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Case File: Conroy, Kate née Grundt (1896)
[Link to original] – Page 1, Column 7
Wife Murder in Watertown
WATERMAN, N.Y., May 20 – James Conroy of Ogdensburg murdered his wife today, cutting her head nearly off with a knife.
[Link to original] – Page 4, Column 4
FOUL MURDER!
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FRANK CONROY KILLS
HIS WIFE
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AROUSED BY JEALOUSY, HE USES
A BUTCHER KNIFE
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Stabs Her About the Head and Throat
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She Makes a Long and Desperate
Fight for Life - One of the Foulest
Crimes Ever Committed in North-
ern New York. - The Wretch Now
Confined in the City Lockup.
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Frank Conroy, commonly known as Charlie Conroy, murdered his wife at about half past eleven o’clock his morning. Jealously was the cause of the crime. The murder was one of the most merciless and bloody in the annals of crime in his part of the state.
The couple lived in the basement of a new building on Spring Street, in the second ward, recently built by Joseph Fex, a well-known grocer in that part of the city. Conroy has been jealous of his wife and frequent quarrels have arisen between them, in which he accused her of being intimate with other men. This morning about 10 o’clock, he visited the office of Recorder Houston and made complaint against her. It seemed to be his desire to get her away from this city and certain influences with which she was surrounded here. After conversing with the Recorder, he concluded to forgive the past and try again to resume former relations with the woman.
He went home and another quarrel arose. What reopened the quarrel between them is not known. It increased in fury and aroused the neighbors and attracted the attention of those in the streets in that vicinity. A constable who was near went to the door with the intention of entering and quieting the disturbance, but was ordered to close the door by Conroy and get out, which he did. Then the battle continued, the woman screaming and shouting murder.
A few minutes elapsed and Conroy opened the door and said to the constable “You can come in now. It is all over. I have killed her.” With his hands covered with blood Conroy gave himself up to the officer. He was immediately brought to the city lock-up and placed in a cell.
The basement in which the murder occurred is a horrible scene. There is blood every where. Near the door which opens at the foot of a pair of stairs leading down from the level of the side walk, lies the murdered woman. Her head and throat are horribly hacked. The weapon used was a large butcher knife, the blade of which is about eight inches in length. It was found on the floor, covered with blood, by the police when they reached the scene of the murder.
The first blow of the knife was evidently dealt in an inner room. There is blood on the floor there, and a trail of blood leading from that room to the other room from which the door opens to the street. In the other room the fiendish work was finished and the floor and the furniture of the room are daubed with blood. There is a wound on the side of the dead woman’s head, where she was evidently stabbed with a downward blow that cut the flesh to the bone, from the forehead to the jaw.
It was in the throat that the fatal wounds were made. The knife was thrust entirely through the throat from one side to the other, and the flesh was terribly cut and hacked. The flesh on the inside both of the woman’s hands was cut to the bone where she had grasped the blade in her endeavor to wrest the knife from her husband. She made a most resolute and desperate fight for her life, and had nearly reached the street door, when she died. Dr. Stilwell was summoned and found life extinct. He remained with the body until some one could be secured to guard it.
[Link to original] – Page 4, Column 5
The murdered woman was about thirty years of age, and was attractive in face and person. She married Conroy at Kingston, Ont., and they have two children, daughters, of the ages of about four and six years. Conroy, the murderer, is a laborer, about 40 years of age. He is well known about the city, and, being a man of good physique and something of an athlete, he participated in all Field Day sports, in which he carried off many prices and attracted much attention. He has borne a hard reputation but the murdering of his wife is almost inexplicable to those who know him.
He told Policeman Sova, who took charge of him and place him in the lock-up, that he stabbed his wife six or seven times. Conroy is in a greatly excited condition, and wants his punishment meted out to him without the trouble of a trial. He asked several people of his wife was dead, and when Mr. Hubbard replied that she was, he remarked “She’s a damn sight better off.”
It seems that Conroy has been away for some time and when he returned found things about his house were wrong. While a tough man himself, willing to fight over a glass of beer or to see which was the better man, he wanted his home surroundings right, and the conduct of his wife grieved him greatly.
He often sat and cried like a child over her wrong doing, which he brooded over almost continuously. After leaving the Recorder’s office he went and sat on the grass alone near the old arsenal for about an hour. It was there evidently that he made up his mind to murder her. Coroner Smith, of Winthrop, has been telegraphed to come to hold an inquest.
