In 1911, an Australian woman named Margaret Conway arrived in Washington State driven by a gut-wrenching realization: something was terribly wrong. She was searching for two wealthy British heiresses—Claire and Dora Williamson—who had traveled across North America to attend a natural wellness retreat.
When Margaret finally tracked them down, she found a horror scene. Claire was already dead, her body allegedly substituted at a mortuary to hide extreme emaciation. Dora was still alive but weighed roughly fifty pounds—so frail her skeletal frame pressed painfully against any surface when she sat. She had no idea they had encountered Starvation Heights Doctor Linda Hazzard.
The practitioner overseeing their care called herself a doctor. She claimed to possess the secret to eradicating human illness. In reality, she was running a lethal compound in the Pacific Northwest, known to locals as Starvation Heights.
Before She Was the “Starvation Heights Doctor”
Born Linda Laura Burfield in Minnesota in 1867, Hazzard developed an intense distrust of standard medicine early in life. She later attributed her childhood digestive issues to heavy-handed treatments prescribed by conventional physicians.
By the late 1890s, she embraced the fasting theories of alternative health figures who claimed that abstaining from food flushed deadly toxins from the body. Armed with osteopathic study but no medical degree, Hazzard launched an unlicensed practice in Minneapolis under the name Dr. Linda Burfield Perry.
Danger followed immediately:
- 1902 (Minnesota): Patient Gertrude Young died after undergoing a 40-day fast. Prosecutors could not bring criminal charges because Young had voluntarily consented to the regimen.
- The Bigamy Scandal: Around the same period, she married Samuel Hazzard—a man later convicted of bigamy who served prison time before the couple relocated west.
The Licensing Loophole: How Linda Hazzard Practiced Medicine
How did an unlicensed practitioner with a patient death on her record legally practice in the Pacific Northwest?
When the Hazzards moved to Washington, the state was updating its medical licensing regulations. A grandfather clause allowed existing alternative practitioners to secure medical licenses without formal medical degrees.
Capitalizing on this legal loophole, Hazzard secured a license as a “Fasting Specialist.” She opened a Seattle office and purchased land across Puget Sound in Olalla, Washington, naming it “Wilderness Heights.”
She authored a book titled Fasting for the Cure of Disease, promoting the dogma that food was the root cause of all bodily ailment. Crucially, Hazzard maintained that a properly conducted fast could never cause death by starvation. If a patient died, Hazzard asserted it was simply because their underlying disease was already too advanced.
Inside the Regimen: Broth, Enemas, and Beatings
Patients checking into Hazzard’s compound were subjected to a brutal daily routine designed to systematically weaken physical resilience:
- Severe Caloric Deprivation: Diets were reduced for weeks to minimal quantities of tomato broth, vegetable broth, or asparagus water.
- Violent “Massages”: Hazzard subjected emaciated patients to intense physical manipulation that nurses described as closer to beatings than therapeutic care.
- Daily High-Volume Enemas: Patients underwent internal cleanses using up to six quarts of water at a time.
As patients grew physically incapacitated, Hazzard shifted focus to their finances. She obtained powers of attorney, took possession of jewelry, extracted massive fees, and had herself named in patient estates and wills.
The Diary of Earl Edward Erdman
The true nature of Hazzard’s regimen was recorded in primary source detail by patient Earl Edward Erdman, a Seattle civil engineer who documented his decline in 1910:
- Initial Fasting: Meals shrank from small servings of soup to single oranges.
- Total Deprivation: Entries cataloged days with two oranges for breakfast and nothing for dinner or supper.
- Physical Collapse: Erdman recorded severe dizzy spells, insomnia, excruciating pain, and declining memory.
Erdman was eventually rushed to Seattle General Hospital for an emergency transfusion, where he died. Yet, because Hazzard claimed the underlying disease killed him rather than her regimen, her practice continued uninterrupted.
The Tragedy of Claire and Dora Williamson
In 1910, wealthy English heiresses Claire and Dora Williamson read Hazzard’s book while traveling in Canada. Seeking treatments for minor digestive issues, they hired Hazzard and moved into a Seattle apartment under her care.
Within weeks, both women were unable to walk. Hazzard isolated them, eventually carrying them on stretchers onto a boat bound for Wilderness Heights. While the sisters wasted away in an attic room, Hazzard systematically assumed control over their estate, jewelry, and legal authority.
| Victim Name | Case Details & Fate at Wilderness Heights |
|---|---|
| Claire Williamson | Starved to death at under 50 lbs. Hazzard performed the autopsy herself and took control of her estate. |
| Dora Williamson | Rescued weighing roughly 50 lbs after her family nurse and the British Vice Consul intervened with financial compensation. |
| Daisy Maud Haglund | Died after a 50-day fast under Hazzard’s care. Mother of Seattle restaurateur Ivar Haglund. |
| Earl Edward Erdman | Civil engineer whose daily diary documented his organ collapse and fatal starvation under Hazzard’s supervision. |
By the time nurse Margaret Conway arrived from Australia, Claire had died. Dora was kept under Hazzard’s guardianship after Hazzard declared the starving woman mentally unfit. It required direct intervention from the British Vice Consul and financial payouts to extract Dora from the property.
Trial, Conviction, and Final Act
Authorities arrested Linda Hazzard in August 1911. Charged with the first-degree murder of Claire Williamson, her 1912 trial made national headlines as prosecutors detailed how she starved patients while looting their assets.
The jury found Hazzard guilty of manslaughter, resulting in a sentence of two to twenty years at the Washington State Penitentiary.
Governor Ernest Lister pardoned Hazzard in 1916 on the condition that she leave the country. After practicing briefly in New Zealand, she returned to Olalla, Washington.
With her medical license revoked, she rebranded the compound as a “School of Health,” calling her patients “students” while continuing to supervise extreme fasts until the facility burned down in 1935.
In 1938, after falling ill, Linda Hazzard attempted to treat herself with her own starvation cure. She died on June 24, 1938, at age 70—falling victim to the very method she defended for decades.
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