From Domestic Violence Against Men In Colorado: (
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A "Trial of the Century" featuring a lovely but "fallen" woman, Gertrude Gibson Patterson, as defendant occurred in Denver in 1911. Newspapers at the time called her "The Most Beautiful Woman in America."
Robert Hardaway, a University of Denver law professor, has written Alienation of Affection based on the story of the sensational murder of Charles Patterson by his wife, Gertrude, at Denver's Richthofen Castle.
Gertrude was reportedly a small-town girl who sortied to Chicago and eked out a starveling existence as a seamstress or shopgirl before being saved from poverty by a wealthy "sugar daddy."
Gertrude's patron was Chicago businessman Emil Strouss, a bachelor who was smitten and treated her with astonishing kindness. He paid for an expensive education for Gertrude in Paris and wanted to marry her. She accepted his generosity but finally decided to marry for love — choosing a poor but handsome former football player, Charles Patterson. Patterson's business ventures came to nothing and he apparently resigned himself to living off the money that Strouss continued to provide for Gertrude while she continued to provide her favors to Emil. The realization that he was little more than a pimp may have fueled Charles' cruelty toward Gertrude.
The district attorney called her a vile vampire who used her beauty to enslave and destroy, and who should be hanged by the neck until dead for the crime of shooting her lawfully wedded husband, the saintly and consumptive Charles Patterson.
Defense attorney O.N. Hilton was somewhat less generous in describing the character of the deceased, though he didn't deny that the beauteous Gertrude had dispatched Charles to whatever reward awaits pimps and wife-beaters. But Hilton foreshadowed the modern battered woman defense by arguing that the deceased had only got what was coming to him.
Evidence showed Gertrude fired four rounds, two of which missed her husband, Charles, entirely. The two that did enter his back did so at an upward angle. That fact gave vital support to her defense attorney's argument that she had shot in self-defense. He claimed that Charles had reverted to his wife-beating ways, hitting Gertrude and knocking her down. Gertrude then pulled a pistol from her handbag and fired — missing her assailant. Charles, discovering he had brought only his fists and bad temper to what suddenly turned into a gunfight, turned and ran. Still lying on the ground, Gertrude then fired the two fatal rounds into Charles' back.
With modern legal hindsight, Gertrude might not have been justified in continuing to use deadly force after Charles ended his alleged battery and turned to flee the scene. But the 12 male jurors were in no mood for fine distinctions once their "chivalrous" instincts were aroused.
Reviewing the evidence, which included the fact that Gertrude had shot Charles in the back — twice — the all-male jury did the honorable thing:
Not guilty by reason of self-defense.
As Bob Ewegen noted in November 29, 2003, article in the Denver Post (p. 15C), more than the jurors chivalry may have been aroused. At least four of the male jurors visited Gertrude in her hotel room after the trial. One, who brought flowers, seemed especially eager to get into Gertrude' s, as Ewegen put it, "good graces."
From the Colorado State Register of Historic Properties: (
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Completed in 1887, the 21-room residence was built on the prairie fifteen miles east of downtown Denver by real estate promoter Baron Walter von Richthofen as a show home for his Montclair development. Originally fortress-like in style, additions and modifications designed by Maurice Biscoe in 1910 and Jules J.B. Benedict in 1924, resulted in an English Tudor appearance. The walls, towers and parapet are of Castle Rock rhyolite, and the estate is contained within an acre of walled gardens.
From The Free Library: (
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Undaunted, Richthofen proceeded with the five-year construction of his castle on a 320-acre lot in Montclair, a Denver suburb he helped develop. Referred to within the family as Louiseburgh, after his second wife, the manor house was and remains generally known as Richthofen Castle. The gray, crenellated 21-room mansion featured towers, a quaint stone bridge over a moat and a landscaped garden stocked with deer, antelope and wild canaries. The superb timing of his real estate enterprises in East Denver and Montclair allowed Richthofen to keep afloat and bask in some luxury despite the hit he took when the cattle business failed due to the climate. Walter and Louise moved into the castle in 1887 and lived there happily ever after--for three years.
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The story goes that the Baroness didn't care for the look of the prairie around the castle, so the Baron had many trees planted on and around the estate. Which is why it is now difficult to see and photograph the castle during the greener months and not much easier during the winter.