"Diamond Flossie" Murphy.

"Diamond Flossie" Murphy.
(New York Journal, March 18, 1898.)

Flossie Murphy was a flamboyant character, notorious in the demi-monde of New York City’s Tenderloin. She had a fondness for diamond jewelry, which she wore conspicuously, earning her the nickname, “Diamond Flossie.” But when she was found on the floor of her room on April 22, 1897, with a rope tied around her neck and all her jewelry gone, the coroner ignored evidence of theft and murder and ruled her death a suicide.

Diamond Flossie was born Flossie Reilly in Albany, New York, and had come to New York City six years earlier. She lived at 228 W. 24th Street with her common-law husband, Alexander Frederick Murphy, taking his last name. The police knew Diamond Flossie as a woman of the street and a thief. She was arrested in March with her friend Ida Carr for picking the pocket of one William Bishop. They returned the money, $80, and Bishop withdrew the charge.

She was addicted to opium, and, on the night of the murder, Mr. Murphy prepared a pipe for her before going out. The last thing she said before he left was that she was planning to meet the Dutchman at the corner of 27th Street and 7th Avenue.

Murphy left the house at about 9:00 and went to a saloon on 29th Street, where he played pinochle until the saloon closed at 1:00. He walked home and was surprised to see all the lights were out and that the lower lock, instead of the upper one, had been locked. He went inside and struck a match for light, but did not see Flossie until he lit a lamp. She was lying on the floor with a rope tied tightly around her neck, and the other end was fastened to a bedpost. Her features were distorted from the effects of strangulation. The room had been ransacked, and all her jewelry was gone.

As with the strangulation of Hannah Altman, seven months earlier, the husband ran screaming into the street after 1:00 a.m. In this case, however, instead of crying “murder,” Murphy shouted, “Robbers! Robbers!” as he rushed toward a pair of policemen standing nearby.

As he led Officers Lonergan and Menken back to the flat, Murphy explained that his wife was dead and at least $1,500 worth of jewelry was gone. They conducted a hasty investigation and called an ambulance, which took her to St. Vincent’s Hospital. The ambulance physician failed to revive Flossie, but she had not been dead long.

Detective Devine arrived shortly after the policemen and examined the body. From the arrangement of the rope, he concluded that Flossie could not have committed suicide, but whoever tied the rope to the bedpost had intended to leave that impression. The knots around her throat and the bedposts were half hitches, which Devine thought would not naturally be tied by a woman. The half hitch, he said, was more commonly used by circus men and those connected with the maritime industry. 

Alexander Murphy, who worked as a bartender, had previously been a stevedore and would be acquainted with the knot. Murphy showed more concern for the robbery than the murder, arousing further suspicion. Witnesses saw Flossie at the Newmarket Dance Hall that night and said she left with a man. Some said she went home with Murphy. Captain Walsh and Detective Devine questioned Murphy again and decided to hold him on suspicion. He protested his innocence and declared he could produce an alibi.

At around 4:00, on the day the body was found, Coroner Tuthill investigated the apartment and interviewed the detectives. He concluded that Flossie Murphy had committed suicide. She hung herself after learning that her jewelry had been stolen. Tuthill was satisfied that Murphy had accounted for his time before the death. At the time, the police did not share this opinion. Murphy was arraigned and held without bail at the House of Detention.

By April 24, most members of the Police Department concurred with the coroner and were convinced that the death was a suicide. Alexander Murphy was released on bail. Detective Devine reversed his opinion and agreed it was suicide. There was no sign of a struggle, which would have occurred had someone else strangled Flossie. 

“The rope was tightly drawn,” said Devine, “but she could have accomplished the work by first tying the rope to her neck, then to the bedpost and dropping down on the floor, permitting the weight of the body to do the rest.”

Joseph Reilly, Flossie’s brother, who arrived from Albany on April 24, disagreed. Detective Devine took him to Flossie’s flat, and he thoroughly examined the furnishings. He did not believe the suicide theory and explained why:

If that light was out, she did not commit suicide. She never slept in a dark room, nor would she stay in a dark room from her earliest childhood. It would have been impossible to keep her here unless the lamp was lit. She would not have stayed in her rooms under those circumstances any more than I would walk out of the front window. It looks like a case of murder. The man who strangled her passed through the dining room door after unlocking the lower lock, and either turned or blew out the lamp before going downstairs. I cannot agree with the suicide theory if the lamp was not lighted.

 The newspapers also preferred the murder theory. The New York Journal believed that the murders of Annie Bock, Hannah Altman, and Flossie Murphy, as well as attacks on Pauline Barnett and others, were perpetrated by the same man. This theory got a boost on May 12, when Mrs. Barnett identified her attacker.

(New York Journal, March 16, 1897.)

On May 11, Pauline Barnett was seated on a Central Park bench with her husband and mother when she saw the man who had robbed and nearly murdered her. He saw her at the same moment and started running across the park. After a spirited chase, Policeman Donnelly ran him down and took him to the stationhouse. He gave his name as Joseph Talt. The police later learned that he was Jacob Tolker, a peddler from Philadelphia and a Russian by birth. He had a swarthy complexion and an athletic build.

The Journal reported that Mrs. Barnett’s discovery of her attacker was not just a fortunate accident; she had been working with the police since her attack, trying to find the man responsible. Accompanied by plain-clothed detectives, she went to concert saloons, steamboats, parks, and theatres looking for the face she remembered so clearly.

“Hoping against hope,” said the Journal, “they went out upon their quest, day after day. At last, in Central Park, Mrs. Barnett saw the dark face with its terrible, haunting blue eyes—eyes which in themselves told of cruelty. She knew the broad shoulders, the deep, square chest. The whole burly figure was familiar, and, pointing her finger at him she screamed, ‘That is the man!’”

Jacob Tolker, the Supposed Strangler.
(New York Journal, May 14, 1897.)

The police photographed Tolker and handed copies to detectives who showed them to associates of previous victims. One witness, Jennie Friedman (aka “Crazy Jennie”), swore Tolker was with Pauline Barnett on the night of the assault. After intense questioning, Tolker confessed that he was with Mrs. Barnett but had not intended to rob her. There was a dispute, he said, and she attacked him. He caught her by the throat and held her until she released him. He took his hat and went out, leaving her on the bed. He denied taking any of her jewelry.

On May 13, another woman was attacked in her room. Two men threw a rope around the neck of Fannie Vogel, and she fought for her life until something spooked the men. They ran from the building only to be captured by two private citizens, one of whom sustained a knife wound in the process.

The attempted murderers, James Fitzsimmons and Henry Weiss, were interrogated separately in the Essex Market Prison. Fitzsimmons, 19, an Irishman with a thick brogue, had been in the country for two years. He met Weiss in Boston when both were advertising agents for a patent medicine company. Before coming to New York, they served three months in prison for robbery.

Fitzsimmons said he had never been to the Tenderloin and did not know any of the murder victims. The police did not believe him and immediately suspected Fitzsimmons and Weiss of Diamond Flossie’s murder.

According to Fitzsimmons, Weiss suggested that they get a woman alone and chloroform her. They did not intend any robbery, implying that they meant to rape her. After obtaining the chloroform they walked around the city until they ran across Mrs. Vogel. 

“We did not try to strangle her,” said Fitzsimmons, “we did not have any rope, and we did not use any knife.”

Henry Weiss, “low-browed, hollow-jawed, eyes too near together to be pleasant,” said it was Fitzsimmons who suggested using chloroform. Neither could account for the stabbing if they had no knife, and neither could account for the knotted rope on the floor of Mrs. Vogel’s room.

The police were now trying to link all the murders to the work of a gang of stranglers. A witness swore that Tolker was with Annie Bock two hours before her murder. The description given by Bock’s servant of the man who came in with her that night exactly tallies with that of Tolker. Tolker knew Hannah Altman, Annie Bock, and Minnie Weld, and so did Weiss, said the New York World.

Though they did not report it at the time of the murders, the New York World claimed that the scent of chloroform lingered at the murder scenes. The odor of chloroform clung to the handkerchief tied around Minnie Weldt's neck. The smell of a drug was also perceptible in Hannah Altman’s room. Frank Murphy declared that when he bent over Flossie’s body, he noticed a faint, sweet odor, not that of opium. 

The World was also ready to accuse this gang of stranglers, Fitzsimmons, Weiss, and Tolker, of strangulation murders not just in New York, but throughout the country:

In the cases of Bertha Paradis, Mary McDermott, and Mrs. Wilson, in San Francisco; Lena Tappen and Marie Coustasort, in Denver; Mary Ekhart, in Cincinnati, and Josie Bennet in Buffalo, there was the towel or the handkerchief or rope with the odor of drugs and the slip-knot under the left ear. In every case, there was a suspect answering the general description of Talt.

Stranglers and Stranglers' Victims.
(New York World, May 14, 1897)

But with the alleged gang of stranglers in custody, the attacks did not stop. In October 1897, Sadie Miller was escorted home by a young man she had met in the Tenderloin. Next morning, she awoke with a splitting headache and found she was missing a pair of diamond earrings, two diamond rings, a gold watch, a brooch, and $85 cash. 

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

While dining out on November 12, Sadie Miller saw the man who robbed her and reported him to the police. They searched him at the stationhouse and found in his pockets three small empty bottles that smelled of chloroform, a fourth which contained three ounces of chloroform, a small sponge, and a book filled with addresses of young women. He said he was George W. Duval, a 24-year-old salesman, but made no other statement.

His real name was Paul Bauer, and he was from Newark, New Jersey. The New York Journal said he looked like a student. “He is a long-haired, bespectacled youth of the type that infests Broadway with tin horns on the night of an intercollegiate football match or boat race. Yet he has been twice convicted of burglary and confesses to having chloroformed and robbed at least one woman of loose character.”

Bauer was of German extraction and spoke with a German accent. Recalling Diamond Flossie’s last words, that she was going to meet the Dutchman, and considering Bauer’s modus operandi, the police considered him a person of interest in her murder.

Jacob Tolker was convicted of second-degree assault for his attack on Pauline Barnett and sentenced to a maximum of five years. Henry Weiss and James Fitzsimmons pleaded guilty to strangling and robbing Fannie Vogel and were sent to the Elmira Reformatory. Paul Bauer was sentenced to seven years and seven months for robbing Sadie Miller, with an additional ten years for having “knockout drops.” Not one of them was convicted of any strangulation murders.

The prosecutors had no interest in pursuing the Diamond Flossie case. In July 1897, Coroner Tuthill heard testimony from Detectives Perkins and Devine as well as Flossie’s husband, Alexander Murphy, and decided that it would not be necessary to hold an inquest. He concluded that his initial assessment was correct; Diamond Flossie Murphy had committed suicide. The case was officially closed, but the police still brought up Diamond Flossie whenever a new suspect was brought in, and the newspapers always included her with the victims of  Jack the Strangler.

---

Sources: 

“"Diamond Flossie" a Suicide,” New York Herald, July 14, 1897.
“Annie Bock's Slayer Caught?” New York Journal and Advertiser, May 13, 1897.
“Chloroformer and Jewel Robber Confesses One Crime,” New York Journal and Advertiser, November 14, 1897.
“Darkness Sheds Light on Death,” New York Journal and Advertiser., April 24, 1897.
“Disorderly Flat Raided,” New York Herald, November 22, 1897.
“Dubal's Victims in Court,” New York Evening Journal., March 21, 1898.
“Found Murdered in Her Room,” Watertown Daily Times., April 22, 1897.
“Gang of Stranglers,” The World, May 14, 1897.
“George Bauer Indicted,” New York Journal and Advertiser, November 20, 1897.
“Her Slayer is Still at Large,” New York Journal and Advertiser., April 23, 1897.
“Jewels and Chloroform,” sun., November 13, 1897.
“May Know of the Bock Murder,” New-York Tribune, May 14, 1897.
“May Know of the Bock Murderer,” New-York Tribune, May 14, 1897.
“Murder in New York,” Evening Bulletin, April 22, 1897.
“Robbing Women on the Street,” Evening Post, May 13, 1897.
“The Strangler's Victims - All Women,” New York Journal and Advertiser, May 14, 1897.
“Supposed Murder a Suicide,” New-York Tribune, April 24, 1897.
“A Tenderloin Beauty,” Reading Eagle.. April 22, 1897.
“Twenty Years On Three Sentences,” New-York Tribune, April 1, 1898.
“Two Popes Wore the Lost Stole,” New York Herald, May 16, 1897.
“Victims of Mysterious Strangler,” New York Journal, March 18, 1898.

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.

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.

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. 

Butchered and Burned.

National Police Gazette, January 28, 1882

Mrs. J.W. Gibbons was away from her home in Ashland, Kentucky, on December 23, 1881. She left behind her 18-year-old son Robert, her 14-year-old daughter Fannie, and 17-year-old Emma Thomas (aka Carico), who was staying with them. Mrs. Gibbons returned the following day to find her home burned to the ground and all three inhabitants dead.

Read the full story here: The Ashland Outrage.

Maggie Crowley, Found Strangled.

Maggie Crowley
(New York American, March 16, 1898)

Robert Hoey, coming home from work in the early hours of March 15, 1898, literally tripped over the body of a dead woman in the courtyard of his New York City tenement. The woman had been strangled to death and dragged to the courtyard known in the neighborhood as “Hogan’s Alley.” Four days later, she was identified as Maggie Crowley, a young woman with a drinking problem. Four men were suspected, two were indicted, but no one was convicted.

Read the full story here: Murder Told in Pictures.

Frederick F. Streeter.

About half past three, the morning of July 2, 1863, a young man on his way to work in Medina, Ohio, saw the home of Shubal Coy in flames. He alerted the neighbors, who came out to douse the flames with water. When the fire was under control, they went inside to look for the Coy family. They found Shubal lying in bed with nine stab wounds in his throat and breast, any one of them capable of producing death. His wife lay on the floor, with her throat cut. She had fought with her attacker and had twenty-four cuts on her head and body. Their seven-year-old son Ferdinand lay in bed with his throat cut. Mercifully, it appeared he was murdered in his sleep.

Medford's Murder Mystery.

(Boston Post, March 29, 1897,)

Walter R. Debbins was shot twice in the back, in broad daylight, on Highland Street in Medford, Massachusetts, on the afternoon of Saturday, March 27, 1897. Though no one saw the murder or heard the gunshots, there was enough traffic on Highland Street that afternoon for the police to precisely pinpoint the time of the shooting to between 1:00 and 1:05. But that was all they could pinpoint; everything else about the crime was shrouded in mystery that grew more dense with each new revelation.

 

Read the full story here: The Medford Mystery.

Sororcide.

The Murder of Lizzie Anderson

Josie Fay was standing at the corner of Bowker and Sudbury Streets in Boston’s West End, on the evening of January 19, 1880. Stella Vannell approached her and asked if she had seen Ida King. Josie pointed down Bowker Street, where Ida stood talking with a young man named Michael Tolan. Stella walked up to the couple, called out to Ida, and began making disparaging remarks about Tolan. The women exchanged angry words, and the argument escalated until, in a flash, Stella drew a large clasp-knife and plunged it into Ida’s breast. Both women were drunk at the time of the incident, and both were using assumed names. In fact, they were sisters, Maggie and Lizzie Anderson.

Harry and Catherine.

 

Harry and Catherine.
(Harry Hayward: Life, crimes, dying confession and execution of the Celebrated Minneapolis Criminal.)

Harry Hayward was a handsome young conman from a wealthy Minneapolis family. He persuaded Catherine Ging to make him beneficiary on a life insurance policy, then, on December 3, 1894, he lured her to her death. 

Read the full story here: The Minneapolis Svengali.

A Murder on Ice.

A group of young boys from Lambertville, New Jersey, went skating on Island Creek on December 15, 1880. They brought their lunches and, when they sat down to eat, they built a fire on the ice to keep warm. John Pierman, an older boy (age reported variously as 15, 16, or 18) with another group, came upon them and started kicking the burning wood around the ice. Theodore Parker, aged 13 or 14, told Pierman to stop. An argument ensued and words led to blows. When Parker struck Pierman in the face, breaking his pipe, Pierman pulled out a knife and plunged it into Parker’s left breast, piercing his heart.

Clara and Daniel.

 

("On Trial for Murder," Daily Inter Ocean, November 27, 1895.)

During a time of conflict between the Shanks family and the Keller family in rural Indiana, the body of 18-year-old Clara Shanks was found floating in Wolf Creek. Circumstantial evidence pointed to Daniel Keller, who had a clandestine romance with Clara.

Read the full story here: The Wolf Creek Tragedy.

So far From Home: The Pearl Bryan Murder.

 So far From Home: The Pearl Bryan Murder - Amazon, Audible.

Who Killed Carrie Farrel?

Mrs. Carrie Farrel left her home in Sibley, Iowa, at 7:00 a.m. on May 6, 1889. She went on horseback to visit her parents, who lived about two miles away. When she didn’t return that night, her husband thought nothing strange of her absence. It was not unusual for Carrie to spend the night with her parents. But when her horse returned home riderless the following morning, her husband became alarmed and began searching for her.

James and Sarah Jane.

 

James E. Eldredge and Sarah Jane Gould.
(The Trial of James E Eldredge )

James E. Eldredge left his home in Canton, New York in the spring of 1856. He returned six months later with a new name and a duplicitous personality to match. All those around him soon learned to distrust anything the young man said—all except his fiancé, Sarah Jane Gould. She remained trusting to the end, when Eldredge poisoned Sarah Jane to pursue her younger sister.

Read the full story here: James E. Eldredge.

Asked His Wife to Shoot Him.

Lourens Signourette and his wife lived near Foster’s Bar, a remote camp in the Yubas Foot Hills in California. Lourens had been ailing for quite a while, and on December 1, 1891, he decided to end his life by taking strychnine. The poison did not have the immediate effect that he wanted, so he asked his wife to get his shotgun and shoot him.

The Late Mr. Benjamin Nathan.

Harper's Weekly, August 20, 1870.

Benjamin Nathan, a wealthy stockbroker and philanthropist, was found brutally beaten to death in his Manhattan home the morning of July 29, 1870. Some jewelry and a small amount of cash were stolen, and the police were quick to rule the incident a burglary gone bad. But if so, how and when did the burglars enter? And how could four others staying in the house sleep through the violent attack? In fact, the Nathan murder looked more like a classic locked-room mystery—a mystery that remains unsolved.

Read the full story here:

Who Killed Benjamin Nathan?

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.”