Theodore Durrant

William Henry Theodore Durrant
Durrant 1897 prison photo
Born	1871 (1871) Toronto, Canada
Died	January 7, 1898(1898-01-07) (aged 26–27) San Quentin State Prison in San Quentin, California
Criminal penalty	Death by hanging
Criminal status	Deceased
Conviction(s)	First degree murder

William Henry Theodore Durrant (1871 – January 7, 1898 at San Quentin prison, San Francisco), known as "The Demon of the Belfry", was hanged for two murders committed at the San Francisco Emmanuel Baptist Church, where he was assistant superintendent of the Sunday School. He maintained his innocence of the crimes. His sister was Maud Allan.

William Henry Theodore Durrant was born in Toronto, Canada to William Durrant, a shoemaker, and his wife Isabella Hutchenson Durrant. The family emigrated to San Francisco, California, USA in 1879. He had one sister, Beulah Maud Durrant, born in 1873, who became an actress and interpretive dancer and later changed her name to Maud Allan. At the time of his arrest, Durrant was a twenty-three-year-old medical student at Cooper Medical College in San Francisco, assistant superintendent of the Sunday school at the 21st Street Emmanuel Baptist Church and a member of the California Signal Corps. It is believed that young Durrant suffered from manic depression. There were unsubstantiated rumors of a dark side to Durrant's personality. One claimed that he occasionally visited brothels in San Francisco's Commercial Street, where allegedly he once brought with him, in a sack or a small crate, a pigeon or a chicken, and at a certain time during the evening's debauch he cut the bird's throat and let the blood trickle over his body".

Blanche Lamont (1875 – 3 April 1895) was a twenty-year-old who had been teaching at a one-room school in Hecla, Montana. She had moved to San Francisco to further her education at Lowell High School and Normal School and was living with her aunt, Mrs. Tryphenia Noble, on 21st Street in the Mission district.

On 3 April 1895, Durrant met Lamont at the Polk Street electric trolley stop just after 2:00 p.m. They rode together to the 21st Street stop. Other people on the trolley stated that they were very close and that Durrant was whispering into Lamont's ear and tapping at her lightly with his leather gloves. They got off at their stop and were seen by a Mrs. Mary Noble walking down 21st Street to the Emanuel Baptist Church. A Mrs. Caroline Leak saw them enter the church together. Mrs. Leak, who later testified at Durrant's trial, was the last person known to see Blanche Lamont alive. George King, the church choir director and organist, who was practicing hymns on the organ, testified that Durrant came downstairs at 5:00 p.m. looking pale and shaken and asked him to go get a medicine at a nearby store.