If you’re a Bay Area true crime nerd with an extensive knowledge of the region’s most notorious serial killers, you might be wondering why you’ve never heard of San Francisco’s very first serial killer, Dr. J. Milton Bowers. The answer is that nobody ever conclusively proved it. (Okay, fine, then: alleged serial killer.) If you were a San Franciscan in the 1880s, however, you’d know all about Dr. Bowers. You’d certainly know enough not to marry the bearded weirdo.
Bowers was a physician whose medical specialty was, according to newspaper ads of the era, “diseases of women and children.” Which is unfortunate given that his first three wives ended up dead under suspicious circumstances while under his care. The first, Fannie Hammond, died in 1874 of “undetermined causes” and the couple’s Chicago home burned down shortly after her death. Not suspicious at all!
Bowers immediately moved to New York and married a popular actress and writer named Theresa Sherek, who was 15 years his junior. Together, the couple relocated to San Francisco, but marital bliss was short-lived. Sherek died on Jan. 28, 1881, aged 24, and was buried the very same day. The presumed cause of death was an abscess of the liver…