In 1923, insurance man Richard Tesmer was shot in an alley behind his house; his widow only saw the shooter, a smiling woman, in the light of the pistol flash, but insisted she’d be able to identify her. Police brought in several suspects, an in each case Mrs. Tesmer screamed and said “That’s her!” Whether a pistol flash was really enough time to get a decent look was up to debate, but clearly Mrs. Tesmer’s ID wasn’t going to count as proof positive.
But then a tip led them to Frances Carrick, a drug addict who had been running a string of disorderly houses (including one at 2100 N Clark, near the site of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, and in the same building where Larry and Balki would live on Perfect Strangers). When brought in for questioning, Mrs. Tesmer identified her, but she seemed unconcerned about the accusations. “When I saw (Mrs Tesmer), I felt sorry for her,” she said. “She already I identified four or five girls,” She said. “And she said she was waiting for blue eyes. Mine are grey. Honest, I wanted to put my arms around her. And then the damned fool went and tried to hook me for this!”
Frances was in the “Sweatbox” so long that police noticed something they hadn’t expected: Frances was growing whiskers. A doctor confirmed that, phsyically, this was a man, and further questioning showed that she’d been born as Fred Thompson, and still lived as “Fred” occasionally. “What of it?” Frances asked. She called out for a razor blade and a shot of gin.
Though they told the press that “Fred” only dressed as a woman to commit crimes, neighbors said otherwise. They all knew her as a woman, and were shocked by the revelations about her. They found her apartment in Old Town (now a parking lot) full of wigs, dresses, and even corsets. If a man were dressing up as a woman to commit crimes, he’d probably skip the corset. None of the clothes they found matched what the suspect was wearing. Still, Frances was indicted for murder based on the witness ID.
It’s always difficult to assign identities to people from other eras, but Frances would probably identify today as transgender – or possibly genderfluid, though her occasional forays into living as a man seem to have been driven more by circumstance than by identity. However, the term was nearly fifty years from appearing in print; even the once-common “Transsexual” was about twenty years off. Frances didn’t really have the vocabulary to describe herself; at one point she simply said “Physically a man, but spiritually a woman.”
The Chicago Evening American sent two “alienists” to examine her, and both wrote remarkably modern articles saying that this sort of thing happened now and then: while Frances had a “male frame,” she was mentally a woman and should be referred to as a woman. Neither believed that she was likely to be the killer, though one expressed concern that she’d probably be convicted anyway simply because of who she was. “This person called Thompson,” wrote one, “not only has the mind and way of thinking of a somewhat eccentric woman, but she is in unnatural disguise when wearing the masculine garb.” Another wrote that “To the embryologist this type is no great puzzle – the soul of a woman in the body of a man, or vice versa.”
“As to my dressing as a man,” Frances said, “Well, people shouldn’t make fun of me. I’d surprise a lot of folks. I’m the wife of Frank Carrick. Happy? You’d be surprised how happy we are. I’ve told the police all about my double life. I showed them men’s clothes that I wear at times. I admitted that people know me in some places as Fred Thompson. That doesn’t make me a murderer. As a woman I’m happily married. Let the world think what it may. I just like a good party now and some gin.”
Frances told reporters she’d usually dressed in girls clothes as a child, and run away from home at 13, working odd jobs. When asked what she did when there was no work, she said “I’d hate to tell you.” She hinted that she still did some sex work, implying that some prominent men in Chicago would “die when they hear about me being a man.” “Say, do you think I’m such a poor fish that I’d stop for the small guys if I could make the big ones?” In jail, she entertained prisoners by singing a soprano rendition of “He’s Your Man But He Comes to See Me Sometimes.”
Frances had been married to a man named Frank Carrick for 14 years, but in another twist, she’d also recently married a woman named Marie Clark as Fred Thompson. Frances explained that the marriage was mostly to keep Marie, a drug addict she’d met at the North Clark Street building, out of trouble (one of the witnesses on the marriage certificate, “Nellie Jestor,” was likely another “female impersonator.”) Marie confirmed that she knew about Frances’ double life, and that Frances had dressed as a woman most of the time. Both spouses were then living with Frances in Old Town, though not without drama. Marie got jealous when Frances went out with men.
But to the police, this felt like a home run. As the city cried out to “hang the smiling woman,” they knew they didn’t have much evidence to go by for finding the killer, and, anyway, it was already a talking point that pretty women were seldom convicted of murder in Chicago, and even if convicted, no woman had ever been hanged. But here they had a woman who had a history as a sex worker, a drug problem, and a penis. They figured they’d let her withdrawl symptoms get worse and get a confession out of her.
Frances initially said she was just a drinker – “Dope? Hell no, it’s booze!” But her arm was covered in needle marks, and she eventually admitted that she was addicted to “two and two,” a morphine and cocaine mixture (that I can’t find many other references to at all). But she never cracked. Frank, her husband, did – the police got him to confess confessed to the crime through a combination of letting him go into deep withdrawl symptoms and denying him food. But reporters got wind of the fact that they were starving him, and the police had to admit (in a rare move) that the confession was worthless. People had been hanged based on confessions obtained by even fishier means before.
Frances was in jail awaiting trial for more than three months, inspiring articles and photo spreads all over the country in the mean time. While Frances lacked vocabulary to describe herself, there also wasn’t a vocabulary for reporters to criticize her much. Though they often put her pronouns in quotes and used the term “Man-Girl” in headlines, everyone who studies the case notes that they were really pretty respectful. After a few minutes of talking to her, they all just took the fact that she was a woman in stride. Gender issues hadn’t become a political football yet. One judge giggled a bit, but said “She’s two-in-one, I guess,” and continued to refer to Frances as a woman.
At the trial in October, 1923, the judge made a particularly remarkable move: he ruled that Frances’s marriage to Frank Carrick was valid, and that Frank couldn’t be compelled to tesitfy against his wife. The Chicago American called this “precedent-setting,” but if anyone ever cited it as presedent for same-sex marriage, I don’t know about it. In any case, it was a rare early instance of a legally recognized queer marriage. After that ruling, the court settled into using she/her pronouns (before it they’s switched back and forth, unsure of what to do). Even the judge called Frances “Lady.”
Frances noted that her eyes were gray, not the blue Mrs. Tesmer had spoken of, and avered that there were things wrong with her, sure, but she wasn’t a killer. The jury agreed – she was acquitted and free to go.
Outside, the courthouse, she was surrounded by admirers, many of whom were also likely somewhere on the queer spectrum. One “effeminite” man was quoted by the American as telling her “I want you to know my heart aches for you. When I think of all the hypocrits in the world and then think of you and how courageous you are and everything, I could just cry.” Frances made a remark about getting her hairpins back in, a reference that the gay community would have recognized as a shout-out at the time. Quite a few of her quotes contained references that the community would have recognized as the time.
Immediately after being freed, Frances signed a lucrative deal to sing at the Rialto, in the grand tradition of women accused of murder going on the vaudeville stage, but the police and mayor shut it down. She was brought in on a drug charge a few years later, but other than that more or less vanishes from the records. Historian Jim Elledge tentatively connected her to a Fred Thompson who died in Cleveland in the 1950s, but with Fred Thompson being such a common name, it’s hard to know for sure. She and Frank seem to have split up; Frank Carrick lived around Chicago (mostly around Towertown, a known gay enclave) until his death in 1948. Marie Clarke vanishes completely. The real killer of Richard Tesmer was never found.
The story, modern as it seems today, should be better known than it is. I told it in a tweet thread that was shared by a member of congress, and posted several of the American articles from the microfilm on my patreon (the American was a real tabloid, but were great about bringing in experts for guest articles – like a lot of tabloid sites, they had one of the best investigative journalism departments in the business. The crap they churned out paid for it). I guess next stop is a tiktok video! Below, here are a couple of the doctor reports. They aren’t entirely 2020s-perfect, but they’re a lot closer than you’d expect from articles a century old. (Note: transphobic comments will be not be posted; grow the hell up.).