Emma Cunningham and the Murder of Harvey Burdell

On the morning of January 31, 1857, the body of Dr. Harvey Burdell was discovered in his Manhattan townhouse with fifteen stab wounds, and his killer had also strangled him to guarantee his death. Suspicion quickly fell to one of Burdell’s tenants, thirty-nine-year-old mother of four Emma Cunningham. A few days after Burdell’s death, Emma presented herself as his wife and attempted to collect his estate worth $100,000, but before she could get her hands on the money, Emma was indicted for Burdell’s murder.