On March 24, 1990, Edna Deshunk Mumbulo died of old age. At age 99, she had not been the oldest resident at the Erie County Geriatric Center, but she may have been the most famous — if they had only remembered. In the following days, Edna’s body was taken from St. Vincent’s Medical Center in Erie where she had died, to St. Joseph’s Cemetery in Perry, New York. There, in the small local cemetery grounds, in a plot freshly dug, despite the frozen ground, Edna was buried.
Edna Deshunk Mumbulo was a mystery to those people who surrounded her; to those who came in and out of her life just before her dying days in 1990. She was, likewise, a mystery to the people who she encountered in 1930. Edna Deshunk Mumbulo was not simply a little old lady, frail and sweet. Edna was the Torch Killer of 1930.
In April of 1930 Edna Mumbulo was charged with the murder of her stepdaughter Hilda. It was alleged that Edna deliberately set fire to the eleven-year old girl with the hopes of obtaining the girl's $6,000 estate and receiving the sole affections of the girl's father. Edna Mumbulo's case was the most sensational murder case in Erie to that date.
It all begun on March 21, 1930, when Mrs. Edna Mumbulo threw a pan of gasoline on little Hilda, setting her on fire, not only killing her, but inflicting a slow and agonizing end. Later that morning, as Hilda lay in the hospital gasping her last breath, her father and stepmother were already in their insurance man's office cashing in her $6,000 life insurance policy. Edna was viewed to have admitting it to the police when she stated that she didn't intend to throw the gasoline on little Hilda, the pan accidentally ignited and that she was only trying to throw the blazing pan outdoors; she claimed that she was aiming for the window in the girl's room, but it was closed, and the lit gasoline splashed back six feet onto Hilda's bed, and the girl — that was her defense. It appeared that the case was to be open-and-shut.
In the trial one lone juryman held out for an acquittal, and hours of wrangling with others who wanted to send her to the electric chair led to a compromise verdict of second-degree murder. Mrs. Mumbulo's imprisonment was a mere lull in the legal battle that was to come afterwards. It was a common prejudice in 1930, that only ugly women could commit such brutal crimes. Edna was an attractive young woman and a mother. During her trial, she was reunited with a daughter that she didn't raise, and everyone saw them weep and fall into one another's arms. What is clear from the newspaper coverage of the case — which was sparse — is that the men on the jury and on the bench did not want to believe this attractive woman — a mother, could commit such an atrocious crime. Over time, they convinced themselves that it might have been an accident after all. Mrs. Mumbulo’s lawyer appealed her conviction and the judge recommended a pardon. Instead, the governor gave her a Christmas commutation in 1938, sentencing her to time served.
Edna served a mere eight years and three months for murdering her stepdaughter.
Edna was born December 1, 1890, in North Baltimore, Ohio, to George Shunk and Mary Agnes Arbogast. George was a glassblower for a small company run by Philip Arbogast, Mary's father. Several branches of the Arbogast family were well-known in southwest Pennsylvania and West Virginia for their glass-making skills. George and Mary met through that industry. Their fourth child was Edna. When Edna was a small child, the family moved from their home south of Toledo to Pittsburgh's Homewood District. There, as Catholics, they joined the Holy Rosary Catholic Church where Mary played the organ for Sunday Masses and her eight daughters served as members of the church choir. Around 1906, however, Edna strayed from her faith and fell in love with a local boy named Harold Van Sickle. By her sixteenth birthday, Edna was the mother of twins. Unable to care for the twins, the children were sent off to live with her older sister. Nonetheless, Harold and Edna were married. After only ten months of marriage, Harold passed away. With his death, Edna had to go to work. She held various jobs between 1907 and 1909, including working as a bundle wrapper for Kaufman's Department Store in Pittsburgh, and as a freelance dressmaker in the city. In 1910 with nearly the entire family in tow, George, Mary, and Edna moved to the small town of Coudersport in northern Pennsylvania.
By the mid-1920s Edna had relocated from Coudersport to New Berlin, New York. There, she found work in the silk mill. One of Edna's co-workers at the silk mill was Ralph Mumbulo. Very quickly, over the course of 1926-1927, the two formed a friendship. Despite her new job and new friends, Edna was plagued by family problems. Her elderly father, who was close to 90 years old, was without a home and assistance and bounced around from child to child. With his mind rapidly failing, he was increasingly a burden on those family members who cared for him. By 1927 it was Edna's turn to care for her father, who lived with her in New Berlin for one year before returning to another of Edna's siblings in Arkansas. It was during her father's stay that she and Ralph solidified their relationship.
Their relationship was an illicit alliance. Ralph was married. In August of 1927 Ralph was brazen enough to introduce Edna to his eight-year old daughter, Hilda. The following year, Hilda's mother, Edith Chapen Mumbulo, died suddenly in late 1928. In the wake of her death, Hilda received an estate valued at over $6000, the bulk of which she would receive when she turned twenty-one. By the time the estate papers were formally recorded and the family apprised of the nature of the settlement, the country found itself amid an economic tailspin that would soon become a Great Depression that would depress the lives of millions of Americans for a decade. The silk mills temporarily closed and both Edna and Ralph were released from their jobs. For several months, the threesome (Ralph Mumbulo, daughter Hilda Mumbulo, and Edna Shunk) wandered across the United States. Ralph took day jobs, while Edna continued to find work as a dressmaker. Finally, on November 8, 1929, the threesome found their way to Erie.
In Erie the three set up house in a second-floor apartment at the corner of 6th and Lighthouse on Erie's Lower-East Side. Ralph found work at the Standard Stoker Company in Erie as a welder, while Edna designed and made dresses out of their apartment. She also earned extra money, and the trust of her neighbors, by babysitting their children. Together they made less than twenty-five dollars per week. The cost of food and rent ate up much of those earnings. Despite the low income, the Mumbulos could afford to buy a new Ford automobile. Bought on credit, the purchase of the new Ford will later be viewed with suspicion. Hilda was enrolled in Wayne School and quickly developed friends from among her classmates. Over the course of the next four months, Edna and Hilda endeared themselves to their neighbors.
Edna, however, was growing disillusioned over her relationship with Ralph. She had not been able to care for her twin boys twenty years earlier and now, as she approached her fortieth birthday, she was saddled with the care of an eleven year old girl, who was not biologically her own. Ralph worked hard at the forge and she spent her days in the apartment alone or with Hilda. The conditions in the apartment were clean, but crowded. It was, by design, a one-bedroom apartment, but because of Edna's desire for privacy, the sitting room adjacent to the kitchen was converted into a bedroom for Hilda. The family, as a result, was forced to spend their time in the apartment either in their own bedrooms or together in the 8 by 14-foot kitchen. The existing tensions between the three were exacerbated by the crowded living conditions. Moreover, Ralph freely spent their limited money on Hilda. He frequently sent her to the movies and bought her new clothes. Edna, as a result, grew jealous of Hilda. On at least one occasion, Edna threatened to leave Ralph because she believed he thought more of his daughter than he did of her. The tensions between Ralph and Edna were further compounded by their growing economic problems. The bills were adding up, and they all needed to be paid. Edna’s father back in Arkansas, needed money as well. And Hilda wanted more. The problems seemed insurmountable. In the back of both of Edna’s mind, however, there was a chance — a $6000 chance.
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| The Edna Mumbulo Case of 1930 — A newspaper clipping. |