Linda Burfield Hazzard

American physician and murderer

• Born: 1868
• Birthplace: Carver County, Minnesota
• Died: 1938
• Place of death: Unknown

Major offenses: Manslaughter and violating the medical practice acts of California and Washington

Active: November, 1902-May, 1935

Locale: Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Seattle and Olalla, Washington

Sentence: Hard labor for two to twenty years at Walla Walla, Washington, penitentiary; served two years before being pardoned

Early Life

Linda Burfield Hazzard (HAZ-uhrd) was brought up as a vegetarian in rural Minnesota. Her father had his seven children treated annually by a doctor typical of the era, and meat was forbidden as part of her medical treatment. Poorly educated and possessing a limited array of diagnostic techniques, the doctor treated intestinal problems, thought typical of all children, by prescribing blue mass pills. The mecurous chloride in the pills was so toxic that the U.S. Army stopped using it during the Civil War. Memories of the pain and sickness suffered by Hazzard and her siblings made her a lifelong foe of conventional medicine. Burfield attended two schools, training osteopathic nurses and studying with Dr. Edward Hooker Dewey for one term. In her book Scientific Fasting (1927), Burfield claimed to “throw new light upon [what Dewey] termed the ’New Gospel of Health.’’’

Criminal Career

In 1898, Burfield opened an office in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and began calling herself Dr. Burfield, D.O., a doctor of osteopathy. Minnesota law allowed the title. She treated hopeless conditions such as diabetes, syphilis, and kidney disease by using a combination of prolonged fasting, frequent enemas, and osteopathic manipulations. This last treatment, generally considered unacceptable, consisted largely of rapping the patient’s head, back, stomach, and thighs.

Burfield sought to become the leading authority on “starvation therapy.” Medical authorities appear not to have examined her methods until Gertrude Young died in 1902. The coroner, U. G. Williams, M.D., then obtained an autopsy at the University of Minnesota. Although the cause of death was listed as starvation, no charges could be made under the law of the time, and Burfield characterized the outcome of the investigation as a justification of her methods.

In 1903, Burfield met Samuel Christman Hazzard and wanted him both as a husband and as a business manager. Unfortunately, Mr. Hazzard was married to two other women and had fled service in the U.S. Army. While the couple was never married, she adopted the name Dr. Linda Burfield Hazzard for the rest of her life. In 1907, the couple moved to Olalla, Washington, near Seattle, where Dr. Hazzard established her practice and began to develop Wilderness Heights, her sanatorium.

On February 8, 1908, Daisy Maud Haglund died after a fifty-day fast at Wilderness Heights. A number of fatal cures followed, some of which may have involved actual homicide. It also appears that the Hazzards began relieving their victims of money, jewels, and property. The most celebrated outcome of Hazzard’s treatments, described in her book, Fasting for the Cure of Disease (1912), was the death of Claire Williamson on May 18, 1911.

Legal Action and Outcome

Claire’s sister, Dorothea, persuaded the local attorney to bring a first-degree murder charge against Hazzard. Dorothea had been rescued from Wilderness Heights by Miss Conway, a lifetime friend. Hazzard was arrested on August 5, 1911, and the trial began on January 15, 1912. The trial involved more than one hundred witnesses and fifteen doctors. Hazzard was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to between two and twenty years of hard labor. During her appeal process, the Washington State Board of Medical Examiners revoked her medical license. At least two more persons died of starvation before her appeal was rejected in fall 1913. Hazzard served two years in prison at Walla Walla, Washington, and was pardoned by the governor on condition that she leave the United States.

Impact

Linda Burfield Hazzard was one of many medical “quacks” whose practices undoubtedly contributed to the eventual tightening of educational standards, examinations, and laws governing all aspects of health care. It appears that her story, with two exceptions, has been unnoticed in the extensive literature devoted to women professionals. However, there are still pseudomedical treatments widely available, and excerpts of Hazzard’s works can be found readily on the Internet.

Bibliography

Iserson, Kenneth V. Demon Doctors: Physicians as Serial Killers. Tucson, Ariz.: Galen Press, 2002. Chapter 4 relies heavily on Olsen but is clearly written from a knowledgeable doctor’s point of view.

Olsen, Gregg. Starvation Heights. New York: Warner Books, 1997. Detailed description of the years at Olalla with most attention to the Williamson sisters. The author claims to have consulted “every scrap published about Dr. Hazzard” but was unable to determine either her birth or death dates or places. Many references, but phrased very generally. Includes photographs.