The next owner of this house remembered Marjorie well. So is she no longer a threat? In some ways, time stands still at Glensheen Mansion, owned by the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD): almost everything in the home is an original possession of Clara and Chester Congdon, who built the house between. Some psychopaths are highly successful, exercising wealth and power, but no less dangerous for all that. After the murders, someone stole Velma Pietilas car and left it at the airport, suggesting the killer had fled the city. Marjorie Congdon Caldwell Hagen's son is a candidate for a state judge spot. Elisabeth, fearing publicity, did nothing. Marjorie remains estranged from all but one of her seven children from her first marriage and has had no contact with the Congdon family since the murder case, Feichtinger said. Marjorie did not attend a single day of his trial. She never did move into assisted living and as of 2017, at 84, her health didn't seem as bad as her attorney had claimed, according to Feichtinger. The mansion was constructed as the family home of Chester Adgate Congdon. Accordingly, when Marjorie was thirteen, Elisabeth bought Marjorie a horse she had been demanding. They will use it against you if it suits them. She was arrested again in 1984 when she burned down her house in Mound, Minn. She was convicted of arson and insurance fraud and sentenced to 21 months in prison. Zenith City Press That's in part because of what happened afterward when the story gets even crazier.. Marjorie Caldwell, as Hagen was then known, was instantly considered a suspect in her mother's murder. There she became a suspect in a rash of fires. She is released 21 months later. However, that didnt mean she didnt want children. She had been smothered to death. In 1975 Marjorie Congdon met Roger Caldwell at a Parents Without Partners meeting in Colorado. The trial was moved to Brainerd and in July of 1978 the jury found Roger Caldwell (Marjorie's husband) to be guilty of the crimes. Clarence H. Johnston, Sr.; Charles W. Leavitt, Jr. He would call it Glensheen after the ancestral home of the Congdon family in Sheen, England. Congdon was the only surviving child of mining magnate Chester Congdon, who built the lavish mansion in 1909. From 1993 to 2004, Marjorie Caldwell served 11 years of a 15-year prison sentence for arson. And he said it's too grisly to discuss on tours with families. In 1991, she was caught trying to set fire to a neighbor's house. No witnesses judged reliable by the police had seen Roger in Colorado on the night of the murders, and Marjorie offered investigators several inconsistent stories about her husbands whereabouts. Although police suspected he had been gassed, tests showed he died of a drug overdose. The research was a wonderful process, and I felt privileged to discover so many things about her I didnt know. That's because 40 years later, Hartman said, about 70 percent of visitors don't even know about the murders. Sociopaths are shaped by their environment. Marjorie pleaded guilty to the crime of forgery and was given probation. Marjorie got good grades but was considered something of a weirdo by her classmates. The investigators werent buying it. To celebrate they bought an Airstream trailer and traveled the country, eventually settling in Ajo, Arizona, a town of 2,500 persons near the Mexican border. The last I heard, she was calling herself Marjorie Hagen and living in the Southwest. It was then that he decided to build his dream home on the shores of Lake Superior. Marjorie Hagen was again arrested on a murder charge but it was dropped for lack of evidence. The Congdon story is one that is quite close to me literally. From the outside, it may have looked like her spending was out of control. "It really was like a house in a time capsule.". Still, its a little awkward when youre standing in the bedroom where Elisabeth Congdon was murdered with a satin pillow over her face, and its not even mentioned. Details could be released next week. Glensheen director Dan Hartman talks about a Congdon family portrait. The Classic and Full Mansion tours are self-paced with most visitors spending. Marjorie admitted as much, saying she and Walter had made a suicide pact, but that she had lost her nerve at the last minute and couldnt go through with it. From 1993 to 2004, Marjorie Caldwell served 11 years of a 15-year prison sentence for arson. An autopsy subsequently revealed Walter Hagen had died of a drug overdose. She saw Velmas legs hanging off the bench underneath the landings stained glass window. In 2010, her attorney's court motion to remove her from intensive probation so she could get into an assisted living complex was denied. She was Marjorie Congdon, one of the Duluth Congdons, granddaughter of Chester, the mining magnate who made a fortune in iron ore, served in the legislature and built the mansion on the lake at the turn of the 20th century. Interesting. Tour lengths vary depending on the type of tour and the desired experience. It really is part of a bygone era. Back in Minnesota for the funeral, police found evidence of foul play in their Duluth hotel room. Marjorie said they had a suicide pact, but she couldn't go through with her end of it. Elisabeth Mannering Congdon, Chester Congdons third daughter, didnt prefer the company of men, at least not to the extent that she would marry one. Duluth police were called to the mansion on the morning of June 27, 1977, after staff discovered the two women dead. MinnPost | P.O. Curiously, he never said who did. Your email address will not be published. Marjorie Congdon Caldwell was one of two daughters adopted in the 1930s by Elisabeth, who never married. In 1979, she was acquitted in the smothering of her adoptive mother and the beating death of a night nurse. When Marjorie was three, Elisabeth adopted a second daughter who she named Jennifer. Marjorie Caldwell and her defense attorney Ron Meshbesher walk into the Dakota County Courthouse. Before she was arrested, Marjorie arranged to have the body of her friend cremated. Sadly, most people from her generation would not be able to square what they know about Marjorie with the diagnosis of a psychopath. As a single woman, this bordered on the scandalous, but Elisabeths regrets would have little to do with the social opprobrium her action invited. An iron candlestick holder lay discarded nearby. Marjorie Congdon became Marjorie LeRoy on June 30th, 1951. Marjorie Congdon was accused of plotting the death of her wealthy mother, Elisabeth Congdon, and nurse Velma Pietila, who were found dead at the Congdon estate almost 40 years ago. Marjorie Congdon Hagen admitted she endorsed and deposited an $11,000 check into a bank account she shared with Roger Sammis four days after Sammis died, said defense attorney Brick Storts.. ", "Because the family didn't want to go back to a murder scene," he explained. Congdon worked to improve maternal health and infant survival rates; she provided numerous students with scholarships and even housed at least one Chinese college student at Glensheen; and she was a passionate supporter of the arts. He did a masterful job. But Congdon was betting on the come. [Elizabeth Congdon never fully recovered, and spent the last decade of her life unable to engage in many of her previous activities]. He died in 1916. She was convicted of attempted arson, and the judge allowed her to go home before reporting to prison to make arrangements for her 84-year-old husband. People are drawn to psychopaths like moths to a flame. It looked like justice was finally catching up with her. They care nothing about anyone else, although they are often good at making it seem as if they do. I found her yacht, the Hesperia, in Lloyds Register of Ships. She was introverted and spent most of her time reading alone or playing by herself in the nooks and crannies of the vast mansion. Will you help us keep it this way by supporting our nonprofit newsroom with a tax-deductible donation today? But psychopaths are not greedy in the same way sociopaths are. As the nurse climbed the stairs, she stopped dead in her tracks. Surprisingly, there are some rather significant connections between Marjorie and St. Louis Park. "She brought a birthday cake in for one of the lawyers one day. "She lives in very nice properties," Gail Feichtinger, co-author of "Will to Murder: The True Story Behind the Crimes & Trials Surrounding the Glensheen Killings," who continues to keep track of Marjorie's whereabouts and crimes told the News Tribune in 2017. Now she was free to do whatever she wanted. Police alleged it was a crime of greed, saying Marjorie Caldwell and her new husband, Roger Caldwell, were desperate for money and wanted to speed up their $8 million inheritance. Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Later it came to light that her friend had thought the world of her. Her trustees earlier had cut Marjorie off from the Congdon millions, after the. It was a pattern that would repeat itself throughout her life. It happened because she lacked a conscience. She and her new husband, Roger Caldwell, were living in Colorado and were flat broke.. Their mother Hagen's previous wife was in a nursing home in 1980 when she collapsed into a coma and died after Marjorie allegedly was seen feeding her something from a jar. They purchased the house from Kenneth and Alice Wolfe; he was to become mayor of St. Louis Park and a State Senator. Who lived in the Glensheen Mansion? She was charming and talkative. Sadly, Marjories mother neglected to mention Marjories psychological problems to her new husband before he married her. Marjorie stood to inherit $8.2 million upon her mother's death. Before the contract came due, she sold the house but didnt immediately vacate. Elisabeth was the last surviving child of mining magnate Chester Congdon, who built Glensheen in the first decade of the 20th century and was reportedly the richest man in Minnesota when he died in 1916. One month before the murder Marjorie got a prescription for Antabuse. "People have seen her as recently as the last couple weeks, walking her dog without a walker," Feichtinger said at the time. What happened Marjorie Congdon? When Elisabeth was found murdered, it didnt take long for the investigation to zero in on the Caldwells. Elisabeth named her Marjorie. These days few Americans find it cynical to observe that our justice system is vulnerable to the influences of wealth and celebrity. That has always bothered me. "People do see her out and about. TUCSON, Ariz. -- Marjorie Congdon Caldwell Hagen, the 74-year-old woman acquitted in connection with the June 1977 deaths of her mother and her mother's nurse at Duluth's Glensheen mansion, was taken into custody Thursday night at a Tucson assisted-living facility and booked into Pima County Jail on suspicion of theft, forgery, fraud and computer tampering. Although Marjorie was brought up in the familys opulent Glensheen Mansion and attended Dana Hall Prep School in Massachusetts, she was nevertheless troubled, and at age 16 she was actually given the label sociopath during a stay at the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas, in the summer of 1949. The promise of a big pay combined with plenty of publicity may have been factors that led Ronald Meshbesher to take her case. Marjorie Congdons sudden magnetic appeal to men is remarkable in light of the fact that she was in no way conventionally attractive. They are thinking about restoring the greenhouses, which were torn down in 1971, and bringing in bee hives and selling Glensheen honey. That's when Kimball decided to write a book about the case, "Secrets of the Congdon Mansion. Marjorie Caldwell served two prison terms for arson, and she's been linked to several mysterious deaths. As before, she was not considered a flight risk, so she was permitted to visit her husband one last time before being escorted to prison. The grotesque story is nonetheless a true one that unfolded almost 40 years ago now: Duluths Glensheen murders, an atrocity that riveted the region for years. Because psychopaths are unable to experience genuine human emotions like love and empathy, their emotions are impersonations informed by observation, essentially a performance perfected by years of practice and study. In 1883 at the age of thirty he started his own practice and traveled to Duluth on the shores of Lake Superior where he became interested in mining. 15091511 E. Superior Street, Duluth, Minnesota. TUCSON, Ariz. -- Marjorie Congdon Caldwell Hagen, the 74-year-old woman acquitted in connection with the June 1977 deaths of her mother and her mother's nurse at Duluth's Glensheen mansion, was. Marjorie Congdon was born Jacqueline Barnes on July 14, 1932, to an unwed mother in Tarboro, North Carolina. Marjorie was caught red-handed setting fire to her neighbors house. The public needs to be educated. Marjorie Congdon Hagen, 78, was placed on three years' intensive probation in March 2009 after she pleaded guilty to attempted forgery. When she was alerted to the fire, she was nonchalant. During her lifetime, the Duluth mining heiress and philanthropist worked quietly to shape the community and culture of her northern town. They turned him down flat. She parted ways with her second husband, Roger Caldwell, after the trials. Marjorie and Dick LeRoy had seven children: When LeRoy was transferred to Minnesota, they lived in Minneapolis, then moved to St. Louis Park. What they inadvertently let loose on a summer day in 1932 destroyed many lives, and it all began with an act of generosity. In 1990, Hagen and her husband moved to Ajo, Ariz. One year later, authorities said Marjorie Hagen used a kerosene-soaked rag to try to burn down a neighbor's home. MP: Your book includes two riveting and fairly disturbing courtroom dramas the murder trial [starring a sneering Ron Meshbesher] and the settlement of your grandmothers estate. The mansion itself is beautiful. And I have taken all the necessary precautions to keep myself safe. A civil suit filed by five of her seven children in 1979 to disinherit their mother from her inheritance on the grounds she was involved in the murders was settled out of court in 1983. 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