Death at 816 Whitcomb: Part 3
A convinced coroner and a controversial conclusion
Release Date: July 22, 2025
A community on edge
Preliminary findings that the deaths of five members of the Fulvia family – at night and in their locked home – had likely been murder, set off a wave of speculation and fear within the close-knit Italian neighborhood of Collinwood in northeast Cleveland, OH.
That police detectives believed it could be someone the Fulvis knew, perhaps even a family member, only made things worse.
Front pages across Cuyahoga County and all of Ohio fed the public panic:
Brutal Murder Plot Suspected by Authorities: Father and Four Children Poisoned; Mother and Child Escape 1
Five Are Found Dead and Brutal Crime Suspected: Mother and Babe Sole Survivors in House of Death at Cleveland. Theories Are Advanced Today: Murder, Suspicion Lurks, However, and Police are Certain of a Crime. 2
Father and Four Little Children Dead in Home, Victims of Murder 3
A widely syndicated piece titled “Murder Plot Suspected as Death Claims Five of Family in Night: Guests at Feast on Fatal Night Escape Without Harm” made things even worse, suggesting Cleveland authorities weren’t up to the job, and seeking public input into the true cause of the sinister deaths:
Murder Mystery for Master Detective
What were the forces back of the unseen terror which grasped the Fulvi family of Cleveland Ohio, in the night, sending the father and mother and their five children into death convulsions from which only the wife and the youngest child escaped?
Possibly you can work out in your mind a solution of the mystery which is baffling the corps of detectives working upon it.
Read this story and try. 4
Pressure to solve the Fulvi case, and solve it quickly, was felt up and down the ranks in every city and county department.
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A battle of bureaucratic wills
Early Saturday morning, January 30, police detectives were sent out to every druggist in the area to get the names of anyone who’d recently purchased poison, especially arsenic, strychnine and cyanide, but also so-called medicinal alcohol which, although legal under prohibition, was nearly always laced with methanol.
And the city’s forensic chemists were busy analyzing the food, wine and beer which had been found at the Fulvi house, a process they’d begun the night before.
It was, it seemed, an all-hands-on deck investigation.
Except it wasn’t.
Despite having taken custody of the bodies of Arturo, James, Rueben, Dorothy and Mary Fulvi the previous afternoon, the coroner had not yet conducted a single autopsy.
His reason varied by the account, with some suggesting the coroner didn’t feel autopsies were necessary, and others reporting he was overworked, holding out for more money or simply waiting for authorization.
Whatever his reason, the head of the city’s health and safety department took exception to the delays, and went to the county prosecutor’s office seeking legal authority for his department to take custody of the bodies and complete the autopsies themselves. The request was denied, however, the coroner eventually capitulated, and autopsies were conducted on two of the five victims, Arturo and Rueben, Saturday afternoon. Only routine medical histories were completed on the other victims. 5
About the time the autopsies were being conducted on the bodies of Arturo and Rueben, three-year-old Gino passed away at Euclid Hospital. No autopsy was performed, despite the appearance of blisters and burns on his lips and tongue. 6
The lone survivor speaks
Sometime on Saturday, doctors at Nottingham Hospital granted police detectives permission to interview Elvira. Although they’d spoken with her briefly the night before, her answers had been confused and contradictory, whether from shock, exposure to some poisonous agent or both, was unknown.
In that earlier interview, Elvira had said the family ate a midnight lunch after their guests had left, however, during Saturday’s interview, she recanted that story, suggesting she’d been delirious at the time.
Instead, Elvira said she, Arturo and five of their six children, James, Rueben, Dorothy, Mary and Gino — Victor had left after dinner and spent the night with his grandparents — went to bed shortly after the guests left.
An hour or so later, she estimated the time at 1 a.m., Elvira said she woke up with “a suffocating pain”.
She tried to reach her children in the other room, but fainted before she could get to them. At some later point, she regained consciousness and then recalled falling down the stairs. Still later, Elvira said she managed to struggle to the window and signal a passerby.
How she came to be found by that passerby still alive and holding three-year-old Gino at 3:30 o’clock in the afternoon — some 14 hours after she’d initially woke up — remained unclear.
And how she knew everyone upstairs was dead by then was also unanswered. 7
A discounted theory gains traction
Early on in the investigation, authorities had set aside the theory that carbon monoxide poisoning had killed Arturo and his five children. Not only did none of the victims have the tell-tale sign of carbon monoxide poisoning, cherry red lips, but more convincing was the fact that both Elvira and Gino had initially survived, something experts agreed would have been highly unlikely if not impossible given the long hours they’d been in the house.
Still, in an effort to be thorough, the Fulvi home was sealed, the furnace turned up and a device to measure carbon monoxide levels placed on the main floor and turned on.
Readings were taken after one hour and again after two, and the results seemed to suggest that, given enough time, the concentration of carbon monoxide gas in the house could have reached lethal levels, at least according to the field agent for the city chemist.
“It takes only 1 or 2 per cent of carbon monoxide to kill. This furnace had been going all night before the deaths. We’ll let it run a similar length of time and we’ll probably find a sufficient percentage of poison to kill.” 8
But not everyone agreed with his conclusion.
The president and general manager of the local gas company had voluntarily sent his own experts to the Fulvi home to check the furnace, and, although they agreed carbon monoxide poisoning was possible, they didn’t believe it was likely.
As evidence they pointed to the cat and dog, both of whom had been in the basement and had survived the night.
“Monoxide is heavier than air and the dog and cat ordinarily would have died first. The gas also would have been heavier downstairs than upstairs.”
Then there were the victims, all of whom appeared to have been alert and mobile right up until the moment of death.
“The victims would hardly have been able to get out of bed, and it is not likely they would have suffered as acutely as they did, apparently.”
And finally, there was the question of how the poisonous gas would have traveled upstairs.
“My men say the furnace had a flue, but that it had not been connected, how long, they can’t tell. This would make possible the escape of monoxide into the house. But how it would travel upstairs is a mystery, and you can’t tell unless you make a detailed study of the heating system. If the air intake were in the basement, it would pick up the monoxide out of the basement. Otherwise the new air would be more or less purified at all times.” 9
The gas company experts weren’t the only ones skeptical that carbon monoxide poisoning had killed the Fulvi family.
Police officials also had some doubts.
“There is still a remote possibility of murder behind the Fulvi case, the police say, because everyone agrees it was one of the most unusual cases of carbon monoxide poisoning ever found in this part of the country,
“There was a degree of agony in the deaths, uncommon in carbon monoxide cases. Inspector Cody says there is a remote possibility that some enemy of the family tampered with the furnace, knowing it might cover up the work of some other deadly poison.” 10
The coroner’s probable conclusion
Tissue and fluid samples collected by the coroner during the autopsies of Arturo and Rueben were sent to the city chemist’s labs for analysis
Late Saturday evening, the much-anticipated lab results were in: Nearly 24 hours after Carl Benevol had discovered the ghastly scene at 816 Whitcomb Road, chemical analysis determined both the presence of an unidentified liquid poison in the stomach of one of the victims and sufficient carbon monoxide in the victim’s blood to cause death. 11
The next morning, the coroner released his report and closed the case: Arturo, James, Rueben, Dorothy, Mary and Gino Fulvi had “succumbed to carbon monoxide fumes spread by a defective furnace.” 12
Official death certificates for all six members of the Fulvi family were filled out and signed by the coroner the next day, February 1. And all listed the same cause of death: Found dead in bed in house no need care probably carbon monoxide gas poisoning accidental. 13
The Collinwood neighborhood could rest easy.
Probably.
Copyright 2025 Lori Olson White
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End Notes
1 “Brutal Murder Plot Suspected by Authorities: Father and Four Children Poisoned; Mother and Child Escape”, Telegraph-Forum, Bucyrus, OH, Sat, Jan 30, 1926, P. 1.
2 “Five Are Found Dead and Brutal Crime Suspected: Mother and Babe Sole Survivors in House of Death at Cleveland. Theories Are Advanced Today: Murder, Suspicion Lurks, However, and Police are Certain of a Crime,” The Piqua Daily Call, Piqua, OH, Sat, Jan 30, 1926, P. 1.
3 “Father and Four Little Children Dead in Home, Victims of Murder,” The Zanesville Signal, Zanesville, OH, Sat, Jan 30, 1926, P. 1.
4 “Brutal Murder Plot Suspected by Authorities: Father and Four Children Poisoned; Mother and Child Escape”, Telegraph-Forum, Bucyrus, OH, Sat, Jan 30, 1926, P. 1.
5 “Five Deaths in Cleveland Are Still Mystery: Man, Two Sons and Two Daughters are Poison Victims: Mother and Third Boy Seriously Ill: Foul Play is Suspected – Home Brew Theory is Abandoned”, Dayton Daily News, Daytona, OH, January 30, 1926, P1.
6 “Six Killed by Monoxide Fumes: Cause of Cleveland Tragedy is Discovered by Chemists”, Springfield News-Sun, Springfield OH, January 31, 1926, P. 1.
7 “Monoxide Gas is Blamed as Sixth is Dead: reports Made on Organs of Two Victims; Theory is strengthened by Tests on Furnace Mrs. Fulvi, Conscious, Adds Little to strory. Detectives Still Believe that Murder is Remote Possibility”, The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, OH, January 31, 1926, P. 1.
8 “Monoxide Gas is Blamed as Sixth is Dead: reports Made on Organs of Two Victims; Theory is strengthened by Tests on Furnace Mrs. Fulvi, Conscious, Adds Little to strory. Detectives Still Believe that Murder is Remote Possibility”, The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, OH, January 31, 1926, P. 1.
9 “Monoxide Gas is Blamed as Sixth is Dead: reports Made on Organs of Two Victims; Theory is strengthened by Tests on Furnace Mrs. Fulvi, Conscious, Adds Little to strory. Detectives Still Believe that Murder is Remote Possibility”, The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, OH, January 31, 1926, P. 1.
10 “Monoxide Gas is Blamed as Sixth is Dead: reports Made on Organs of Two Victims; Theory is strengthened by Tests on Furnace Mrs. Fulvi, Conscious, Adds Little to strory. Detectives Still Believe that Murder is Remote Possibility”, The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, OH, January 31, 1926, P. 1.
11 “Victims Include 4 Children: Mother and Child in Hospital, Conditions Considered Grave; Son Who Refused Drink Suffers No Ill Effects: Friends in City Stunned by Tragedy; Informed by Tribune”, Altoona Tribune, Altoona, PA, January 30, 1926, P1.
12 “Monoxide” From a Family Furnace Caused Death of Six in One Family”, Chillicothe Gaette, Chillicothe, OH, February 1, 1926, P. 10.
13 "Ohio, Deaths, 1908-1953", FamilySearch, Entry for Arthur Fulvi and Vittorio Fulvi, 29 Jan 1926.
What did they ingest at the in-laws after dinner? Doesn't add up yet...cliffhanger!
Yeah… no. Can’t wait for the next installment.