 |
| (New York Evening Journal, March 18, 1898) |
Patrolman
Tyler heard his cries and ran to the spot.
“My wife
is murdered!” said Meyers, “Somebody has killed my wife. She’s dead.”
Tyler and another
officer followed Meyers to a second-floor apartment. The first policeman who entered
the bedroom recoiled in horror. In flickering candlelight, he saw the distorted
features of a young woman, wearing only a yellow shirtwaist and a chemise, with
her head hanging over the edge of the bed. A black stocking was wrapped tightly
around her neck and tied under her chin.
He touched
her cheek; it was still warm. While he hastily loosened the noose around her
throat, the second officer went for a doctor. The doctor arrived quickly, but
with a glance, he knew she was dead. But he said she had been dead for less
than half an hour.
Under
closer examination, they found dark bruises on her neck, the imprints of the
killer's fingers. He had choked her until she ceased resisting before binding
the stocking around her neck. On the third finger of her left hand, the skin
was torn where a ring had been pulled off. The police immediately suspected
Meyers and arrested him on the charge of being a “suspicious person.” When
searched at the stationhouse, Meyers was found to have a ring, a pair of
diamond earrings, a gold watch and chain, and $32. They belonged to his wife,
he said, and he had taken them after her death to prevent their theft.
 |
| (New York World, September 3, 1896) |
The woman was Samuel Meyers’s 24-year-old common-law wife, known on the street as “Dutch Annie.” Her features were plain, but her skin was soft, and she had beautiful auburn hair. The couple was not legally married but had lived together for three years. She took the last name, Meyers, but her real name was Hannah Altman. They were known to be quarrelsome and had more than once been forced to move because of their loud fights.
Hannah
Altman was a close friend of Annie Bock, who had been murdered under similar
circumstances just a few weeks earlier. She had much in common with Bock; both
were Jewish, both made their living on the streets of the Tenderloin, and both
met the same miserable death.
Though the
newspapers never came out and said it, both Hannah Altman and Annie Bock were
prostitutes. In Bock’s case, it was gently implied, calling her “a social
outcast,” “a woman of the town” with a “wayward life.” For Hannah Altman, while
still relying on euphemism, the papers were more explicit. She was "one of that throng of women who
nightly parade the East Side Avenues," and Samuel Meyers “was supported in
idleness by the proceeds of her shame.”
The fallen
women of the Tenderloin believed that the same man killed both women. The New
York World explained, “All of the women on the ‘Row,’ as the Third Avenue
promenade is called, are positive the deed was done by a certain notorious
Spaniard whom they call ‘The Strangler.’” He was a well-known fellow who hung
out on 14th Street and would strangle women and steal their money.
The
police, however, never acknowledged a connection between the two murders. They
never wavered from their belief that Hannah Altman was murdered by her
common-law husband, Samuel Meyers.
Meyers
said he left home at 9:30, the night of the murder. He went to a tailor to try
on a suit, then went to Goerck Street to see Jennie Krocofsky, a young woman
whose rent he had been paying. Around
12:30, he took an uptown elevated train back home. The police investigation
contradicted this story. He left home before 6:00, went to the tailor's, where
he stayed until 9:00, then went to the house on Goerck Street. After that, he
went to Herman Goldsten’s saloon, where he played cards and drank beer, and
returned home at 12:45.
On
September 2, a woman named Sarah Kupermann visited the stationhouse. She was
known by the police as “one of the perambulators of 3rd Avenue,” and
one of Meyer’s women. Attempting to shield him, Kupermann told police she was
with Meyers until after midnight.
Friends of
the dead woman alleged that Jennie Krofkosky also claimed to be Samuel Meyers’s
common-law wife and was jealous of Hannah. They claimed that the police were
holding Krofkosky on suspicion of murder. The police denied that anyone but
Samuel Meyers was being held. He had a bad reputation and was remanded in
Police Court for further investigation.
Captain
Martens summarized the evidence against Meyers:
There are many suspicious circumstances against the prisoner. In the first place, he has insisted all along that he reached home at 12:45 o’clock, and yet he did not give the alarm until 1:30. A physician and a policeman reached the scene at 1:45, and both insist that the body was still warm, while the doctor is convinced that the woman could not have been dead more than half an hour when he reached there.
Despite
Captain Martens’s explanation, the evidence against Meyers was weak and
circumstantial, leading to an unusual legal situation. On September 10, the
Grand Jury indicted Meyers for the first-degree murder of Hannah Altman. Four
days later, the Coroner’s Jury declared Hanna Altman “came to her death by
strangulation by some unknown person.”
As Samuel
Meyers sat in The Tombs, awaiting trial, another strangulation case rekindled
conspiracy theories. On November 14, the Evening Bulletin reported:
“Jack theStrangler,” who doubtless murdered Annie Bock in her little flat at No. 207 E. 21st Street on the night of August 4, and strangled pretty Annie Meyers of No. 202 E. 29th Street with one of her own stockings on the morning of Sept. 3, made another attempt to increase his reputation by an assault of a similar nature last Tuesday night upon Mrs. Pauline Barnett of No. 11 St. Mark’s Place.
 |
| (Philadelphia Inquirer, November 11, 1896) |
Her husband
had gone to the theatre with his sister, but Pauline stayed home because she
was going to receive some friends that evening. Neighbors told police that two
men had called shortly after Mr. Barnett left. While still unconscious in the
early hours of Tuesday morning, Pauline frequently moaned, “Don’t hurt me,
Schultz, I love you.”
26-year-old
Max Schultz was a frequent visitor to the house when Mr. Barnett was gone, the
neighbors said. The police arrested Schultz, who admitted he had called upon
Pauline. When asked who was with him, he said Joseph Gordon. Schultz refused to
say anything further, and within an hour of his arrest, he retracted his entire
statement, saying that neither of them had called on Mrs. Barnett that night.
Both Schultz and Gordon were held on suspicion.
During an
interval of consciousness, Pauline gave a statement to the coroner:
I believe I am about to die, though I have some hope of recovering. On the evening of November 9, I was at home, expecting a friend. He arrived about 10 o’clock. He was in the room only a short time when he took me by the throat and choked me. I struggled with him, and he took my earrings from my ears and $9 from my stocking. He continued to beat me until I became unconscious. I had no idea he meant any harm to me. I think the man keeps a dry goods store in Third Avenue. I do not know his name. He is a man between 35 and 40 years old and speaks broken English. He said at the time he was assaulting me that he recently lost $200 and must get money in some way.
The crime
revived fears that “Jack the Strangler” was operating in the Tenderloin. Even
though Samuel Meyers was in jail for the murder of his wife, many believed that
the man who attacked Pauline Barnett had also killed Hannah Altman, Annie Bock,
and even Minnie Weldt, murdered more than a year before. However, others,
including Police Captain Herlihy, thought that Pauline had faked the attack. He
found it a little too convenient that she had been comatose for more than a day,
but the minute the coroner arrived, she regained her senses and made a clear
statement. He didn’t see any marks on her neck and didn’t believe she had been
in great pain.
Dr. Wolf, who
treated Pauline, disagreed with Captain Herlihy, saying Pauline had certainly
been assaulted. By Friday, she was fully recovered, and her husband was doing
what he could to hush up the incident. The police released Schultz and Gordon;
Pauline said neither was her attacker. The New York Journal believed the Barnetts
and others in the building knew more than they let on, but there was no further
investigation.
The trial of Samuel Meyers for the first-degree murder of Hannah Altman commenced on April 19, 1897. His plea was not guilty, and there was little evidence against him. He had tried to pawn some of the jewelry said to be stolen, he could not believably account for his whereabouts on the night of the murder, and the police found that all the doors and windows of the apartment had been locked. In his closing arguments, the District Attorney acknowledged that the evidence may be too sparse for first-degree murder and asked for a guilty verdict to a lesser charge.
The jury returned a verdict of guilty. When Meyers heard the word, he grew pale and fainted. But he was saved from the gallows; the verdict was guilty of manslaughter in the second degree. He was sentenced to nine years and six months in prison.
Samuel Meyers continued to maintain his innocence, and with three more strangulation murders in the Tenderloin over the next three years, his conviction was all but forgotten. The press still included Hannah Altman in lists of unsolved murders and still considered her a victim of New York’s Jack the Strangler.
Sources:
“A Jack the Strangler?” Evening Bulletin, November 13, 1896.
“Meyers Fainted at the Verdict,” New York Journal and Advertiser, May 1, 1897.
“Meyers Indicted for Murder,” New-York Tribune, September 11, 1896.
“Miss Barnett Better,” Philadelphia Inquirer, November 14, 1896.
“Nine Years in Jail for Meyers,” New-York Tribune, May 22, 1897.
“On Trial as a Woman Strangler,” New York Herald, April 23, 1897.
“On Trial for Murder,” Evening Post, April 19, 1897.
“Robbed and May Die,” New York Journal, November 12, 1896.
“Seeking the Strangler,” The World, September 3, 1896.
“Strangled With Her Stocking,” New York Journal, September 3, 1896.
“Suspect Only Meyers,” The World, September 4, 1896.
“Victim of a Strangler,” Jersey City News, November 12, 1896.
“Woman Arrested as the Strangler?,” New York Journal, September 4, 1896.
“A Woman Found Strangled,” Evening Post, September 2, 1896.
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1 comments :
May 2, 2026 at 2:26 PM
Excellent account, Bob!!!
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