“Murder By Female Fury”: The Mary Senff Killing, Conclusion

The tragic aftermath of Mary Senff’s murder unfolded not only in the haunting fate of Ellen but in ghostly legends that lingered in the community.

Read Part Four

Note on spelling: Not surprisingly, the Senff surname is spelled differently across many of the historical documents, newspaper articles, headstones, etc. For consistency, I have decided to use the spelling that appeared on the 1850 census record for the family.

Ellen Crites Athey, her husband Henry Athey, and her brother Alexander Crites, were taken into custody in June 1880 for the murder of Mary Senff and their alleged conspiracy to conceal the crime. The three were held in the Tuscarawas County Jail in New Philadelphia, Ohio, while authorities conducted further investigations and prepared for the criminal trials to come. Though initially all three faced scrutiny, the focus of the legal case gradually narrowed to Ellen alone as evidence and legal constraints shaped the course of justice.

It was determined by the fall of 1880 that no Ohio laws directly prohibited the actions of Henry Athey and Alexander Crites in relation to the crime. Consequently, both men were released from custody, while Ellen remained incarcerated. Ellen was formally indicted in December 1880 for first-degree murder and at her arraignment entered a plea of not guilty. As anticipation for her trial grew, so did the public’s interest, fueling rumors—one particularly persistent story claimed that Ellen’s father had mortgaged his York Township farm to fund her legal defense, though David Crites refuted this in the local newspapers.

Ellen’s much anticipated trial began in late February of 1881 and spanned thirteen days of testimony. The courtroom was gripped by the drama of the proceedings, as testimonies and arguments painted a grim portrait of betrayal and violence. Though the prosecution sought a conviction for first-degree murder, the jury ultimately found Ellen Crites Athey guilty of second-degree murder. Her punishment was severe: a life sentence in prison. Additionally, the court took the extraordinary step of legally severing her civil relationships with her husband, son, and the rest of her immediate family, effectively cutting her off from her past life.

Ellen’s father, David Crites, continued to live a seemingly respectable life in Tuscarawas County despite his role in the Senff case and died there in March 1903. Both Henry Athey and Alexander Crites left Tuscarawas County shortly after Ellen’s trial and imprisonment. Henry Athey returned to his home county of Licking, Ohio where he remarried in 1892 and spent his remaining years. He died in Newark, Ohio in 1931. Alexander Crites moved to Huntington County, Indiana where he eventually married, opened a bakery, and lived until his death in 1940. There is no evidence that their connection to the Senff murder was known by Henry or Alexander’s new neighbors.

Ellen’s incarceration marked the beginning of a long and tragic descent. Within just a few years of entering the Ohio State Penitentiary, she was declared insane. Deemed unfit for the penitentiary, she was transferred first to the Columbus State Hospital for the Insane and later to the Lima State Hospital, where she remained until her death in April of 1922. Her final resting place bore no name, only the number “96,” a stark reminder of her forgotten identity and long years in institutional incarceration.

In the years following Mary Senff’s murder, whispers of the supernatural began to circulate among the local community. It was said that Mary’s ghost, dressed in nothing but a loose white nightgown, haunted the fields around the old Athey and Crites homes in York Township. Whether these tales sprang from guilt, fear, or mere folklore, they added an eerie postscript to an already chilling chapter in Tuscarawas County’s history.

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© Noel B. Poirier, 2024.