The Abortionist of Howard Street: Medicine and Crime in Nineteenth-Century New York

Josephine McCarty had many identities. But in Albany, New York, she was known as "Dr. Emma Burleigh," the abortionist of Howard Street.

On January 17, 1872, McCarty boarded a streetcar in Utica, New York, shot her ex-lover in the face, and disembarked, unaware that her bullet had passed through her target's head and into the heart of the innocent man sitting beside him. The unlucky passenger died within minutes. Josephine McCarty was arrested for attempted murder and quickly became the most ...