On this day, Dec. 8, in 1906, former Sen. Arthur Brown of Utah was shot by his longtime mistress in Northwest Washington. He died four days later. Brown, one of the first two U.S. senators from Utah, and Anne Bradley, were involved in a turbulent and well-publicized affair.
The lovers were jailed more than once for committing adultery, a crime back then. Brown’s tirade against police were splashed all over the nation’s newspapers.
Later, Bradley found love letters that led her to believe Brown was going to marry another woman, confronted him at the Hotel Raleigh on 12th Avenue near Pennsylvania Avenue and shot him.
At trial, it was revealed that Brown’s will renounced Bradley and the two sons she claimed he had fathered, and a sympathetic jury acquitted her.
Scott McCabe
