Author Topic: Murder on the Rue Water: A Real Locked Room Mystery  (Read 4343 times)

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Re: Murder on the Rue Water: A Real Locked Room Mystery
« Reply #60 on: November 24, 2022, 11:00:13 pm »
There does seem to be a real case for Ali getting in the room and getting the victim's blood on him, even if I feel I have to help you make it. Ha ha. Who am I to say the Sultan(s) don't know what they're talking about?!

Michael Banks

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Re: Murder on the Rue Water: A Real Locked Room Mystery
« Reply #61 on: November 25, 2022, 04:07:53 am »
On the subject of how did Ali get so much blood on him if he wasn’t the killer is certainly a troubling one but isn’t it worth speculating on the probable reason for any early hours ‘visit’ to room 31? In a pitch dark room isn’t it possible that Ali climbed onto the bed but realised that he know had blood on him?

Howard Brown

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Re: Murder on the Rue Water: A Real Locked Room Mystery
« Reply #62 on: November 25, 2022, 07:33:25 am »
Mike, Yung....

1. Mike brings up the scenario of Ali climbing into bed with Brown, not cognizant that she is dead and importantly having blood on her.

2.  Consider the less than significant amount of blood found from the point of the bed in Room 31 to the interior of Room 33.

3. Consider the amount of blood found on Ali ( socks, shirt, under the nails, etc.).


    Ali had no other shirt to change into which explains that part.  He probably didn't anticipate his socks being checked which covers that. The removal of material from under his nails was a first ( a forensic first, according to Dr. Flint ), so Ali can't be faulted for not cleaning under his nails....which, in his case and had he done so, would probably have been a first for the hygienically challenged slob.


   If his socks came into contact with the blood on the floor in Room 31, two things happen.
   1. He leaves some sort of mark on the floor from the point of contact to the interior of Room 33.
   2. The place within the pool of blood on the floor should have some sort of indicator to show it was disturbed by a foot.

   But his socks weren't described as being drenched in blood nor were easily noticeable footsteps found between the rooms which were only 3 feet away from each other.

  This is only my interpretation of what I currently think should have been the visible result of Ali getting into bed with Brown....which with all due respect, I don't think he did.

   I believe the blood on the front of his shirt ( the area where he claimed he had Alice Sullivan's menstrual blood on) came from him leaning over the bed....the shirt flaps coming into contact with Brown's blood and then him recognizing she was deceased.

   The amount of blood on his socks, which wasn't monumental...otherwise, he'd have ditched them...try walking around in saturated socks for five minutes...came from him going over to the room in socks, not a case of him taking his shoes off and then hopping into bed with a woman he naturally thought was alive.

   Putting it this way, if Ali had climbed into Brown's bed, I feel he would have had no recourse but to leave the area immediately. There's no way he'd stand around on Water Street and be picked up 20 hours later by Lang with the amount of blood he'd have acquired from direct contact with the blood emitted by her corpse.

********************************************************************************************************

   It's a shame that the class factor comes into play in this aspect of the case. First of all, Coroner Schultze probably gagged when he realized where he'd have to go on the 24th.  Since the murder victim was a prostitute and not some member of The 400 ( established gentry of NYC), his standard operating procedure would be a lot looser in how he handled the task of summing up the situation.  Allowing approximately a dozen people into the room while he was working was a recipe for contamination.


 

guest5

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Re: Murder on the Rue Water: A Real Locked Room Mystery
« Reply #63 on: November 29, 2022, 10:48:29 pm »
Ali could have removed his socks before leaving the room so as to not leave a trail of blood. Even a thief is smart enough not to leave a trail.

After reading some of the new Casebook posts by Wolf, I can’t but suggest that, with the leukaemic cells and inner intestinal matter found under Ali’s fingernails so on his person, thereby directly tying him to the murder scene, there was no need in hindsight for the police to plant a trail of blood evidence all the way to his room. Any “enterprising journalists” could perhaps still have tried to create a sensation like the last Ripper killing.

The police would have done it for nothing which would be kind of funny.

Maybe the journalists did put that X on the wall. I don’t know if they’d go so far as to put blood evidence across the hall.

https://forum.casebook.org/forum/ripper-media/books/761040-forthcoming-book-about-old-shakespeare-murder/page6#post800842


Howard Brown

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Re: Murder on the Rue Water: A Real Locked Room Mystery
« Reply #64 on: November 30, 2022, 05:52:50 pm »
Ali could have removed his socks before leaving the room so as to not leave a trail of blood. Even a thief is smart enough not to leave a trail.

This doesn't explain how he had blood on the socks.  If he went barefoot...which I suppose is a possibility considering he was a pig as a dirty hallway floor wouldn't have mattered much in the long run...he still had to put his feet in his socks....which had blood on them when he took them off at the police station for investigation. 

I'm not claiming that he left a trail of blood like Hansel and Gretel with the bread crumbs from one room to the other....but his socks had blood on them.

A question about these 'professional reporters' ( Mostly but not all hacks who housed at the Mulberry Street station waiting for police bulletins to scurry off to and come up with reports) is why they would choose Room 33 to leave blood ( Berbenich's story which was almost certainly bombastic talk by another reporter within ear shot) over any other room in the hall of the fifth floor ? 

In fact, why were they allowed to view Room 33 at all ?  The murder didn't occur right across from Room 31 nor to the right of Room 31 but at an angle from the murder scene.

Why would these paragons of the press be leery of coming forward to assist the defense ? Several articles, not just one or two, were critical of the NYPD....one in fact, the Evening World, had a sketch very early on ( April 28th ) with a profusely sweating Inspector Byrnes holding a circular puzzle box with sketches of European police officials looking at him and smiling.

The police would have done nothing to any reporter who came forward with claims of not seeing blood and so on and so forth.    I used to think that the reticence of most of the reporters was based on their fear of losing their ability to get stories out of Mulberry Street...their spots in the precincts....but that was incorrect.  It would have brought down the wrath of all newspapers harboring animosity towards the police in a New York minute should they ( the police) attempt to denying access to papers with different perspectives particularly in the beginning of a sensational case.



« Last Edit: November 30, 2022, 06:00:45 pm by Howard Brown »

Michael Banks

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Re: Murder on the Rue Water: A Real Locked Room Mystery
« Reply #65 on: December 01, 2022, 01:59:06 pm »
I’m as wary of reporters coming forward 10 years later as I am about George Damon to be honest. If we can question why Damon kept schtum while a supposedly innocent man stewed in jail then why shouldn't we when those Reporter’s did exactly the same ? And not only ‘stewed’ in jail of course because through the the trial the electric chair was still very much on the table as an outcome.

 Is it believable that House would have turned his nose up at a chance to sow the seeds of doubt in the juries mind as to the honesty of the Police by rejecting Butler’s bombshell? And wouldn’t Butler have mentioned the others too? So House (and his colleagues) were rejecting 4 witnesses who cast doubt on the Police’s story? Did he really think that the case against Ali was so weak? A man who knew the victim, slept across the hall, was known to be violent, was covered in blood and lied virtually every time he parted his lips?

Why is it being suggested on one hand that the reporters might have been reluctant to come forward about the absence of blood because they might have been starved of future scoops from the police, when on the other hand it’s been stated that the papers had reported an absence of blood from the off? Couldn’t it be the case that after House spoke to Butler he just didn’t find him credible?

Why didn’t the ‘champion of the underdog’ Riis come forward? Did he have no pangs of conscience until 10 years later?

I have to say that I’ve never been massively impressed with these 4 reporters. Maybe one or two had grudges against the police at the time and after being rejected by House they had their opportunity to ‘shine’ 10 years letter?

« Last Edit: December 01, 2022, 02:01:11 pm by Michael Banks »

Howard Brown

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Re: Murder on the Rue Water: A Real Locked Room Mystery
« Reply #66 on: December 01, 2022, 03:08:43 pm »
Not only a very good post but a really objective look at that situation, Mike.

And not only ‘stewed’ in jail of course because through the the trial the electric chair was still very much on the table as an outcome.
-Mike Banks-

Researchers who come up with excuses for the reporters who were on record in 1901 ( the affiants)...that the police would crack down on them, treat them unfairly, or even go a step further...either were not in full possession of the facts when they once felt the pressmen would be intimidated or banned from Mulberry Street(  me, for example ) or are and were in full possession of the facts and attempt to make it appear the NYPD would go to any length to prevent them from pressing charges against a suspect they maliciously 'chose'......... in order to maintain a strange agenda in which the cops were totally corrupt and would not exert themselves to find a viable suspect which, of course Ali, was.

If 4 reporters approached House or the other two attorneys en masse and shared their information about what they didn't see on the fifth floor....would it not cross House's mind that since he was being informed by more than one witness that there was an issue about the blood evidence.....would he not consider that these 4 or 5 or whatever number of reporters might make a stink about this dismissal of their shared information in their respective papers ?  He'd be mentally challenged if he wouldn't,  I'd love to know what House would make of what was being suggested years after the trial....that he sat on information that could have helped Ali's cause.

Byrnes had his balls busted from day one in this case...yet, there are no newspapers in my research that mention being shut out from Mulberry Street or threatened.

*************************************************************************

Why didn’t the ‘champion of the underdog’ Riis come forward? Did he have no pangs of conscience until 10 years later?


 Of all people, you'd think he'd have stepped up to bat considering a cop once allegedly beat his  companion, a ( stray) dog to death in front of him when Riis was a down and outer  ( According to a Library of Congress page honoring Riis...although Wikipedia does not go as far in claiming the dog was killed).   In any event, there's no record of him writing anything about the case, the murder, the trial, or his presence on April 24th at the Hotel....other than the affidavit.
 
« Last Edit: December 01, 2022, 03:12:22 pm by Howard Brown »

Howard Brown

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Re: Murder on the Rue Water: A Real Locked Room Mystery
« Reply #67 on: December 01, 2022, 05:02:38 pm »
I'll refrain from proposing that Riis was not present at the Hotel to avoid being labeled a 'revisionist'. As it is, I can't find out where he was on April 24th so it must
be assumed he was at the Hotel as he stated until disproved....at least to me.
But a few things come to mind.

* The great gap in time between his presence on the fifth floor and his submitting an affidavit in 1901.
* His name was becoming a 'household name' as his popularity increased exponentially during 1891. No one would have hassled him for speaking his mind,
* Keep in mind he wasn't a huge fan of the police or, perhaps more accurately the status quo within the NYPD during his lifetime, going back years.
* If other reporters supposedly mentioned the absence of blood that the police stated was present to Fred House, why didn't Riis chat with the defense ?
  He'd have been a huge asset to the defense.
* Why didn't he write one column in his name about this absence of blood evidence ?


His itinerary from May through July 1891 as reported in the papers :


***Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 27, 1891 :
  Riis's article about his life in Denmark published in the July 1891 Scribner's Magazine ...most likely the work on the
article began between April and June of 1891.

***Boston Post May 5, 1891
  Riis appeared at the Huntington Hall, Institute of Technology in Boston
  discussing the manufacture of clothing in NY tenements.  ( sweating)
  He also took occasion to call attention to the dangers from immigration.

****New Haven Courier  July 18, 1891
  Riis to speak at the Calvary Baptist Church ( New Haven) on the 19th and presenting
 a stereopticon 'slide show' of photos from his book, How The Other Half Lives.

***Buffalo Morning Express  July 23, 1891
  Riis appeared on July 22nd in Chautauqua (NY ) discussing his book and again, the
evils of immigration ( read: ethnic groups he didn't favor which would include Ali's ethnic group)


....and more of the same throughout the second half of 1891.

« Last Edit: December 01, 2022, 05:08:40 pm by Howard Brown »

Howard Brown

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Re: Murder on the Rue Water: A Real Locked Room Mystery
« Reply #68 on: December 01, 2022, 05:21:01 pm »
One more thing.....if these reporters had gone to House and the defense in unison and been given the brush off after expressing their concerns over the blood issue, took it upon themselves to write an article or articles about this dismissal.....the jurors would have read about it.

This is one of those case elements some don't think about....that the jurors were chatted up by reporters after a day in the dock and that they absolutely read accounts of the trial in the various papers.  They even talked about their likenesses in the sketch work done ( NY Evening World, for one) in these papers.

Michael Banks

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Re: Murder on the Rue Water: A Real Locked Room Mystery
« Reply #69 on: December 01, 2022, 05:28:22 pm »

If 4 reporters approached House or the other two attorneys en masse and shared their information about what they didn't see on the fifth floor....would it not cross House's mind that since he was being informed by more than one witness that there was an issue about the blood evidence.....would he not consider that these 4 or 5 or whatever number of reporters might make a stink about this dismissal of their shared information in their respective papers ?  He'd be mentally challenged if he wouldn't,  I'd love to know what House would make of what was being suggested years after the trial....that he sat on information that could have helped Ali's cause..

Absolutely How. Could we also ask - where were these reporters at the previous appeals? What were they waiting for?

Michael Banks

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Re: Murder on the Rue Water: A Real Locked Room Mystery
« Reply #70 on: December 01, 2022, 05:43:02 pm »
Another point of course is - is it really plausible that the police would have planted blood after the Press had swarmed over the hallway snooping here and there and looking in room 33 too. How stupid would the police have had to have been not have acknowledged the possibility that one or more of them might have said, or even worse written, “well I looked all over that hallway and in room 33 for blood and believe me there wasn’t a speck . And by the way I can produce 6 or 7 of my buddies who will all confirm this.”

It just doesn’t ring true to me How. And we can add this to the question of why they would have planted the blood from Ali’s fingernails when they must have realised that the real killer might have struck again and maybe even confessed to killing Brown. How would Byrnes have explained that one away?

Just because corruption existed it shouldn’t be assumed that the police never solved any cases legitimately.

Howard Brown

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Re: Murder on the Rue Water: A Real Locked Room Mystery
« Reply #71 on: December 01, 2022, 06:41:07 pm »
Absolutely How. Could we also ask - where were these reporters at the previous appeals? What were they waiting for?

Hell to freeze over or the absence of courage to their convictions.

Another point of course is - is it really plausible that the police would have planted blood after the Press had swarmed over the hallway snooping here and there and looking in room 33 too ?

I said it before...by what authority were they even in a room with no connection ( known at the time to these scribes) to the murder in Room 31 ? 
 The shitty crime scene performance of Schultze was due to the surroundings and social class the victim came from..in a way you can't blame him, but then he's expected to be professional,...this wouldn't have happened had it been a middle class person or in a swank hotel.  You can imagine the reaction the people who encountered the corpse had, but that didn't allow them to schlep all over the hotel and ostensibly in rooms not connected to the crime.  If the police allowed them in then so much for this b.s. being espoused elsewhere about the rocky relationship between pressmen not entirely in Byrnes' corner and the police.

And of course, no, it isn't plausible (IMO ) that blood was planted in any circumstance since the police continued to look for C. Kniclo well after the 24th.



Just because corruption existed it shouldn’t be assumed that the police never solved any cases legitimately.


To the contrary, the police did have an adequate record for solving cases...Byrnes' talents extended farther than just using the third degree....which was not necessarily or exclusively the use of force but mental maneuvers & gimmicks on criminals.  Some twenty years after his death, a few New York papers I've read lamented the fact he wasn't around to enforce the law. 

It just doesn’t ring true to me How. And we can add this to the question of why they would have planted the blood from Ali’s fingernails when they must have realised that the real killer might have struck again and maybe even confessed to killing Brown. How would Byrnes have explained that one away?

Me either, Mike...and Byrnes couldn't have.




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Re: Murder on the Rue Water: A Real Locked Room Mystery
« Reply #72 on: December 01, 2022, 06:48:40 pm »
The police theory as reported was that Ali was dripping with blood and gore as he went back to his room where he "cleansed himself of the gore" and "spattered around the blood stains". And they said they had the evidence to prove their theory.

They have him going hysterical like a rabid, bloodaphobic guy. He even somehow got blood on the back of his shirt. Who's more sensational - the reporters or the cops?

The reporters did seek out the sensational but when the "Frenchy" suspect and theory came out, they went to bat for the African immigrant or at least investigated for themselves to see if the sensational theory was true. On the 30th, it was reported there was no blood in the hall.

Didn't Frink say he chipped out the blood evidence from the floor and the doorframe? Wasn't that the 26th or 27th? There was none of that either on the 30th:

"Everyone connected with the hotel was... non-committal this morning.... The bartender said orders had been given not to allow anyone to go upstairs.... An Evening World reporter however succeeded in visiting the top floor and making an inspection of the hall...."

There was no trail of blood according to the reporter, including no floor boards apparently taken up as evidence. I think this would include the strip taken off the doorframe with the long streak of blood that supposedly dripped off the dripping Ali. 

The Evening World
30 Apr 1891, Thu · Page 1

https://www.newspapers.com/clip/113957106/

Howard Brown

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Re: Murder on the Rue Water: A Real Locked Room Mystery
« Reply #73 on: December 01, 2022, 07:17:09 pm »
I think you're giving the police too much benefit of the doubt, especially since their theory as reported was that Ali was dripping with blood and gore as he went back to his room where he "cleansed himself of the gore" and "spattered around the blood stains". And they said they had the evidence to prove their theory.

'As reported..." and by whom ?

*****************************************
They have him going hysterical like a rabid, bloodaphobic guy. He even somehow got blood on the back of his shirt. Who's more sensational - the reporters or the cops?

Not sure what you're talking about.  Ali was picked up, as described by the police, standing on Water Street.  'They' didn't have him doing anything of the sort.  Any hyperbole emanated from the press.

*****************************************

The reporters did seek out the sensational but when the "Frenchy" suspect and theory came out, they went to bat for the African immigrant or at least investigated for themselves to see if the sensational theory was true. On the 30th, it was reported there was no blood in the hall.

Didn't Frink say he chipped out the blood evidence from the floor and the doorframe? There was none of that either.

There was no sensational theory  coming out of Mulberry or Oak Street Stations.  I'm aware of papers mentioning the absence of blood in the hall or, the fact that the reporters slash crime scene investigators missed it.   If Frink/the police had been pressed to show what was extracted from the floor/doorframe, they would have.

*****************************************************************************

"Everyone connected with the hotel was... non-committal this morning.... The bartender said orders had been given not to allow anyone to go upstairs.... An Evening World reporter however succeeded in visiting the top floor and making an inspection of the hall...."

There was no trail of blood according to the reporter, including no floor boards apparently taken up as evidence. I think this would include the strip taken off the doorframe with the long streak of blood that supposedly dripped off the dripping Ali.

Ask yourself....would the police be so stupid as to not have pieces of the floor or door frame available if they had claimed to have extracted them previously ?

In the article you got this clip from, the remark in relation to C. Kniclo..."If innocent, why is he in hiding ?"  speaks volumes to the deep thinkers over at the Evening World.
 As if someone who had been with a woman who was found murdered and mutilated and could be identified as being the last known person with Brown while alive would go directly to the police and give details of the night expressing his innocence.  No one in a predicament such as this would emerge from the shadows.



Howard Brown

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Re: Murder on the Rue Water: A Real Locked Room Mystery
« Reply #74 on: December 01, 2022, 07:30:43 pm »
Yungstreet;

Thanks for chipping in with the excerpt and your views. Nothing in this case should be one-sided in terms of thinking...it had been for 130 years but now it's a more balanced playing field with far better research and researchers than before.

Mike...
 You may want to look at this short film...Secrets of New York...it features a piece on Inspector Byrnes.   Well worth a look.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=862fnCs1E6U&t=39s&ab_channel=CarrieBrown.Net