American noted family member, the disowned son of famous photographer Eadweard Muybridge, put to work on a ranch as a boy, working all the rest of his life as a ranch hand and gardener.
In 1872, Eadweard Muybridge married 21-year-old Flora Shallcross Stone. In 1874, Muybridge discovered that a drama critic known as Major Harry Larkyns might have fathered their seven-month-old son, Florado. On 17 October, Muybridge went to Calistoga to track down Larkyns. Upon finding him, Muybridge said, “Good evening, Major, my name is Muybridge and here’s the answer to the letter you sent my wife”, and shot him point-blank. Larkyns died that night, and Muybridge was arrested without protest and put in the Napa jail.
Muybridge was tried for murder, and pleaded insanity due to a severe head injury suffered in the 1860 stagecoach accident. At least four long-time acquaintances testified under oath that the accident had dramatically changed Muybridge’s personality, from genial and pleasant to unstable and erratic. During the trial, Muybridge undercut his own insanity case by indicating that his actions were deliberate and premeditated, but he also showed impassive indifference and uncontrolled explosions of emotion. The jury dismissed the insanity plea, but acquitted the photographer on the grounds of “justifiable homicide”, disregarding the judge’s instructions.
Today, the court case and transcripts are important to historians and forensic neurologists, because of the sworn testimony from multiple witnesses regarding Muybridge’s state of mind and past behaviour. The American composer Philip Glass composed an opera, The Photographer, with a libretto based in part on court transcripts from the case.
Shortly after his acquittal in February 1875, Muybridge left the United States on a previously planned 9-month photography trip to Central America, as a “working exile”.
Flora petitioned for divorce, and was initially unsuccessful, but her second petition received a favourable ruling and an order for alimony in April 1875. While Muybridge was in Central America, she died in July 1875. She had placed their son, Florado Helios Muybridge (later nicknamed “Floddie” by friends), with a French couple. In 1876, Muybridge had the boy moved from a Catholic orphanage to a Protestant one and paid for his care, but otherwise had little to do with him.
Photographs of Florado Muybridge as an adult show him to have strongly resembled Muybridge. In 1944, Florado was hit by a car in Sacramento and killed, at approximately the age of 70.
Link to Eadweard Muybridge: Murder, acquittal and paternity