In the damp woods of Olalla, Washington, a woman named Linda Hazzard built a sanitarium that promised health, purity, and healing. Her method? Fasting. Extreme fasting.
By the time newspapers branded her clinic Starvation Heights, it was too late for many of her patients. Wealthy heiresses wasted away to skeletons, wills were altered, and the line between healer and killer blurred.
In this week’s episode of Same Crime, Different Time, we explore:
* Why alternative medicine thrived in the early 1900s
* How distrust of mainstream doctors made Hazzard’s promises so persuasive
* The heartbreaking story of the Williamson sisters
* And why her “cures” sound eerily familiar in today’s wellness culture, from detox cleanses to starvation cults
History doesn’t just repeat—it resurfaces in new disguises.
Listen to the full episode → HERE
Same Crime, Different Time: haunting true crime and history from the Pacific Northwest.
Sources:
Smithsonian Magazine – “The Doctor Who Starved Her Patients to Death” by Bess Lovejoy.
HistoryLink.org—Dr. Linda Burfield Hazzard opens a sanitarium at Olalla, Kitsap County, on February 19, 1911.
Washington State Archives – “Linda Burfield Hazzard: Healer or Murderess?” primary sources and court records.
MNopedia (Minnesota Historical Society)—“Hazzard, Linda Burfield Perry (1867–1938).”
KNKX Public Radio – “Olalla, Washington’s Infamous Starvation Doctor.”
https://murderpedia.org/female.H/h/hazzard-linda.htm
Seattle Daily Times, 1907–1912 coverage (via digital archives).
People Magazine – “British Heiresses Went to Trusted Doctor, Then One Was Starved to Death.”
