+E Networks