Carrie Brown : Murder In The East River Hotel

New York Times
September 9, 1895
****************
WALKED OUT OF TOMBS COURT

A Cool Prisoner Assumes Another's Name and Escapes—Charges to be Preferred Against a Policeman.

Gustave Captruli of 67 Oliver Street is charged by James Pasquoit of 94 Cherry Street with stabbing him
 and then robbing him of $100 some six months ago. Captruli then disappeared from New-York, and was
 afterward heard of in Troy.

He had not been seen in this city until last Saturday night, when he was arrested by Policeman Galvin,
 who took his prisoner to the Tombs Police Court yesterday morning and placed him in the prisoners' pen
 while he attended to some other duties in court.

In the meantime, the cases of twenty push-cart peddlers were called, and when Magistrate Crane learned
 that these men had been held as prisoners since Saturday he discharged them all. The Magistrate called
 each man's name, and Policeman Cunningham passed the men out of the enclosure.

Policeman Galvin's prisoner, Captruli, appropriated the name of Dackus, and left the courtroom with
the push-cart men.

Captruli's case then being called, it was discovered that he was missing, and that the true Dackus was
still in custody. The circumstances being explained, Dackus was discharged, and, it is said, charges will be preferred against Policeman Cunningham.




New York Tribune
September 12, 1895
*****************
Gustav Captruli, who on Sunday escaped from the Tombs Police Court, was rearrested in Cherry-st.
yesterday morning by Acting Captain Thompson and Policeman Cunningham, of the Oak-st. station.

Mike:

The time between Ali opening the door and climbing onto the bed could only have been a couple of seconds so if she had only just been murdered, maybe any smell didn’t immediately register with him?

The amount of blood he would have had on his person if he had climbed into bed not knowing she was eviscerated would have been too much to simply wipe off. It would have been a substantial amount of blood.
He also had it on his shirt.
I think he was clothed when he attacked her.

Pete:
Her pockets were turned out, so someone searched through them, and she didn't have the money (50 cents or so) she would have gotten from C. Kniclo. To me that sounds more like Ali searching her, than Kniclo searching her after killing her


Sort of difficult to find a pocket on a naked body........
Sorry I didn't mention this in my earlier response....doing three things at once over here.

New York Evening World
April 24, 1891
*************
The body was completely naked. A deep gash extended from the lower part of the abdomen upward to the breast, which disembowelled it completely.

In one corner of the room lay the woman's tattered red flannel skirt and torn stockings.

Over the back of the chair hung her checked gingham waist and a cheap shoddy mantle.

I, for one, believe that anyone entering the room would have seen Carrie was dead due to the ambient light.
I also believe that anyone who confessed to only handling her body has some explaining to do.
The following also explains, IMHO, why her shoe is propping up the window on the Water Street side of the hotel.
Coroner Schultze or a roving reporter did the honors.

It may not be the cat's meow for translating large articles, but AI provided an answer that, to some, might
seem fairly obvious on something that I, personally, should have asked a long time ago.

If a person is murdered and eviscerated with their abdomen opened up, how long would it take for someone to smell the eviscerated wound in a closed room?

In a closed room, the timeline for smelling an eviscerated wound falls into two distinct categories: immediate visceral odors from exposed internal organs, and subsequent decomposition odors as post-mortem breakdown accelerates.
Intestinal Contents (Feces/Bile): If the gastrointestinal tract (stomach, small intestine, or colon) is punctured or sliced during the evisceration, the smell of intestinal contents, gut bacteria, and digestive acids is instantaneous. In an enclosed space with poor airflow, a person entering the room (or standing nearby) would notice a distinct, pungent foul odor within seconds to minutes.

Ali would have smelled her intestines....
Why in the hell would he handle the body?

I believe his confession was the lesser of two evils.
He confessed to being in the room because the evidence presented at trial put him in the room... and he knew it.
His confession was an attempt to explain away how her blood and biological material were on his person.

Of course, others might feel that he hadn't confessed and that Sultan made the story up.

In any event....any thoughts?

Sketch of the room with Carrie in bed in the attachment below.

Yesterday, September 13th, 2026.....I loaded an article into an AI translation tool to convert the JPEG into text.

This is the October 4th, 1897 article:

https://carriebrown.createaforum.com/general-discussion/pardon-may-be-granted-frenchy-new-york-world-october-4-1897-article/msg4273/#msg4273


AI Version of the New York World October 4, 1897 article below contains these bizarre statements

1- Jack the Slasher, a.k.a. Henry Dowd, speaking to a World reporter, claiming he knows Ali was innocent. This did not happen and does not appear anywhere in any newspaper.

2- Ali's sister writing letters to him....again, something that did not take place.

----------------------------------------------------------------

The AI Version of the October 4th, 1897 article:

Story Told by a Fellow-Convict.

A strange story was told to The World reporter by a fellow-convict of "Frenchy's" in the asylum.

This man, whose name is Henry Dowd, alias "Jack the Slasher," says that "Frenchy" is innocent, and that he knows who committed the murder.

Dowd says that on the night of the murder he was in the East River Hotel, and that he saw a man enter the room of "Old Shakespeare." He says this man was a sailor, and that he had a knife in his hand.

Dowd says he saw the man leave the room a short time afterward, and that he was covered with blood. He says he told no one about it at the time, because he was afraid he would be accused of the crime himself.

A Wonderful Scrap-Book.

"Frenchy" has a scrapbook in which he has kept all the newspaper accounts of his trial and imprisonment. He has also kept letters from his friends and relatives in France.

Among these letters is one from his sister, who lives in Algiers. She begs him to come home, and says that all of his family is praying for his release.

"Frenchy" shows this letter to everyone who visits him, and tears come to his eyes as he reads it.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I re-inserted the October 4th article. This is part of what showed up:

An Algerian from Province.

About four months ago, M. Reynaud, the French Consul-General, received a letter from Algiers asking for information about Ben Ali. The letter was written by his sister, who said that her brother had not been heard from for several years, and that the family was anxious to know what had become of him.

She said that Ben Ali was a native of Algiers, that he was a soldier in the French army, and that he had served with distinction in many battles. She said that he had always been a good son and brother, and that he had never been in any trouble before he went to America.

This letter was turned over to Lawyer Robillard, who at once began an investigation. He went to Matteawan and interviewed "Frenchy." He found him to be a very different man from the uncouth creature who was tried for the murder of "Old Shakespeare."

He found him to be an intelligent, well-mannered man, who spoke English well, could read French prints, and talk intelligently of the old Prime Minister of the Republic, M. Thiers, and of other French statesmen.

A Wonderful Scrap-Book.

"Frenchy" showed Lawyer Robillard a scrap-book which he had kept ever since his conviction. In it were pasted all the newspaper accounts of his trial and imprisonment, as well as letters from his friends and relatives in France.

Among these letters was one from his sister, in which she begged him to come home, and said that all his family were praying for his release. "Frenchy" showed this letter to the lawyer with tears in his eyes, and said that he would give anything to be able to go back to his native land and end his days among his own people.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It may not be as surprising to some as it was to me......because the October 24th, 1897 article in the New York World does
mention Jack the Slasher and Henry Dowd....but the Oct. 24th article covers the meeting between Richard O'Brien, nephew
of Dowd's former landlord, not Dowd, and absolutely nothing about Ali's sister or meeting Robilard.

I've been forced to use AI to translate articles since the most recent image-hosting site went kaput three months ago.
U.K. readers can't access IMGUR, which leaves large amounts of the site with bald spots.
I double-check every translation.

Both articles above are transcribed and found at these links:


1895:

https://carriebrown.createaforum.com/general-discussion/new-york-world-january-21-1895-article/msg7393/?topicseen#msg7393

1897:

https://carriebrown.createaforum.com/general-discussion/pardon-may-be-granted-frenchy-new-york-world-october-4-1897-article/msg4273/#msg4273

 I, for one, sort of expect articles like this if it comes from the New York Sun....Greef was assaulted with a wooden mallet....not a spoon.
The Sun sort of forgot to mention that Greef almost died....one newspaper, The Times, published an article based
on reports straight from Matteawan's hospital, that they anticipated Greef would die from the fractured skull he received from the assault.

Now we know why the poor, friendless victim of circumstance attacked Greef.




New York Sun
April 23, 1902
************
"FRENCHY" IS FREE AT LAST.

To Get Here by Steamboat To-day—Sure of His Release All Along.

Amer Ben Ali, better known as "Frenchy," will arrive in New York this morning by the People's line steamer Adirondack. Dr. Lamb, superintendent of the State Hospital for Criminal Insane at Dannemora, telegraphed this news yesterday to Ovide Robillard, the French lawyer of 25 Pine Street, to whom, more than to any one else, "Frenchy" owes his freedom after an imprisonment of nearly eleven years. The steamer is due at the foot of Canal Street at 6:45 o'clock.

Mr. Robillard said yesterday that he would meet "Frenchy," who will be in charge of a guard from the hospital, and take him to the French Hospital in West Thirty-fourth street, where his mental and physical condition will be examined into by a council of physicians. If they approve, he will start on his long journey home to Algiers on Thursday morning, sailing for Havre by the French liner La Touraine.

If the Arab is permitted to sail on Thursday he will begin his homeward journey on the eleventh anniversary of the death of Caroline Brown, alias "Old Shakespere," for whose murder he was convicted in July, 1891, and sentenced to life imprisonment. Ten of the eleven years of his prison life "Frenchy" passed among criminal lunatics. He is now 56 years old, weighs about 180 pounds and is a little more than 6 feet tall. He has always protested his innocence and has kept himself buoyed up by his own assertion that "God will some day show his mercy and I shall be free."

Only once during his long confinement did "Frenchy" show any violence. That was when he was confined in the hospital at Matteawan. A fellow prisoner met him one day in the kitchen and tauntingly said:

" 'Frenchy,' you're in for life and you might as well make the best of it."

"That is one lie," said the Arab. "God will turn his face toward me some day, for He knows I am innocent."

The other convict jeered and "Frenchy" hit him on the head with a spoon. He was punished with solitary confinement, and he never offended again.

When Mr. Robillard was asked yesterday if the Arab was still insane he replied:

"That is for the doctors to determine. Men of his race are so excitable by nature that it is hard for a layman to say whether they are insane or not."

"Frenchy" will be sent home at the expense of the French Government.

----------------------------------------

The Times clips are in the attachments below