William Zantzinger, Killer, Dead at 69

William Zanzinger killed poor Hattie Carroll
With a cane that he twirled around his diamond ring finger
At a Baltimore hotel society gath'rin'.
And the cops were called in and his weapon took from him
As they rode him in custody down to the station
And booked William Zanzinger for first-degree murder.

Above and beyond, one of my favorite songs is "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll". In the midst of the tumultuous year that was 1963, brief blurbs in the New York, Washington and Baltimore papers mentioned young Billy Zantzinger, a member of the country gentry of Charles County, Maryland being sentenced to six months for the February 1963 murder of Hattie Carroll, a 51-year-old barmaid at the Emerson Hotel in Baltimore. The start of the sentence moved back a few weeks to allow him to harvest his 630 acres worth of tobacco.

I've always felt a sense of pride that I've been able to see my country grow more and more enlightened. But as a student of American history, I've found myself disgusted at times by the racism and intolerance that has left such a permanent black eye on this land. Justice was denied in this case, much as it was in so many cases of white versus African American and rich versus poor. Hattie Carroll's killer served but six months for involuntary manslaughter after having been initially charged with first degree homicide! His reason for striking Mrs. Carroll? She wasn't getting his drink fast enough!

For nearly all of the rest of his life, William Devereux Zantzinger was a free man- he was on a work release program for eighteen months in the early nineties for collecting thousands of dollars worth of rent on properties without proper sewer or water lines that he had once owned but had subsequently lost. He died a few days ago at age sixty-nine. I still have a hard time listening to "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll", though it is one of my favorite songs. I suggest that you give it a listen and realize that for over four decades a killer in Maryland went about doing his business and getting to live his life as he saw fit.