Murder of Hannah and John E. Peck

Hannah M. Peck (née Carpenter) and John Edward Peck were a married couple from Grand Rapids, Michigan. John Edward Peck had co-founded the Peck Brothers Drug Co. with his brother Thomas M. Peck, sold the business for several million dollars, and served as a director of several banks while holding stock in furniture companies. Hannah and John Peck's daughter, Clara Louise Peck, married Arthur Warren Waite on September 9, 1915, in Grand Rapids.

Hannah Peck was poisoned with arsenic and died on January 30, 1916, at the New York City home of her daughter Clara and son-in-law Arthur Warren Waite. John Peck later traveled from Grand Rapids to Manhattan, where he stayed at Waite's home at 435 Riverside Drive. Waite administered arsenic to him during a dental examination and continued to poison his food. When the poisoning proved too slow to be fatal, Waite gave John Peck ether and smothered him with a pillow. John Peck died on March 21, 1916.

Arthur Warren Waite, born December 2, 1887, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, to Warren W. Wait and Sarah Jane Haines, was known publicly as "Dr. Waite." He had taken a dentistry course at the University of Michigan and studied at the University of Glasgow, but he was not a registered physician or dentist despite being listed as "Dr. Waite" in directories.

Waite was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to death. He was executed by electrocution at Sing Sing on May 24, 1917.

Clara Louise Peck Waite, the daughter of Hannah and John Edward Peck and wife of Arthur Warren Waite, was also poisoned during the events but survived. She later remarried, to John J. Caulfield. Percy Seaman Peck, the son of Hannah and John Edward Peck, testified at Waite's murder trial. Margaret Horton, a cabaret singer, was noted as having had an affair with the married Arthur Warren Waite during this period.

This dossier is based on a single available secondary source (Wikipedia) describing the case, supplemented by a corroborating contemporaneous news reference from The New York Times archive (timesmachine.nytimes.com) that has not been independently reviewed for additional facts beyond confirming contemporaneous coverage existed.