The Snell Murder.

Rosa Buckstahlen and Ida Bjornstad, servants in the Chicago mansion of Amos J. Snell, were awakened at 2:00 the morning of February 8, 1888, by the sound of a gunshot from the floor below. They heard someone shout “Get out! Get out of here!” followed by more gunshots, then silence. Thinking that all was well—or more likely, too frightened to do anything else—the girls went back to sleep.

Five hours later, Mr. Snell’s coachman, Henry Winklebook, entered the house to attend the furnace fires and found evidence of a break-in. Snell’s basement office was strewn with scattered papers, his safe was open, and a broken strongbox lay on the floor. Winklebook hurried upstairs to inform his employer and found his lifeless body lying in a pool of blood in the hallway. 

Three Victims of Jealousy.

72-year-old Norman J. Lounsberry worked on the farm of his brother Horace in Nichols, New York and lived in a small house on his brother’s land. About twenty years after divorcing his first wife, Norman Lounsberry decided to marry again, and in December 1885 he married 17-year-old, Julia Presher. 

Norman and his bride took their meals with the family of his brother, which included Horace Payson, the 35-year-old nephew of his brother’s wife. Payson was a coal agent on the Lackawanna and Erie Railroad who also helped on his uncle’s farm. Norman kept his eye on Payson as he interacted with Julia. He was an extremely jealous man, and he believed that Payson was too attentive to his young wife. Several times he told Payson to leave Julia alone and had angrily threatened to kill them both if the attention did not stop. Julia became so frightened that she reported her husband’s threats to the district attorney.

Italian Vendetta.

The saloon owned by Joseph Catanazaro was a meeting place for Italian men in South Brooklyn. On May 28, 1896, William King, who was shooting dice at Catanazaro’s overheard two men arguing in the back room. Nino Prestijiacomo had come to Brooklyn from Boston to settle a score with Giacchino Cocchiara, and Salvatore Serrio was defending Cocchiara who had been his friend since they were boys in Palermo, Sicily.