I wonder how may have come across relatives that we wish we hadn’t found. I was browsing through the archives of an old New Jersey paper and came across the story from 1892 of a girl named Lizzie Peak who was murdered on her way home one night by a jealous suitor named Wesley Warner. Out of curiosity, I checked some of the online family trees to see what other might know about Wesley and though there are several listings for him, not one mentions the interesting fact that he was executed in 1894 for Lizzie’s murder. There was plenty of news coverage of the trial and all sorts of other interesting facts came to light as well. For starters, Lizzie had a brother, Barclay, who was sent to prison a few years earlier for killing his would-be sweetheart, Katie Anderson, who just happened to also be his cousin. Lizzie also had a sister, Amanda, who had been married to Clarence Warner, brother of Wesley. At the time that Wesley killed Lizzlie, he had a wife , Ellen Hannon, and four children that he had previously deserted, and it appears that Ellen may have had a sister who was married to one of Wesley’s brothers. Got a scorecard? Straightening out these family lines could be a real challenge!
So far, I’ve determined that Wesley’s parents were Hezekiah Warner and Rebecca Jane Vandegrift and the parents of Lizzie Peak were Rebecca and Joseph Peak. One of the many articles related to the two murders stated that the mother (Rebecca) of Lizzie (and Barclay) was the aunt of Katie Anderson, so perhaps Katie’s mother (Joanna) was Rebecca’s sister. Another article mentions Mrs. Frank Powell, a sister-in-law to Wesley Warner. At some point, I hope to tie all these various folks together.