Author Topic: Murder on the Rue Water: A Real Locked Room Mystery  (Read 4342 times)

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Murder on the Rue Water: A Real Locked Room Mystery
« on: September 19, 2022, 12:09:59 am »
The locked room mystery has always held a special fascination for suspense fans.

Perhaps the most popular—and earliest—of them is Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” in which a mother and daughter are murdered—the mother so brutally ravaged she is almost decapitated and the daughter strangled and stuffed up a chimney—in a room locked from the inside and otherwise inaccessible.


https://www.criminalelement.com/murder-in-the-locked-room-kristin-centorcelli-thriller-detective-traditional-edgar-allan-poe-agatha-christie-john-dickson-carr-ellery-queen-ngaio-marsh/

Until now, the Locked Room Mystery has been mostly relegated to fiction.  But here, you have a crime in a veritable Locked Room.

The victim is found dead in the room and the room is locked with a key that did not turn up for 10 years. Only the "sailor" and the victim apparently were last inside.

But somehow, another suspect was put into the room who was later given a pardon and it's generally assumed that he was innocent. This was after the key turned up and was found to have been in possession of a "sailor" who had disappeared.

Without getting into the details, we can take a step back and look at the whole picture. The beauty of a Locked Room Mystery is how it encapsulates everything in a nutshell and how the enclosure acts to compress the big picture and makes it easier to point out the more important issues at play.

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Re: Murder on the Rue Water: A Real Locked Room Mystery
« Reply #1 on: September 19, 2022, 10:13:49 pm »
I know Carrieologists are fascinated with the facts and it's hard to put them aside to see the proverbial forest from the trees. But, if the door was anywhere near locked as seems to be the case, this is still an important case of wrongful conviction and it might have a bearing on how they happen.

If there's an overall pattern to these unfortunate occurrences, it might help to simplify the matter, or look for cases that can be simplified and the dynamics made more "cut and dried."

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Re: Murder on the Rue Water: A Real Locked Room Mystery
« Reply #2 on: September 19, 2022, 10:18:45 pm »
In the Carrie Brown case, they decided on an Open Door Scenario. I believe that's because the key was missing but it should not have mattered. You had a suspect who was in the room with the victim, and you arrest someone across the hall. Now that's a TV trope or some really good detective work.

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Re: Murder on the Rue Water: A Real Locked Room Mystery
« Reply #3 on: September 20, 2022, 12:19:11 am »
Locked Room Mystery



https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LockedRoomMystery

"A seemingly impossible crime, the standard example being that of a murder victim found in a room with only a single door, securely locked from the inside. Can be the basis for a single plot, or an entire show. A well-designed Locked Room Mystery provides pleasure from trying to figure out the puzzle before it is revealed, from moments of dawning realization, and from a satisfyingly logical solution. A poorly designed Locked Room Mystery only provides a feeling of having been cheated,"

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Analysis/LockedRoomMystery

"The solution to a Locked Room Mystery can be one of several types, as typologised by John Dickson Carr in his novel The Hollow Man/The Three Coffins.

7. ...the victim was killed immediately after the room was opened by one of the people who first "discovered" the situation. This would also include the solution used in a few stories... of the murderer hiding inside the room until the body was discovered and hoping that in the shock of the discovery nobody would notice that they didn't enter the room with all the other horrified witnesses.

8. The room was sealed from outside in such a way as to make it appear to have been sealed from the inside, or, similarly to 7., the room was never actually sealed and the first person to enter it falsely claimed or was tricked into believing that it was."

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Re: Murder on the Rue Water: A Real Locked Room Mystery
« Reply #4 on: September 24, 2022, 05:32:53 pm »
So far we’ve had two books on the subject - Gaslight Lawyers which has a chapter on it and The East River Ripper.

The authors deal with the Locked Room “Mystery” in two different ways. Both fall under  the number 8 solution above:

1. The room was unlocked and Ali got the key. He locked the door after he murdered Carrie. Damon was lying and his key was a fake or the wrong one.

2. The room was unlocked and Ali could lock the door with a set of buttons on the edge of the door under the latch. Damon was telling the truth about the key but it didn’t matter because you could lock the door without the key.

Edited by HB....Gaslight Lawyers has two chapters on the Case with emphasis on the trial.

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Re: Murder on the Rue Water: A Real Locked Room Mystery
« Reply #5 on: September 27, 2022, 06:44:26 pm »
Just to clarify, ever since the key turned up in 1901, the Carrie Brown murder was a Locked Room and Non-Mystery. I believe that’s how it basically stood for over 100 years.

The authors of the two recent books turned it back into a mystery so that it became a Locked Door Mystery that they or the original investigators solved. Their solutions however were cursory or unfortunately unworkable so ultimately they were unsatisfactory to the knowledgeable reader.

“A well-designed Locked Room Mystery provides pleasure from trying to figure out the puzzle before it is revealed, from moments of dawning realization, and from a satisfyingly logical solution. A poorly designed Locked Room Mystery only provides a feeling of having been cheated.”

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Re: Murder on the Rue Water: A Real Locked Room Mystery
« Reply #6 on: September 27, 2022, 07:37:29 pm »
The authors of the two recent books turned it back into a mystery so that it became a Locked Door Mystery that they or the original investigators solved. Their solutions however were cursory or unfortunately unworkable so ultimately they were unsatisfactory to the knowledgeable reader.

You've lost me here....I don't know about anyone else. 

Neither Dekle or Underwood would bet their house on having solved the case.  Dekle, although opting for Ali as being the killer, is equally persuaded that the scenario where Ali only burgled the room is a workable solution.  Underwood devoted just two chapters out of his book on the case and seems to lean towards C. Kniclo with reservations concerning Damon and his story..   Both books are hardly unsatisfactory to the 'knowledgeable reader'....me being one of them.  It is also a case where the 'solution'....an across the board, universally approved and accepted solution...might be out of our grasp and may always be.

Who would those 'knowledgeable readers' be that these books would be unsatisfactory to ?   I don't see how anyone can't benefit from reading them for the material, a lot of which had not been presented prior to their respective publication.


« Last Edit: September 27, 2022, 07:42:51 pm by Howard Brown »

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Re: Murder on the Rue Water: A Real Locked Room Mystery
« Reply #7 on: September 28, 2022, 02:19:29 am »
The solutions are what I find unsatisfactory at first blush and after examination. But then again, I thought I had a better solution than Agatha Christie in Murder in Mesopotamia.

I don't know how you can lean toward C Kniclo and have reservations about Damon, the Farmhand and the key. I read the book excerpts you posted on the other site and I didn't see any leaning toward C Kniclo. It sounded to me like he wanted to put the key in Ali's hand.

That would be an unsatisfactory solution, even if it's a common solution (number 8 )from the Solution Analysis list, unsatisfactory to any knowledgeable person who realizes that Damon, by all rights, had the right key to Room 31. Ali didn't have it and didn't lock the door.

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Re: Murder on the Rue Water: A Real Locked Room Mystery
« Reply #8 on: September 28, 2022, 02:29:48 am »
My point was that it wasn't me who made this into a Locked Door Mystery. I only pointed it out after the fact of finding out that we have what appears to be a Locked Room and an "official" mystery. I had to point it out and, at least, join in as I'm kind of intrigued by the concept and never saw a "real one" in action.

There is at least on other "real life one" - the murder of Polish immigrant Isadore Fink

The details of the crime were as follows: Fink had returned home after running several laundry deliveries (he operated his laundry business from the same apartment), and put a hot iron on the gas stove. Soon thereafter, a neighbour heard screams and possibly the sound of blows (but no gunshots), and alerted a passing policeman. Finding the doors and windows firmly sealed, the officer noticed a transom window above the door and lifted a small child through it, who proceeded to unlock the door from the inside.

http://www.thelockedroom.com/2014/08/locked-room-mysteries-in-real-life_20.html


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Re: Murder on the Rue Water: A Real Locked Room Mystery
« Reply #9 on: September 28, 2022, 02:31:03 am »
I'll save my own "solution" for the time being but I might have to make Ali guilty in this solve. Instead I might rather just state my position on the problem as I see it, if it's resolved that the murderer got away with it and an innocent man went to jail.

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Re: Murder on the Rue Water: A Real Locked Room Mystery
« Reply #10 on: September 28, 2022, 04:17:53 pm »
The other solution as explained in Prof Bob Dekle’s book is the Ali Only Came In Contact With The Body. I believe that solution was proffered by or confessed to by Ali in Sing Sing to his friend Sultan. Ali however did not mention a Locked Door or give a solution to how the Room was entered or breeched and then locked. Dekle came up with his solution to that problem by suggesting another way to lock the door without a key. Underwood came up with another to fit the theory that the door had to be locked with a key.

But wouldn’t it be just as easy to say that it was C Kniclo who only had contact with the corpse?

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Re: Murder on the Rue Water: A Real Locked Room Mystery
« Reply #11 on: September 28, 2022, 05:46:51 pm »
Dekle came up with his solution to that problem by suggesting another way to lock the door without a key. Howard came up with another to fit the theory that the door had to be locked with a key.

But wouldn’t it be just as easy to say that it was C Kniclo who only had contact with the corpse?


Dekle ( he also provided an example of a typical door with locking mechanism in use during the Gilded Age....the photo of which I posted a while back) and Underwood both mentioned a mortise door. 


For the umpteenth time, Ali had her biological material under his nails.   Getting tired of repeating this, to be honest.  How else could he have had that there unless it was from contact with her corpse during a murder or from coming into contact with an already made corpse ? 

The real issue...beyond all this back and forth about the door is how could Ali have had leukemic cells under his nails if he DIDN'T come into contact with a corpse or didn't kill her.  It makes the issue of the door and lock less important....although not unimportant....in the scheme of things.


Why would it be just as easy to say only C. Kniclo had contact with the corpse if Ali's nails say otherwise ? 


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Re: Murder on the Rue Water: A Real Locked Room Mystery
« Reply #12 on: September 28, 2022, 06:19:03 pm »
You’re not getting me. And I’ll say your definitely mistaken about Underwood and a mortise. I’m saying, why not still stick to Ali as murderer?

C Kniclo Contact Only : Then the pee break works when you consider C Kniclo was still looking for a washroom [with blood in him at the Glenmore Hotel after he left the East River Hotel. He peed while she was being killed and then got blood in himself and needed to wash up after he beat it out of there.].

I like to think things through.

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Re: Murder on the Rue Water: A Real Locked Room Mystery
« Reply #13 on: September 28, 2022, 06:46:24 pm »
You’re not getting me. And I’ll say your definitely mistaken about Underwood and a mortise. I’m saying, why not still stick to Ali as murderer?

C Kniclo Contact Only : Then the pee break works when you consider C Kniclo was still looking for a washroom.

I like to think things through.



Of course that could work.  In the past two years, I haven't said it couldn't and neither did Dekle or Banks or Nina or some of the other researchers.  I believe Kattrup theorized along these lines too.  Of course Ali could have been the murderer.  It's the sole reason I took 432 threads off the Forums and put them in storage because I had pushed the Ali was innocent, C.Kniclo was the only man who could have done the crime and George Damon was a real mensch triad. 

I just recently, like a day or so ago, mentioned the awful possibility.....possibility....that by Damon coming forward with the key....a key left in Cranford by a man who only paid for the room...that Damon actually assisted in the release of a murderer...in complete contrast to the Narrative of the past 120 years since Ali was released.   

Even Luke Kummer, who has sympathy for Ali, now questions whether there was a Farmhand in the first place because of the politicized maneuver pulled by Damon which allowed him a wide berth in presenting his affidavit without two members of his household and his wife not presenting one at all.  Charles Brennan worked for Damon and to be frank, could have easily supported Damon simply to keep his job or to be rewarded or out of loyalty.

Yesterday, you were critical of Dekle's book...and yet, without his book,  the possible role of Ali now as a murderer would have not been pushed back to where it belonged : right up there with the possible guilt of C. Kniclo.  Modern Brownian research began in 2001. From that time until 2020, Ali was seen almost invariably as a victim when in fact we now know the playing field is a lot more even.   
« Last Edit: September 28, 2022, 06:57:29 pm by Howard Brown »

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Re: Murder on the Rue Water: A Real Locked Room Mystery
« Reply #14 on: September 28, 2022, 07:12:00 pm »
And I’ll say your definitely mistaken about Underwood and a mortise.

I stand corrected.  I went back and re-read Underwood and see he only mentioned the door knobs and not what type of locking mechanism.
Thanks.