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Note: This is a section of a larger article about murder statistics in New York City and “An Impenetrable Mystery Surrounding the Death of a Brooklyn Boat-Builder.
THE BURDELL MURDER
Is one of the mysteries ever fresh in the memory of New Yorkers, and hence some-what of an excitement has been created through publication of some alleged facts concerning Mrs. Cunningham, purporting to have been gleaned by a person on board of the United States steamer Narragansett while surveying the Gulf of Lower California. The main points in this narrative are to the effect that after her trial in this city this woman went with her son and daughter to Loretto, where she met with a Captain Hyde, whom she had jilted in her girlhood, and married him. The Captain was working a copper mine upon some high mountain, when, fearing his ancient flame and newly-made bride might make away with him, as he was convince she had done with two of his children, who died suddenly, he bolted from his mine, leaving it in charge of a Mexican Superintendent, with whom his wife subsequently bolted, selling the mine for an immense sum of money, upon which she lives in luxury in some part of California. The news from the Pacific traveler further informs us that the son supports himself and sister through working a ranch near Loretto, in which village the latter dwells with her child, although unmarried, a haggard woman of thirty-five, from whose face all trace of her former beauty has flown. This marine yarn perplexes us amazingly in this quarter, who are acquainted with the details of the Burdell case, which could have been elucidated at the time had not Oakey Hall, then District Attorney, persisted in a theory of his imagination and thereby allowed, unintentionally it is to be hoped, the real murderer to escape while he and the stupid Coroner Connery were chasing a shadow. Mr. and Mrs. Cunningham lived in good style in Brooklyn, and after a long widowhood the lady married Dr. Burdell secretly, as was known to Mr. Platt, the President of the Artisans’ Bank, of which Burdell was a Director at the time of his death, with his account overdrawn by some thousands of dollars. He was a sublime dead-beat, a gambler and libertine, and to his nonpayment of a gaming debt he owed his death, on the night of which he had drawn a check to bearer for a large amount, which was never presented, otherwise a clew to his murderer could have obtained. Mrs. Cunningham when here had no son but three daughters, the elder of whom, Augusta, married a dentist in Jersey City, and is the only one, who would be at present about 35 years of age. Still more incomprehensible than the existence of a son is the woman’s ability to dispose of a Mexican copper mine for a large sum of money, as there are maps of dozens of them presented to our capitalists annually, and nobody will even look at them.
