Episode Transcript- Bina Verrault & The Love Syndicate

[Amanda] Hey podcast listeners, I’m Amanda, and this is a special road trip episode of New York’s Dark Side

[Intro Music]

[Amanda] If you’re watching the podcast on YouTube, you may realize I’m not in my usual recording location. I’m recording this episode from the famous Clown Motel in Tonopah, Nevada. Today I have a true crime story that starts in New York and ends in Tonopah, and I found it completely by accident! This is the story of Bina Verrault and The Love Syndicate. This one was fun to research, I had to dig through a bunch of early 1900 newspapers, which is a joy I never knew I would have until I started this podcast. There are some interesting stories in there that made front page news. This story is wild, I’m going to do my best with it, some of the sources had the same story but had different spellings of people’s names or had different occupations listed. As always, I’ll have all my source material listed in the show notes and on the webpage for this episode. Anyway, let’s jump right to it!

[Amanda] Somewhere around August 14, 1906, I say somewhere because I saw a couple of different dates listed in the newspaper sources United States District Attorney United States District Attorney Francis J. Carmody had a real conundrum on his hands. Multiple men had come forward with an incredible story. Among the men were James C. McClellan of Philadelphia, “Count” Gregory Zalinoff and Leo Kiesler of New York. The men claimed that they had been duped out of large amounts of money by a woman, using different names, whose identity was Bina Verrault. James McClellan claimed that he had been courting the stunning “Mrs. Helen Hamilton”, a very lonely and very wealthy widow, she had promised to marry him, but after showering her with gifts and providing her with funds totaling over $2800, a sum of almost $95,000 in 2023. Leo Kiesler, had a similar story, having been duped out of $4500, or $150,000 today, by Mrs Verrault, who had initially used the alias Mrs. Montgomery when she answered his advertisement in the personals. Count Gregory Zalinoff had also been engaged to a Mrs. Helen Hamilton. I wasn’t able to find much on “Count” Gregory Zalinoff but I suspect based on some third party information that he was found to not truly be a “count” but a grocer. There were many other men also waiting outside Carmody’s office, all with stories of being duped, by various means. Many of them did not want their identities released for obvious reasons.

[Amanda] For the moment, Mrs. Bina Verrault had been arrested and then released on her own recognizance for the swindling of McClellon. But who was this beautiful and cunning vixon that had taken advantage of so many men. When the story first broke in the newspapers, no one really knew that answer except for Bina and perhaps those closely associated with her. But on August 14, 1906, a pair of men would enter the office of District Attorney Carmody to help solve some of that mystery. One of those men was George T Verrault, a local artist and notably also the husband of. Mrs. Bina Verrault, he was not actually dead, and she was not actually a widow. He had been living in Bensonhurst, a suburb of Brooklyn, and between him and the unnamed man with him who knew Bina from when she was younger, they had a story to tell about Bina which would help solve the mystery of this enigmatic woman. 

[Amanda] Bina Verrault was born Bina Finnegan in Ironton Wisconsin somewhere between 1871 and 1874, the men didn’t seem to know for sure. Her parents both were deeply into alcohol. Her father was a Creole sheep farmer according to one source and one night when Bina was young, while at a saloon which was not at all out of character for him, he got into a drunken brawl and lost his life. Bina’s mother continued to drink and when Bina was 12, her mother also passed away after a drunken spree. After this Bina took residence with the family of a banker named George Thompson Morse who lived in Reedsburg, Wisconsin. She continued her schooling and one source said she served as a nurse to his two children. Bina had two brothers, it’s unclear if she maintained contact with them throughout the years, but Edward was working as a schoolmaster in Ironton and William was working for a railroad in Chicago according to one source. 

[Amanda] At some point in her teenage years, at this point being described as “a rare beauty” Bina Finnegan moved to Chicago, where she got a job working at Prussian Life Insurance Company. She reportedly grew bored of the name Bina Finnegan and changed it to Bina Forrestre. In 1892, Bina made the acquaintance of Mrs. Izella Pemberton Brown, a “widow”. The two became fast friends. I’m going to pause here and talk to you a bit about Izella. Izella Willena Mason was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia one of 11 children. She was said to be a beautiful woman with blonde hair and hazel eyes. She would run off with a topographical engineer 20 years her senior named James Pemberton Brown in 1886. Izella, in my opinion, would prove to be Bina’s downfall. She had a very negative influence on Bina. Izella was only posing as a widow at this point, her husband was still very much alive. Sound familiar? Izella and Bina would start to stir up trouble for themselves in Chicago, spending quite a bit of their time drinking and shoplifting. They were arrested at least once. Once the police started to put the heat on them, the women moved to Philadelphia. 

[Amanda] At a boarding house in Philadelphia in January of 1901, Bina would meet George T. Verrault. For him, it was love at first sight. Three weeks later February 16, 1901, George and Bina were married. A week later Bina was arrested again for shoplifting and public intoxication. George bailed her out of jail, and Bina disappeared for three days. I wasn’t able to find out any information about what she was doing in that time. When she returned however, she started hanging out with Izella again, continued drinking heavily, and it was just not good news. George also started to hear from the neighbors that while he was gone young men were calling on the apartment. George seeing that this was going no place good, packed up Bina and they moved to Baltimore, Maryland leaving Izella behind in their apartment. They would later move to New York. 

[Amanda] At this point, Bina was racking up a large amount of debt and continuing to shoplift. Notably George said that Bina had “acquired” tapestries and other goods from a company called H.B. Chaflin and Co. totaling about $15,000 in products- which would be about half a million dollars today. According to George, he also knew Bina had swindled about $5,000 from the Metropolitan Street Railway by claiming that she had been crushed between a car and a pillar. I saw two different versions of what happened next. One version is that Bina left George, the other version is that George finally got tired of Bina’s antics, and he left. Regardless, they separated sometime before 1903. 

[Amanda] On January 13, 1903, as George was walking through New York City, he was stopped by a man named Gregory Allen. He knew Gregory, who was an amateur sculptor. Gregory approached him and took him by the arm and began to tell him how sorry Bina was for all that she had put him through. George told the district attorney that as he began to feel badly about leaving Bina and that perhaps he should give her another chance, another man who he recognized as Joseph Mason, one of Izella’s brothers came up to them and grabbed his other arm. Now he was basically helpless, held by these two men, and then Bina, Izella and two other women came out of hiding and began to horsewhip him in the alley. The group continued to beat him until he was able to break free and escape. He at this point decided to have no further contact with Bina until the story broke in the papers about the “love syndicate” and he felt he needed to set things straight. 

[Amanda] So let’s talk about the “love syndicate”. From what I can gather, it sounds like this was actually a plot that was masterminded by Izella and Bina had become the face of the syndicate. Izella Brown had been portraying herself as a widow as a mentioned when she first met Bina back in 1892, but she became a widow in actuality when her husband, John Pemberton Brown died in 1899. He left her a fortune in insurance, she blew through it very quickly as she had a habit of living well above her means. Once she had blown through her money, she started working as a cloak model and secured a small flat in New York City. One day, while perusing the newspaper personal ads, she stumbled across one listed for a wealthy married wall street broker who was looking for a stenographer. She answered the ad and before long she was “on good terms with him”. His wife passed away, cause unknown to me, it wasn’t in the source material, but it’s said that he began to wine and dine Izella, begging her to marry him. She declined, the wining and dining stopped, and she moved on. But she began using the personal ads to do similar schemes, and eventually she had so many people responding to her ads it became too much for her, so she recruited Bina as well. 

[Amanda] The women started out at 114 West 73rd Street but eventually took up residence at 343 West 82nd Street. Both houses were said to be spectacularly decorated, likely with items that the women had swindled, been gifted, stolen, or bought on credit to help build the façade they were going for- those of extremely wealthy widows. They most certainly did not work alone. According to the source material, other players in this syndicate included- four or five of Izella’s brothers two of whom had spent time in prison in Massachusetts for playing a “badger game” with a farmer. One of the brothers had been arrested in Boston multiple times for swindling as a spirit medium. There was also information that the brothers had opened a grocery store on Lake Street in Chicago, then sold for cash the stock they had bought on credit, which then led to the arrest of the person who bought the stock for removing stolen property… Izella’s sister Sarah Mason, Izella’s daughter Lillian, Izella’s niece Mary Mason, Gregory Allen the amateur sculptor, and an actor named Robert Emmet Keene who actually ended up quitting his acting career on Broadway because the syndicate was pulling in so much money from their schemes were all involved. Gregory Allen and Robert Keene would act as butlers for the home. Lillian and Mary would act as maids. 

[Amanda] Bina and Izella used multiple different methods to gain money from their victims. One ruse they used was to invite wealthy businessmen to their elaborately decorated home where they would wine and dine them. They would do a couple of different things- One popular method was Bina would claim that she was a spiritual medium and that the spirits of the man’s loved one was contacting her telling her that they wanted him to invest in a company called Kentucky Coal and Fuel. This was a fictitious company made up by George Mason, one of Izella’s brothers. George had even drawn up papers for this company including his father-in-law, unbeknownst to him, as the Vice President of the company and he was none too happy when he found out... Another common ruse they would use was to send invitations to wealthy potential investors inviting them to dinner party’s that claimed that Secretary Root, Secretary Taft, and Governor Stokes of New Jersey would be present. George Mason would then leave the home and send telegrams to the home after the guests had arrived, claiming something had come up and they were no longer able to be attendance. The other scam that the women used was placing or answering ads in the personals under the guise of being a wealthy widow looking to marry. This is how our three gentlemen from the beginning of the story became ensnared in the love syndicate. 

[Amanda] Leo Kiesler, age 40 at the time of the events, was described as a tall and auburn-haired man who had only been in love once, that love being Bina, was interviewed in one article I read. He would tell the reporter that he had only come forward after McClellon had. The story he gave was that he had advertised for a wife in October of 1905 as he was feeling lonely and had no one “to make love to”. He had gotten some replies to his advertisement and among them was one signed “Mrs. Montgomery”. He really like the way the letter read, so he called to the home of 114 West 73rd street, where Bina had been living before moving to 82nd street. An elegantly dressed butler answered the door and he found the house to be “the finest house he had ever been in”. Izella Brown greeted him and introduced herself as Bina’s sister-in-law. After calling on Bina for about a week, she started to tell him that her assets were tied up in litigation. So being a good man, he started giving her money to help with her situation, he bought her an engagement ring, and he took her all around town during their courtship. Whenever he took her out, she would wear a veil, claiming that her brother would be angry if he saw her out on the town with a stranger. Leo gave Bina so much money that he had to borrow money to give it to her. When she asked for a large sum of money, the amount was undisclosed in the source material, he had to refuse and then she stopped writing to him. Instead, he would get a letter from Izella claiming that Bina had gone west.

[Amanda] Just before George had come to the office of the district attorney, a second warrant was placed for Bina Verrault’s arrest, and the US Marshall’s went to the home at 82nd Street and called on the door while George was speaking with the District Attorney. The door was answered by a young man, not one of the usual “butlers”. When the Marshall’s requested to speak with Bina Verrault, they were told by the young man that the family had gone to the country and were not home. The men started to leave but they heard a female voice from the door as it was closing tell young man that he had fooled them. They turned around and pushed into the home, finding that the home appeared to have been emptied of a lot of the personal belongings. Bina Verrault was not present in the home. The US marschall’s then called upon Bina’s lawyers, who told them she would present to the Federal Building at 3 pm, but she failed to show. At this point they believed that she had fled. George Verrault’s testimony cinched the case against Bina, as he confirmed she was using the mail as part of her schemes. Bina hadn’t fled however; she would come later with her lawyers and Izella in tow. They had a preliminary hearing and then the court agreed to postpone the hearing until September 26th to give them time to prepare and have as many as the men testify as possible.

[Amanda] In the interim, an article in the Boston Globe on August 28, 1906 would proclaim that Bina Verrault was being charged with another count of swindling when several men from New York and Boston would claim that they had responded to ads in the newspaper telling of rich lead field discoveries in Newfoundland. The address given was the Kentucky Fuel and Alcohol Company, run by the love syndicate who had an address for an office at 58 Wall Street. When the gentlemen would go to that address, they were referred to a Mrs. Maria Mason at 114 West 73rd Street. The men would be shown dispatches from Newfoundland with descriptions of the land surveys of the mining properties. They would buy large quantities of stock with the money given directly to “Mrs. Mason”. The buyers of this stock recognized Bina Verrault’s photo in the paper as Mrs. Maria C. Mason when stories started running about the love syndicate bust. They also realized at this time that the telegrams with the land surveys had been sent by George C. Mason. There was potentially yet another swindling scheme that had offices at 52 Broadway, that listed George C. Mason as president and there were concerns that Verrault and Brown were prospering from that.

[Amanda] Bina would end up going to court in September of 1906 where she would give testimony stating “I have been abused and grossly misrepresented on all sides. My character has been wantonly assailed, and I have been pictured before the public as an adventuress, whose one aim was to wring cash from unsuspecting men”. She would claim that the truth was the men were trying to scheme her from her worldly possessions by pretending to make love to her. She then would go on to say that the truth was she should be seen as an example for women, since she showed them the dangers of meeting men through newspaper ads. She stated she could out many high-profile men who had called on her, but she didn’t want to sully their names without “grave consideration”. Bina would also claim that a German Baron was hounding her trying to get letters back that he had written to her because he had given her jewelry that didn’t belong to him because he was scheming to steal money from her once they were married to pay for the jewelry and he was worried she was going to publish the letters he had given her as proof. All told Bina and Izella are thought to have swindled about $100,000 from the men they trapped in their syndicate, an equivalent of about 3.5 million dollars in 2023.

[Amanda] Bina would end up selling some diamond rings during the trial and this time she did flee and moved to Tonopah, Nevada before the trial was over. She went by her alias Helen Hamilton and arrived with several of her fine gowns and little else. The people of Tonopah had never heard of her, so she was relatively safe there. She started working as a prospector in the mines, which she was terrible at and set to work her old ways trying to swindle men around Tonopah. There were several men that would report being engaged to her, but she was up to her old ways and would dump one for the next. Bina would end up being shunned by the men, the reason “unknown” but likely because they caught on to her mischievous and deceitful ways. She took refuge in a strong drink and could often be found at the theater and the bars. The excessive alcohol use seemed to take its toll on Bina, it was reported that she was no longer the “woman with the fine appearance who had dazzled the camp”. She would fall ill and die in a delirium due to heart failure, and despite the physicians attempt to helper her she passed away. Her death was so sudden that it became a coroner case, but it was determined to be due to the excessive alcoholism. The townsfolk of Tonopah would put together a fund and bury her in Tonopah cemetery where she remains today. Her effects were turned over to a special administrator named J.P. Brissell and everyone kind of went on with their lives, but Brissell was able to track down that the mysterious Helen Hamilton was truly Bina Verrault.

[Amanda] Bina’s grave is still here at the Tonopah cemetary, which is right next to the “world famous clown motel” where I am recording this episode. Bina is said to haunt the visitors center at the historic Tonopah mining park which is near the motel. I am so excited that I stumbled across this case. I had mentioned wanting to visit the clown motel well before I made the decision to start this podcast, so this was not planned at all. In case anyone is interested, the room I am staying at is room 214 which is the “Friday the 13th room”. I have a scary painting of Jason Voorhees to keep me company tonight as well as several clown paintings. Pictures of the room are already on my social media pages and I will definitely be giving an update next episode if I experience any hauntings tonight. We’re going to go check out the cemetary after dark, and my room is supposedly haunted so there’s also that. There’s reports of the lights in here turning on and off on their own, I haven’t seen that yet but I haven't been here very long so we’ll see how the night progresses. Anyway, if you’re enjoying the show, please make sure you give us a follow so you’re always up to date on new episode drops! You can follow the show on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter as well. If you want, you can send me an email at nydarksidepodcast@gmail.com. All episode information can be found on my website- www.nydarksidepodcast.com. I hope you keep listening and most of all I hope you stay spooky and curious.