Beulah Annan

{{Infobox person

| name = Beulah Annan

| image = DN-0076798 – Beulah Annan sitting with her head tilted to the left (cropped).jpg

| caption = Annan circa April 4, 1924, the day after the murder

| other_names = Beulah Stephens

| birth_name = Beulah May Sheriff

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1899|11|18}}

| birth_place = Owensboro, Kentucky, U.S.

| death_date = {{Death date and age|1928|03|10|1899|11|18}}

| death_place = Chicago, Illinois, U.S.

| resting_place = Daviess County, Kentucky, U.S.

| known_for = Inspiration for Roxie Hart in Chicago

| spouse = {{plainlist|

{{marriage |Perry Stephens||1920|end=}}
{{marriage |Albert "Al" Annan |1920|1927|end=div}}
{{marriage |Edward Harlib|1927|1927|end=div}}

}}

| partner = Harry Kalstedt (1920-24)

}}

Beulah May Annan (née Sheriff; November 18, 1899 – March 10, 1928) was an American suspected murderer. Her story inspired Maurine Dallas Watkins's play Chicago in 1926. The play was adapted into a 1927 silent film, a 1975 stage musical, and a 2002 movie musical (which won the Academy Award for Best Picture), all with that title, and a 1942 romantic comedy film, Roxie Hart, named for the character who Annan inspired.

Early life

Beulah May Sheriff was born in Owensboro, Kentucky, to Mary ({{nee|Neel}}) and John R. Sheriff. While living in Kentucky, she married her first husband, newspaper Linotype operator Perry Stephens. They soon divorced, and Beulah then met car mechanic Albert Annan. They went to Chicago together, where they got married on March 29, 1920.{{cite news|first=Maurine Dallas|last=Watkins|authorlink=Maurine Dallas Watkins|title=Demand Noose for 'Prettiest' Woman Slayer|newspaper=Chicago Daily Tribune|date=April 5, 1924|page=1}}

In Chicago, Albert found work as a mechanic at a garage and Beulah eventually became a bookkeeper at Tennant's Model Laundry. At the laundry she met Harry Kalsted [misspelled Kalstedt by the press], and the two began an affair.

The Homicide

On April 3, 1924, in the married couple's bedroom, Annan shot Kalsted. According to the autopsy, the bullet passed laterally through Kalsted's torso.Autopsy report in Inquest No. 114647 on the body of Harry Kalstedt [Kalsted], April 4th, 1924, at 4227 Cottage Grove and 4th District Police Station, Office of the Cook County Medical Examiner, as cited in Cosgrove, They Both Reached for the Gun, 29 The bullet's path made it difficult to judge whether Kalsted was turned sideways to move away from Annan when she shot him or was turned sideways toward her, perhaps reaching to take the gun away from her. According to Annan's initial story, Kalsted attempted to rape her, so she retreated to the bedroom, picked up the gun off the unmade bed (her husband being in the habit of keeping the gun under his pillow), and shot Kalsted as he came toward her. After intensive interrogation at the Hyde Park police station, she eventually admitted that she and Kalsted had been having an affair, that she invited him to bring her wine, that they "had a jazz" (sex) on the couch, and that they got into a heated argument over the fact that he had been lying to her and everyone else about his sordid past. At some point Kalsted "jumped up," she said, and they both "beat it for the bedroom," where they simultaneously reached for the gun on the bed. She got the revolver first and shot him, she explained. During this interrogation, she was never asked why she shot Kalsted or what Kalsted did just before she shot him. Hence, her answers, on which the prosecution nevertheless relied in court, did not disclose whether Kalsted was retreating when she shot him, as the prosecution claimed, or trying to take the gun from her, another plausible possibility.Transcript of interrogation in Inquest No. 114647 on the body of Harry Kalstedt [Kalsted], as cited in Cosgrove, They Both Reached for the Gun, 39-43 After wiping the fallen Kalsted's face with a damp cloth and pushing at his eyelids to see if he was alive, Annan concluded that he was dead. The coroner's physician subsequently confirmed that Kalsted died almost instantly, when the bullet passed through his heart. Fearing that neighbors had heard the shot, Annan put on a jazz recording of a song called "Hula Lou." Some newspapers, probably inspired by misleading statements by the police, falsely claimed that she played the record over and over and danced around the apartment, while a dying Kalsted bled out on her bedroom floor.Chicago Daily Tribune, April 24, 1924, p. 1; Chicago Daily News, April 4, 1924, p. 1. In fact, she fretted, muddled by wine and worried about the conclusions the police might draw from the circumstances. She finally called her husband at work. When he arrived home, he was the one who finally called the police.Description of the shooting and its aftermath, based on the inquest report, in Cosgrove, They Both Reached for the Gun'', 31-34

The trial

File:DN-0076803 – Beulah Annan and her husband Al sitting with William Scott Stewart, c. April, 1924.jpg

In the days following her arrest, Annan repeated her statement that she got hold of the gun just before Kalsted grabbed it. At her trial, probably following direct advice or at least insinuation from her attorneys, she reverted to her claim that she hardly knew Kalsted, who wheedled his way into her apartment and then tried to rape her. Her lawyers argued that Kalsted was reaching toward her when she pulled the trigger in self-defense, which explained why the bullet traveled laterally through his torso. Prosecutors claimed that Annan shot Kalsted in a rage because he threatened to leave her.Transcripts of the Annan trial published in the Chicago American (May 24, 1924), the Chicago Daily News (May 24, 1924), and the Chicago Tribune (May 23-25, 1924) analysis in Cosgrove, They Both Reached for the Gun, 97-108. The trial ended with an acquittal, which should not have been surprising, given the ambiguity of the state's evidence.

Albert Annan stood by Beulah after her arrest, but there are conflicting reports about how long the relationship lasted following the trial and whether she left him or he left her.Baltimore Sun, July 13, 1924, part 2, sect. 4, p. 3; Washington Post, July 13, 1924; Owensboro Messenger, June 24, 1924, p. 2; Atlanta Constitution, May 26, 1924, p. 1; Chicago Daily News, May 25, 1924, p. 7; Chicago Evening Journal, May 26, 1924, p. 8; Certificate of Evidence in Beulah Annan vs. Albert Annan, Superior Court of Cook County, no. 440102.

Later life

In 1927, after her divorce from Annan was finalized, she married Edward Harlib, a boxer. Just three months later she claimed that he had been cruel to her and filed for divorce. In the divorce settlement, Harlib paid her $5,000 (equivalent to ${{Inflation|US|5|1927|r=0}},000 in current dollars). After her divorce from Harlib, Annan was involved with a fourth man, Able Marcus.{{citation needed|date=January 2017}}

Death

Annan died of tuberculosis, aged 28, at the Chicago Fresh Air Sanatorium, where she was staying under the name Beulah Stephens, in 1928, four years after her acquittal on charges of murder.

She was returned to her home state for burial in Mount Pleasant Cumberland Presbyterian Church Cemetery, Daviess County, Kentucky.{{cite news|first=Kathleen|last=M'Laughlin|title=Buelah Annan, Chicago's Jazz Killer, is Dead|newspaper=Chicago Daily Tribune|date=March 14, 1928|page=3}} Her grave marker incorrectly notes her death as a year earlier, stating it to be March 10, 1927.{{Find a Grave|7826742|Beulah May Sheriff Annan}}