By Ben Gagnon
Staff Writer, The County Press
Hadley — Over 140 years ago, the small agricultural community of Hadley was shaken to its core by a brutal murder case that captured local, state and national headlines.
But time and circumstances had managed to bury the story in the sands of time…until now.
In her new book, “Bloodstained: Exploring Michigan’s Darkest Murders Forgotten By Time,” Fenton-based researcher, historian and author Allie Seibert details five gruesome, highly publicized murders that took place in the state between 1879 and 1940. One of those cases is an 1879 account from the Hadley area, which involved a man named Matt Fitch who shot and killed his wife and daughter in cold blood, then spent over a week hiding in barns on local farms before he was finally caught.
Despite receiving a great deal of local, statewide and national press coverage at the time, the Fitch murder case faded into obscurity—with little to no mention of it anywhere in the last 120 years, until Seibert and archivists with the Hadley Township Historical Society happened to discover a handwritten note that was signed by the killer.
From there, Seibert utilized archived newspapers, vital records and maps to uncover the story and the shocking impact it had on the Hadley community in the late 1800s.
Seibert said her book is an investigation into how high-profile crimes often get buried by the passage of time and other elements.
“For a case that was so widely known at the time, nobody around here had any idea about it until recently. Even the local historians in Hadley hadn’t heard about it until we found the note,” she said. “There are thousands of cases like this that are shocking and well-publicized, but things happen, and time passes on. You wouldn’t think that something like this would happen in ‘little Hadley,’ but it did.”
Seibert described Matt Fitch, who lived in the countryside between Hadley and Goodrich, as a violent alcoholic who abused his wife Emily and their children. Trapped in an increasingly dangerous domestic violence situation, Emily sent her two older boys to stay with families in the Davison area, then decided to leave her husband and take her three-year-old daughter, Edith, with her. While Emily managed to secure employment with the Marston family of Hadley as a housekeeper, Matt Fitch drank himself into a rage and eventually worked up the confidence to purchase a revolver, steal a horse and ride out to the Marston farm on Herd Road to track down his wife and child.
Seibert said Fitch stormed up to Marston home and called for Emily and Edith to come out and see him. When they came outside, Fitch pulled out his gun and shot them both before fleeing on horseback. Emily and Edith both died at the scene of the murder.
Seibert said the townspeople in Hadley and the surrounding area organized a massive manhunt for Fitch, finally catching him at his own house and turning him over to authorities in Lapeer.
“For weeks, Fitch had been telling people that he was going to kill his wife and child. But no one believed him,” she said. “I think people were angry with Fitch and fairly angry at themselves for not doing anything to stop him.”
Fitch was sentenced to life in prison and solitary confinement at Jackson State Prison in Jackson, Mich. A few years later, Fitch experienced a mental breakdown and was sent to the former Michigan State Hospital for the Criminally Insane in Ionia County, where he lived out the rest of his days.
Emily and Edith were buried in the same casket at the Hadley Community Church cemetery—with little Edith tucked away in her mother’s arms. Seibert said the pair no longer has a grave marker to identify their resting place at the cemetery, a situation she would like to see rectified with the placement of a new grave marker someday.
Other shocking and forgotten murder cases detailed in Seibert’s book include a serial killer case from Grand Rapids in 1916; a 1931 account of a woman who shot and killed her boyfriend in a Flint cemetery; a modern day “witch hunt” from 1920s Kalamazoo; and the 1917 strangling of a teenage girl in Alma.
While Bloodstained details some of the most gruesome crimes from the state’s past, Seibert said her book also focuses on the people who were impacted by them: the victims, the families of the killers and victims, and the communities where the crimes took place.
Aside from her new book, Seibert also recently authored The History of the Hadley Mill, which was commissioned by the Hadley Township Historical Society to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Hadley Mill. She is also working on the Hadley Oral History Project in conjunction with the Lapeer District Library’s (LDL) Hadley branch and the Hadley Township Historical Society. The project is aimed at collecting and sharing historically valuable life experiences and memories of community members of Hadley Township and preserving them for future generations.
Seibert’s other recent historical books include the anthology “Forgotten Fenton: Uncovering the Mysteries of a Michigan Town” and “The Mysterious Mrs. White: The True Story of Four Michigan Murders and the People Who Got Away With Them.” She is also the founder and owner of Household History, a company that performs research on old homes and structures.
Bloodstained is available for purchase on Amazon.com and Fenton’s Open Book.
Seibert is also planning to hold a program presentation and book signing for Bloodstained in conjunction with the Hadley Township Historical Society.