Gregg Olsen, author of "Starvation Heights," discusses the original fireplace in the Olalla home that once belonged to Linda Hazzard. On the 100th anniversary of Hazzard's manslaughter conviction, Olsen is leading a tour of the home and the site of Hazzard's former sanitarium as a fundraiser for the Kitsap Regional Library Foundation. (LARRY STEAGALL / KITSAP SUN)

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By Tristan Baurick of the Kitsap Sun

This moldering cottage at the end of a driveway in Olalla has a dubious distinction that many locals would prefer to keep under wraps.

"It's the most murderous house in Washington history," Gregg Olsen said after leaving the tiny attic room where Dr. Linda Burfield Hazzard would imprison wealthy patients until they starved to death. She'd then rob them of their jewelry, yank out any gold teeth and perform a bathtub autopsy on their emaciated bodies.

As many as 40 people are believed to have died under Hazzard's care during the early 1900s. Most of them wasted away in captivity at her Institute of Natural Therapeutics in Olalla.

Olsen wrote a book about Hazzard, amplifying her cruel exploits far beyond what Olalla had long preferred to keep down to a low whisper.

"People don't like to talk about bad things, and people in Olalla are very respectful," said Olsen, an Olalla resident whose "Starvation Heights" was first published in 1997. "When I started asking questions about Dr. Hazzard, they said they'd rather talk about the strawberry festival."

About 300 people are expected to descend on Olalla for two events this week marking the centennial of Hazzard's 1911 arrest and eventual conviction for killing one of her patients. Olsen, who has written several nonfiction books, and other experts on the Hazzard saga will give tours of the old house and the site of the 100-bed sanitarium she built nearby. Proceeds from the $150-per-plate Friday dinner event and the $50 Saturday afternoon tours will benefit the Kitsap Regional Library Foundation.

"The interest in this really amazes me," said Peter Raffa, executive director of the KRL Foundation. "We've got people coming in from Canada, Idaho, California, Wisconsin and all over Washington state."

The events may be the last opportunity to get a look at Hazzard's house before it is dismantled in the coming year by its longtime owners.

"When mom bought it 30 years ago, she had no idea what happened here," said Shane Jones, who moved his family to a new house next door four years ago. "Did the real estate agent say anything? Of course not."

Starving for health

Hazzard, who had no medical degree, rose to prominence after the publication of her 1908 book, "Fasting for the Cure of Disease."

In it, she laid out this simple argument: "The sole source of bodily ills is impure blood. The cause of impure blood is imperfect digestion."

And the cure for just about every bodily ill — from leg paralysis to "derangement of the nervous system" — was fasting.

Hazzard's prescribed regime also included plenty of enemas, some of which could last hours at a time. She also advocated a form of "massage" that involved pummeling her patients' brows and backs with her fists. Legend has it she'd yell "Eliminate! Eliminate!" during the beatings.

"Along with starvation, it was a way to get (patients) to submit to her will," Olsen said. "It was physical domination."

By the time her book was published, Hazzard had already killed one patient in her home state of Minnesota. A coroner determined the cause of death was starvation. He tried to have Hazzard prosecuted but her lack of a medical license made it difficult to hold her accountable. She married Sam Hazzard, a convicted bigamist, embezzler and failed military officer, before heading west and setting up a new practice in Seattle, a free-thinking city that offered more acceptance for unorthodox forms of medicine.

Hazzard quickly drew a cult following based largely on her forceful personality.

"If she walked into a room, she'd take charge of it," Olsen said. "If she was alive today, she'd be a big star, like Dr. Phil or Martha Stewart. She had a singular focus and a willingness to stomp on anyone to get there."

The independently wealthy, who had plenty of time and money to chase optimal health through the growing number of faddish treatments and diets, were particularly drawn to Hazzard, and Hazzard to them. They, after all, had the money that could help Hazzard realize her dream: a large, hilltop sanitarium that would show off her curative powers on a grand scale.

One of her first Seattle patients was Daisey Maud Haglund, whose parents owned Alki Point. She died after a 50-day fast. Her toddler son, Ivar Haglund, would go on to found the iconic Seattle chowder chain Ivar's.

During the 53-day fast of a wealthy Englishman, Hazzard began one of her trademark schemes — bilking the rich of their savings and property by convincing them in their weakened, delirious state to give her a prominent place in their wills. He died of starvation in 1911, leaving just $70 to his family.

Small-town secrets

Her mounting death toll was starting to make headlines. "Woman 'M.D.' Kills Another Patient" read the Seattle Daily Times in 1911. Despite the bad press, her growing roster of patients remained faithful. Police had trouble making an arrest because her patients willingly submitted to her treatments.

She avoided prying eyes by moving much of her operation to her home in Olalla, then a town of immigrant homesteaders. She called her "Wilderness Heights" property a sanitarium, but it consisted of little more than her house and a few rough-hewn cabins stocked with quietly dying patients.

Sometimes patients realized the "cure" was doing them in rather than doing them good.

Skeletal patients would wander down to town, begging for food or help.

"Some people I talked to who were children then said they'd see starving people walking through the woods," Olsen said. "They said they didn't help them because they were afraid of Dr. Hazzard."

Hazzard was well-spoken, educated and had a good deal of money. People in the backwater town trusted that she knew best.

"All the people here were immigrant Swedes and Finns," Olsen said. "She was an American doctor and one of the few high-class people here."

Williamson sisters

Hazzard's downfall came after she took Claire and Dora Williamson under her care. Despite being in relatively good health, the young British heiresses were convinced that Hazzard's treatments could boost their vitality.

Hazzard kept them separated as they wasted away. Claire began to question the treatment, but by then she was too weak to walk. Hazzard managed to get a signature from Claire willing away a large share of the sisters' wealth and specifying that their bodies should come under the exclusive care and disposal of the doctor.

The sisters' skeptical childhood nanny paid a visit to Olalla to check on the progress of their treatments. She was greeted warmly by Hazzard, but knew something was amiss when she recognized Claire's silk gown and hat on Hazzard. Claire, Hazzard explained, had succumbed to "illness" and Dora was not free to leave.

An uncle came to Dora's rescue but found that his niece had wasted down to just 60 pounds. Claire had died at an estimated 50 pounds — about half her weight before Hazzard's treatment.

The British government brought pressure on Kitsap County to prosecute the prominent doctor. When the county prosecutor balked at the cost of going after Hazzard, Dora offered to front the bill.

The trial revealed that Hazzard and her husband had used forged documents to obtain from patients what they couldn't get through starvation. Hazzard even forged a diary entry, making it appear that Claire wished to give Hazzard her diamonds.

"She ran a racket. No question about it," Olsen said.

Hazzard, he said, wasn't a misunderstood and persecuted physician trying to extend the lives of her patients, as she said during her trial.

"She wanted two things. One, to prove her cure. And two, to get money to advance her cause," he said.

Hazzard was convicted of manslaughter, but she spent just two years in prison thanks to a governor's pardon.

Returning to Olalla

With her prison stint complete, Hazzard moved to New Zealand, where she "opened up shop, killed some more people and then — for some ungodly reason — came back," Olsen said.

She returned to Olalla in 1920 flush with money. She built her grand sanitarium, but fewer patients signed up than she had expected. Finally, after dozens of deaths, a conviction and a prison term, Hazzard's reputation was ruined.

When the sanitarium burned down in 1935, less than a dozen of the building's 100 beds had patients.

A recent windstorm uprooted a tree that had sprouted from the sanitarium's rubble. Shane Jones, the property's owner, found ash, china shards and melted glass.

"I'm still looking for that cache of jewels and money," he joked.

A 7-foot-tall concrete box still stands in the middle of the ivy-covered ruins. Olsen believes it to be the sanitarium's incinerator.

He boosted one of his kids into it a few years back.

"She said, 'Dad, what am I looking for? I said 'teeth, bone.' She said 'OK, I want out now.'" Olsen said with a laugh.

There are stories that Hazzard burned bodies in the incinerator or dumped them down a nearby ravine, but nothing has turned up — despite the increasingly frequent, albeit unwelcome, visits from amateur detectives and treasure seekers.

"I had one guy with a shovel in his hand say that if he got to dig around he'd give me half of what he finds," Jones said. "I've had to chase people out with a shotgun."

Psychics and ghost hunters have also been poking around lately.

"We had a psychic out here from the Discovery Channel," Olsen said. "She went crying into the woods. She flipped."

Historic preservationists have been out a few times to check on the state of the Hazzard house.

The verdict, said Jones, is that it can't be saved.

The house still has a few remnants of the Hazzard household. The hook used to boil kettles for enemas still juts from the fireplace. The original bathtub — the one Hazzard used for autopsies — still sits in the bathroom.

Olsen gets an odd feeling in Hazzard's dark bedroom.

"In 1938, she took a fast and died in this room," he said. "She wanted to prove once and for all it would work."

The Kitsap Regional Library Foundation will host a sold-out dinner and tour of Linda Hazzard’s Olalla sanitarium on Friday evening. Tickets are still available for a related event on Saturday at Olalla Grange, 7554 Fragaria Road, from noon to 2 p.m. Author Gregg Olson will discuss “Starvation Heights,” his book about Hazzard, and help lead tours of Hazzard’s home and sanitarium site. Tickets for the Saturday cost $50. Proceeds benefit the KRL Foundation. Call (360) 475-9039 for more information.