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.

Two officers responded, and she took them up to her apartment. When they saw the body, they arrested Helen and took her to the 67th Street Police Station for questioning.  Captain Strause dispatched two detectives to investigate the scene. 

The women were very poor. Their three-room apartment was sparsely furnished, and the bed they shared was just a mattress atop some wooden boxes. There were no signs of violence in the rooms. A search of the apartment produced a man’s white handkerchief with the monogram, “B.R.,” a slip of paper with an address in Hawley, Pennsylvania. Handwritten on a card were the words, “After suffering, Relieve. Dead. Amen.”  suggesting to the detectives that Minnie had committed suicide.

New York Herald, June 1, 1894.

They abandoned the suicide theory after the coroner examined the body. The handkerchief was tied so tightly that it dug into the flesh. A strong hand had tied the knot. A bruise on her wrist indicated that she was held in a tight grasp, and a bruise around her eye was caused by a blow and not by strangulation. Since there were no signs of struggle, the detectives believed Minnie had been knocked unconscious before she was strangled. She was taken by surprise by someone she knew.

The other residents of the building told the detectives that many men, too well-dressed for that part of town, visited the women at all hours of the day and night. They would sometimes ask for Mrs. Lang, the name that Minnie and Helen put on their door.

Helen Kahlert was a German immigrant who spoke little English. Through an interpreter, she told them she was 30 years old and had been in America for one year. Minnie Weldt, 21, was also German and had been in the country for three years. They met in Princeton, New Jersey, in January and moved into the apartment on 61st Street three weeks earlier. Both worked as washerwomen in other people's homes, as well as taking in laundry. They placed advertisements in German and English newspapers for gentlemen’s washing. The ads were signed “Mrs. Lang,” because they did not want to publish their real names. 

Helen told the police that no men ever called on Minnie; she had a lover in Germany. Minnie had recently received some money from relatives in Germany and set aside $20, saving to bring her lover to America. The police found no trace of the money and now believed the motive for the murder was robbery. 

Mrs. Boese, who lived with her granddaughter in the flat across the hall, kept tabs on people coming and going. She said that around 10:00, Wednesday morning, she heard someone knock on the women’s door. She saw a tall, stout man, dressed in black, wearing a derby hat. His skin was pale, but she could not see his face. He knocked only once, and Minnie let him in. About half an hour later, she and her granddaughter heard him leave the flat. As he passed down the hall, they heard him laughing to himself.

Around 11:00, another man called at the flat, but after knocking several times and receiving no answer, he went away. A third man called between 2:00 and 3:00 with the same result. It seemed likely that the first caller had been the killer. The laughter that Mrs. Boese and her granddaughter heard caused the New York Herald to opine, “It is possible that the man was a maniac, who was pleased at the thought of the deed he had just committed.”

The theory that robbery was the motive was shattered when the missing $20 was found. Helen stayed in Mrs. Boese’s flat the night she found the body. She brought along a small handbag, which she left behind when the police took her to the station. Inside was a balled-up pair of stockings. In the toe of one of them was a $5 gold piece and $15 in paper money.

New York Herald, June 1, 1894.

It now appeared that Minnie did have male callers, so the police brought Helen Kahlert back in to learn more about Minnie’s private life. She told them that prior to their meeting, Minnie was acquainted with a saloonkeeper in Hoboken who wanted to marry her. The man had a housekeeper who was anxious to become his wife. The housekeeper met with Minnie and said she knew of the saloonkeeper’s love for Minnie and confessed her own love for him. She wept, entreated, and threatened Minnie to get her to leave the man alone. Minnie did so, but he did not stop pursuing her until they moved. Helen did not think he knew her new address.

Helen told them that Minnie left a trunk with Mrs. Koerner, who ran a servant girls’ boardinghouse on East 50th Street. The detectives interviewed Mrs. Koerner, who told them Minnie knew several men whom Helen failed to mention: Louis Horn of Park Row; William Strelow, a farmer from Mount Vernon; and Emil Bortis, a Hoboken streetcar conductor.

Louis Horn said he met Minnie in a saloon one night and thereafter paid her bills and helped her along. He eventually tired of this arrangement and broke it off.  Strelow took Minnie out several times, but she did not like him. She wrote and told him not to call again. Emil Bortis called often in his conductor’s uniform. He induced Minnie to live with him and serve as his wife's housekeeper. This lasted three days. She returned to Mrs. Koerner, saying she hated Bortis and would never see him again. Bortis had a solid alibi, and the other two men were not considered suspects in the murder.

On June 2, the police arrested Paul Jacobi on suspicion of murder. There was very little direct evidence to suspect Jacobi, but he fit the description, being a large, fleshy man, and he told conflicting stories. On the day of the murder, he visited a certain liquor shop and got a drink on credit, having no money. He said he was going to Staten Island, where he expected to get work. Shortly after noon, he returned to the same saloon and said he had not gone to Staten Island. A messenger informed him that his wife had just given birth. He seemed to have a large amount of cash and bought drinks for everyone.

When he was seen the following day, he had shaved off the mustache he had worn for years. He told three different stories as to why: he had singed it badly while lighting an alcohol lamp, he shaved it to apply for a job as a waiter in a hotel, and he told police he always shaved it off in the summer.

The police asked where he had spent Wednesday morning, and he said he had visited an old girlfriend named Gretchin Hirsch. She confirmed that he had been to her house that morning and said he had sent her out for beer several times. During one of these trips, he stole $19 from her pocketbook.

The police would not say whether Jacobi knew the dead girl or not, but intimated that they had some strong links in a chain of evidence. During his arraignment, Gretchen Hirsch testified that he was with her between 9:30 and noon. Mrs. Boese and her granddaughter, who had sworn positively that they could identify the man who had entered Minnie’s room on Wednesday, both looked at Jacobi and said he was certainly not the man. Jacobi was released but later rearrested on larceny charges preferred by Gretchen Hirsch.

The police were completely at sea; they had no more leads to follow. Minnie Weldt was buried in Potter’s Field. The coroner’s jury ruled that Minnie was “murdered by a person or persons unknown.” The case remained unsolved.

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.” Two years later, a series of unsolved strangulation murders plagued the neighborhood where Minnie Weldt was killed. New York City newspapers speculated that one mad strangler committed them all and that Minnie Weldt had been his first victim.

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Sources: 

“Also Accused of Theft,” Evening World, June 4, 1894.
“Arrest in the Weldt Murder Case,” The New York Times, June 3, 1894.
“Charged with Minnie Weidt's Death,” Buffalo Evening News, June 4, 1894.
“Found Strangled to Death,” New-York Tribune, May 31, 1894.
“Have Another Clue,” Evening World, June 1, 1894.
“He Knew Minnie Weldt,” Evening World, June 2, 1894.
“Is He The Murderer?” New-York Tribune, June 4, 1894.
“Is There a 'Jack the Strangler' Abroad,” journal, June 21, 1896.
“Jacobi Proves An Alibi,” New-York Tribune, June 5, 1894.
“Little Doubt That It Was Murder,” New-York Tribune, June 1, 1894.
“Minnie Weldt Murdered,” The Evening World, May 31, 1894.
“Mrs. Weldt Killed,” The New York Herald, June 1, 1894.
“The Murder of Minna Weldt,” Sun., June 2, 1894.
“News Article,” Buffalo Evening News, November 21, 1894.
“New-York City,” New-York Tribune, June 29, 1894.
“Strangled With a Handkerchief,” The New York Times, May 31, 1894.
“The Strangler,” Buffalo Evening News, March 16, 1896.
“Wept Over the Photograph,” Evening World, June 2, 1894.

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 unsolved murders to a single individual and comparing him to Jack the Ripper. They invariably attributed groups of unsolved murders to some local version of 

Jack. 

The Humboldt Herald commented on this trend in 1889: 

Since Jack the Ripper emerged into public notice at Whitechapel, London, this country has sprung upon it Jack the Choker, Jack the Kisser, Jack the Strangler, and Jack the Window-breaker. Now, if Jack the Hanger, would come along and hang the whole outfit, himself included, a long-suffering public would clap its hands and cry “Bravo!” 

The name that caught on in America was Jack the Strangler, as a rash of unsolved strangulation cases spread throughout the country. In 1894, three strangulation deaths in Denver, Colorado, were attributed to Jack the Strangler; San Francisco’s Jack the Strangler also murdered three. Jack the Strangler murders were reported in cities throughout America, including Sebolia, Arizona, Nebraska City, Nebraska, Evansville, Indiana, Uniontown, Pennsylvania, and Skagway, Alaska. 

 When Denver reported a fourth strangulation in 1898, the New York Journal postulated that ten women in cities across the country had been murdered by the same Jack the Strangler. The first was Minnie Weldt, strangled in New York City in May 1894. The Strangler then went to Buffalo, New York, and murdered Josie Bennet that June. From there, to Cincinnati, where he strangled Mary Eckhart in July. In September, he arrived in Denver, and over the next three months, strangled Lena Tupper, Mary Contassolt, and Kiku Oyama. He took a year off, then surfaced in San Francisco, and between December 1895 and March 1896, he murdered Jessie Williams, Marie McDermott, and Bertha Paradis. After another hiatus, he returned to Denver and killed Julia Voght in October 1898. 

 This scenario is highly unlikely, but the first name on the list, Minnie Weldt, was linked to a series of New York City murders that would later be attributed to New York’s own Jack the Strangler. The New York press seldom used the name Jack the Strangler, but as the cases began to pile up, with similar circumstances and locations, it was hard to ignore the possibility of a single killer. The papers came up with many Strangler theories, but were never able to identify him.

 

Between 1894 and 1900, eight women living in New York’s Tenderloin district centered around 2^nd Avenue were strangled in their homes. Most were already known to the police as women of low moral character. Not one of these cases was ever solved:

 

New York Journal, August 24, 1900.

May 6, 1894 – Minnie Weldt, a 21-year-old washerwoman, with many male visitors, was found strangled with a handkerchief in her home at 224 E. 61^st Street.

May 31, 1896 – Mamie Cuningham, a girl of 13, was beaten and strangled with a towel in her home at 315 E. 67^th Street.

 

August 3, 1896 – Annie Bock, a 23-year-old “social outcast,” was beaten, strangled, and slashed in her home at 207 E 23^rd Street.

 

September 2, 1896 – Hannah Altman, aka “Dutch Annie,” a friend of Annie Bock, was strangled with a stocking in her home at 202 E. 29^th Street.

 

November 9, 1896 – Pauline Barnett, 24, was robbed and strangled in the rooms she was using for “immoral purposes” at 11 St. Marks Place

 

April 22, 1897 – “Diamond Flossie” Murphy, an opium addict, was strangled with a rope and robbed of $1,500 in jewelry

 

March 15, 1898 – Maggie Crowley, a 35-year-old woman with a drinking problem, was strangled and dragged to the courtyard outside her home at 27 Monroe Street

 

August 20, 1900 – Katy Scharn, a 24-year-old factory worker, who frequented a “cheap concert hall,” was strangled and beaten with a hammer at her home at 674 2^nd Avenue.

In coming weeks, Murder by Gaslight will take a closer look at these cases and try to determine if they all could have been victims of one single Jack the Strangler.

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Sources:
“"Jack the Strangler",” The Akron Beacon Journal, October 29, 1894.
“Another Victim,” The Akron Beacon Journal, November 13, 1894.
“Darkness Sheds Light on Death,” New York journal and advertiser., April 24, 1897.
“Did He Strangle in Other Cities?,” New York journal and advertiser., May 15, 1897.
“Evidence That One "Jack the Strangler" Killed Kate Scharn and at Least 2 Others.,” New York Journal and Advertiser, August 23, 1900.
“Four Deaths Traceable to Hand of Strangler,” EVANSVILLE COURIER., November 15, 1901.
'Frisco Has a Jack the Strangler,” WATERTOWN DAILY TIMES., March 10, 1896.
“Has Denver a "Jack the Strangler"?,” The New York Times, November 14, 1894.
“His Mark,” The Cincinnati Enquirer, February 19, 1892.
Humboldt Herald, March 15, 1889.
“Is Still a Mystery,” Sun-Journal, August 24, 1900.
“Jack the Strangler,” The Lincoln Daily Sun, July 13, 1892.
“Jack the Strangler,” The Cleveland Leader, October 30, 1894.
“Jack the Strangler,” Green Bay Press-Gazette, November 13, 1894.
“Jack the Strangler,” New York Herald, March 28, 1896.
“Jack the Strangler Seizes Young Girls,” DETROIT TO DAY, November 25, 1902.
“Lincoln Price,” New York Journal and Advertiser, August 24, 1900.
“May be the Strangler Who Has Cruelly Murdered So Many Hapless Women,” New York Journal, March 16, 1898.
“Murderer of Four Women,” Akron daily Democrat., November 14, 1901.
“New Clews,” New York Journal and Advertiser, August 23, 1900.
“New York's Women Murder Mysteries of the Past,” New York Journal and Advertiser, August 20, 1900.
“Police Mystified by Murders,” EVANSVILLE JOURNAL-NEWS, November 15, 1901.
“Slain by Jack the Strangler,” The San Francisco Examiner, November 14, 1894.
“Strangler Gets Another Victim.,” New York Journal and Advertiser, October 9, 1898.
“Strangler Mark on Dead Woman's Neck,” New York evening journal., March 15, 1898.
“Stranglers of Women,” New York Herald, June 7, 1896.
“Strangler's Sign on a Child's Body,” New York journal and advertiser., June 17, 1897.
“The Denver Mystery,” The San Francisco Examiner, November 19, 1894.
“Victims of a Mysterious Strangler,” New York Journal, March 18, 1898.