FERGUS FALLS

Smugglers sentenced to prison for deaths of Indian family at US-Canadian border

Matt Henson — Wed, 28 May 2025 23:47:34 GMT

FERGUS FALLS, Minn. — Harshkumar Patel, the man in charge of a human smuggling plot, will spend 10 years in prison for his role in the 2022 deaths of a family of four from India.

His accomplice, Steve Shand, was sentenced to more than six years.

The Patel family (no relation to Harshkumar Patel), including two children, froze to death while trying to sneak into the U.S. near the Minnesota border.

Federal prosecutors said it was part of a smuggling ring between India and the United States.

Following the sentencing by U.S. District Judge John Tunheim on Wednesday, May 28, the top federal prosecutor for Minnesota made it clear that the investigation is far from over and that more arrests may still be coming.

“In fact, they knew it was life-threatening cold,” said Lisa Kirkpatrick, acting U.S. attorney for Minnesota.

Kirkpatrick was referring to the January night in 2022 when the family from India froze to death trying to cross the border by U.S. Highway 75 in Minnesota. The boy was 3; his older sister, 11.

“A son wrapped in a blanket in his father’s arms, a daughter lying nearby, a mom hunched against a fence when she went to look for help that night,” Kirkpatrick said.

A fifth person nearly froze to death. Prosecutors said visibility was blinding and the wind chill was close to 40 degrees below zero. They shared a photo showing how poorly dressed some of the other 11 people in the group were.

“They were betrayed by individuals motivated by profit with no regard for human life,” said Special Agent Jamie Holt with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

On Wednesday, the man who was picking up the group at the border, Steve Shand of Florida, was sentenced to 6½ years in federal prison. The mastermind of the smuggling operation, Harshkumar Patel, also of Florida, was sentenced to more than 10 years in prison. Neither man spoke in court Wednesday.

“Again, we were disappointed by the length, but I can take solace in the fact that the judge did consider everything we said, and I’m sure he took it into consideration,” said Tom Leinenweber, Patel’s lawyer.

The chief of the Grand Forks Border Patrol office told WDAY News that despite the tragedy, over the past three years, they have not seen a decrease in the number of people trying to sneak across the border.

“We can’t bring the family back, but with the lengthy sentences imposed today, we can send a strong message, a message that human life does not have a price tag,” Kirkpatrick said.

Patel will likely be deported back to India after he serves his sentence. His lawyer said he plans to appeal the conviction.

Shand was ordered to report to prison July 1. He will be allowed to serve his sentence near his family in Florida.

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Opening statements delivered in federal human smuggling trial in northern Minnesota

Mathew Holding Eagle III / MPR News — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 14:39:05 GMT

FERGUS FALLS, Minn. — Lawyers made opening statements Monday in Fergus Falls in the federal trial of two men accused in a human smuggling case that resulted in the death of a family of four from India.

The family froze to death in a snowstorm in January 2022 after getting separated from a larger group trying to cross illegally from Canada into the U.S.

Steve Shand and Harshkumar Patel are facing four charges linked to human smuggling. Both men have denied the charges.

The two men, who are both residents of Florida, are alleged to have been involved in an ongoing operation to smuggle Indian nationals from the state of Gujerat in that country into the U.S.

Patel is himself originally from Gujerat and, having been denied entry into the U.S., entered illegally through Canada.

The organizers of the smuggling operation would charge people who wanted to come to the U.S. tens of thousands of dollars. Using fake student visas, they would get the people into Canada, then take them to the U.S. border and have them walk across.

Prosecutors say Patel coordinated with co-conspirators in Manitoba to arrange the crossings into Minnesota. He hired Shand to pick up the migrants on the Minnesota side and then drive them to Chicago.

A separate investigation has found the migrants who got to Chicago were forced to work as underpaid staff at a chain of restaurants run by another Indian national.

In January 2022, four members of the Patel family — 39-year-old father Jagdish, 37-year-old mother Vaishali, their 11-year-old daughter Vihangi and their 3-year-old son Dharmik — got separated from a larger group in a snowstorm as they tried to cross the border. The windchill that day was minus 35 degrees, and they were not dressed properly.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police found the family, all dead, just yards from the border. The 3-year-old Dharmik, wrapped only in a blanket, was found in his father's arms.

Shand was arrested soon after on the U.S. side in a van with other migrants who had made it across the border. Patel was arrested earlier this year.

Opening statements

A jury of eight men and six women heard the opening statements.

Prosecutor Ryan Lipes said this case is about two men putting profit over lives. He said the prosecution will prove its case using flight records, phone and rental records, and financial transactions.

He said they will prove Patel coordinated Shand’s actions. He said they will also show the men knew how dangerous a border crossing at night in winter could be. The prosecutor described how Royal Canadian Mounted Police found the bodies of the Patel family in what they described as a “vastness of nothingness.”

When the defense presented its statements, Patel’s attorney, Thomas Leinenweber, said while he believes the state’s witnesses will be delivering testimony they believe to be correct, there will be no evidence that connects his client to the situation. He said his client feels lucky that he is now in the United States, and he enjoys the constitutional protections of being presumed innocent until proven guilty.

Shand’s attorney, Lisa Lopez, said her client’s job was just to drive people, and he didn’t ask questions. She said he provided a taxi service for people from Minnesota to Chicago, and that he was used by Patel. She said Shand and Patel were not friends, there was no conspiracy, and they hardly knew each other.

First witnesses will be called Tuesday at 9 a.m.

Earlier in the day, before jury selection even began, the defense team asked that Federal Judge John Tunheim rule that seven photographs of the frozen family be removed as evidence because they would — as the defense put it — cause “extreme prejudice to the jury.” The prosecutors argued the photos were needed to show jurors the challenging terrain of the area.

The judge ruled the images may be used.

This story was originally published on MPRNews.org
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Former Fergus Falls State Hospital source of many legends

David Olson — Tue, 29 Oct 2024 14:46:49 GMT

FERGUS FALLS, Minn. — Not long after the Fergus Falls State Hospital opened in the summer of 1890, a local newspaper reporter took a tour of the place.

In an article titled "Among the Lunatics," he gave this account of his visit:

I was greeted at the entrance by a patient, who with a lordly wave of his arm announced: "The state welcomes you, sir."

"The patients are found sitting around for the most part with an aimless air and appearance. Except for the lack of women, it would not be far-fetched to compare the scene to a hotel at some summer resort.

The story is one Chris Schuelke tells while giving tours of the Gothic-looking edifice that for decades dominated both the Fergus Falls skyline and the region's economy.

The hospital's long-vacant buildings and lonely, sprawling grounds appear at once imposing and more than a little spooky, even with a late-autumn sun still high in the sky.

The vibe is a valid one, said Schuelke, executive director of the Otter Tail County Historical Society. He tells visitors the hospital's past contains both light and shadow.

"They did good work here," he said. "But there are definitely dark instances at the state hospital." His tours, which recently ended for the seasons, lean heavily toward the latter.

He called the former state hospital "a castle of questions" and says the institution's mystique is something people find endlessly fascinating.

Schuelke's stories are taken directly from newspaper accounts and oral histories.

"I'm not making stuff up," he said, referring to tales of murder, escaped patients, suicides, lobotomies and shock treatments.

The fact that disturbing things happened at the State Hospital shouldn't be surprising, given it once housed 2,000 patients watched over by 500 employees, he said.

"It was a tremendously large community," Schuelke said. "Of course you're going to have instances that aren't pleasant."

Not-so-clean sweep

One unpleasant instance involved a patient by the name of William McIntyre.

According to Schuelke's research:

McIntyre was polishing the floor when another patient got in his way. Angered, McIntyre swung the polisher at the man.

But McIntyre missed his intended target, striking instead a man named William Cosgrove, who was sitting in a nearby chair.

The blow crushed Cosgrove's vertebra, killing him.

And in another cleaning-related incident:

A hospital attendant was washing a fourth-floor window when a patient was seized by a sudden desire to go through it.

The attendant tried to stop him, but the patient succeeded in making the leap.

The nurse was almost pulled through the window trying to stop him.

One of the escape stories Schuelke shares tells of one William Morahn, a patient who slipped away from the hospital in September 1920.

Weeks later, Morahn arrived at his family's farm where he hid four sticks of dynamite in the chicken coop.

Hiding nearby, he lit a fuse when his father went out to gather eggs.

In the ensuing explosion Morahn's father, the chicken coop and the chickens were all blown to pieces.

It is not known whether the younger Morahn was ever captured.

A number of the stories involve questionable commitments to the State Hospital that were later reversed, including situations where spouses had partners put away and at least one case in which politics appeared to have played a role.

The year was 1893, and Frank Hoskins, a newspaper editor from Henning, was locked away for being overly critical of the banks in Fergus Falls.

A populist who used terms like "usurious plunderers" when describing financial institutions, Hoskins may have sealed his own fate when he urged people to withdraw their money from banks.

"A little probate court was put together and they put him in the State Hospital," Schuelke said.

Hoskins was freed after the state Supreme Court ruled his right to due process had been violated.

Describing his stay in the State Hospital, Hoskins said he was placed in a ward where patients were yelling, jumping and making noise night and day.

Self-contained

Curious happenings aside, for its time the Fergus Falls State Hospital was among the best in the country at treating people with mental illness, said Schuelke, who added the campus was largely self-contained, with its own farm, orchard, power plant and bakery.

"One thing I find fascinating is the enormity ... they grew all of their own food," Schuelke said, citing a report from the 1950s that found roughly 8% of the population of Fergus Falls had some type of employment connection to the hospital.

The percentage was even greater for some of the surrounding towns, Schuelke said.

A character that figures prominently in the hospital's history is Dr. William Patterson, a graduate of the Boston University �� of Medicine who in 1912 became hospital superintendent, a job he held until retiring in 1968.

Known as a strong and compassionate leader, Patterson was said to have been on a first-name basis with every patient.

That familiarity could come in handy, like the time Patterson was taking his morning walk around the grounds when he espied a patient on the hospital roof wearing only his birthday suit.

Schuelke's tour notes describe the encounter this way:

The patient was apparently greeting the rising sun.

In typically direct fashion, Dr. Patterson looked up at the naked man and said:

"Bob, what are you doing up there? Are you crazy? Get down from that roof now!"

Schuelke said this story had a happy ending: The man sheepishly made his way down from the roof.

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'This is home': Couple renews vows 73 years after wedding at rural Minnesota church

Kevin Wallevand — Tue, 03 Sep 2024 23:19:24 GMT

FOXHOME, Minn. — While many marked Labor Day Weekend with a picnic or one last pontoon ride around the lake, a Fergus Falls, Minn., couple in their 90s, traveled to their home country church in rural Wilkin County to make a little history.

Friends and family from across the country came to witness a celebration that started more than 70 years ago.

Just outside Foxhome, Minnesota, sits Vukku Lutheran — a church congregation that started in the 1890s.

"Grab the railing," Virgil Albertson said to his wife, Mary, as they walked to the church.

For many years, Virgil and Mary Albertson have farmed, raised their family and watched children and grandchildren get baptized, confirmed and married at Vukku.

A fire destroyed the rural Minnesota church in the 1940s, caused by a wicked lightning strike during a storm that Virgil watched.

"We came down and tried to see if there was anything we could grab, but we opened the door and the fire came right down, the whole thing exploded," Virgil said of the fire.

Not long after the fire, Virgil and Mary started dating over a Teen Burger and root beer.

"I worked at the A&W Root Beer stand in Fergus Falls, " Mary Albertson said of the courtship.

"Ice cream float was our special," Virgil said.

Soon, the couple got married in the new Vukku Luthern church.

"I changed in that little room right there," Mary said, pointing to a small room in the narthex of the church.

It was the first wedding in the new building, after the fire.

"Virgil's brother was a groomsman and he fainted," Mary said, laughing.

Years would pass and the couple raised a family and they all attended church at Vukku. Virgil would retire from farming and the couple moved to town.

And over the Labor Day weekend, they filled Vukku Lutheran once again.

"I said to Virgil, 'Why don't we renew our vows?; 'Yeah,' he said, but he thought it was just us two," Mary said, laughing.

So, 73 years after they said "I do," as the first couple to marry in the new Vukku, they said "I Do" again.

They renewed their vows in their home church, one that is struggling to keep the doors open and pews filled. In other words, Virgil and Mary just may be the first and the last to say those vows here.

"It is a blessing to stop and think what 73 years has done, we started out with nothing and God gave us everything," Mary said.

That includes four children and 35 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren; they are all trying to duplicate the love and dedication of Virgil and Mary.

"You guys have been an inspiration to all of us," Brooke Beaton, a granddaughter, told the two.

"It doesn't seem that long. We had a good marriage. Of course, we had our ups and downs like everyone," Mary said.

When the Norwegians built the church in the 1800s, they likely had people like Virgil and Mary in mind. A life together long lasting, sturdy and an impact felt far outside these walls.

"You are my sunshine, my only sunshine," Virgil sang to Mary at the vow renewal.

Then a kiss to seal the deal for years to come.

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Homebase Housing Services, Inc. tackling ‘the invisible crisis’

Robin Fish — Wed, 24 Jan 2024 17:20:00 GMT

“The goal of the program is to help those who are homeless, or at risk of homelessness, find and maintain housing,” said Ryan Menzel of Brainerd, owner and CEO of Homebase Housing Services, Inc. (HHS).

With offices in Brainerd and Park Rapids and a third location starting up in Fergus Falls, the company is a housing stabilization provider licensed through the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS).

Menzel said their main office in Brainerd was licensed and started serving clients in 2021. The Park Rapids office opened soon afterward with the help of a provider capacity grant from the DHS. The office employs three housing coordinators, with Menzel himself also carrying a case load.

“Nobody escapes being a front-line worker,” he said. “I got this going to make something happen, so everybody gets to do something.”

Companywide, they mainly serve Aitkin, Crow Wing, Hubbard, Todd, Wadena, Becker and Otter Tail counties, employing five housing coordinators in Brainerd, three in Park Rapids and one in Fergus Falls, and planning to hire a few more.

According to Menzel, HHS' program offers:

Housing consultation – developing a “housing-focused, person-centered plan” based on the barriers and needs of each client. Transition – helping clients find housing by searching for available resources, reaching out to property managers on their behalf, coaching clients on how to be a good tenant, helping them apply for vouchers and coordinating with other providers like MAHUBE-OTWA. Sustaining – helping clients maintain where they live, educating them about lease compliance, finding energy assistance and navigating other resources. “A lot of skill building,” said Menzel. “A lot of building that relationship with the property manager.” Defining 'homelessness'

Homelessness and housing instability are a broader issue than most people think, Menzel said. It isn’t just about people living on the street.

“We have many people that we serve who are couch surfing,” he said. “They’re living with a relative or a friend, and they stay there for a week or two, and then they go to somebody else’s, and then somebody else’s.

“That’s housing instability, included in the definition of being homeless. Essentially, they’re not on a lease. It’s not guaranteed where they’re going to stay the night.”

Menzel said there has to be a documented disability to receive housing stablization services.

“It’s a Medical Assistance-funded program,” he said. “So, they have to be on Medical Assistance, over the age of 18; there has to be a physical disability, a mental health or substance use disorder, and then have some sort of either homelessness or housing instability.”

Some of HHS' clients, he said, are trying to rebuild their lives after drug or alcohol issues – a background that makes it hard to get a lease.

“We can come in and advocate for them,” he said. “Beyond Backgrounds is a program specifically for those with challenging backgrounds, dealing with those who have been evicted before makes it a challenge to find new housing.”

Some of their clients come on services with an active eviction notice, Menzel said. HHS can then call the property manager to ask what can be done to change the situation. It can be as simple as catching up on their rent.

“We don’t have the vouchers,” he clarified. “We don’t have direct funding to provide rent assistance. Our job is to go find what other resources that person may qualify for and help them apply for that, help them through the process.”

Greatest challenge: lack of affordable housing

He likened their job to case management, only applied to housing.

“Part of it is just explaining to people that a lease is a legal document,” he said, where both the tenant and the property manager have rights and responsibilities; explaining what it means to be lease-compliant and coaching tenants about the issues that led to their eviction.

“We’ve been successful in working with property managers,” said Menzel. That includes building relationships and being open with them about setbacks that could cause tenants to fall behind on their rent.

“One of the greatest challenges is the lack of affordable housing,” he said. “That’s one of the things that we’re doing constantly – finding out what’s available.”

Especially in rural areas, limited supply can create housing wait lists of six months to a year or more to get into a unit or a voucher program.

“The biggest thing that keeps me up at night is the frustration when someone is homeless, or they’re facing that instability,” he said, “not being able to find a spot for them immediately.”

HHS' program works toward long-term housing, but the interim from when a client faces homelessness can be difficult. Shelters fill up, Menzel said.

‘Be a part of the solution’

Asked what drew him from sales and marketing and business development to the social services world, Menzel said, “I’m a veteran, and I’ve had some challenges in my life. I looked at, how can I help others who are struggling?

“Then I found out about housing stabilization services. I had realized early on the importance of stable housing, whether someone was dealing with mental health or substance use recovery. Having stable housing was the bedrock of being able to build off that. If you don’t know where you’re going to spend the night, or if you’re waiting for your cousin or your brother-in-law to boot you out of the house, it’s really hard to focus on recovery or mental health.”

Once he started working in the field, Menzel said, he saw that the need was even greater than he had realized.

“I was really drawn to this, and I figured I could use my skill set to be part of the solution,” said Menzel. “Our tagline is, ‘Where there is a need, be a part of the solution.’ We can’t solve all of the issues. Our part is helping guide people in searching for housing, or maintaining. So, we can be a part of the overall solution.”

An invisible crisis

Another big challenge, he said, is that people don’t realize how big the need is. It isn’t as visible in the local area as in bigger cities, where the media show images of homeless people living on the streets.

“Some of the people that are on services are staying in the attic of a garage (where) there’s no heat or water, and that’s the only place for them,” said Menzel. “They’re not physically on a corner, sleeping on the street, panhandling. But they’re staying in a place that’s not habitable. They’re homeless, but because it’s not visible, you can kind of not realize that there’s an issue.

“I would encourage the community to start asking questions and trying to find how they can be a part of this.”

He stressed that HHS is one of multiple housing stabilization providers in the areas they serve, including MAHUBE-OTWA, and that people have a right to choose their provider,” he said.

Menzel added that they also partner with county human services case management, local churches and mental health providers.

‘Mission accomplished’?

Asked what “mission accomplished” will look like, Menzel said it’s on an individual, case-by-case basis – “if we can help not just find housing for them, but if the person is able to sustain that and, ideally, not need services,” he said. “Our piece is to get them stable in their housing.”

Bigger-picture, he said, he is looking at ways to bring more affordable housing into the area, because the need is greater than the supply.

“It’s heartbreaking when somebody comes in and they’re desperate for help, and I don’t have that quick solution,” he said. “We can find them a resource. Salvation Army, some of the other providers; a hotel voucher, to at least spend a night or two and get out of the cold and get a shower.

“‘Mission accomplished’ would be if someone came on services, and within a matter of days I could get them housed. As that period of time lessens, I would say it’s moving in the right direction.

“Ultimately, the goal would be to eradicate homelessness. That’s a tall order. It doesn’t mean we’re not going to try.”

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Minn. man sentenced to prison for possession of child pornography

Helmut Schmidt — Sat, 02 Sep 2023 16:34:22 GMT

FERGUS FALLS, Minn. — A Marshall County man has been sentenced to 120 months in prison followed by 10 years of supervised release for possession of child pornography, U.S. Attorney Andrew M. Luger announced Friday, Sept. 1

According to court documents:

Keith Allen Barsness, 64, of Grygla, possessed multiple images and videos depicting prepubescent minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct.

Acting on a tip, law enforcement obtained a search warrant for Barsness’ residence and found pornographic images of minors on cellphones, tablets and computers.

The documents said Barsness voluntarily admitted to investigators that he had been searching the internet for and viewing child pornography “for years.”

Barness pleaded guilty to one count of possession of child pornography on Jan. 5 and was sentenced Thursday, Aug. 31, in U.S. District Court by Judge Eric C. Tostrud.

This case was the result of an investigation conducted by Homeland Security Investigations and the Marshall County Sheriff’s Office.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Esther Soria Mignanelli prosecuted the case.

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Motorcyclist killed in crash with semi in Otter Tail County

Forum staff — Thu, 20 Jul 2023 14:42:16 GMT

FERGUS FALLS, Minn. — A crash involving a semi in Otter Tail County has left a motorcyclist dead.

The crash happened shortly before 6 p.m. Wednesday, July 19, on U.S. Highway 59 near 280th Street in Fergus Falls Township, according to the Minnesota State Patrol.

The semi, driven by a 43-year-old man from Fergus Falls, was southbound on Highway 59.

He came upon a 2001 Honda Gold Wing motorcycle driving north on Highway 59 near 280th Street.

The two vehicles collided, according to the patrol. Details on how the crash happened were not released.

The driver of the motorcycle was a 65-year-old man from Elizabeth, Minnesota. He was killed in the crash, according to Sgt. Jesse Grabow. The semi driver was uninjured.

The drivers' names have not yet been released.

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'Hazzard-ous' healer: How this Minnesota woman's deadly fasting methods finally caught up with her

Tammy Swift — Tue, 20 Dec 2022 17:02:00 GMT

Editor's note:

This is part two in a two-part series on Linda Hazzard, a one-time Fergus Falls resident whose extreme fasting methods were linked to at least 14 deaths in the early 20th century. Find

part one here

Sheltered, wealthy and enamored with alternative medicine, Dorothea and Claire Williamson were the perfect marks for Linda Hazzard, an osteopath-turned-fasting fanatic.

The British sisters, both in their 30s, had wealth and a life of leisure, which made it possible to travel whenever they wanted.

Orphaned at a young age, the siblings had grown especially close and came to view themselves as their own little family unit. Dorothea, also called Dora, saw herself as the mother figure, treating Claire, just four years younger, like a pampered child.

The Williamsons had another peculiarity. They were hypochondriacs. Although nothing was seriously wrong with them, they were sure they weren't well. Dora talked of swollen glands and rheumatic pains, while her younger sister was told by a physician that she had a dropped uterus.

They began seeking answers in alternative treatments, giving up corset-wearing and meat-eating in their quest for wellness, wrote Bess Lovejoy in an article for Smithsonian Magazine.

While staying at a posh hotel in British Columbia, the sisters spotted an ad for Linda Hazzard’s book, “Fasting for the Cure of Disease.”

Hazzard had left her first husband behind in Fergus Falls to move to Minneapolis in 1898 and practice as an osteopath. She had become convinced that fasts were the only solution to perfect health. But her methods were so extreme that some patients died rather than improved. Perhaps in efforts to avoid repercussions in Minneapolis, she and second husband, Samuel Hazzard, had relocated to Washington to start Hazzard's Institute of Natural Therapeutics in the tiny town of Olalla.

The Williamsons knew little of the more unsavory details of Hazzard's past. When they received her book, they read it voraciously. Claire grew convinced that Hazzard’s Institute was the only solution to their various ills. She raved of Linda Hazzard’s “beautiful treatment.”

The sisters had formed a romantic vision of what it would be like to spend time in Hazzard’s country sanitarium. “They dreamed of horses grazing the fields, and vegetable broths made with produce fresh from nearby farms,” Lovejoy wrote in Smithsonian Magazine.

But when the sisters arrived in Seattle in February 1911, the sanitarium wasn’t ready.

Instead, they rented an apartment in Seattle, where Hazzard prescribed they eat only one cup of unseasoned tomato or asparagus broth, made from canned vegetables, twice daily. They also sometimes got tiny sips of orange juice.

Hazzard also pummeled them with violent osteopathic treatments and ordered their nurses to give them hours-long enemas. When the weakened women started fainting during the painful procedures, Hazzard ordered their nurses to install a canvas sling across the tub to catch them when they fell.

The Williamsons wasted down to 70 pounds. Their clothes hung on them as if they were little girls wearing adult women’s gowns. Their faces were so gaunt that when they smiled they resembled leering skulls, wrote Gregg Olsen, the author of "Starvation Heights," a book on Hazzard's case. They fainted constantly. They could no longer walk any significant distance, so had to be carried.

When Hazzard gleefully announced that the sanitarium was finally ready, the Williamsons were carried down the stairs to twin ambulances. Dora’s appearance was so disturbing that nurses swaddled her hands and head in bandages to deter curious onlookers, Olsen wrote.

Starved and stranded at ‘Starvation Heights’

If the sisters were even lucid enough to notice it, they likely were disappointed by the reality of Hazzard’s bucolic country sanitarium.

It was a muddy, tree-shrouded, 40-acre tract, with a simple frame house where the Hazzards lived and five tiny, shoddily built cabins which Olsen described as barely sufficient to house chickens.

Even before the sisters had come to Olalla, Linda Hazzard had grown increasingly more intrusive about their financial affairs. Would they like to give her their jewels so she could lock them away for safe-keeping? Perhaps she could have her attorney draw up a codicil to their wills? In their current state, did they need some help managing their money and property?

She repeatedly told Claire that Dora could no longer take care of them, as she had lost her mind.

Brainwashed and weak from severe malnutrition, the Williamsons relented. They were all alone, with Hazzard keeping them apart so they couldn’t talk to each other. They had come to the fasting farm without telling relatives, for fear others would scoff at the sisters’ latest health fad. No one knew they were there.

Despite it all, they remained hypnotized by Linda Hazzard. Even if they’d been offered food, they wouldn’t eat a crumb without Dr. Hazzard’s OK.

“Your tongue is not clean,” the fasting fanatic told Dora. “You are not fit to take food yet. Your tongue will have to be clean and your breath must be sweet.”

@truecrimevault

It wasn’t until Claire sent a desperate cable halfway around the world to the sisters' childhood nurse, Australian-born Margaret Conway, that someone finally came to their aid. The cable contained just eight words:

“Come SS Marama May 8th, first class, Claire.”

The message was so cryptic that Conway knew something was wrong. She booked the first available berth on the Marama and headed to the Pacific Northwest.

Upon her arrival in Vancouver June 1, 1911, she was greeted by Samuel Hazzard, who was there to accompany her back to Olalla. When Conway asked how the girls were doing, Hazzard responded as if giving a weather report: “Miss Claire is dead and Miss Dora is helplessly insane. I am sorry.”

As Margaret Conway sat there and wept, Samuel Hazzard did his best to ignore her.

The day they rescued Dora

When the grieving governess was taken to a Seattle mortuary to view Claire's body, she was struck by how little it looked like the young woman she knew so well. Everything from the hair color to the corpse's hands looked wrong.

Later, prosecutors would surmise that the Hazzards had bribed the funeral home to switch out Claire's body with a healthier-looking one. They also believed that when Claire was on her death bed, the Hazzards had gotten her to sign a document which consented to cremation.

Linda Hazzard seemed anxious to share the results of an autopsy she'd taken the liberty to perform on the body first. She blamed Claire’s demise not on the fact she hadn’t eaten for 80 days, but on drugs administered to her in childhood, which Hazzard claimed had shrunk her internal organs and caused cirrhosis of the liver.

When Conway finally got to the institute to see Dora, she was appalled to find her mistress had dwindled down to 50 pounds. Her sitting bones protruded so much that she found it excruciating to sit.

Conway begged Dora to leave the institute. But even after losing her beloved sister, Dora still seemed to believe in Hazzard. She refused.

Conway felt she could only do so much as a servant from a class-conscious background, Olsen wrote. The nanny did what she could — sneaking rice and cream into the starving woman’s broth in efforts to give her nutrition.

However, she knew Dora would die soon if someone with clout didn’t intervene. One day, after the Hazzards had left the institute to catch a boat, Conway raced to the nearest store and sent a cable to Dora’s uncle, John Herbert, who lived in Portland.

Horrified, he hurried to free his niece. He haggled with Hazzard for hours before grudgingly paying the doctor nearly a thousand dollars to secure his niece’s freedom. He and Conway also discovered Hazzard had made herself executor of Claire’s estate, as well as Dora’s guardian for life. Dora had also signed over power of attorney to Samuel Hazzard.

The Hazzards helped themselves to Claire’s wardrobe of expensive silk dresses as well as $6,000 worth of the sisters’ diamonds and other precious gems.

Linda Hazzard even wore one of Claire’s dressing gowns around the house, in full view of Dora and her former nanny.

Imprisoned yet unrepentant

If not for the intervention of British authorities, Linda Hazzard might have walked free.

C.E. Lucien Agassiz, a British vice counsel in Tacoma, took an interest in what had happened to the British sisters. He was able to free Dora from guardianship and ultimately instigated a court case against Hazzard.

As Agassiz and John Herbert investigated the sanitarium, they found a trail of wealthy patients who had died under Hazzard’s care. Some signed over large sections of their estates to the Hazzards. One of them, a former state legislator named L.E. Rader, owned the land on which her sanitarium was built. Rader died in May 1911 after dwindling down to under 100 pounds on his 5-foot, 11-inch frame. While still alive, Rader had been moved to a secret location before authorities could question him, according to Smithsonian Magazine.

Another British citizen, John “Ivan” Flux, had come to America to buy a ranch, but died with just $70 in his name after the Hazzard "treatment." A New Zealand man reportedly shot himself while under Hazzard’s care.

On Aug. 15, 1911, Kitsap County authorities arrested the fasting specialist on charges of first-degree murder for Claire's death. That January, spectators crammed into the county courthouse in Port Orchard to hear servants and nurses testify about the brutality endured by the Williamsons. Prosecutors also highlighted the “financial starvation” that had depleted the Williamsons’ fortune.

As far as Linda Hazzard was concerned, the trial was an attack on her position as a successful woman who dared to practice alternative methods in a male-dominated field.

But jurors were unmoved. They deliberated for only a short while before returning with a guilty verdict of manslaughter. Hazzard was sentenced to two to 20 years of hard labor at the penitentiary in Walla Walla, and her medical license was revoked.

Letters asking for Hazzard’s release followed. That included a New Zealand petition bearing 121 names in which signers implored the state to “look upon Dr. Hazzard’s methods of treatment as a boon to suffering humanity.”

An appeal was made to the Supreme Court, but rejected.

After a year and a half in prison, Hazzard was pardoned by Gov. Ernest Lister with the stipulation that she leave America, according to Washington State Archives. She and Samuel set sail for New Zealand, where she worked as a physician, dietitian and osteopath and published another book. They did so well overseas that they were able to return to Olalla in 1920 and build an even greater sanitarium, with three floors, a long porch that spanned the front of the building and a grand staircase. Since Hazzard was no longer licensed to practice medicine, she called the sanitarium a "�� of Health." and her patients "students."

She continued to skirmish with the law — once for practicing medicine without a license while starving a Washington farmer to death. She was fined $100.

The school burned down in 1935, under what some thought were suspicious circumstances. Linda Burfield Hazzard died three years later at age 70, while attempting a fast cure on herself.

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Minnesota family turns deer stand into lefse drive-thru

Kevin Wallevand — Tue, 20 Dec 2022 00:40:18 GMT

FERGUS FALLS, Minn. — During the holiday season at the Englund home near Melby, Minnesota, lefse is getting rolled out and ready for the griddle.

"You want it thin, so you can see through it," Kim Englund said.

So far this year, 800 pounds of potatoes have been cooked up for lefse by the family.

"What a lot of people ask us is if we use real potatoes, and we do," Kim Englund said. "We use russet potatoes. We peel them all, (and) cook them up."

Sixth grader Willow Englund has this lefse thing down pat, right down to the flip.

"When bubbles start to come up everywhere, and like after a few of them, you can time it in your head," Willow Englund said.

But this year, the family has taken their show on the road. On the highway near their farm, the signs go up. The Lefse Drive-Thru is open.

"Put it there. Perfect." Kim Englund said as her children Conway and Willow put out signs near the road, letting people know the drive-thru is open.

"It is a hoot," Kim Englund said.

The family was used to selling their lefse at trade shows around the region, but then, COVID-19 hit.

"We had all of this lefse all ready to go, and all the orders were ready to go, and I had no way that people felt safe getting it. And there were no trade shows — they canceled all the trade shows — so Casey and Conway decided, 'Let's go get the deer stand,'" Kim Englund said.

Not a fish house or small garden shed. A deer stand.

"It's the perfect size. It's all we need," Kim said.

Brilliant. And with the family sitting inside, they wait for, not trophy bucks, but lefse lovers.

They drive right up, picking up their orders before hitting the road.

Customer Lyle Olson doesn't miss a year to get a bag full of his favorite Christmas treat.

"Lefse!" Olson exclaimed in a thick Norwegian brogue.

The whole drive-thru is an Englund family affair. All the money earned from the lefse goes to a family vacation that is planned every year.

On Monday, Dec. 19, Kim, Englund and her kids sold lefse from the drive-thru. While she makes it now, Kim Englund actually didn't make lefse as a child.

"No, Grandma did, so I didn't have to," she said. "It was later in life — after I had kids — then I went, 'OK, I have to figure out lefse.'"

Now, the kids make and sell it right off Minnesota State Highway 1.

"They (the kids) definitely know how to make lefse. They can (do it) with their eyes closed," Kim Englund said.

Sales were brisk on that perfect snowy, winter morning with people stocking up on the goodness in preparation for Christmas holiday feasts.

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Minnesota woman was infamous ‘starvation doctor’ whose brutal fasting methods may have killed 14

Tammy Swift — Tue, 13 Dec 2022 17:02:00 GMT

Editor's note:

This is part one in a two-part series. Read

part two here.

Linda Hazzard was a force of nature.

She stood nearly as tall as her 6-foot husband, although some wondered if her personality was so imposing that she simply seemed larger than she actually was.

A formidable figure with sharp cheekbones, a resolute chin and an unflinching gaze, everything about Hazzard exuded authority. She spoke with unwavering assurance — as if she were absolutely right and anyone who disagreed with her was a fool. While studying osteopathy in her quest to be a nurse, she became convinced that drastic fasting — ingesting only thin vegetable broths for weeks or even months — was the key to healing all disease.

Hazzard’s followers, who included prominent intellectuals and politicians, swore by her methods and proclaimed her a "gifted and intelligent" healer.

Others considered her a serial killer.

From 1907 to 1913, at least 14 Washington residents under her care died of starvation, according to Washington State Archives. That death count doesn’t include the number of patients who died in Minnesota.

Even more suspiciously, some of her patients turned over property, money, guardianship and power of attorney to Hazzard and her husband, Samuel, before they died.

Hazzard seemed to possess some unseen hold over her patients, which was so powerful that they would turn over possessions and refuse to eat — even in the most advanced stages of starvation.

“She seemed to hypnotize them with her booming voice and flashing dark eyes,” writes Bess Joy in Smithsonian Magazine. “Some wondered if Hazzard’s interest in spiritualism, theosophy and the occult had given her strange abilities; perhaps she hypnotized people into starving themselves to death?”

@truecrimevault

Hazzard would grow so notorious that the primitive sanitarium she built in Olalla, Washington, became known by locals as “Starvation Heights.” In fact, “Starvation Heights” became the title of a book on Hazzard by Gregg Olsen, a true-crime author who lives in Olalla.

Even more surprising is that Hazzard’s life started out in such a unremarkable way. She wasn’t the child of itinerant snake oil salesmen or soothsayers, but a Minnesota-reared farm girl.

A sickly beginning

Hazzard was born in 1867 in Minnesota’s Carver County to Susan Neal Burfield and Montgomery Burfield, a former corporal in the Ninth Minnesota Infantry during the Civil War, according to Olsen. The family headed west to homestead at Star Lake Township in Otter Tail County 10 years later, where Montgomery ran a log mill.

Linda, also called “Lana,” was the oldest of seven children. Even early on, she had no shortage of confidence and was known as an outgoing tomboy who was her father’s favorite.

A Fergus Falls Daily Journal article of 1931 ran a pretty unsparing, yet completely unattributed, portrait of Hazzard, even as a young girl: “She was a strange child and her parents were told she would do weird things and lead an unusual life. From the first it was evident she was different from other children. She was inclined to be haughty, high strung and visionary. Linda spent many hours communing with herself instead of joining with the others in their childish activities.”

The Burfields did have some unusual inclinations for that time and place. Olsen wrote they maintained a “mostly vegetarian” diet, at a time when standard Midwestern farm fare was meat and potatoes.

Although no one in the Burfield clan was sickly, Montgomery Burfield decided his children needed to see a “real” doctor, Olsen wrote. During a house call, a local physician convinced Linda’s parents that the children all had potentially deadly intestinal parasites.

He prescribed “blue mass” pills, which were administered for several years and induced bouts of severe vomiting and diarrhea.

Hazzard would one day condemn the treatment for causing “irreparable injury to her intestines,” Olsen wrote. She was underweight, tired and could barely keep down food. The doctors prescribed a purgative called calomel to address her stomach ailments, which she later blamed for causing the loss of many of her upper teeth.

This early health scare sparked her interest in finding alternative health treatments.

By age 18, Linda married Erwin Perry, who was 14 years her senior. They moved to Fergus Falls, Minnesota, where Perry owned a livery business. They had two children: Rollin in 1889 and Nina Floy in 1891.

Linda’s interest in the marriage soon faded, as she felt she was destined for something greater, Olsen wrote. The 1931 Daily News article reported that Linda “immediately became socially ambitious, demanded the best clothes, the smartest turnouts from her husband’s stables and made a determined effort to associate with the better class of people.”

The article reported that “her desire for making a show” got the Perrys into financial difficulties. In 1898, Linda claimed that Erwin abandoned her, although Olsen wrote that those who knew Linda best believed otherwise. Eventually, she shipped off her children to her mother, Susan, in Star Lake. “Linda’s ambitions as a fasting specialist had usurped her desire for motherhood,” Olsen wrote. “She simply couldn’t be bothered with it.”

Also in 1898, Linda discovered fasting by reading “The Gospel of Health,” written by Dr. Edward Hooker Dewey. In it, Dewey praised the restorative power of fasting.

“Every disease that afflicts mankind (develops from) more or less habitual eating in excess of the supply of gastric juices,” Dewey wrote. He believed the path to health was to let the digestive system rest so the body could rid itself of toxins which caused imbalances in the body.

Linda believed Dewey's system restored her health. The ambitious young woman moved to Minneapolis where she could work as an osteopath and spread her own, more extreme version of Dewey's methods.

She claimed her fasting regimen could cure everything from toothaches and constipation to Bright’s disease and syphilis.

A golden age for alternative therapies

Burfield entered the health game at a time when more Americans were exploring alternative therapies, according to the medical journal The Lancet. One of the best-known of those was John Harvey Kellogg, the American physician/cornflakes king who, in 1876, opened a sanitarium which offered hydrotherapy, light therapy, sexual abstinence and yogurt enemas.

Burfield’s methods were more sadistic. She prescribed a Draconian regimen of marathon fasts, brutal massages (some likened them more to “beatings”), vigorous walks, hours-long enemas and nearly scalding baths to treat people’s ills.

Some of Burfield’s patients actually did improve and her Minneapolis practice enjoyed some success.

But others couldn’t survive Burfield’s harsh protocol. Gertrude Young, 41, was paralyzed on her right side due to a stroke. The Minneapolis woman had sought help from a number of doctors, but still struggled with basic tasks such as dressing herself, according to Olsen.

Upon hearing of Burfield, she hoped for a miracle cure. Young began the doctor’s fasting regimen in mid-October 1902. Three weeks later, the patient woke to “violent fits of vomiting of a dark, acrid-smelling gruel,” Olsen wrote.

The nurse tending Young grew so concerned that she contacted another doctor, U.G. Williams, who was also Hennepin County’s coroner. Alarmed by Young’s yellowish pallor and sunken physique, Williams urged the woman to immediately break the fast.

By then, some of Young’s friends/fasting proponents had gathered in Young’s bedroom to protest Williams’ recommendation. Young, along with the Burfield groupies, vehemently insisted that the fast could only be broken on the 40th day.

Young never got to see that day. She died on Nov. 18, the 39th day of her fast. Burfield attributed the cause of death to “paralysis.”

Thank God, I have no license to kill!

The outraged coroner ordered an inquest. A postmortem was held at the University of Minnesota, where scientists reported the cause of death as starvation. The woman had wasted down to 105 pounds and, strangely enough, had virtually no blood left in her body.

Criminal charges were considered but never brought.

Young’s family, meanwhile, wondered what had happened to the deceased woman’s jewelry, which included valuable rings. Burfield scoffed at the notion she would steal anything. She insisted Young had given the rings to a nurse, although that nurse was never found.

In efforts at damage control, Burfield summoned a reporter. When he asked if she had a medical license, Burfield dramatically declared: “Thank God, I have no license to kill!”

She also claimed that, due to the fasting, Young had regained "free use" of her right arm and foot, but refused to let Burfield examine her. When Burfield persisted in examining her, the patient confessed that not only had she failed to follow Burfield’s instructions to the letter, but that she had been diagnosed with an “incurable disease” by another doctor.

It became a popular Burfield defense: When a patient died, she insisted they already had some serious disease or underlying condition which had progressed too far for fasting to cure.

Husband trouble

While in Minneapolis, Burfield also met the love of her life. Samuel Hazzard was a tall, handsome man with coal-black hair, a dashing black mustache and a ramrod-straight posture that belied his West Point roots. A former Army lieutenant, Hazzard dressed impeccably and made a gentlemanly first impression, Olsen wrote.

But anyone who looked beyond Samuel’s tailored facade learned he was neither military hero nor gentleman. He destroyed his promising military career by racking up unpaid bills around New York, forging documents, lying about family emergencies to get leave from his superiors and misappropriating Army funds. He also abandoned his first wife and their children.

Samuel rarely bothered with details such as divorce before romancing and marrying other women. Perhaps that's why he sometimes used the name, “Hargrave,” on his marriage licenses. The Minneapolis papers breathlessly covered a scandalous trial when he was tried for bigamy for being married to both Linda Burfield and an Iowa woman named Viva Fitchpatrick at the same time.

In February of 1904, Samuel was sent off to the state prison in Stillwater for bigamy.

Fitchpatrick wrote letters to the warden asking how she could make Samuel’s time in prison easier and paid for a gold tooth when he needed dentalwork. Yet when he was released, he went straight home to Hazzard. Once again, through sheer force of will, Linda Burfield Hazzard had triumphed.

Over time, man and wife both might wonder if it was a victory. Samuel would become so dominated by his wife that he learned to simply parrot whatever she said. And Samuel, the cheater, also became Samuel, the tippler, who hid his alcoholism by drinking bottles of vanilla extract, Olsen wrote.

By 1907, the Hazzards had bid farewell to the Twin Cities and headed to Washington state, according to Washington State Archives. Although Linda Hazzard was not a medical doctor, she was able to get a license to practice medicine through a loophole that grandfathered in some practitioners of alternative medicine without degrees. Dr. Hazzard could now pursue her dream of building a renowned health institute where patients from near and far could fast their troubles away.

Editor's note:

This is part one in a two-part series. Read

part two here.

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