American Horror Story: Murder House is the perfect blend of paranormal scares, horrific murders, and family tragedy. While many of the terrifying storylines are fictional, others are based on real events from American history. As your AHS guide, let’s explore the disturbing history that inspired some of Murder House’s darkest moments.
Charles Montgomery’s Illegal Abortions
Let’s take a closer look at Dr. Charles Montgomery, the man who built the Los Angeles home that would become the murder house. His own activities in the house laid the foundation for the negative psychic energy that grew in subsequent decades.
Charles was once a surgeon to the stars who fell from grace and became addicted to ether. Because he was broke AF, his wife Nora set up a side hustle where he performed illegal abortions in their basement. In total, about 2 dozen girls received abortions in the murder house in the 1920s.
Historically, abortions were illegal in California until the late 1960s. At the federal level, abortion became legal in 1973 following the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision (it was overturned in 2022 😳). However, the history of abortion goes way back. Documentation exists of abortions performed in the United States throughout the 17th and 18th centuries.
By 1850, the criminalization of abortion was gaining traction, in large part thanks to the American Medical Association (AMA). The newly founded organization wanted the emerging medical profession to monopolize the procedure, thereby taking it from the realm of homeopaths and midwives. Many AMA members also took a moral stance against abortions.
As a result of the anti-abortion movement, Congress passed the Comstock Law of 1873. The law made transporting contraceptives and any material or equipment used in abortions a federal offense. Despite this legislation, women continued to get abortions and even performed them on themselves.
The Disturbing History of Secret Abortions
By the Great Depression, there were more than 500,000 abortions in the United States each year. The cost to have the procedure done by a professional was less than $75. Physicians learned how to do the operation because they could legally perform it when the life of the mother was at stake. If a doctor performed an abortion for any other reason, however, they risked arrest.
In the 1940s, the authorities even conducted raids to discourage the practice. Despite the risks, trained doctors continued to perform abortions in secret. Like Charles Montgomery, physicians typically performed the procedure successfully.
It was mostly self-induced abortions that resulted in serious complications and death. Many women chose to perform the abortion themselves because of the stigma they’d face if they were exposed. Horrific self-induced methods included drinking lye, hitting their stomachs with heavy objects, or douching with bleach. 1
After that incredibly disturbing history of abortions, let’s return to Murder House. Everything goes to hell in a handbasket for Charles when the boyfriend of an abortion patient decides to enact revenge by kidnapping his son Thaddeus. Although Charles and Nora wait for a ransom demand, it never comes. Instead, police arrive on their doorstep to return their dismembered child.
Lindbergh Baby Kidnapping
The famous Lindbergh kidnapping directly inspired the tragic fate of Thaddeus Montgomery. On March 1, 1932, the 20-month-old son of aviator Charles Lindbergh and his wife, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, was kidnapped from their home in Hopewell, New Jersey. That evening, nanny Betty Gow went to check on Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr. in the nursery. Instead of hearing his post-nap cries or seeing his golden curls, she found an empty crib.
A search of the estate revealed a crudely made ladder, which the kidnappers used to gain entry to the nursery on the second floor. In Murder House, this is exactly how Thaddeus’ kidnapper took him. Once Nora gets the creepy phone call from the vengeful boyfriend alerting her to the kidnapping, she runs into the nursery and sees a ladder propped against an open window.
Weirdly enough, kidnapping wealthy people’s kids for ransom money was kind of thing back then. Sure enough, Lindbergh discovered a ransom note in the nursery. Since he was incredibly famous and domineering, he decided to bypass the cops and head the kidnapping investigation himself. It was stupid of him to do so, and he was led on a wild goose chase by conmen and intermediaries. While he eventually handed over ransom money to the kidnappers, he never got his child back alive.
On May 12, 1932, William Allen pulled his truck over to pee in the woods about 4 ½ miles from the Lindbergh home. He accidentally discovered Charlie’s body, which was missing limbs (wild animals were the likely culprits). The coroner determined the child had been killed about two months prior by a blow to the head. Authorities believed the kidnappers accidentally dropped the baby while descending the ladder that fateful night.
Who Kidnapped Little Charlie?
So, who kidnapped and killed little Charlie? Technically, this case is solved. In 1934, authorities caught German immigrant Bruno Richard Hauptmann after he paid for gas with a gold certificate from the ransom money. He was tried and executed for the crime on April 3, 1936.
Now, did Hauptmann do it? Some scholars and true crime authors say yes, he did. Case closed. Others, like FBI profiler John Douglas, say he probably did, but wasn’t working alone. Some authors, however, believe Hauptmann was just an opportunistic extortionist who only acquired the ransom money. Still others say he was totally innocent of all crimes. All agree that he did not receive a fair trial and was royally fucked from the start.
The most fascinating theories, however, point to Charles Lindbergh himself. While we all learned about his famous transatlantic flight from New York to Paris in May 1927, what high school history didn’t teach us is that Lindbergh was kind of an asshole. He was prone to malicious pranks that went beyond mischievousness and amusement. There’s even documentation that one of his cruel pranks was telling his wife that Charlie was missing (he was really hiding the baby in the closet). Therefore, some authors posit that Lindbergh accidentally killed his son in a prank gone wrong.
There is also the controversial view that Lindbergh deliberately killed his son because of some physical deformity. This theory points to Lindbergh’s racist as hell ideas about white supremacy and eugenics. Proponents of this theory believe that if his son had some kind of deformity, Lindbergh was ashamed of him because he did not fit into the ideal of a master race. Whew.
It’s Alive!
With that crazy turn of events, let’s get back to Murder House. Once baby Thaddeus came back to Charles and Nora in pieces, things took a turn for the worse. What can be worse than a deceased child, you ask? A child brought back from the dead, that’s more monster than human.
When Charles fell from grace as Hollywood’s surgeon, he developed a fascination with death and reanimation. While his experiments with dead animal parts always failed, his attempt to bring his dead son back to life succeeded. Channeling his inner Frankenstein, he cheated death and created a monster known as the Infantata (the only character to really scare the shit out of me).
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein directly inspired Charles’ obsession and creation. The 1818 gothic novel explores the dark side of ambition and the horrific consequences of pushing the boundaries of science. When Dr. Victor Frankenstein reanimates dead flesh from different body parts into a living creature, he quickly realizes defying nature is a big no-no. The monster he creates wreaks havoc in the world and ultimately comes for him. In the case of Charles, his creation is confined to the murder house but is a bloodthirsty being who takes no prisoners.
The Lost Colony of Roanoke
Finally, AHS: Murder House draws inspiration from the lost colony of Roanoke. When the spirits of Chad and Patrick decide they’re going to take Vivian Harmon’s babies, Violet decides to get rid of them. She turns to medium Billie Dean Howard, who recounts a ritual used in early America to banish evil spirits.
As the story goes, the entire colony of Roanoke on the coast of North Carolina inexplicably died. Their spirits haunted the Native American tribes living in the area, killing them in droves. An elder cast a banishment curse by collecting the colonists’ personal items and burning them. Once the talismans summoned the spirits, the elder banished them by saying the word “Croatoan.” This word was also found carved on a tree in the colony.
When Violet tries the ritual, she finds out it was all bullshit. What’s also bullshit is Billie Dean’s story of the lost colony of Roanoke. Here’s the truth.
Founding of Roanoke Colony
In 1584, Sir Walter Raleigh received permission from Queen Elizabeth I to start a colony in North America. In 1585, colonists arrived on Roanoke Island, off the modern-day coast of North Carolina (then the territory of Virginia). They abandoned the island in 1586, but Raleigh was not dissuaded. He tried again in 1587, sending another expedition of 117 men, women, and children under the command of John White. While they planned on settling in the Chesapeake Bay, they ended up on Roanoke Island.
White left for England to get more supplies for the colony but was unable to come back for three years. Upon his return to Roanoke, he found all of the colonists had disappeared. The only clues left behind were the word “CROATOAN” carved into a fence post and the letters “CRO” on a tree trunk.
What Happened to the Roanoke Colonists?
So, what the fuck happened to the colonists? No one knows—it’s a mystery! But we can hazard a guess. “Croatoan” was not a banishment curse as Murder House would have you believe. Rather, it refers to the Croatoans, a friendly Native American tribe living about 50 miles away from Roanoke on Croatoan Island.
With this information, we can theorize that the colonists joined the nearby Croatoan tribe when they hit hard times. They might’ve intermarried with the Native Americans and lived happily ever after.
If you want to be cynical like many historians, however, here are a few other theories. The colonists might have died of famine, disease, or natural disaster. Or they could’ve attempted a return to England and been lost at sea or killed by pirates. Alas, we’ll never know.
More Murder House Inspirations
The history doesn’t stop here! Check out the following two articles on Murder House for more historical inspirations:
- The Real Houses of Horror Behind American Horror Story: Murder House is the first article in the series. It delves into the inspirations behind the murder house itself, including Gothic horror literature, the Los Feliz Murder House, and the Amityville Horror House.
- The True Crime Cases That Inspired American Horror Story: Murder House is the second article in the series. It examines how the Columbine Massacre, the Richard Speck nurse murders, and the Black Dahlia influenced the storyline and characters.
Footnotes
- Dictionary of American History. 2003. Under “Abortion,” by Kathleen A. Tobin; The Social History of the American Family: An Encyclopedia. 2014. Under “Abortion,” by Susan Cody-Rydezewski. ↩︎
Bibliography & Further Reading
*The following links are Amazon affiliate links, meaning I earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no additional cost to you.
Additional Sources
Dictionary of American History. “Abortion.” By Kathleen A. Tobin. Last modified 2003.
Taylor, Alan. American Colonies: The Settling of North America, Vol. 1. New York: Viking, 2001.
The Social History of the American Family: An Encyclopedia. “Abortion.” By Susan Cody-Rydezewski. Last modified 2014.
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