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Case File: Brown, Carrie née Montgomery (1891)
[Note: The final release of the day had a few differences from the original release, transcribed below and was entirely on the front page, unlike the original release which was split between pages 1 and 3. First, the final sub-title in the original, “Detectives Find the Woman’s Last Companion, Who Knows Her Murderer”, was replaced with “Parts of the Body Missing and Supposed Carried Away by the Murderer”. There was also an entirely new section to the article added between “Perhaps a Sailor” and “Byrnes On His Mettle”, and was titled “Did He Stay at the Hatfield House?” This new section has also been transcribed at the very bottom of this page. Finally, the last two section of the original release, transcribed below, were omitted from the “Last Edition” of the day. The rest of the article and all images are identical in both releases.]
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NOT CAUGHT YET.
----♦----
Many Arrests, but the New
York Ripper Is Still
at Large
-----
Detectives in Private Clothes
Swarm in the Fourth
Ward
-----
Inspector Byrnes Visits Brook-
lyn This Morning on Alleged Clues
-----
Proof by the Autopsy That Carrie
Brown Was Strangled Before
Her Mutilation
-----
Detectives Find the Woman's Last
Companion, Who Knows
Her Murderer.
-----
No crime which has been committed in this city for years has stirred the Police Department to such tremendous activity as the horrible butchery of Carrie Brown, alias “Old Shakespeare,” by “Jack the Ripper,” or his double, at the East River Hotel.
Since noon yesterday the Fourth Precinct has been fairly alive with detectives and policemen in citizens’ clothes. They have been dragging all the low dives and resorts on Cherry Hill and its vicinity, in the hope of discovering some clue to the escaped murderer.
He is still at large, and so far as can be learned from the police authorities no trace of him has yet been brought to light.
This morning it was stated that fully one-half of the detectives force of the Central Office was engaged in the investigation under the direct supervision of Inspector Byrnes and Capt. McLaughlin.
In addition to these all the available reserve force of the Fourth Precinct, together with the Ward Detectives Doran and Griffin, under Capt. O’Connor, are assisting in the work of chasing up clues and winnowing reports and rumors, many of which are of the wildest and most improbably character.
In every precinct, too, throughout the city the police have been warned to keep on the lookout for any one who answers to the description of the supposed murderer to the description of the supposed murderer which has been furnished by Mary Miniter, the house-keeper of the hotel.
That they are on the alert is shown by the fact that one arrest has already been made in another precinct.
KALLENBERG SET FREE
This arrest was made about 1 o’clock this morning by Officer Mitchell, of the Elizabeth street police. He found a German, about thirty-five years old, who said his name was Adolph Kallenberg, and that he had no home, loitering in Chatham square.
He was sent down to the Oak street station about 2 o’clock this morning. Capt. O’Connor says that he discharged him because he was evidently not the man whom he wanted.
He declined to say whether Mary Miniter, who was one of those detained as witnesses, had seen the prisoner or not. He was satisfied that she knew nothing of the murder and was not concerned in it.
Before daylight this morning, many arrests were made in the precinct and a dozen or more prisoners were brought to the Oak street station.
Some of them were discharged, and some of them held. Capt. O’Connor said this morning that he had only seven prisoners in the cells, five of whom were women and two men.
They were all held, he said, as witnesses, and not one as a principal in the crime. The man, George Francis, alias “Frenchy”, who was
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[A small ad at the bottom of column 4, separate from the main article]
Extra
Murder of Carrie Brown, known as “Shakespeare,” by Frenchy or Jack the Ripper in room 31, East River Hotel, corner Catherine slip and Water street, The room furniture. Carrie Brown and Jack the Ripper in his murderous act. The awful tragedy just as it occurred on Thursday night, April 23, reproduced in wax at Doris’s Big Eighth Avenue Musee week commencing Monday, April 27. Admission 10c.
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NOT CAUGHT YET.
—-♦—-
(Continued from First Page)
arrested early last evening, and was believed to be a suspect, Capt. Connor says is only a witness who knew the old woman “Shakespeare,” and who might give the police information regarding her life and associates.
The others were William Bekie, Mary Reilly, Lizzie Carter, Florence May, Mary Lotsey, Mary Miniter, and Alice Sullivan.
At 10.30 this morning Capt. O’Connor appeared at the Coroner’s office with James Jennings, the proprietor of the East River Hotel, and Samuel Shine, his bartender.
At the request of the Captain, Coroner Schultze issued an order that all these persons should be sent to the House of Detention pending the investigation of the murder. Florence May was discharged, however.
Most of them were picked up by the police and the detectives in the wretched dives which abound in the neighborhood of Cherry and Water streets.
It is said that the man William Sekie is a sailor, and was arrested on board of one of the vessels lying along South street. He was seen with “Old Shakespeare” within the past two or three days.
Francis or “Frenchy” is a well-known character in the neighborhood, and is said to be a desperate man. He is described by Bartender Thompson, of the East River Hotel, as a dark, swarthy-skinned man, of medium height, and is supposed to be half negro and half Spaniard.
He came from Cuba, and has recently occupied rooms at the “hotel” on several occassions with different women, of the most abandoned class. He was there on Wednesday night, and on Thursday night had a room alone on the top floor, adjoining the one occupied by “Old Shakespeare” and the supposed “Jack the Ripper”.
William C. Mannix, a coal heaver, who works at the South street coal docks, and who says he has lived with his wife at the East End Hotel during the past week, told an Evening World reporter his morning that “Frenchy,” who had a room on the same floor with him, had on Wednesday morning tried to break into his wife’s room after he had gone to work.
THE MURDERER HAS THE KEY
He had threatened his wife with terrible consequences if she did not let him in, but she refused to open the door, and he finally went away breathing vengence. Mannix says he saw Frenchy lying drunk in the narrow hallway on the top floor late on Thursday night, when he went to his room.
LOOK FOR THIS MAN
The description of the murderer upon which the police are working was given by Mary Miniter, the assistant housekeeper, who was the only person who saw the old woman and her companion come in Thursday night and go upstairs together.
She says he was about 5 foot 5 inches in height and was lightly built. His features were sharp and his nose was long and came down to a sharp point.
His mustache was brown and heavy, and the ends, which were long, neither curled nor dropped, but seemed to stand out perfectly straight, like the whiskers of a cat.
His clothing was dusty and well worn, and he wore a derby hat that was broken and dented at the top, which he pulled down over his eyes.
His coat was of the cutaway pattern, and, like his trousers, was made of dark-colored cloth. He wore a cotton shirt and a collar that was much soiled.
BUSINESS GOING ON
Despite the horror of the tragedy, which occurred there only twenty-four hours before, the wretched rooms of the “hotel” were apparently in as much demand as ever last night.
When a reporter of THE EVENING WORLD called there about 9 o’clock this morning the transient tenants of the old rookery were just beginning to turn out.
Blear-eyed, painted old hags, accompanied by rough-looking sailormen, straggled at intervals down the narrow wooden stairway.
The clerk in the barroom said that most of the rooms on the top floor had been occupied during the night.
The door of the little room where “Old Shakespeare” was butchered stood wide open. One of her shoes, which had been used to prop up the window, was still in its place.
The blood-soaked mattress lay on the floor, and a pile of filthy bed-clothing smeared with gore had been thrown into the corner.
The great patch of clotted blood which had dripped over the edge of the bed on the middle of the floor had not yet been removed. The stench in the place was horrible sickening.
HOW DID THE MURDERER ESCAPE?
At the end of the narrow passageway lined on each side with these miserable little rooms and just over the head of the stairs is a scuttle opening on the roof. It can be reached by a small iron ladder.
One of the theories advanced to account for the escale of the murderer without being seen as the passed out, is that he climbed up through this scuttle and passed over to a neighboring roof.
The only roof which he could have reached, for all the adjoining buildings but one are con-
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siderably lower than the East River Hotel, was that of the furnished-room house at 385 Water street. This is next door to the hotel and is kept by a man named Berhner.
It was said at this place this morning that the scuttle on the roof was always kept fastened on the inside and no one could possibly get into the house in that way.
On the other hand, if the murderer had finished the bloddy work before 1 o’clock in the morning, he could have gone down in the stairway and passed out into the street through the private drinking-room, without attracing any attention from those in the barroom adjoining.
Many were in the habit of doing this every evening, Bartender Shine said, and unless some one had happened to step into the passageway at the time a person going out would escape notice entirely.
After one o’clock the door leading from the hallway into the private room is locked and the key is taken by the night bartender. This door is not opened again until five o’clock in the morning. The hall door opening into the street is ketp locked all night long and the key is taken from the lock.
NO BLOOD TRAIL
It is barelyl possible that the murderer might have waited until 5 o’clock before he left the place, but this is not regarded as probable by the police, as he would have had fully two hours in which to complete his work and then get away before the door was closed at 1 o’clock.
A strange thing about the case is that no marks of blood appear either upon the furniture of the room or on the door knob or wood work.
How a man could accomplish such a fearful butchery without having the marks of it upon him is a mystery which is not yet explained.
During the morning Detective Doran and Policeman Cunningham, of the Oak street station, were stationed at the house. They were on the lookout for people who might visit the place, and who might be able to give some in-
formation regarding “Old Shakespeare” or her companion.
FIRE IN THE HOTEL TO-DAY
There was consdierable excitement at the hotel just before daybreak this morning. A lamp in the housekeeper’s room on the third floor was overturned, and it set fire to the bedclothing upon which it fell.
It was knocked over by a flapping window curtain when no one was in the room and it had smouldered for some time before it was discovered. The hallways were filled with smoke and an alarm was sent out.
The fire was extinguished, however, before the fire-engines arrived.
Inspector Byrnes declined to say this morning whether he thought the murderer of “Old Shakespeare” was really “Jack the Ripper” or only an imintator of the notorious Whitechapel butcher of London.
He denied, however, that he had ever criticised the work of the London police, or boasted that such crimes could not be committed in New York without a speedy arrested of the murderer.
The general opinion among the members of the force who are working upon the case is that if the slayer of “Old Shakespeare” is not really “Jack the Ripper” he is a person who has followed the history of the crimes of the London murderer very closely, and has pursued his methods almost identically.
“Jack the Ripper” usually cut the throats of his victim before he disembowelled them and carved them up, and in the present case the evidence shows that the woman was strangled first.
THE AUTOPSY TO-DAY
Dr. William T. Jenkins, Deputy Coroner, whose skill brings him into requisition for all the difficult autopsies coming to the Department, went to Bellevue this morning and made an autopsy on the body of the victim.
The mutilated form of the old woman was brought into one of the little post-mortem examination rooms of the Morgue, and, in the presence of seven doctors from Bellevue and an Evening World reporter alone, Dr. Jenkins made his examination.
He found that death was probably caused by stragulation, the murderer having probably first choked the woman and then while the body was yet warm, mutilated it with his big knife.
He found, however, a cut on the right ear, from which blood had flowed, and which is evidence that a struggle took place between the murderer and his victim before the Ripper accomplished his purpose.
The autopsy showed that the first cut made with the knife was a downward thrust near the navel, with the knife held perpendicularly.
From that there was a jagged cut four inches deep and which was carried round to the back of the body, ending one inch above the termination of the spinal column.
The two cuts in the posterior region forming the murderer’s cross were six inches long and one inch deep.
On the woman’s neck were three abrasions, cause when she was choked.
Dr. Jenkins found that the woman might have been sixty-two years old when she met her death. The body was fairly nourished and preserved.
On examining the head he found that there
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were evidences of constriction in the shape of those marks on the throat which might have been produced by a tightened cord or finger nails. There was no evidence of wounds or injuries on the breast.
On the left thigh, or anterior portion of the body, extending upon the abdomen, was a scratch about fifteen inches long, accomplished by another abrasure about seven inches long.
An incised gaping wound began on the right side and extended upward penetrating the abdominal cavity just above the junction of the pelvic bones. There were four incisions made by the knife, through which a portion of the intestines protruded.
A portion of the small intestines as well as the left overy had been torn out. There was considerable hemorrhage in the abdominal cavity, and this wound was doubtessly produced by a right hand upward cut while the unfortunate woman lay on her back. Two slight scratches were noticeable on the right side of the groin which penetrated the skin.
When the woman was turned over on her face, Dr. Jenkins met a superficial two-armed scracth in the form of the letter V across the left though. One of its arms was horizontal and
straight, about ten inches long, while the other arm was six inches long.
Dr. Jenkins postponed the opening of the body until it had been photographed. He said that he was of the opinion that death was due to strangulation.
The murderer accmoplished his crime by first choking the woman, and then proceeded to carve her while she lay on her back. The wounds showed that he had hacked at her several times, and then, while she lay on her right side, he finished his work by making the cross-like mark.
Either of the anterior or posterior cuts would have produced a fatal hemorrhage. Dr. Jenkins said Col. Vollmer entertained a similiar opinion.
BYRNES VISITS BROOKLYN
The Brooklyn police evidently obtained a clue to the murderer, as Chief of Police Campbell sent out to all the station-houses in Brooklyn a description of a man wanted in connection with the murder. The message was a secret order, and a copy of it cannot be obtained.
As soon as it was received in the station houses officers were sent out on the case. As a result, at 5.40 o’clock this morning Police Capt. Eason, of the lower Fulton street station, visited the People’s Lodging House, at 68 Fulton street, and there arrested on suspicion a man who gave his name as Frederick Strube. He is a German, twenty-six years old, and said that he had formerly worked as a butcher.
THREE ARRESTS IN BROOKLYN
He came to the lodging-house at 1 o’clock this morning. He was “detained” in the
station-house, and word was telegraphed to Chief Campbell, who notified Inspector Byrnes of the arrest.
No regular entry of the arrest was made on the official returns sent to Headquarters, and the arrest was kept secret until some hours afterwards.
Shortly after 9 o’clock Detective Sergt. McNaughton, of Byrne’s staff, went over to Brooklyn and had a talk with the prisoner. Strube fully accounted for his time for several days and McNaughton was convinced he was not the man wanted. Strube was then discharged.
At 10.55 o’clock a group of reporters, among whom was an Evening World representative, were waiting in Chief Campbell’s outer office, when Inspector Byrnes walked in an immediately disappeared inside the Superintendent’s office.
He remained there until 11.10 o’clock and then came out. After leaving the building he was joined by Detective “Jack” O’Brien, and they boarded a car and rode to the bridge, when they came to New York and took a Third avenue train.
Several precinct detectives were called to Brooklyn Police Headquarters this morning and sent on a special mission. When asked if they were working on the murder case they declined to speak on the subject.
POLICE THEORIES
During the early part of the afternoon the Oak street station was the headquarters of a dozen or more of Inspector Byrnes’s detectives.
They were continually hurrying in and out, coming and going, sometimes singly and sometimes in couples, and it was evident that every effort was being made to follow up the track of the murderer.
Just before 1 o’clock Mary Miniter, the house-keeper, who is the most important witness the police have yet secured, was brought in by Detective McNaught and taken into Capt. O’Connor’s private room.
She had been sent earlier in the morning to the House of Detention, but it was reported that she had something more to tell.
No further arrest had been reported up to that hour. Detectives Frank, McClusky and Crowley were hovering about, and all of them looked full of mystery.
One member of the staff said that, in his his opinion, the murderer was no other than “Jack the Ripper” himself, and he believed that he had been in the city for some time laying his plans for a series of crimes which would startle this city as they had the people of London.
Everything about the crime pointed to the fact that it was perpetrated by an accomplishe dassassin and with the utmost deliberation.
The methods were almost exactly the same as those of “Jack the Ripper” and a repetition of the same kind of butchery would undoubtedly occur unless the murderer should be discovered and arrested before he had time to arrange for another slaughter.
Another theory is that the murderer is only an imitator of “Jack the Ripper,” who had
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become familiar with the methods of the Whitechapel assassin through the published accounts of his crimes.
PERHAPS A SAILOR
It is also surmised that he may be a sailor, who, as soon as he had finished his bloody work, made his way from the hotel to this ship, and sailed away before the crime was discovered.
The Fourth Precinct has been so thoroughly stirred up within the last twelve hours that it would be almost impossible for a murderer whose description has been given with so much detail to find concealment there.
In the afternoon no policemen were stationed at the hotel, at Catherine slip and Water street. The place was shadowed, however, by detectives in citizen’s dress, and all suspicous persons were carefully watched and followed.
It now appears that Eddie Fitzgerald, the bartender who was on duty Thursday night, did not see the companion of “Old Shakespeare” at all. He simply entered the name C. Kinclo in the register, which had been given to him by Mary Miniter.
The couple did not go beyond the little hallway from which the stairs lead up to the floors above.
Two other arrests were made in Brooklyn by the Second street police.
John Foley and Frank McGovern were arrested on suspicion by Mounted Officer Frank.
In a general way they answered the description of the man who went with Carrie Brown to the East River Hotel.
They were taken before Justice Walsh and remanded.
BYRNES ON HIS METTLE
All the remarks by the heads of the New York Police Department about the failure of the London police to discover “Jack the Ripper” are recoiling liek a boomerang.
It was the day after the murder of the Ripper’s ninth victim, Nov. 9, 1888, that Superintendent Murray said:
“I presume that the London police are doing the very best they can, and will ultimately unravel the mystery. It would not be fair to draw any comparison between our policemen and those of London in the case, because I
have been informed that New York has no locatliy that corresponds in misery and crime with the Whitechapel district. I am confident, though, that no such crimes could continue under the system of New York police. The entire force would, if necessary, be sent out in citizen’s dress to run down the assassin.”
Chief Inspector Byrnes was equally as confident that such a crime could not be committed in New York without the murderer being run down in forty-eight hours.
That the Chief Inspector and now Acting Superintendent feels that he is placed upon his mettle is evident from his action last night, when, for the first time since he has been at the head of the Department Bureau, he changed his office, leaving Police Headquarters and locating himself at the Oak street station, with Inspector Williams as chief assistant, for the purpose of directing the search from the nearest point to the murder.
Police in citizens’ dress have augmented the regular detective force and the Acting Superintendent has certainly got out of drag net through the meshes of which no fish shoudl escape.
LATEST AND MOST IMPORTANT CLUE
The man who knows the murderer or who can give a better description of him than has been given will probably be arrested before this edition reached the readers of The Evening World.
Detective McNaught has gone out to arrest the man, who is a sailor.
Capt. O’Connor at 3 o’clock this afternoon received positive information from a Fourth Ward saloon-keeper, who owns a resort in the neighborhood of the scene of the murder, that the above-mentioned sailor was drinking with Carrie Brown when the man who is supposed to have murdered her entered the place and called her out.
She excused herself and went out with the caller, but did not return again.
The sailor is said to be a “bad man” himself. He always carreis a razor or some sort of deadly weapon, and it is said that he can probably clear up the whole mystery, if he will.
COULD HE HAVE BEEN THE ASSASSIN?
Another clue which the police are investigating is the story told by Michael Kelly, a night clerk in the Glenmore Hotel, at the corner of Chatham Square and Mott street.
Kelly says that about 2 o’clock yesterday morning, or about three hours after the murderer and his victim took the room at the East River Hotel, a man whose face, hands and clothes were splashed with blood, entered the Glenmore, and asked the clerk for a room.
The clerk asked him for the money in advance. He said he had none. Kelly told him, therefore, that he could not get a room there, and he wandered out again.
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[From the “Last Edition” – the rest of the article was identical with the exception of the following addition.]
DID HE STAY AT THE HATFIELD HOUSE?
J. F. Devoe, night clerk at the Hatfield House, 46 and 48 Ridge street, told the police that he believed that a man who answers the description sent out of Inspector Byrnes stopped at his place on Thursday last.
When Devoe came on duty on Thursday night he says he saw written on a slate a message left for him by the day clerk. It read: “Wake up lodger in room 53 at 9.30. Says he has got important business.”
At that hour Devoe entered room No. 53 and awoke the lodger. He shook him by the arm. The man jumped out of bed and looked frightened. He did not say a word, and Devoe took a good look at him.
Devoe says that he learned that the man entered the lodging-house about 11 o’clock on Thursday morning, and said that he was going to sleep. He asked the clerk to wake him up at 9.30 the same night, as he had an appointment to meet a woman. He gave the name of Isaac Derringer. All the Bowery lodging-houses are being searched for a man named Derringer.
