Jack and Ed Biddle

Jack and Ed Biddle were born (January{{nbsp}}8, 1872 and December{{nbsp}}27, 1876, respectively) in Anderdon Township, Essex County, Ontario (now part of Amherstburg, Ontario) to George and Mary Ann ({{nee}} McQuaide) Biddle.{{refn|

"Ontario Births 1869–1912" and 1881 Canada Census, as found at familysearch.com{{Primary source inline|date=August 2014}}

}} Soffel was born Anna Katharina Dietrich in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.{{refn|{{cite news

|title=Career of Mrs. Soffel, A Victim of Infatuation. Strange Metamorphosis Of Character Under Ed Biddle's Spell|location=Philadelphia |work=Sunday Times |date=February 2, 1902 |page=2 |url=https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/52557648/

}} }}

The Biddles were arrested on April 12, 1901 at a house in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania as leaders of the Chloroform Gang, which for more than one year had been overpowering victims with chloroform or ether and then robbing them.{{cite web|title=The Warden's Wife: Kate Soffel & The Biddle Brothers, 1902|url=http://www.historicalcrimedetective.com/the-wardens-wife-kate-soffel-the-biddle-brothers-1902/|website=Historical Crime Detective|accessdate=18 June 2014}} Tried and convicted on December 12, 1901 of the murder of a Mt. Washington shopkeeper, they were imprisoned in Allegheny County Jail to await hanging.{{cite web|title=Origins of the Allegheny County Police|url=http://www.county.allegheny.pa.us/police/origins.aspx?terms=soffel|work=Allegheny County, Pennsylvania Website|accessdate=February 21, 2014|archive-date=April 7, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140407064430/http://www.county.allegheny.pa.us/police/origins.aspx?terms=soffel|url-status=dead}}

Kate Soffel, wife of warden Peter Soffel,{{cite news|first=Rick|last=Sebak|title=The Biddle Boys Stop for a Bite|work=Pittsburgh Magazine|date=February 21, 2014|url=http://www.pittsburghmagazine.com/Pittsburgh-Magazine/February-2009/The-Biddle-Boys-Stop-for-a-Bite|access-date=April 3, 2014|archive-date=March 4, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304041646/http://www.pittsburghmagazine.com/Pittsburgh-Magazine/February-2009/The-Biddle-Boys-Stop-for-a-Bite/|url-status=dead}} frequently came into contact with prisoners in her efforts to rehabilitate them. She developed an infatuation with Ed Biddle, and she eventually agreed to help the brothers escape by smuggling saws and guns to them.

The brothers sawed openings in the bars of their cells,{{Clarification needed|reason=Were they in the same cell?|date=March 2024}} and at 4{{nbsp}}am on January{{nbsp}}29, 1902 one of them called out that his brother was ill. As a guard approached, Jack Biddle lunged through the opening between the bars, and seizing the guard by the waist, threw him over a railing to the stone floor 16 feet below.

{{cite news|url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1902/01/31/101932285.pdf | work=The New York Times | title=CONDEMNED PRISONERS BREAK OUT OF JAIL; Biddle Brothers, Sentenced to Death, Overpower Guards. Warden's Wife Aids Escape – Charged with Furnishing Tools for Pittsburg Jail Delivery | date=January 31, 1902}}

Ed Biddle shot and wounded a second guard.

The Biddles locked the wounded guards, and the third guard on duty, in the prison "dungeon". After changing from their prison jumpsuits into the guards' street clothes, they left the prison to rendezvous with Soffel. Only at the guards' 6{{nbsp}}am shift change was the escape discovered.

File:BiddleBrothers Capture 1902Jan31.jpg

The three took a trolley to West View, Pennsylvania, then walked a mile to a farm on U.S. Route 19 in Pennsylvania, where they stole a sleigh and a shotgun and started for Butler County.{{r|origins}}{{cite book|last1=McKee|first1=James A.|title=20th century history of Butler and Butler County, Pa., and representative citizens|date=1909|publisher=Richmond-Arnold publishing Co.|location=Chicago|pages=[https://archive.org/details/20thcenturyhisto01mcke/page/123 123]–127|url=https://archive.org/details/20thcenturyhisto01mcke|accessdate=18 June 2014}}

Meanwhile, Charles "Buck" McGovern (one of the detectives who originally arrested the Biddles) gathered a posse, assuming the fugitives were headed for Canada and would follow back roads.

McGovern stationed his men at the Graham Farm in Butler County and waited. After some time the brothers approached, bringing the sleigh to a halt as they realized they were surrounded. One of the detectives recounted the story:

{{quote|

The Biddles were sitting on the right side of the cutter. Mrs. Soffel was on the left side. "Hold up your hands and surrender," Detective McGovern commanded. Ed Biddle jumped up from his seat and, raising a shotgun, fired it at McGovern. He aimed badly, and the shot scattered on the road alongside of McGovern. Detectives McGovern and Roach discharged their Winchesters at Ed Biddle. Both shots took effect. Jack Biddle raised from the seat, and discharged his revolver at the three officers. Detective Swineheart settled himself and fired with a revolver at the man. The ball took effect in Biddle's arm. Then all the detectives opened fire on the Biddles. The shots knocked them out of the sleigh. Ed fell sprawling on the snow, and Jack fell on him.

{{cite news|url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F00615FC3E5412738DDDA80894DA405B828CF1D3 | work=The New York Times | title=PURSUING POSSE SHOT DOWN JAIL BREAKERS; Biddle Brothers and Mrs. Soffel Captured After Desperate Fight. One Man Who Escaped from Allegheny County Jail by Woman's Aid Fatally Wounded – Woman Shoots Herself | date=February 1, 1902}}

}}

However, this account conflicts with that of Jack Biddle:

{{quote|

When we saw the officers coming towards us on the road yesterday evening we knew it was all up. We did not fire a shot at the officers, but agreed to kill ourselves. I shot myself in the mouth. 'Ed' shot himself over the heart. and [Kate Soffel] shot herself in the breast. We knew we had no chance to get away, and we knew we would swing if taken back, and that is why we wanted to kill ourselves.

{{cite news|url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1902/02/02/101932690.pdf | work=The New York Times | title=JAILBREAKERS DEAD IN PRISON OF WOUNDS; Jack Biddle First to Expire, After Making a Confession. Ed Biddle, Riddled by Bullets of Pursuing Posse, Followed in the Night – Mrs. Soffel May Survive | date=February 2, 1902}}

}}

File:KateSoffel Death PittsburghDispatch 1909Aug31.jpg

What precisely happened during the showdown is uncertain, but the police may have opened fire on Soffel and the Biddles when they made their attempt at suicide.

Reporters later described Jack Biddle as "riddled with buckshot", mentioning that the Biddles were armed with a shotgun, but stated that the police only carried revolvers and rifles.

As detectives approached the wounded brothers, Kate Soffel lay near them; she had shot herself. The detectives believed Ed Biddle to be reaching for a pistol, and so they shot him again, with McGovern's firing at the brothers until his rifle's magazine became empty.

All three were taken to the jail at Butler, where the brothers were placed in adjoining cells.{{Clarification needed|reason=Soffel didn't go to a cell?|date=March 2024}} There Jack denied killing the Mt. Washington shopkeeper and a detective who had been shot dead during the Biddles' arrest.

Ed had sustained three gunshot wounds, and Jack was described as "riddled with bullets." Jack died at 7:35{{nbsp}}pm on February{{nbsp}}1{{snd}}the third day after the shooting{{snd}}and Ed, who had been largely unconscious most of the time, died at 11{{nbsp}}pm.

The brothers' bodies were returned to Pittsburgh where they were met by a large crowd: They had become local celebrities. Thousands came to their viewing, some believing they were innocent. They were buried in the Calvary Cemetery on 5 Feb, 1902. Originally the grave was unmarked due to the fact that Ed Biddle committed suicide and suicide was prohibited by Catholic Church, therefore the Biddle brothers can only be buried in the westernmost slope section, Section 1 within Calvary Cemetery.

In 1983, during the filming of Mrs. Soffel, Ron Nyswaner, a resident of Greene County, Pennsylvania and a screenwriter, arranged for MGM to erect a headstone. The headstone is inscribed with the names and dates of death as well as the last verse of the poem penned by Ed Biddle----it's noteworthy here that this poem was written to Julia Foster, daughter of Biddle's one-time spiritual adviser Rev. F.N.Foster, not Mrs. Soffel as shown in the film.

After recovering from her bullet wound and possible pneumonia Soffel was returned to Pittsburgh, where she confessed to aiding the Biddles' escape and received a two-year sentence on 10 May, 1902 at the Western Penitentiary,

{{cite news|title=Died of Their Wounds – Biddle Brothers Succumb to Injuries Received in Fight – Soffel Will Recover

|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1297&dat=19020204&id=uO1NAAAAIBAJ&pg=7114,572895

|work=The Daily Star|location=Fredericksburg, Virginia

|date=February 4, 1902 |edition=evening

}}

{{cite news|url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1909/08/31/101819175.pdf | work=The New York Times | title=MRS. KATE SOFFEL DEAD.; She Won Notoriety by Releasing the Biddle Brothers from Jail | date=August 31, 1909}} but her sentence was reduced for five months due to her good behavior, and she was released in Dec. 1903.

Removed from his job as warden, Soffel's husband divorced his wife in 1903,"Mrs. Soffel's Husband Will Sue for Divorce. Former Warden Declares That He Never Wishes to See His Wife Again." (Philadelphia) Sunday Times, February 2, 1902, 2 and remarried in Feb 1907,1910 Federal Census for Allegheny County, Pennsylvania Enumeration District 541, Sheet 11, Lines 33–40 and moved with the couple's children to Canton, Ohio; he died on 11 September, 1936.1920 Federal Census for Stark County, Ohio Enumeration District 64, Sheet 9-B, Lines 60–65"Biddle Nemesis Dies in Canton, Ohio," (Indiana, Pa.)Gazette, September 15, 1936, 2

Kate Soffel briefly attempted to star in the drama A Desperate Chance after she was released in Dec 1903, but the production was, according to the New York Times, "enjoined by the Fayette County Court". Soffel later returned to Pittsburgh and resided in the North Side (then called City of Allegheny) and took up dressmaking, and sometimes used her maiden name of Dietrich, or called herself Katherine Miller (Miller being the name of a brother-in-law).{{refn|{{cite news|title=The Biddle Drama Dies|work=Pittsburgh Dispatch|date=August 31, 1909}}}} She died of typhoid fever on 30 Aug. 1909, and was buried in her mother's unmarked grave two days later in Smithfield East End Cemetery.{{Citation needed|date=March 2024}}

The Biddle Boys and Mrs. Soffel case sometimes was regarded as the first "Crime of the Century", and it caused a huge sensation that a wife of the warden would escape with two notorious criminals back then, and inspired a number of works and plays about them, and one of the more famous books was The Biddle Boys and Mrs. Soffel: The Great Pittsburgh Tragedy and Romance by Arthur Forrest, just a few years removed from the case in 1902. {{Citation|title=THE BIDDLE BOYS AND MRS. SOFFEL: THE GREAT PITTSBURG TRAGEDY AND ROMANCE, WITH FULL DESCRIPTION OF THEIR LIVES AND CRIMES|url=https://www.abebooks.com/BIDDLE-BOYS-MRS-SOFFEL-GREAT-PITTSBURG/30357934333/bd}}

In 1984, the movie Mrs. Soffel was released by MGM and starred Diane Keaton as Kate Soffel, Mel Gibson as Ed Biddle, and Matthew Modine as Jack Biddle, and the production took place in the old Allegheny County Jail for three days, and then elsewhere in Wisconsin and Toronto. The movie was one of the movies that shows then-interior scenes of the old Allegheny County Jail before it was closed in 1995, and prisoners there were used as extras in the movie.{{Citation needed|date=March 2024}}

In 2001, a lyric opera titled The Biddle Boys and Mrs. Soffel by Jeremy Beckwas performed in Pittsburgh, and excerpts of the play can be accessed at both Beckmusic.org website and YouTube.{{Citation|title=The Biddle Boys and Mrs. Soffel – a lyric opera in three acts|url=https://beckmusic.org/compositions/the-biddle-boys-and-mrs-soffel-a-lyric-opera-in-three-acts/}}{{Citation|title=The Biddle Boys and Mrs. Soffel|url=https://beckmusic.org/videos/page/2/}}

In 2002, University of Pittsburgh emeritus professor William E. Coles Jr. published the book Compass in the Blood, fictionalizing his own experience in doing research on Biddle-Soffel case and searching for Mrs. Soffel's final resting place. {{Citation|title=A closer look at some selected Books & Journals: William Coles/"Compass in the Blood"|url=https://www.utimes.pitt.edu/archives/?p=2305}}"[https://www.utimes.pitt.edu/archives/?p=853 Obituary: William E. Coles, Jr.]" Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: University Times, University of Pittsburgh, April 14, 2005.

{{reflist}}

• {{find a Grave|42623661}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Biddle, Jack and Ed}}

Category:People from Essex County, Ontario

Category:Prisoners and detainees of Pennsylvania

Category:Brother duos

Category:20th-century American criminals

Category:Burials at Calvary Catholic Cemetery (Pittsburgh)

Category:American escapees

Category:American people convicted of murder

Category:American prisoners sentenced to death

Category:Murderer duos

Category:People convicted of murder by Pennsylvania

Category:People shot dead by law enforcement officers in Pennsylvania

Category:Prisoners sentenced to death by Pennsylvania