The Mysterious Murder of Rose Clark Ambler.

 

Rose Ambler said goodnight to her fiancé at the Raven Stream Bridge in Stratford, Connecticut on the night of September 2, 1883, and started walking home alone as she usually did. She was never again seen alive. Her body was found the next day, beaten and stabbed, and the perpetrator was never captured. Rose Ambler joined Mary Stannard and Jennie Cramer in the growing list of unpunished Connecticut murders.

Read the full story here: The Raven Stream Crime.

---

Picture from Illustrated Police News, September 22, 1883.

The Banjo Homicide.

William Condon was a banjo player and a variety performer at Ryan’s Saloon in Cincinnati. For six months, he had been living with a woman named Lou Perry, and in June 1880, they moved into a rented room at No.300 West Fifth Street. The move had not gone smoothly, and they began quarreling frequently.

Lou Perry—known as “Big Lou”—was from a troubled family. Her real name was Louisa Dorff, and she was born in West Virginia. Around 1870, the family moved to Cincinnati, where her two brothers, Charles and Samuel, got into trouble and were sent to the penitentiary. When they returned from prison, they got into trouble again, and the family was driven out of the city. Lou stayed behind.

The Illustrated Police News politely referred to Lou as a “kept woman.” The Cincinnati Daily Star was a bit harsher: “She went from bad to worse and finally became a low, miserable, besotted prostitute.”

The house William and Lou moved to on West Fifth Street probably helped to deteriorate their relationship. According to the Cincinnati Daily Gazette:

The house has been noted during the past two years for the disgraceful orgies carried on within its walls. It is no uncommon thing, it is said, for women perfectly nude to be running about the place in broad daylight, and rows are of almost nightly occurrence.

Around midnight on June 17, 1880, Condon saw Lou with another man. They were both intoxicated, and Lou was trying to take him upstairs to their room. Condon interceded, and the man ran away. Lou and Condon began fighting and he decided he had enough. He went inside their room to get his things to move out. Outside, Lou pounded and kicked the door, but he would not let her in. Condon came out carrying his banjo, and the fight renewed as they went down the stairs. 

Outside, in a narrow courtyard on one side of the building, the fight turned violent. Lou Rushed towards him, and Condon struck her on the face with the rim of the heavy, brass-bound banjo. The blow broke her nose and cut a gash from the bridge of her nose to the lower part of the right cheek. Lou sank to the pavement. 

Witnesses carried Lou upstairs to her bed. Condon made no attempt to escape but helped wash the blood from the ghastly wound. Lou died half an hour later. Condon gave no resistance when he was arrested. In Police Court, he was charged with second-degree murder and held on $5,000 bail. Two women at the scene, Hattie Whiting and Mattie Davis, were arrested for vagrancy and held in the workhouse to guarantee they would be available to testify. 

At the inquest, Coroner Carrick stated, 

The deceased came to her death from effusion of blood on the brain. I further find that the blow which fractured the nasal bones was the cause of said effusion and that the blow was inflicted with a banjo in the hands of William Condon.

On June 26, Condon was back in police court. He was bound over to the grand jury on the charge of manslaughter, with bail fixed at $2,000. Both the charge and the bail amount had been reduced.

There was no further mention of the case in the newspapers until December 29, when the Cincinnati Commercial printed a summary of Cincinnati homicides for the year 1880. Without further explanation, the article states that William Condon was discharged on the order of Prosecutor Drew.

At the time, the Cincinnati government was dominated by rival political gangs controlled by saloon owners. Corruption was rampant, and paying the right person could influence the outcome of a trial. This may be what saved Condon from prosecution. 

---

Sources: 

“"Busted" With a Banjo,” Illustrated Police News, July 3, 1880.
“An Actor in a Tragic Role,” JACKSON DAILY CITIZEN., June 17, 1880.
“The Banjo Homicide,” Cincinnati Commercial Tribune, June 18, 1880.
“Condon's Crime,” Cincinnati Daily Star., June 17, 1880.
“A Cutting Matinee,” The Cincinnati Enquirer, October 10, 1881.
“The Los Perry Murder,” Cincinnati Commercial Tribune, June 27, 1880.
“Lou. Dorf's Murder,” Cincinnati Daily Star., June 18, 1880.

Miller, Zane L. Boss Cox's Cincinnati. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1968.
“The Perry Inquest,” The Cincinnati Enquirer, June 19, 1880.
“Police Court,” The Cincinnati Daily Star, June 26, 1880.
“Twenty Homicides in Cincinnati during the Year,” Cincinnati Commercial, December 29, 1880.
“Where Are the Police?,” Cincinnati Daily Gazette, June 18, 1880.
“The Woman Killed With a Banjo,” Cincinnati Daily Gazette, June 19, 1880.

The Bloody Century 2 Audiobook.

The Bloody Century 2
Audiobook

The Meierhoffer Execution.

On January 6, 1881, Mrs. Margaret Meierhoffer and her alleged paramour, Frank Lamens, were hanged in Newark, New Jersey, for the murder of Margaret’s husband, John. Two years earlier, the Meierhoffers hired Lamens to work on their farm, but Lamens’s presence put further strain on their already troubled marriage. John was dissatisfied with Lamens's work and wanted him gone, but Margaret insisted that he stay.

On October 9, 1879, the police found John Meierhoffer’s body at the foot of the cellar stairs with a gunshot wound in his throat. Upstairs they found Margaret Meierhoffer in bed with Frank Lamens. Neither confessed to the murder; they each accused the other. The state found them both guilty and sentenced them to death.

The illustration is incorrect. The New Jersey gallows was not configured to hang two at a time. Margaret was launched into eternity at 10:25, an hour later Frank Lammens followed her.

Read the full story here: Who Shot Meierhoffer?

---

Picture from Illustrated Police News, January 15, 1881.

A Naked Man’s Horrible Deeds.

 

Thomas Ryan, aged 88, lived in Chester, Illinois, with his widowed daughter, Julia Smith, her 12-year-old daughter Sallie, and 8-year-old son Arthur. On December 7, 1880, their peaceful morning was shattered when an intruder burst into the house.  It was a naked man wielding an axe who ordered them all to kneel and pray as they only had a few minutes to live.

The man was Louis Tochstein, who, the day before, had been in police custody and was declared insane. Tochstein was raised Catholic but had recently been attending meetings of other denominations. As his religious excitement grew, so did his madness. Tochstein was insane but not considered violent; his mania was limited to asking people to pray with him at inappropriate times and places. On Saturday, December 4, he made his two sisters kneel and pray with him in the street while he preached that the end of the world would come in a few days.

The police arrested Tochstein then, and on Monday, he was adjudged insane and ordered to be sent to the asylum in Jacksonville, Illinois. Before the trip, he was held in a hotel room guarded by two policemen. Tuesday morning, they brought him a bowl of water to wash up.  He dashed the water into their faces then broke through the window of the room and ran away.

He randomly ran to the Ryan house, about a quarter mile away. Along the way, he shed his clothing and acquired an axe. As most of the household obeyed his orders and fell to their knees, Arthur Ryan managed to escape and alarm the neighborhood. The neighbors arrived too late. When they reached the house, they found Thomas Ryan and his daughter with their skulls crushed. Sallie’s body lay on the floor, and her head was completely severed.

Outside they saw Tochstein running to the next house, swinging Sallie’s bloody head in the air. He found a servant girl who screamed when he ordered her to kneel. Before he could harm her, the neighbors arrived and overpowered him. The police secured Tochstein and took him away once more.

The story he told the police served to confirm his insanity. He said he had to leave the hotel because people there were trying to rob him. When he neared the Ryan house, he discovered that it was on fire. He rushed in and saved all the inmates but the little boy, who perished in the flames. While saving the Ryans, his own clothes were burned off him and he was badly scorched.

By now, the whole town had learned of the carnage, and there was serious talk of lynching. To avoid the mob, the police took Tochstein by wagon to a small way station, where they boarded a train to East St. Louis on their way to the Jacksonville asylum.

---

Sources: 

“Crazed by the Church,” The Kansas City Times, December 9, 1880.
“Local News,” The Alton Telegraph, December 16, 1880.
“A Naked Man's Horrible Deeds,” Illustrated Police News, December 18, 1880.
“A Triple Murder,” The Boston Globe, December 8, 1860.
www.ancestry.com

"The Boy Murderer."

Myron Buel.
“He possesses an expressionless and almost
idiotic countenance.”  Illustrated Police News.

Myron Buel was called “The Boy Murderer,” though he was 20 years old when he committed the crime. He was charged with the murder of Catherine Richards in Plainfield, New York, on June 25, 1878. The following February he was tried and convicted of first-degree murder.

Buel continued to profess innocence while his attorneys appealed the verdict. His motion for a new trial was denied, and the governor refused to grant a reprieve. Three days before his execution, Buel confessed. He was in love with Catherine, the 14-year-old daughter of his employer. Her rejections angered him so much that he lured Catherine into the barn and then threw a rope around her neck. He beat her to death with a milking stool, then ravished her.

Myron Buel was hanged on November 14, 1879.

Read the full story here: The Confessions of Myron Buel.