Hannah Altman.

(New York Evening Journal, March 18, 1898)

Around 1 a.m. on September 2, 1896, Samuel Meyers ran out of the tenement at 202 East 29^th Street, screaming, “Murder! Murder! Police! Police!”

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 14^th 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 3^rd 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. 21^st Street on the night of August 4, and strangled pretty Annie Meyers of No. 202 E. 29^th 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)

On Monday, November 9, 1896, Pauline Barnett was found by her husband unconscious on the couch. She had strangulation marks on her throat, and her diamond earrings, worth $180, were missing. Her condition was critical, and it was feared she would die. Coroner Dobbs went to the house to take Pauline’s ante-mortem statement should she regain consciousness.

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 electric chair; 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: 

“Gotham's Murder Mystery,” The Morning Call, September 5, 1896.
“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.

Annie Bock.

(New York Journal, August 5, 1896)

Annie Bock and her husband, Jacob, were spending the summer at Rockaway Beach. On Sunday, August 1, 1896, Annie went back to their flat at 207 E. 21st Street in New York City’s Tenderloin district to pay their monthly rent. She had $300 in the Dry Dock Savings Bank, and on Monday morning, she withdrew $50 and paid $20 rent. The plan was to return to Rockaway that afternoon; instead, she went to Coney Island, possibly accompanied by a man. “At 9:00 she was on 14th Street,” said the New York Journal, “the pavements of which she knew well.” 

Her movements were observed by others who knew the pavements well. Rosa Schwartz saw Annie stop and converse with a man, 5’ 6”, slender, graying hair, wearing a black frock coat and a straw hat. They walked to 3rd Avenue and took a cable car uptown. Hattie Stein and Lillie Field saw them alight from the car on 21st Street and enter No. 207 together. Mamie Freidman saw them leave the house about 20 minutes later. At about 12:30, Mrs. Feltner, who had a view of the entrance to 207 from her window, saw Annie return to the house with another man, medium build, with a swarthy complexion and a black mustache. This was the last time Annie Bock was seen alive by anyone but her killer.

Rosa Reichman, the Bocks' servant, heard them moving about, but she was nearly deaf, and after they closed the bedroom door, she heard nothing. The next morning, Rosa opened the door, and the first thing she noticed was that the canary usually singing in the bedroom was lying dead in the cage, its wing torn off. Then she saw her mistress, lying half on the bed, her head in a pool of blood. She ran from the room and through the hallway until she found a janitor, who notified the police.

(New York Journal, August 5, 1896)

The police investigated the room and had the body removed to the morgue, where the coroner’s physician performed an autopsy. He found bruises on her neck, but death was caused by hemorrhaging from four cuts on her neck, the deepest of which severed an artery.

Annie had been wearing diamond earrings, which the killer had pulled from her ears, tearing the flesh, but the police did not believe that robbery was the motive. The murder had been done in a moment of frenzy. There were marks on the sheet where his heels had twisted the fabric in the struggle. A pillow had bloody finger marks, indicating that she was smothered, so her cries could not be heard.

Jacob Bock was notified of his wife’s death by telegraph. He arrived around 5:00, looked at the bloody sheets, and broke down crying. He later told police that he could not think of anyone who would want to murder his wife. He claimed that he never knew her to be unfaithful and did not know she had an account at the Dry Dock Savings Bank.

Jacob Bock and Annie Brafman were both Polish immigrants who had known each other as children in Warsaw. They were married by a rabbi in New York, four years before the murder. Jacob was a cigar maker who was often unemployed. Annie was the money maker, working as a waitress in cafes on the East Side. She was petite and, at one time, was considered one of the prettiest in that profession. By 1896, she was frail and dissipated, weighing less than 100 pounds.

On Wednesday, the police arrested Mortimer Golden, a pawnbroker who resembled the description of the last man she was with. Rosa Schwartz, a close friend of Annie’s, told the police Golden had once threatened Annie. Golden admitted he knew Annie Bock but said he was in Atlantic City on Monday night. He had two Empire Theatre tickets to prove he had attended an opera there. The alibi was solid, and after spending a night in jail, Mort Golden was released.

(New York World, August 7, 1896)

The next suspect was Jacob Levy, a white man known as “Nigger Jake” because of his dark complexion. Levy boarded a streetcar and stood with Patrolman Patrick J. Dinan on the front platform. Dinan knew him because Levy often ran errands for the police. Levy told Dinan he had met a fine-looking woman on the Coney Island ferry Sunday night and, at her request, accompanied her to her flat at 207 E. 21st Street, where he remained until 8 AM Monday.

When Dinan learned of the murder at the same address, he told the story to his captain, who detailed two detectives to question Levy. They found that Levy had shaved his mustache and could not adequately explain why. In his pocket was a pearl-handled knife with a stained blade. They brought him to the station and scraped his fingernails carefully for traces of blood. Levy told the police that he made up the story. He had not been on E. 21st Street on Sunday night, and he did not know Annie Bock. Four weeks earlier, he had been there to see a woman named Dora Gilbert.

Levy told Captain O’Brien that on Monday night, he was on the corner of Broadway and Chambers Street, where he met Policeman Corrigan and was with him until midnight. Corrigan corroborated his story, but Levy’s mother and brother said he was home with them both Sunday and Monday nights.

The stains on Levy’s knife turned out to be tobacco juice, not blood. There was no blood under his fingernails, and the police concluded he had not shaved his mustache to hide his identity. Levy was not a murderer, just a lying braggart.

Concerning the story told by his family, Levy said, “They were trying to help me, but they came very near to sending me to the electric chair.”

(New York World, August 11, 1896)

Alice Cohen, a frequenter of the district, approached Detectives Stephan and Cronin and told them that the man last seen in Annie Bock’s company was probably Victor Roundtree, whom the women who haunt the thoroughfare near 14th Street very much feared. The detectives hunted for Roundtree with no success. Finally, they told Alice that if she saw him again, she should immediately notify a patrolman. 

On August 9, Alice Cohen pointed out a young man to Patrolman Gleason and said, “I know that man, and I knew Annie Bock. That man was in her company at 11:30 o’clock on the night of the murder.”

Gleason placed the young man under arrest, and the police began a thorough investigation. But there was a mix-up from the start. The man was not Victor Roundtree, but Emil Drangenstein, a hotel waiter. Another witness, Minnie Fisher, also said Roundtree was with Annie the night of the murder, but when she saw him face-to-face in Yorkville Court, she said Drangenstein was not the man. Witnesses at Drangenstein's house said he was home that night. The police accepted his alibi and concluded they had no evidence linking Drangenstein to the murder—another dead end.

After several more false leads, the investigation seemed hopeless. Captain Elbert O. Smith of the Eighteenth Precinct told the New York Journal:

This is a strange case—a remarkable case. I may say that there have been 113 men at work upon it constantly, for each officer of this command had been instructed to keep a sharp lookout for persons resembling the “swarthy man” seen with Annie Bock by Rosa Schwartz. The most astute detectives in the department have been indefatigable. There are certain features in this mystery which make it difficult of solution. She knew many men, and this fact made it a matter of no particular notice when she was seen walking with a man or even taking one to her home.

This is one theory, the maniac theory is only borne out by the savage attack made upon the canary bird, and yet this theory loses force because there was no mutilation of the body, as it seems not unlikely would have been the case were she slain by a victim of homicidal mania. As to the theory of an enemy of long standing, I prefer not to discuss that.

(Pontiac Daily Leader, September 19, 1896)

The captain may have been referring to rumors surrounding Jacob Frankenstein, who reportedly threatened Annie after she jilted him several years earlier. On the steamer that brought her to America, 16-year-old Annie Brafman met 18-year-old Jacob Frankenstein, who had escaped military service in Russia. They fell in love on the voyage, and after they landed, Frankenstein sought her out. 

They became engaged to marry, but before the ceremony, Frankenstein’s business took him out of town.  When he returned, Annie had left. He tracked her down and found she had begun a life of shame. He begged her to fulfill her promise of marriage, but she laughed at him, saying she preferred the life she was leading. 

Frankenstein’s mind became unbalanced. He threatened to kill her and attacked her with a carving knife, leaving a scar on her forehead. He was arrested and sent to the insane asylum on Blackwell’s Island. In September 1896, the police learned that Frankenstein had recently been released, but they never arrested him. Though the story was featured in newspapers throughout the country, his connection to the murder was never more than rumor.

On September 2, another violent murder shocked the Tenderloin. Hannah Altman, a friend of Annie Bock, was strangled and slashed in her home. Three young women were violently murdered in the Tenderloin district between May and September 1896—Mamie Cunningham, Annie Bock, and Hannah Altman. In spite of Captain Smith’s doubts, the press and the people of New York began to fear that a maniacal killer was loose in the city.  Annie Bock died from a severed artery, but bruises on her throat revealed that the killer had strangled her first. As the death count rose, Annie Bock was listed among the victims of New York’s Jack the Strangler.

---

Sources: 

“"Murder Will Out" Their Only Hope,” New York Journal, August 10, 1896.
“"Nigger Jake" Discharged,” Sun., August 8, 1896.
“An Arrest in the Bock Case,” New-York Tribune, August 7, 1896.
“An Outcast Woman Murdered,” The New York Times, August 5, 1896.
“Another Annie Bock Suspect,” The World, August 11, 1896.
“Another Block Murder Suspect,” Evening Post, August 10, 1896.
“Another Bock Suspect arrested,” New-York Tribune, August 9, 1896.
“Arrest in the Bock Case,” New York Herald, August 7, 1896.
“Dangenstein Discharged, Too,” New-York Tribune, August 12, 1896.
“Levy's Wagging tongue,” The World, August 7, 1896.
“Mrs. Bock buried,” New York Herald, August 6, 1896.
“Murder a Mystery Yet,” The World, August 6, 1896.
“The Murdered Woman Buried,” New-York Tribune, August 6, 1896.
“Mysterious Murder,” Evening Journal, August 4, 1896.
“New York City Police Have Solved the Bock Mystery,” Pontiac Daily Leader, September 19, 1896.
“Not an Assassin, but a Lying Braggart,” New York Journal, August 8, 1896.
“Police Views in Recent Crimes,” New-York Tribune, September 5, 1896.
“Slain in Her Bed by an Unknown,” New York Journal, August 5, 1896.
“Strange Trio of Criminal Mysteries,” New York Journal, August 11, 1896.
“The Strangler's Victims - All Women.,” New York Journal and Advertiser, May 14, 1897.
“Telegraphic Brevities,” Alexandria Gazette, August 4, 1896.
“Who Killed Mrs. Bock?,” Sun., August 5, 1896.
“With Her Throat Cut,” Evening Bulletin, August 4, 1896.
“With Her Throat Cut,” The World, August 5, 1896.

Mamie Cunningham.

(New York Journal, May 31, 1896.)

On the morning of Memorial Day, May 30, 1896, Mrs. Annie Cunningham had to go to work, while her 13-year-old daughter, Mary (known as Mamie), was home from school for the holiday. Mrs. Cunningham asked Mamie if she planned to go to the parade. Mamie said no, she wasn’t interested, and she planned to do housework and study. At 8:30, Mrs. Cunningham said goodbye to her daughter; it was the last time she saw Mamie alive.

Minnie Weldt.

(New York Evening Journal, March 18, 1898.)

Helen Kahlert, a washerwoman, came home from work at 8:00 on the evening of Wednesday, May 30, 1894. After working all day at a home on Park Avenue in New York City, she climbed the stairs to the humble, second-floor apartment on East 61st Street that she shared with Minnie Weldt. To her surprise, the door was unlocked, and the apartment was dark. Minnie should have been home, but there was no response when Helen called out to her. Helen went into the bedroom and struck a match. She saw Minnie lying on the bed with a handkerchief tied tightly around her throat. Her face was badly discolored, and her eyes were bulging from their sockets. Helen screamed in horror, then rushed from the room down to the street, crying for help.

Jack the Strangler.

(New York Journal, March 18, 1898.)

When the news of London’s 1888 Whitechapel Murders, attributed to “Jack the Ripper,” crossed the Atlantic, Americans were instantly fascinated. The vision of a dark, elusive killer, mutilating women without motive, was morbidly titillating, and the name Jack the Ripper fired the popular imagination. In the nascent age of yellow journalism, no one was more fascinated by Jack the Ripper than newspaper reporters who began seeing Ripper-like murders everywhere they looked.

Sensational murder reporting had been a staple of American newspapers since the 1830s, and multiple murderers (serial killers) were active in America throughout the 19^th-century. But the fear of deranged killers roaming the streets and killing at random was something new. Journalists instinctively saw the value of linking murders to a single killer, and they invariably attributed groups of unsolved murders to some local version of Jack. 

The Crosby Street Murder.

At around 6:30, the morning of February 4, 1877, the residents of Crosby Street in New York City were alarmed by a woman’s shriek. Many were preparing for church that Sunday morning, and from their windows, they watched the woman, barefoot, wearing just a skirt and a thin chemise, run across the street, pursued by a man wielding what appeared to be a long iron spike. She ran to the house at 52 Crosby Street, screaming, “Open the door; for the blessed Virgin’s sake, open the door.”

The Richardson McFarland Tragedy.

On the afternoon of November 25, 1869, Daniel McFarland walked into the office of the New York Tribune and there shot and killed Albert Richardson, a Tribune editor. Richardson had planned to marry Daniel McFarland’s ex-wife, Abby Sage McFarland. The facts of the murder were irrefutable, but the trial that followed focused instead on the behavior of Abby McFarland. Was her adultery an attack on the sanctity of marriage that drove Daniel McFarland to murderous insanity? Or had she been justified in leaving a drunken, abusive husband, running to the safety of another man’s arms?

Read the full story here: The Richardson-McFarland Tragedy.

Portraits of Helen Jewett.

Helen (Ellen) Jewett was an upscale New York City prostitute. In 1836, her clients included politicians, lawyers, and wealthy merchants. One of them, a young clerk named Richard Robinson, wanted Helen all to himself. When she refused, he killed her with an axe and set fire to her bed. 

Robinson’s trial divided the city. While most were anxious to see the murderer punished, a large contingent of young men applauded Robinson’s acquittal. This division was mirrored in portraits of Helen Jewett on prints and on book covers, depicting her as a beautiful victim or an evil seductress.

Read the full story here: Helen Jewett - The Girl in Green.

The Walworth Parricide, in New York.

 Read the full story here: The Walworth Patricide.

The Mysterious Murder.

A boatman working near the foot of Little Street in Brooklyn, on October 3, 1864, saw a package floating on the water. Thinking it might contain something of value, he took it into his boat. He unraveled the enameled oilcloth surrounding the package, and inside, covered in sheets of brown paper, was the trunk of a human body. The head, arms, pelvis, and legs had been cut off with a saw or sharp knife, as if by a butcher.  The clothing had not been removed. He took the package to the 42^nd Police Precinct.

The Prince Street Murder.

 

Bertha Levy entered the house at 111 Prince Street, Manhattan, just before 10:00 a.m. on January 18, 1880. She was a hairdresser, and she had an appointment with Annie Downey, who lived on the second floor. No one responded to her knocks, and the door was locked. The owner of the house did not have a key to the room. Fearing the worst, they summoned the police; the Eighth Precinct Station House was less than a block away.

Officer Sweeny and Sergeant McNally broke the door open and found Annie Downey’s lifeless body lying prostrate on the blood-soaked bed. A pillowcase was tightly bound around her throat. Her left arm was bent, and her fingers were clutching the pillowcase. Ugly gashes on her forehead and bruises marred her face.

A Honeymoon Tragedy.

Around 3:00, on the afternoon of June 15, 1886, a bellboy heard gunshots while responding to a prolonged ring from room 25 on the second floor of the Sturtevant House in New York City. No one answered his knocks, and the door was locked. He heard groans coming from inside and, together with the hotel carpenter, they burst into the room.

The occupants, a man and a woman, both lay on the floor, their heads upon pillows. They had both been shot but were still alive. The man was holding a revolver. George Hutty, the carpenter, was the first to approach the pair. He raised the man’s head and said, “Why have you done this?”

Views of the Fisk Assassination.

James Fisk Jr. was a robber baron, stock manipulator, and financial fraudster. In spite of this, he was a popular, much-loved public figure. On January 6, 1872, he was assassinated on the staircase of the Grand Central Hotel in New York City by his friend and sometime business partner, Edward “Ned” Stokes. Fisk and Stokes were both in love with Josie Mansfield, considered by some to be the most beautiful woman in America. 

The murder became a national sensation and was graphically illustrated many times in magazines and books.

Read the full story here: Jubilee Jim.
 

---

1. Life, Adventures, Strange Career and Assassination of Col. James Fisk Jr. (Philadelphia: Barclay and Co, 1872.)
2. Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, January 20, 1872.
3. The Life of James Fisk Jr. (Philadelphia: Union Publishing Company, 1872.)
4. “The Stokes-Fisk Assassination,” Illustrated Police News, January 11, 1872.

An Illustrated Encyclopedia: The 1891 Murder Of Carrie Brown.

 

An Illustrated Encyclopedia: The 1891 Murder Of Carrie Brown, a new book by Howard and Nina Brown of JTRForums.com, is a comprehensive summary of the people, places, and things associated with one of New York City’s most sensational murder cases. The brutal murder of Carrie Brown shocked the people of New York and challenged their police force. Many believed that it was the work of London’s Jack the Ripper, making the investigation even more urgent. The Browns’ new book profiles all of the characters involved and views the case from all angles.

Available at Amazon.

The Murderer's Attack on His Mother.

Frank Gouldy was a wild and restless young man. Unable to hold a job, he lived in idleness and dissipation in his father’s house. He was sometimes pleasant to his brothers and sisters but more often morose and vengeful, with an uncontrollable temper.

Frank came home at about ten o’clock on October 26, 1858, and his father reprimanded him about money he had taken. Frank responded with “a low chuckling laugh, full of moaning and fiendish wickedness.” He entered his stepmother's room, and as she lay in bed, he hit her several times on the head with a dull hatchet. She rose up, trying to ward off the blows, then fell to the floor. He continued his violent spree, leaving three family members wounded and one servant dead.

Read the full story here: The Thirtieth Street Murder.

Bartholomew Burke's Murder.

On July 18, 1856, the naked body of Bartholomew Burke was found on the floor of the New York tailor shop where he worked. His skull was fractured, and his throat slashed; the floor and walls were covered with blood. Despite a large reward offered for information, the police found no motive for the murder and no suspects to arrest. Bartholomew Burke’s murder remains one of the city’s great unsolved crimes.

Read the full story here: Horrible and Mysterious Murder.

A Murderer Murdered.

Charles Jefferds shot and killed his stepfather John Walton, in New York City, the night of June 30, 1860. He also killed John Mathews, who chased him after Walton’s murder. Jefferds was acquitted of killing Walton due to lack of evidence. 

Jefferds later bragged that his mother paid him to murder Walton. He correctly assumed he could not be retried for Walton’s murder, but Jefferds forgot he had also killed Mathews. His confession to Walton’s murder provided enough evidence to convict him of Mathew's murder.

Charles Jefferds was sentenced to hang. But as he awaited execution, Jefferds made some enemies in Sing Sing Prison, and one of them, who had been chopping wood in the prison yard, turned his axe on Jefferds and killed him.

Read the full story here: The Walton-Matthews Tragedy.

With a Butcher’s Keen Blade.

The night of April 30, 1892, Policeman McGrath of the Prince Street Station, New York City, heard cries of pain coming from Grand Street, two blocks away from where he was patrolling. He ran to the source of the screams and found a man unconscious on the ground in a pool of blood and another bleeding man walking around as if in a daze. The policeman saw a third man throw a knife into a butcher shop and take off down the street. McGrath ran after him and subdued the man after a brief struggle and arrested him.

Murderer Quickly Caught.

In 1892, Frank Paulsen was a 55-year-old retired carpenter living off his Union Army pension. He lived alone in a rented room on Hester Street, New York City. Paulsen was a man of frugal habits, leading some to believe he had a large sum of money hidden in his room.

The night of September 29, 1892, Paulson’s landlord, William S. Byrnes, saw a man enter Paulsen’s room. Twenty minutes later, he heard a door slam. Then, he and his wife saw a man run out of the house. Byrnes went to Paulsen’s room and found him sitting in a chair with his skull crushed. Paulsen had at least eight deep gashes in his head—blows from an axe.

Cowardly and Unprovoked.

The night of April 26, 1871, while stepping off a Manhattan horse-car, Avery Putnam was struck from behind and killed by William Foster wielding an iron car-hook. This cowardly and unprovoked attack outraged the people of New York but before its ultimate resolution, outrage over “The Car-Hook Tragedy” would be overshadowed by a bitter public debate on the morality of the death penalty, and allegations of political corruption and bribery to prevent Foster’s execution.

Read the full story here: The Car-Hook Tragedy.