Jack the Strangler Post-Mortem.

Strangler Suspect, Jacob Tolker
(New York Journal, May 14, 1897)

Eight women were strangled—seven fatally— on Manhattan’s East Side, between May 1894 and August 1900. While the police closed three of the cases, their solutions were so weak that the New York City newspapers continued to list them all as unsolved and continued to speculate that one man committed all eight crimes. “It is not difficult to construct a hypothetical 'Jack the Strangler' who prowls up and down Second Avenue and from time to time surrenders himself to his cruel, cowardly mania.” Said the New York Journal. Was there a mad strangler at loose on Second Avenue, or was “Jack the Strangler” the product of sensational journalism?

The victims:

At the end of the 19th century, eight sensational strangulation cases dominated headlines in New York City newspapers. The victims were Minnie Weldt, 21 years old; Mamie Cunningham, 13; Annie Bock, 23; Hannah “Dutch Annie” Altman, 24; Pauline Barnett, 24; “Diamond Flossie” Murphy (age unknown);  Maggie Crowley, 35; and Katherine Scharn, 24. 

(Background map from Colton's street map of the City and County of New York, 1887 - NYPL)

It was the era of Yellow Journalism, and, from newspaper accounts, it is not always easy to separate fact from sensation. The reported facts show many similarities among the cases, revealing a pattern of murder that the press was eager to attribute to one man. However, not every fact fits the pattern, with so many exceptions, a single Jack the Strangler theory is hard to maintain.

The facts:

• All of the victims were strangled.
• Four were strangled with a rope or piece of cloth, four were strangled with bare hands
• All died of asphyxiation, except Annie Bock, whose throat was slashed after she was strangled, and Pauline Barnett, who was left unconscious but alive.
• All were in their early 20s except Mamie Cunningham, 13 and Maggie Crowley, 35.
• All were attacked within a few doors of 2nd Avenue except Flossie Murphy, who lived on the West Side, near 8th Avenue, and Maggie Crowley, who died several blocks south of 2nd Avenue’s end.
• All were attacked in their homes with no signs of a break-in except Maggie Crowley, who was found outside in a tenement courtyard, two or three blocks from her home. 
• All had jewelry and money stolen except Minnie Weldt and Mamie Cunningham
• All were prostitutes or women with many male associates, except Mamie Cunningham, who was a schoolgirl.
• None of the victims were sexually assaulted, except, possibly, Mamie Cunningham. The man accused of killing her was previously accused of improper behavior.
• All were attacked in the same 12-month period except Minnie Weldt, one year before, Maggie Crowley, one year after, Kate Schran, two years after Maggie Crowley.
• All of the cases remained officially unsolved, except for Hannah Altman, whose husband was convicted, Flossie Murphy, ruled a suicide, and Pauline Barnet, whose attacker confessed.

If one mad stranger were responsible for all of the murders, the motive in each case would be the same. In these cases, there was no common motive beyond murdering women by strangulation.

The crimes were not sexual. Newspapers at the time would not use explicit language, and unless a suspect was charged with the crime of rape, they would not use that word. However, they would report if the victim were found unclothed, and if there was evidence of molestation, they might say she was “outraged.” Hannah Altman was dressed for bed, but all the others were fully clothed. The prime suspect in the murder of 13-year-old Mamie Cunningham had previously “taken liberties” with her, but he was not convicted and was not considered a suspect in any other attacks.

While most of the victims had been robbed of jewelry or money, the police ruled out robbery as the motive. In more than one case, the man of the house was accused of taking the victim's jewelry before notifying the police of the murder. For “Diamond Flossie” Murphy, the coroner flipped the motive and said she took her own life because all her jewelry had been stolen. The police preferred to look at each case individually and accuse the victim’s spouse, family member, or other associate, the motive being anger or revenge.

From the first, the press was eager to call the strangulation the work of a homicidal maniac. After the unsolved murder of Minnie Weldt, the New York Sun said, “It seems now that the murderer must either have been someone with a mind perverted like that of Jack the Ripper or a man who had some special object of revenge.” As the death count continued to rise, the papers referred to the single killer as “fiendish,” “ruthless,” and “demonical,” and they christened him “Jack the Strangler.”

Modern investigators divide serial killers into two types: organized, who plan their attacks and leave little evidence; and disorganized, who are spontaneous, violent, and messy. Jack the Strangler, if real, was the organized type. He carefully selected his victims from among prostitutes and loose women, who invited him into their homes. He did his work so quietly that none of the neighbors reported hearing any disturbance, and he left no clues. His signature was strangulation—whatever urge was driving him could only be satisfied by strangling his victim to death.

It is important to consider exceptions as well as similarities in determining whether a single killer committed all the crimes. While all the victims were strangled, the method varied. Some were manually strangled, some with a piece of cloth or a rope, one had her throat slashed after strangulation, and one was beaten with a hammer, then strangled. In some cases, chloroform may have been used. Serial killers sometimes changed their modus operandi, but not this drastically and randomly, without a pattern.

Mamie Cunningham is the least likely victim of Jack the Strangler. As a 13-year-old schoolgirl, she did not fit the victims’ profile in age or occupation. Flossie Murphy was killed in her home, several blocks west of the killer’s 2nd Street domain. Maggie Crowley was killed several blocks south and was the only victim whose body was dragged outside.

Five of the attacks occurred between May 1896 and April 1897. The other three occurred before or after, with gaps of one or two years between them. There is no way to tell why he stopped during these gaps and why he restarted after.

While some of the cases are similar enough to have been committed by the same hand, there was too much deviation in time, location, method, and victim to assume that a single hand committed them all.

Jack the Strangler suspects

Samuel Meyers
(New York Journal, May 14, 1897}

The police arrested many suspects in these murders, but they had trouble convicting anyone. Samuel Meyers, Hannah Altman’s common-law husband, was indicted for first-degree murder, but at his trial, the District Attorney acknowledged the evidence was too sparse and urged the jury to convict him of a lesser charge. Meyers was convicted of second-degree manslaughter. He never confessed, and while the police considered the case closed, the press continued to include Hannah Altman’s murder with the unsolved cases. While Meyers was in prison, the murders continued, so he was not Jack the Strangler.

The first serious Jack the Strangler suspect came to light after the failed attack on Pauline Barnett. While recovering, she told police, “I was at home, expecting a friend.” He was not a very close friend; she did not know his name and could not give a good description of the man. However, six months later, she identified him in Central Park, and the police arrested Joseph Talt, aka Jacob Tolker.

Gang of Stranglers.
(New York World, May 14, 1897)

Around the same time, two young men, James Fitzsimmons and Henry Weiss, were arrested, in an unrelated case, for attacking a woman with chloroform. The New York World reported that the odor of chloroform had lingered at the scene of previous Jack the Strangler cases (though they didn’t report it at the time of the murders). The World grouped Fitzsimmons, Weiss, and Tolker, into a “gang of stranglers,” accusing them of strangulation murders not just in New York, but throughout the country. 

Paul Bauer.
(New York Journal, March 21, 1898)

Paul Bauer, alias George W. Duval, who was arrested for chloroforming and robbing another young woman, was briefly suspected in Flossie Murphy’s murder and others. All four of these men were convicted and sent to prison on unrelated charges. But the 2nd Street murders continued.

John “Sailor” Brown.
(New York Journal, March 16, 1898)

John “Sailor” Brown was the most promising suspect for Jack the Strangler. He was present when Maggie Crowley’s body was found; he matched the description given by several witnesses in the other murders, and he had a knowledge of knots, necessary for the strangulations involving rope or tied cloth. Even the police would not rule out Sailor Brown as a suspect in previous murders. But there was no evidence against him except conjecture and suspicion.

Newspapers

The New York City newspapers adopted the Jack the Strangler theory to varying degrees. Some believed that certain groups of the victims were connected, e.g., Annie Bock, Hanna Altman, and Flossie Murphy, and Mamie Cunningham and Kate Scharn.

(New York Journal, May 14, 1897)

The most avid proponent of the idea that one man committed all the attacks was the New York Journal, which added to Jack the Strangler’s tally with each new case. By the end, like the New York World, they proposed that New York’s Jack the Strangler attacked victims across the country. 

The New York Times put no stock in it whatsoever:

The ado over Scharn murder case indicates pretty clearly that the sensational newspapers in this city are hard put to it for "sensations" of that particular kind.”

Kate Scharn’s murder was the last of the 2nd Avenue stranglings, and public interest in Jack the Strangler faded. As the new century dawned, even the New York Journal, the theory’s strongest supporter, pivoted its crime reporting to cover a growing number of unrelated murders throughout the city. 

“The Detective Bureau is at present confronted with more than the ordinary number of murder mysteries,” said George McClusky, Chief of Detectives, “We shall cope with and solve these mysteries as we have in times gone by. The Central office has yet to be proved unequal to an emergency.” 

Their failure to solve the 2nd Avenue strangulation murders was soon forgotten, and Jack the Strangler was relegated to legend.

---

Sources:

Minnie Weldt.

Mamie Cunningham.

Annie Bock.

Hannah “Dutch Annie” Altman.

Pauline Barnett.

“Diamond Flossie” Murphy.

Maggie Crowley.

Katherine Scharn.

Colton's street map of the City and County of New York / G.W. & C.B. Colton & Co. 

Douglas, John E., Olshaker, Mark, The Cases that Haunt Us (New York: Scribner, 2001.) 

“Dubal's Victims in Court,” New York Evening Journal, March 21, 1898.
“A Jack the Strangler?,” Evening Bulletin, November 13, 1896.
“Gang of Stranglers,” The World, May 14, 1897.
“May be the Strangler,” New York Evening Journal, March 16, 1898.
“Mysteries of a Great City,” New York Evening Journal, September 28, 1900.
“Police Views on Recent Crimes,” New-York Tribune, September 5, 1896.
“Seeking the Strangler,” The World, September 3, 1896.
“The Strangler's Victims - All Women,” New York Journal and Advertiser, May 14, 1897.
“Women Brand Him the Strangler,” New York Journal and Advertiser, May 14, 1897.
Vronsky, Peter,  Serial Killers (New York: Berkley Books, 2004.)