124: Ultrarunning Stranger Things – Part 12: George Noremac and Murder

On a summer morning in 1883 in midtown Manhattan, New York City, a young boy ran down 34th Street, getting the attention of a policeman. He cried out, “A man has killed some folks.”  Officer John Hughes ran with the boy to a new saloon that recently opened. There he saw a man, pale, and trembling. He found out that the man was George Noremac, one of the most famous ultrarunners/pedestrians in the country.

Noremac led the officer up two flights of stairs to the apartment where he lived. On the dining room floor lay two dead bodies, Noremac’s young wife, Elizabeth, and his longtime friend and trainer, George Beattie. A revolver lay on the floor near Beattie's left hand. The murder and suicide occurred while Noremac was downstairs, but his two young children, still crying, had sadly witnessed it all.  How could this have happened?