Another Male Victim for Seductive, Charming Mrs. McDermott

Ohio, 1897

ELOPERS

Left the City Early Yesterday Morning on Foot.

Harley Beckett Skips With Notorious Mrs. Joe McDermott

Leaving His Wife and Several Small Children In Destitute Circumstances—The Couple Chased Several Miles by Constable Sloan—Previous Escapades of Mrs. McDermott.

Mrs. Joe McDermott, a female whose escapades have more than once made her the subject of newspaper articles, has again sprung into notice. This time she eloped with a neighbor named Harley Beckett. The couple fled from the city Tuesday.

Beckett has been employed by J. B. Carter at his barrel factory on Chillicothe street. He is an expert cooper and makes good wages. He is married and has several children. For some time past he has been "rushing" the McDermott woman and spending his money on her. Tuesday they decided to skip, and early in the morning they left town.

Constable Frank Sloan was put on the trail yesterday morning by relatives of the eloping couple and was hot on their trail all morning. He traced them down across the Scioto bottoms and up the valley, but did not come up with them. It is thought they are about in this vicinity.

Mrs. Beckett called at the mayor's office that morning and told her tale of woe. She said she and her children had been left in destitute circumstances. She wanted warrants issued for the runaways. She finally left without causing warrants to be issued. The police are on the lookout for the couple, however, and if apprehended they will be locked up.

The McDermott woman is the female to whose seductive charms George W. Legg fell a victim several years ago. Legg was then treasurer of Pike county and was spending the money of Pike county tax-payers right and left. He came here several times to see the McDermott woman, and she and her confederates bled him out of several hundred dollars before he "tumbled" to the game.

—The Portsmouth Times, Portsmouth, OH, July 24, 1897, p. 1.