Volume 9 , Issue 34

1920 News - Alva Man Slews Wife & Baby In Michigan

September, 1920 News headlines read: Alva Man Slews Wife & Baby In Michigan. The Oklahoman, dated September 26, 1920, pg. 75, headlines: Former Alva Man Who Slew Wife and Baby Was "Queer" - Dr. Sedgwick Had Double Nature, Acquaintances Say; Wife Left Destitute To Prove Up Claim.

Alva, Okla., Sept. 23, 1920 -- "Dr. Otis W. Sedgwick, who is in jail in Muskegon, Mich., charged with the murder of his wife and 3-year-old daughter who were found strangled to death on the lawn of their home in Whitehall, Mich., was formerly a resident of Alva, Oklahoma.

Dr. Sedgwick and his wife came to this city about five years ago (1915) where for a year he was a practicing physician. He is remembered here as a pleasant, likeable man, but "quite queer."

He Took Treatments... Since learning of the double killing, Alva recalls that while living here, Dr. Sedgwick frequently made trips to the east and upon being questioned by his acquaintances on his return stated that he was not feeling well and had gone away for treatments. Questions which are now being asked here is whether nature incarnated in him a Jekyll-Hyde nature which was so apparent in the method of the killing of his wife and daughter and since his imprisonment in the Muskegon jail. Did he through his laboratory work discover a personality changing fluid? Is another question often asked.

Was Fond of His family... Always attentive to his wife during their residence of a year in Alva, their friends attribute his strange actions and the filling of his family to insanity.

In the fall of 1917 Mrs. Sedgwick took up a claim near Faulkner, 29 miles northwest of Alva, where a few months later their baby was born.

During her stay of eighteen months on the claim, Dr. sedgwick seldom went to the home, spending most of his time in other localities, a greater part of the time leaving his wife in destitute circumstances. Without a well on the claim, Mrs. Sedgwick depended entirely on the neighbors to haul water, often being forced to drink water which had been standing in a barrel for ten days to two weeks. Food frequently was given Mrs. Sedgwick by neighbors.

Dr. Sedgwick, with his wife and baby, left Oklahoma in the fall of 1918.

Whether Mrs. Sedgwick ever sold her claim near Faulkner is not known here."
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