Bridget “Bina” Finnegan Verrault

BRIDGET “BINA” FINNEGAN VERRAULT WAS BORN on April 5, 1871, in Madison, Wisconsin. Although her parents’ names are unknown, accounts suggest her father—a frequent patron of saloons—died in a drunken brawl while she was still very young. Her mother died when Bina was twelve, reportedly during a drinking spree. As a teenager, Bina went to Chicago, where she found employment but also turned to shoplifting to supply herself with clothing and other luxuries.

On February 16, 1901, Bina married artist George T. Verrault, a native of New Orleans, in Philadelphia. The marriage record notes it was a second marriage for both parties, each having been widowed—Bina after a four-year marriage to a man named Brown, and George after eight years. Just one week after the wedding, Verrault was forced to bail his wife out of jail on a shoplifting charge. He left her shortly thereafter, though the couple never divorced.

By 1905, the Manhattan census places Bina living in New York City in the household of a widow named Izella Brown, reputed to be her sister-in-law. The residence was crowded, housing seven roomers along with Izella’s twenty-year-old son and thirteen-year-old daughter.

The first public hint of what was to come appeared in 1906. An article published in August by The Fargo Forum and Daily Republican identified Bina and Izella as “chief operators in the matrimonial lemon market.” On August 27, James McCellan, a Scottish grocer, complained to authorities that Bina had swindled him out of money. When two deputy marshals arrived at the Brown residence and demanded entry, they were met at the door by Gregory Allen, described as the household’s “butler and bouncer,” who refused them admission. The deputies forced their way inside and were confronted by Bina and Izella, both wielding hatpins. Though the deputies were punctured, the women were quickly disarmed.

Throughout the day, creditors gathered outside the house, attempting to gain entry. Among them was a dentist who claimed Mrs. Verrault’s fine front teeth were artificial and unpaid for. “They were put in painlessly,” he declared, “and I can remove them painlessly.” Despite his confidence, the teeth remained firmly in place.

By late 1906, the so-called “Love Syndicate” had been fully exposed. Bina was indicted by a federal grand jury on a charge of using the United States mail to defraud, based on McCellan’s complaint and supported by other alleged victims. According to prosecutors, Bina placed personal advertisements in newspapers claiming to be a wealthy widow seeking marriage. Correspondence followed, sent under the alias Helen Hamilton, in which she claimed to need assistance protecting valuable mining property in Mexico from a scheming brother. Strikingly beautiful and persuasive, Bina promised marriage in return and was showered with furs, jewels, and cash.

Among those ensnared was Leo Kiesler, a clerk at Mutual Life Insurance. The notoriety of the case ultimately led to his dismissal from the company.

At her hearings before U.S. Commissioner Shields, Bina testified eight times, always impeccably dressed in fine clothes and jewelry. She made no apology for her actions. “Of course I took all they gave me,” she said. “Why shouldn’t a woman take gifts from gentlemen who are kind enough to give them to her?” She portrayed herself as the victim, insisting the men believed her wealthy and sought to marry her only for access to her fortune.

Kiesler attended the hearings regularly; McCellan, curiously, did not. The charge brought by Kiesler was eventually dismissed, but authorities determined there was sufficient evidence to proceed on McCellan’s complaint. In February 1907, Bina was released on her own recognizance pending further action by the grand jury.

Seeing what lay ahead, Bina pawned four diamond rings for $1,075 and fled. A warrant was issued for her arrest, but she was already traveling west. Why she chose Tonopah—or where she spent the months between her release and her death—remains unknown. She may simply have been trying to put as much distance as possible between herself and the New York courts.

Bina spent only one week in Tonopah. On October 26, 1907, she was found dead on the kitchen floor of her home on upper Florence Avenue, dressed in a robe. During her brief stay, she reportedly frequented restaurants and concert halls, avoided male company, and found solace in hard liquor. According to the coroner’s inquest, the thirty-four-year-old died of fatty degeneration of the heart and chronic kidney disease.

Local residents raised the funds necessary to bury Bina Verrault in the Old Tonopah Cemetery.

Bina Verrault spent years shaping her own story through deception, flight, and reinvention. In Tonopah, it ended quietly, after just one week, on a kitchen floor. She was thirty-four years old.