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Messages - Howard Brown

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1
East Side Story / Re: ***East Side Story: The Book On-Site***
« on: Today at 06:49:30 pm »
CHAPTER 4 continued


 New York Times
April 26, 1891

 

[[ "The most important clue that came to the police yesterday was from the Glenmore Hotel, a Chatham Square cheap lodging house. The morning of the murder, about three hours
 after the murderer and his victim went to their room in the East River Hotel, a man went into the Glenmore and asked for a room. Kelly, the night clerk of the house, noticed that the
 man's hands, face, and clothing were smeared with blood. The fellow spoke with a pronounced German accent. Kelly describes the man as about five feet nine inches in height, light
 complexion, a long nose and a light mustache. He says he wore a shabby cutaway coat and a shabby old derby hat. He had no money to pay for a room and therefore was not permitted
 to remain. The Glenmore is not more than five minutes in a straight line from the scene of the murder.

The murderer and his victim at the East River Hotel went to their room at 11 PM. It was more than two and less than three hours afterward that the bloody man went to the Glenmore.
Where he went next is a problem. Without money, it is hard to see how he can escape the law.

 Night clerk Kelly has been closely questioned in regard to this call of the man with blood on his hands and clothing. Kelly says the man was very nervous and agitated. "His hat was
 pulled down over his eyes," Kelly explained, "and he acted queer. He asked me in broken English if I could give him a room for the night. At the time, his right hand rested
 on my desk, and I noticed it was all bloody. I noticed it looked as though he had tried to wipe the blood off, but it was smeared all over. There were also two blotches of blood on his
 right cheek, as though he had put the bloody hand to his face. There was also blood on his right coat sleeve, and it was splattered on his collar. Altogether the fellow looked very bad.
 I asked him what price room he wanted. He answered nervously that he wanted me to give him a room as he did not have a cent. I told him that I could not give him a room as the house
 was full. He turned to go away, but instead of going down the stairs to the street, he started for the washroom. I came out from behind my desk and told him we only allowed the guests
 of the house the use of that room. He turned then without a word and went down into the street. As he did, I turned to Tiernan, our night watchman, who was in the office at the time, and said,
"That man looks as though he had murdered somebody."
Kelly tells his story in a straightforward way and the detectives place great credence in it. His description of the blood-stained man who asked him for a room tallies so closely with
 Mary Miniter's description of the man who took the murdered woman into Room 31 of the East River Hotel that there does not seem to be much doubt that they were one and the same."]]

 The story above contains the once-stated reference to the Glenmore having no available rooms. I've yet to find it anywhere else and it is unlikely that this part, at least, is correct.
Why would Kelly first ask him what price room he wanted instead of flat out telling him there were no rooms available?
Other reports:
The New York World on April 26th, the same day as the Times article, refers to the night watchman by the name of Concilio.
Kelly's tone in the NY World article is a little more aggressive than the more even-tempered discussion in the Times piece.
The NY Herald, from the same date, has the night watchman making the statement about the visitor to the hotel looking as if he had just murdered someone, not Kelly.
The Herald also states that while Kelly was accustomed to men with blood on their person entering the Glenmore for a room, this man's actions, on top of his appearance, was what caught Kelly's attention.
One out-of-town paper, the San Bernardino (Cal.) Courier from May 2nd wrote that the visitor was around 5'2" and quotes Kelly as saying the visitor looked as if he'd just come
 back from butchering hogs. So much for out-of-town papers as being reputable sources. 

 Miniter mentions his build as being slim and that he was between 32 and 35 years of age. She did not mention anything unusual in how he walked, and neither did Kelly.
Both or at least one would have mentioned noticing it while giving their descriptions. This also comes into play later.
It's easy to understand why those who have studied the case usually link C. Kniclo to Glenmore Man.
We also should keep in mind a comment that was published in the New York Herald about Kelly being accustomed to men with blood on their persons going into the Glenmore
 Hotel This hotel was a cut above the East River Hotel but was also a seedy establishment in its own right. Chatham Square was situated near the elevated train close to The Bowery
 and had its share of disturbances, often resulting in violence. It was also theorized in the New York World that 'Glenmore Man' may have simply been a local man who was beaten up
 and went to the hotel in order to clean himself up, which may have been what actually took place.
An example of a man found loitering in the vicinity of the Glenmore Hotel was reported in the New York Evening World on April 25th.  The paper contained a paragraph on the arrest
 of a man of German background named Adolph Kallenberg arrested at 1:00 a.m. on the 25th.
[[Kallenberg Set Free
This arrest was made about 1 o'clock this morning by Officer Mitchell, of the Elizabeth Street police. He found a German, about 35 years old, who said his name
 was Adolph Kallenberg, and that he had no home, loitering in Chatham Square. He was sent down to Oak Street Station at about 2 o'clock this morning. Capt. O'Connor
 says he discharged him because he was evidently not the man whom he wanted.]]

 Glenmore Man remains a possible connection to C. Kniclo and a good one at that.

A Missed Opportunity?
Professor Dekle has suggested that perhaps Kelly would have been a bad witness for the defense. Nothing else is known about Kelly other than his employment at the Glenmore Hotel. 

 His eye-witness account of the man whose description had been considered relevant by the police and which matched Mary Miniter's in numerous ways is persuasive
 enough to seriously consider 'Glenmore Man' as having been C. Kniclo. On the other hand, that 'Glenmore Man' acted somewhat out of the ordinary was probably
 not such a big thing for that area of the Lower East Side.  Disheveled men were dime-a-dozen in the Chatham Square area. After all, Adolph Kallenberg was picked
 up in the general vicinity on the 25th and bore some similarity to C. Kniclo. 

Had a jury heard of the physical similarities between C. Kniclo and Glenmore Man if Kelly had been put on the witness stand, could this have worked in Ali's favor?

So, did the defense team waste an opportunity by not handing a subpoena to Kelly?

Nothing in the available contemporary accounts suggests that any of the three defense attorneys even spoke to him.

I, for one, find it very unlikely that his story would not have been known by the defense team.

2
East Side Story / Re: ***East Side Story: The Book On-Site***
« on: Today at 06:48:06 pm »
CHAPTER 4

                                                 
GLENMORE MAN

 
Brown's client, who came to be known by the fictitious name of C. Kniclo, has been at one time or the other theorized as having morphed into two, possibly three, other entities. 
The other anonymous entities, connected or not, were known as 'Glenmore Man' and 'The Danish Farmhand', with 'Train Man' being an overlooked theory at one time brought
back to the fore in 2023.

Glenmore Man was the name given to the fellow spotted in that hotel on the morning of April 24th.  He was first designated by this name in 2022 by British researcher Michael Banks.
It is suggested that after leaving, or worse, after murdering Brown, C. Kniclo went up the street to the Glenmore Hotel at 4 Chatham Square. 

 At the Glenmore, he attempted to rent a room from the night clerk, a man named Kelly. The man told Kelly, whose first name was probably Michael or possibly Thomas, that he had no
 money for a room. Naturally, Kelly told him that unless he had money, he would not be given a room.  This didn't discourage the man as he then attempted to enter the first-floor lobby
 washroom. Kelly, in the presence of another Glenmore employee named Tiernan, escorted him out of the hotel.
This incident occurred at roughly 2 AM on the 24th, just a short while after Brown was murdered.
Because of the similarities between their physical descriptions provided by two independent witnesses, he's been theorized as being the same man last seen with Carrie Brown, or who
 murdered her.
C..Kniclo description provided by Mary Miniter and Glenmore Man's features matched on several key points.

 1. Height ranging from 5'8 1/2 to 5' 9" tall.
2. A heavy mustache, light in color in most, but not all, reports. 
3. Germanic inflection to his voice: spoke 'broken English' (Kelly); possibly of German ethnicity (Miniter)
4. Shabby cutaway coat
5. Derby hat: Miniter says it was battered while Kelly described it as shabby.
6. Light complexion
7. A long nose

 The description of the man and his reported bloodied and disheveled condition impressed the NYPD so much so that when an all-points bulletin was issued, signed by Inspector
Byrnes, it included a comment not found in Mary Miniter's description of the man she had described for police in that he spoke in 'broken English'. This latter information came from Kelly. 
Miniter described C. Kniclo for the New York Evening World on April 24th as having a blonde mustache, as she would do at the Coroner's Inquest, and at the trial on June 30th.   

The April 24th edition also reported that C. Kniclo was described as either a Greek or Italian, and that had brown hair and was fairly well-dressed.

On the 25th, the same paper reported that he wore dusty, well-worn clothes and that his mustache was rather long with the ends of the mustache sticking straight out like the
 'whiskers of a cat' that the mustache was heavy and brown, with a long nose that came to a sharp point and sharp features. 
This exemplifies the issues researchers have had for over a century with the newspaper reports.
Despite the dissimilarities in these two very early reports, Miniter described him having a mustache in both reports.  Kelly's story, when brought up in the papers, always included
 a mustache in the description. 
Almost every report in which his description would be given from this point on would state that it was a blonde mustache.
At the trial, Miniter testified that it was light, which undoubtedly meant that it was blonde.

 I've transcribed the article that, in my opinion after reading probably every article ever written on the incident, is the best in as far as providing details of the incident at the
 Glenmore Hotel. Some articles are a little different from each other and cause confusion, which is further evidence of the less-than-stellar reporting found in this case.
 Of course, the occasional reticence of Fourth Ward residents in their dealing with the authorities when related to a crime such as murder was also a factor in the quality of the
 reports published. The one I selected was the leper with the most fingers.
 I will also include the reference to the arrest of an early 'suspect' who was released shortly afterward on April 25th near the Glenmore Hotel.  The reader will get a good idea
of how difficult it was and still is to provide a clear and precise representation of people and events not only in this facet of the case but in many other areas as well.

3
East Side Story / Re: ***East Side Story: The Book On-Site***
« on: Today at 06:45:08 pm »

CHAPTER 3

THE EAST RIVER HOTEL

A compilation of stories detailing events that took place in the East River Hotel over the years.
Prior to the building also referred to by locals as the 'House of All Drinks', and the  'Fourth Ward Hotel', it had served as the site of the first German-language theater in Manhattan  dating back to 1843 according to the New York Herald (1)

 The hotel's sordid history makes the bars and lodging houses of the far more publicized East End of London look tame by comparison. Water Street was also well-known for
 rough dives such as John Allen's Tavern at 304 Water; Tommy Hadden's 'Shanghai Hotel' at 374 Water Street: Kit Burns' 'Rat Pit' at 273 Water, and situated next door at 18 Catherine Slip, The Glass House.

 Civil engineer Frederick Reinert, an employee of the Frank E. Towle company at 25 Chambers Street, was called upon to provide the dimensions of room 31 at the Coroner's Inquest and Trial.  Room 31 was measured at 12 ft, 8 inches by 7 ft., 6 inches.

Edward Fitzgerald stated at the Coroner's Inquest that there were 15 or 16 rooms for guests on the fifth floor.  Two corridors with four rooms on each side of the hallways.

First-hand accounts from two New York social reformers during their excursions to the hotel can be found in books by Dr. Samuel Parkhurst (2) and Rev Alexander Irvine(3).
A lengthy article was published in the New York Herald five weeks before the Brown murder detailing the experiences of Salvation Army members Ballington and Maud Booth as they made their ways up and down Water Street, in slum attire, chronicling the sordid state of affairs. (4)

An affray took place at the hotel in 1871 when a young woman, upon learning the nature of the hotel, demanded her wages after two weeks of work. The request unleashed the fury of proprietor Herman Jaeger ( typical of newspaper accounts, his surname is spelled in several ways), his wife, and the bartender. All three beat her severely. She managed to make her escape and immediately went to the police station. Mrs. Yeager, who was one tough nut, blackened the policeman's eye sent to arrest her and her husband. (5)

A chronology of the subsequent events from January 1871 to its closure :

6- Jaeger shoots his wife Eva point blank in the face. Is found after running off and hiding next door ( Possibly the saloon known as The Glass House) but does not appear to have been punished for the shooting.
7- A domestic, Ann Wilson, after being sharply reprimanded by Eva Jaeger, stabs Eva and receives 2 years in the state penitentiary for women.
8- Jaeger serves a 'notice' to Police Superintendent Walling 'warning' him to remove the policemen who were posted in front of the hotel
9- Tommy Thompson assaults Morris Slattery in the bar downstairs at the hotel, which leads to Slattery's death the following day.
10-Thompson committed for trial for murder in the first degree. He is acquitted.
11- In 1887, an ex-convict named Coffee took a woman to the hotel. She would be found dead in Room 31. Two days later at the Coroner's Inquest, he was released as it was proven he was not involved with her death.
12- One rumor or possible fact was that down in the bar room in the basement, it was possible to throw bodies directly into the East River after they died or perhaps were murdered.
 That section of the Lower East Side had been a land reclamation project extending all the way up to Pearl and Cherry Streets.
13- A 44-year-old woman, Ann Foley, is found dead in the hotel in Room 37 on the fifth floor of the hotel. She and a man named Patrick Cleary had been living there since November 12th.  Cleary was held until he was eventually cleared of any involvement in her death which was attributed to over-indulging in drink.

According to his June 10th, 1901 affidavit, James Jennings was no longer the proprietor of the East River Hotel. Tommy Thompson would also leave the hotel sometime afterward.
14- The hotel is declared closed
15- Heinrich Stiehler wants a license to sell liquor at the hotel, now renamed The Cambridge Hotel.
16- Albert T. Wheeler applies and is denied a license by the Excise Board
17- Property foreclosure sale announced

The hotel is re-opened

18. Owner William Keyes, who had been the latest proprietor for the past 18 months, is murdered while sitting out front of the hotel. James Breen, his killer, was executed in Sing Sing in December 1903.
19- Hotel condemned by the City. All furniture emptied from the building
20- Inspectors sent to the hotel to make a final report are roughly treated by residents
21- The rear of the building had settled over 13 inches. Over 100 people were living in the hotel at the time of its final closure in November 1907.



1- New York Herald  June 28, 1891
2- The Doctor And The Devil or  Midnight Adventures of Dr. Parkhurst   Chas.W. Gardner  1894
3. From The Bottom Up, Alexander Irvine 1910
4. New York Herald  March 15, 1891
5- New York Sun   January 9, 1871
6- New York Daily Herald  March 28, 1872
7- New York Herald   August 9, 1879
8- New York Sun  June 26, 1883
9- New York Times     April 11, 1886
10- New York Times    April 28, 1886
11- New York Sun   April 25, 1891
12- Low Life  1991 Luc Sante
   All the land, including Water Street, situated below
   Cherry St.& Pearl St., was man-made and
   as the result of  a series of land reclamations
   by the City of New York.
   Water Street came into being in the 1730s.
13- New York Evening World  December 10, 1891
14- New York Times  February 19, 1894
15- New York Evening World  November 24, 1894
16- New York Tribune  November 17, 1895
17- New York Times  February 1, 1899
18- Brooklyn Daily Eagle  September 16, 1903
19- New York Tribune   November 7, 1907
20- New York Tribune  November 10, 1907
21- New York Sun  November 11, 1907

4
General Discussion / Re: At The Glenmore
« on: Today at 07:02:13 am »
Maybe Kelly was nervous, himself, when he told reporters that
1. Glenmore Man asked for a room
2. Kelly asked him what priced room he would like. ( which indicates there was a vacancy)
3. G.M. tells him he had no money.
4. Finally, Kelly tells him the hotel is all full.

Why go through all that when all he needed to do was tell GM that there weren't any vacancies
in the first place?

The article with the most coverage:

New York Times
April 26, 1891
************



Finally....an alternative to GM being connected to the murder:


New York World
April 26, 1891
*************












More links:

https://carriebrown.createaforum.com/general-discussion/glenmore-man/
https://carriebrown.createaforum.com/general-discussion/tiernan-of-the-glenmore-hotel/msg4052/#msg4052



5
General Discussion / At The Glenmore
« on: Today at 06:42:51 am »

Keep in mind that all of these Manhattan papers sent their own reporters to the Glenmore.
The reports didn't emanate from a wire service.


NY Times April 26th
The Times has Glenmore Man initially asking Kelly for a room.
Then, Kelly asked him what priced room he wanted.



NY Sun April 26th
The Sun has Glenmore Man initially asking for a room.
Then, Kelly asking him for money for the room.



NY Tribune on April 26th
The Tribune has Glenmore man initially asking for a room.
Then, Kelly telling him the house was all full.



NY World April 26th
The World on April 26th  has Glenmore Man with a heavy dark mustache.
We also learn that a man named Concilio, not Tiernan, was at the scene when Glenmore
Man paid a visit.





NY Tribune April 27th
Lastly, the NY Tribune stated that Glenmore Man was traced to Brooklyn




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

Philadelphia Times April 26th
The Philadelphia Times on April 26th claimed that Glenmore Man did not seem to be intoxicated. The NY Times, from
the same day, referred to him as being shaky and nervous.

6
Unsolved 19th Century & Gilded Age American Crimes & Murders / Four For The River
« on: March 14, 2026, 02:18:02 pm »
Mini-compilation of stories concerning four women who were found in the East River, 1877-1893, that
are already on the site but listed separately.



ONE:

Found this yesterday while looking for articles about Ann or Annie Campbell.
I do not know whether it's her.

If it were Ann, she would have been 36 or 37 at the time.

One clip has her living at 338 Water Street and another at 336. One article
refers to the missing friend as Lizzie Crossman and another as Lizzie Rushmore.
no surprise that the papers effed this up.
The star on the map designates 336 and 338 Water Street.

I can't find any follow-ups to the case. No idea if it was Campbell's friend.
No idea if a trial took place. No idea whether the case was resolved, which it
doesn't appear to have been.

I'm sure some will notice the similarity with the Lizzie Elliott incident in April 1891.



New York Herald
January 24, 1877
***************



New York Herald
January 25, 1877
**************


New York Tribune
April 26, 1877
*************



New York Herald
April 27, 1877
************



TWO:

........featuring a name most will be familiar with.
So far, Nina and i have been unable to determine what happened to the Norwegian sailor, Charles Rossmissell, after April 27th.
We know what happened with Mary Ann Lopez. ;)

Lizzie's body, according to the NY Press article of April 7, was eventually recovered.
She fell from a height of 15 feet into the East River.


The Brooklyn paper has Rossmissell as a Swede, while the Manhattan papers state he was a Norwegian.
Mary Ann Lopez fudged a little on her age, too.

Brooklyn Citizen
April 6, 1891
***********




New York Evening World
April 6, 1891
************


New York Evening World
April 6, 1891
************


New York Sun
April 7, 1891
**********




New York Press
April 7, 1891
************





This article states Lopez was the widow of a Cuban and was born in Ireland.
Her 'husband' was a man she once lived with named Alphonso Lopez at 133 Clinton Place ( at one time ), a sugar make and alive at the time of the Elliott drowning.
Again, it's claimed she was 28. She said the same at the Coroner's Inquest a mere 5 weeks later.
She was born in Albany in 1854 and was 37 years old at this point.


Fort Worth ( Texas ) Daily Gazette
April 7, 1891
**********



THREE:





This report covers the brutal murder of the woman found floating in the East River in August 1891, just three weeks after
Ali was sent to Sing Sing.

The dock on Market Slip...not Market Street... was one block east of the East River Hotel.





Memphis Commercial
August 4, 1891
************



FOUR:




New York Evening World
November 17, 1893
******************



'Pug-Nose Mary- theorized as victim.
New York Herald
November 17, 1893
******************

7
East Side Story / Re: ***East Side Story: The Book On-Site***
« on: March 14, 2026, 06:20:00 am »
CHAPTER 2, conclusion


FRENCHY SEEN BY A REPORTER
Inspector Byrnes this afternoon allowed an Evening World reporter to see the prisoner Frenchy.
The Inspector refused, however, to allow the reporter to speak to him or to allow the prisoner to make a statement, for reasons he did not see fit to explain.
The reporter was escorted down to the cells by Detective Sgt. Mulholland and allowed to stand in the officers' room while the prisoner was brought out.
Frenchy is a tall, ungainly, awkward man, about 5 feet 10 or 11 inches high, and will probably weigh about 160 pounds. Apparently, he is about thirty-four or thirty-five years old, and his nationality would seem to be wonderfully indefinite.
His general appearance is that of a Moor or an Arabian, while there are slight indications of negro and French and Italian descent. His complexion is that of a Turk.
His eyes are black and rather small, his gaze restive, and he is wonderfully disinclined to look one directly in the face.
His hair is black, half curly and half straight, and his head slopes back gradually from the forehead to a high point in the rear, denoting large self-esteem. Phrenological marks of ignorance-almost idiocy-and sensuality are predominant.
His mustache is rather slight, black, tending to gray, and today he had a shirt, stubby three or four days growth of black beard.
Frenchy's features are generally sharp the nose especially, and the chin much inclined that way. His lips are thin and his cheekbones are high and prominent.
The suspect is a slim-built man, but his frame is apparently a powerful one. His legs are long, as are also his arms, hands, and fingers. He is flat-chested, and a little inclined to be round-shouldered. His gait is the lazy shuffle of the indolent negro.
Frenchy's clothes are much too small for him. His coat and vest belong to a Spring suit of light gray material and the coat is ragged and torn. The sleeves are fully two inches short for his long, bony arms.
His shirt is a cheap light-striped tennis affair and his small 13 neck has difficulty in filling up the 16 collar.
His pants are of a dark, blue plaid pattern and fully too short for his gaunt legs as his coat sleeves are for his arms. His shoes are Congress gaiters, full of holes at the heel, through which his large bare feet showed plainly.
Both Frenchy's hands are tattooed on the back in India ink, with serpents, flowers, and various design, among which the Turkish star and crescent is predominant.
On his right forearm is tattooed a dancing girl in short skirts, surmounting the words, 'Fatma Mahomet makdon'. This would indicate that the work was done by a Turk.
Near the dancing girl is the half-finished head of a second girl, and next to that, the figure of a dancing man.

8
East Side Story / Re: ***East Side Story: The Book On-Site***
« on: March 14, 2026, 06:17:21 am »
CHAPTER 2, continued


The following is one Manhattan newspaper's account of the April 30th, 1891 press conference held by Inspector Byrnes, to round off the events of April 1891. It's the May 1st edition of the New York Evening World.

  LINKS MISSING
Inspector Byrnes Has Not Yet Traced The Ripper's Knife To Frenchy.
The Prisoner Still Kept Secluded At Police Headquarters.
Seen By An 'Evening World' Reporter, But Not Allowed To Speak.
Official Statement By Byrnes Of The Proofs Against Him.
No Trace Of the Light-Haired Man Who Was Last Seen With Carrie Brown.

The one topic of conversation in New York today is whether or not George Francois or Frank Sherlick or Frenchy No.1, as he is variously termed, murdered Carrie Brown, who was so horribly slaughtered in the East River Hotel.
The circumstantial evidence given out by the police leads many to believe that Sherlick is guilty. But there are also points which tend to show the possibility of his not being the man.
Until the public hears Sherlick's explanation as to how he got the tell-tale blood stains, and that explanation is verifiable one way or another there must be no doubt as to his guilt or innocence.
The following is what Inspector Byrnes has to say of the circumstances which has led to Sherlick's arrest:
[[  "It was 8 o'clock Friday night, Frank Sherlick, or Frenchy, was standing in the saloon under the hotel talking to the bartender. We had learned that on the Wednesday night previous Frenchy and this old woman Shakespeare had occupied the room where the murder was committed, and we learned that he was about with her and the other low women the following day, the day of the night of which the murder was committed.
Frenchy was about the saloon down in the Fourth Precinct with the women the evening of that day. He was at the East River Hotel alone at about 10 o'clock, and he was there drinking at 11 o'clock when the old woman Shakespeare and her companion came in and got their drink and went upstairs to room 31.
This man Frenchy was, as I have stated before, a man of wicked and unnatural habits, and the women we have had under arrest say that he has frequently occupied rooms on the top floor of that hotel with them and that he had repeatedly beaten and kicked them and otherwise maltreated them.
He had taken their money away from them and created disturbances which had made it necessary on more than one occasion for the hotel people to throw him out of the place. Frenchy had such a tough reputation among the women that none of them, except old Shakespeare, would have anything to do with him. The other women, to guy him, got to calling him 'old Shakespeare's mash'.
It is against the rules of the hotel for a man not accompanied by a woman to go to the top floor of the hotel. It is against the rules to let a room on the top floor to a single man.
This rule was made because the men who accompany the women to the hotel usually remain only a little while. They go out and leave the doors of the rooms unlocked. The women stay behind, and in the early morning hours, the rooms are filled with women. It would be unsafe to allow men of the character of those who visit the hotel to be on the same floor.
The night of the murder, Eddie Fitzgerald, the little bartender, was on duty at the hotel, in charge of the door. He did not know of this rule. After Shakespeare and her companion of that night had gone upstairs, Frenchy said to Eddie that he guessed he would go to bed, and asked for a room on the top floor. He gave in payment for it twenty-five single cents.
This might have been 12 o'clock and might have been later. Some time after this, Sam Shine, the night clerk, came in, and Fitzgerald gave the pennies to him.
Shine asked, "Where did you get these?" and Fitzgerald replied that he had got them from a man on the top floor.
Shine asked what the man looked like, and Fitzgerald said: "He's tall and dark." 'Yes,' said Shine, 'it's that black Frenchy'. The two talked about the advisability of going upstairs and throwing Frenchy out. Fitzgerald said the man had been upstairs twenty minutes, Shine said he guessed the fellow was in bed and they would risk letting him stay there.
When Frenchy was arrested and brought to the station house he had on no underclothing. He wore a coarse shirt, a pair of trousers, and a pair of socks. He was examined and the lower part of his shirt was found to be covered with blood in front. It was about where the blood would strike had he stood over the woman by the side of the bed.
There was a blood mark on the back of the neck of the shirt, just such a mark as would be made by the woman if she had thrown up her hand and seized him while she was struggling in a death grasp. there was a splash of blood on the waistband of the shirt, and it was plain that an attempt had been made to wash it off.
There were blood stains on one of his socks. On the outside jamb of the door of room 33, the room that Frenchy had been assigned to, there were blood marks that looked as though the door had been pushed open with just the tips of bloody fingers.
On the inside of the door were blood marks that looked as though the door had been pushed shut with the inside upper half of a hand of bloody fingers. There were also blood marks on the door of Room 31, where the murder was committed.
There were spots of blood in the hall, very small and hardly discernible. There were spots on the floor of room 33. There was a stain of blood on the chair in room 33, as though a murderer had sat down on it.
There were clots of blood on the blanket of the bed. It was an old army blanket. The spots were of human blood. The other stains on the blanket looked as though bloody hands had been wiped on it. There was blood on the bedtick. There were no sheets on the bed.
After all this blood had been found and after the examination of Frenchy's clothing we sent and got a bone finger nail cleaner and we cleaned out the dirt from beneath the finger nails of the prisoner we had. That dirt was analyzed and in it were found traces of human blood.
Now as to the man who went to the room with Shakespeare, we arrested Frenchy No. 2, about whom there has been so much talk, on Sunday morning at 5 o'clock. We found that he had spent the night of the murder at a place four and a half miles away from the scene of the murder.
The people he was living with convinced us that it would have been impossible for him to be away from the house for two hours that night without their knowledge, and we are satisfied that it would have taken him much time to go from where he was to the scene of the murder and return. We simply let Frenchy No. 2 go.
The man who went to the room with Shakespeare followed the custom of the other men who take women to the hotel and went out in a short time. There is this to be said of him. If he is an honest man he will naturally not come forward and acknowledge the fact that he went to the hotel with a woman. He would be ashamed to do it.
Now, as to the prisoner's stories. In the first place he has lied to us in every instance when he has made a statement. He claimed at first that he did not stop at the hotel the night of the murder; that he did not have a room in the hotel. He said he slept in Brooklyn that night.
We found out that he did not sleep at the place he said he did in Brooklyn, and that he did have a room at the hotel. Fitzgerald came forward then and made him admit the incident about the pennies.
Then he claimed to have come to New York the Wednesday morning previous to the murder from Jamaica, L.I., where he said he had been employed working about a hotel. I sent men to Jamaica. They could not find the place he described or any place he was employed in.
Wishing to give him every chance to clear himself, on Sunday morning at 6 o'clock I sent him to Jamaica handcuffed to a detective. He could not find the place he had said he worked at, nor could he find the man he had said he worked for.
He was brought back and locked up. We found out that he had been discharged on April 13 from the Queens County Penitentiary after serving a thirty-day sentence for vagrancy.
When confronted by the women we had arrested, Mary Ann Lopez, Lizzie Sullivan, and the others, he claimed not to know them. 'Me no know them,' he said.
The women insisted that they did know him and that he knew them, and finally made him admit that he knew them.
Mary Miniter, the woman who described the old woman Shakespeare's companion, has admitted that she has told several falsehoods in the case, but she still insists the man was a blonde. She is a woman of exceedingly bad character, an opium and morphine fiend and she consorts with Chinamen.
The night of the murder she occupied a room in the hotel with a man she met in the barroom. She could not identify Frenchy No.2 when he was arrested.
Frenchy, in the stories he told, explained how the blood got on him, and in every instance, his stories were run down and found to be rank lies. He has lied about everything. He had hardly told a truth since he was arrested.
Now we come to the knife with which the murder was committed. We cannot trace the knife to Frenchy or any one else. It is a very common sort of knife and such as might be used on banana ships. It is so common and cheap that there is really no way of tracing it.
It is such a knife as might have been used about a kitchen to peel potatoes with. No man who had premeditated murder would have taken that knife with him to commit the deed. We are now working to try and trace the knife to Frenchy. That is why the inquest was adjourned today to give us time.
I have all the evidence in the case in writing. There are some things I cannot tell at this time, because they would tend to interfere with us in our work.
Frenchy may be able to explain the presence of blood on his shirt. He may be able to explain the presence of the blood on his shoulder, but how can he explain the blood under his fingernails?  ]]

9
East Side Story / Re: ***East Side Story: The Book On-Site***
« on: March 14, 2026, 06:16:08 am »
 
  CHAPTER 2, continued.

 At some point in time after Miniter gave the description of C. Kniclo, the police and press had made their way to the Glenmore Hotel in Chatham Square, in their all-out search for the man who had entered the hotel with Carrie Brown. It hasn't been determined when, precisely, the police and
 the press made their way to the Glenmore, but it was after Miniter had already given her description.
   Up in Chatham Square, there had been an arrest of a homeless man named Adolph Kallenberg early on Saturday, April 25th. In some respects, he appears to have matched Miniter's description of C. Kniclo.
   Reports differ at the time of his arrest ranging from 1:00 a.m. to 2:00 a.m. The New York Sun stated that he was put before Mary Miniter for identification purposes but she stated he was not the right man. As a result, he was released.
   At the Glenmore, the man on duty on the morning of the 24th named Kelly ( first name either Mike or Tom) provided the police/press a description of the man which was as follows:
   5'9" in height, light complexion, light-colored mustache, long nose, shabby & old Derby hat, German accent, spoke in "broken English", a shabby cutaway coat. In some reports, the hair color is referred to as being brown, but as with Miniter, who was also quoted as saying the man's hair was brown, some other papers mentioned a lighter shade.

   It would be from these two matching descriptions that Inspector Byrnes formed the all-points bulletin that was distributed city-wide early on April 25th:
   "General Alarm!:  Arrest a man 5 feet 9 inches high, about thirty-one years old, light hair and mustache; speaks broken English. Wanted for murder." Thomas Byrnes, Acting Superintendent.
   New York Times, April 26, 1891.
   On Saturday, April 25th, the police verified that the victim's name was Carrie Brown, the identification provided by Catherine McGovern, a fact brought up at the trial. A police file in the District Attorney cache verifies McGovern as being the first to identify her, although newspapers were still found claiming that there was confusion over the victim's identity. One other local woman was also known as 'Shakespeare', contributing to the temporary confusion.
   On Saturday, April 25th, the New York Evening World included a tale told by coalheaver William Mannix, at the time staying in the East River Hotel with a female who he stated was his wife. Mannix told the press that Ali had forcibly tried to gain entry into his apartment while his wife was alone inside two days before Brown's murder while Mannix was at work. Mannix also tells the press that he saw Ali sprawled on the floor in the hallway of the fifth floor on Thursday night (the 23rd) when he came home from work. This would be the first of three known instances involving Ali either going in or trying to go in rooms other than the one he had paid for. Nellie English and Tommy Thompson testified to similar incidents: Thompson at the Inquest and English at the trial.
   In the April 26th edition of the New York Tribune, several people are mentioned in a paragraph that referred to people being detained under orders of Coroner Schultze. William Mannix, incorrectly listed as Manning, was among them, although he may have been brought to police headquarters simply to go back over the story he told the Evening World and had not actually been detained, as were the others mentioned in the paragraph for certain.
   On Saturday, April 25th, seven people: five women and two men, were being held at the Oak Street Station.
   They were: Alice Sullivan, Mary Ann Lopez, Lizzie Carter, Mary Healey, Mary Miniter, William Beckle, a seaman who had been with Brown shortly before the murder ( multiple spellings for his surname appear in several newspapers), and Ameer Ben Ali, not by his real name, but under the alias of George Frank. Other local women were brought in but subsequently let go. From the women mentioned above, Sullivan, Miniter, Healey, and Lopez weren't so lucky. Neither were Nellie English or Mary Harrington. Some spent eight weeks in jail, being released just prior to the trial.

   One amusing but incorrect comment in the April 26th, 1891 New York Sun finds Ali conversing in Greek with an interpreter in the Oak Street Station. Sun reporters would later say in the years ahead that Ali couldn't speak English although in this very same Sun article, it's reported that the detectives learned he had no difficulty in speaking English. Ali played a game with authorities from the minute he was arrested until the time he left the United States.  The only people who were fooled by his charade were those intent on getting him released in the years ahead, including the reporters from the  New York Sun.
   By April Sunday evening, April 26th, blondes were definitely not having more fun in the New York metropolitan area. The New York World, in its April 27th edition, reported that any man with a long nose and a yellow mustache, dark clothes, stood 5'9", and had a battered black derby, was liable to arrest. One report estimated that forty 'long-nosed men', all with blonde or light-colored hair, had been arrested by the end of the month.
   On April 27th, Mary Miniter accompanied the NYPD to Brooklyn to look at Nels Hansen and Henry Weissmann to determine if either was C. Kniclo. She would do this on several occasions for the police department.
   On April 28th, plans were made to take Carrie Brown's body to Potter's Field ( Hart's Island) for burial. She was subsequently taken to Salem, Mass. by a daughter for interment at Harmony Grove cemetery.
   On April 29th, Arbie La Bruckman was arrested on Sixth Street in Jersey City, N.J. At 2:30 p.m. on the same day, La Bruckman is released having provided a solid alibi for the night in question.
   On April 30th, Inspector Byrnes held a press conference and named Ali as the murderer.

   During the two or three days leading up to the April 30th press conference, there was considerable confusion about the actions undertaken by the police which was brought up in the newspapers. On one day, Inspector Byrnes made it seem as if the effort to locate the man described by Miniter, and indeed it was a considerable effort, left little doubt as to who the police felt the killer was. On another day, the impression was that perhaps Arbie La Bruckman, once considered a suspect, was that man, but this theory fell apart on the very day he was located since he had an alibi.

 In the article below, Inspector Byrnes refers to Frenchy # 2 as being cleared. Inspector William McLaughlin testified at the Coroner's Inquest that an inquiry into the whereabouts of a man stated as being 'Frenchy No. 2' was undertaken and that it was determined positively that the individual could not have been involved in Brown's death.  Frenchy #2, a man seen in the vicinity of the hotel and apparently known by some of the local women and allegedly a 'cousin' of Ali's, was theorized as being the man who entered the hotel with Carrie Brown. It had also been considered that Arbie La Bruckman may have been this mysterious Frenchy #2, but again, after being questioned by Byrnes and being able to provide an alibi for the time in question, La Bruckman was released the day he was picked up.
This unnamed man referred to by McLaughlin worked at a riding academy in Manhattan and was nowhere near Water Street on the night in question. There is a good chance that it was the Boulevard Riding Academy, owned by Franco-American Emile Rouhaut.  Insp. McLaughlin mistakingly referred to the riding academy he went to as the Bellevue Riding Academy or the stenographer at the Inquest wrote down the name of a different business. One report I found in 2022 suggests that Frenchy No. 2 was a man named 'John Smith' who lived in 'Double Alley' located at 38 Cherry Street, a stones-throw from the East River Hotel. The identity of the man McLaughlin and the NYPD cleared is still unknown to date. .
Also in the article, we'll come across caustic remarks made by Inspector Byrnes towards the only person who saw Brown and her companion on the night in question, Mary Miniter.  Miniter never wavered in her description of the man with Carrie Brown which seems to indicate that the remarks were made about something else other than the description.

One theory is that Byrnes may have felt that Miniter fabricated the story of C. Kniclo being the man with Brown possibly due to a newspaper report that claimed Mary Ann Lopez and Alice Sullivan had told the reporter Ali and Brown were together in the East River Hotel on the 23rd. Yet, Byrnes is on record saying that Miniter was a cut above the typical person who lived in or frequented the hotel and was intelligent. To date, it's anyone's guess why there was this momentary flare-up between the two.
In some newspaper reports, it was noted that some who had been on the fifth floor had not seen blood where the police would claim it had been located. This two to three-day span, April 27-April 29, was a confusing time for those eagerly following the investigation and the rapid-fire release of often hastily reported articles which were at their peak from April 24 until May 10.
Unlike the London murders, however, reports concerning the murder of Carrie Brown virtually vanished in the Manhattan papers after Ali was sent to prison on July 10th. The Ripper murders are still a full-on industry.

10
East Side Story / Re: ***East Side Story: The Book On-Site***
« on: March 14, 2026, 06:14:40 am »
CHAPTER TWO

 APRIL 1891


Beginning with this chapter about events from April 1891, some content comes from contemporary newspapers from Manhattan. Most people involved in crime research are aware of the pitfalls of relying on the papers for concise reportage of events. A book could be written on the often haphazardly written articles that were the basis of what virtually everyone who read about this case knew about the case. Only a handful of people alive have ever seen the official files and articles that brought up 'behind the scenes' incidents, some of which are found in this volume.

 Only individuals who were present at the trial or Inquest gained first-hand knowledge of what was going on while the vast majority of American readers were reading what were filtered and often biased reports. One newspaper reporter may have been cognizant of the trouble Ali faced due to his pathological tendency to lie and reported objectively, while those who were in Ali's camp from the outset took the stance that he was being 'railroaded', a phrase which is still in use over 130 years later. Collectively, researchers owe a debt to the contemporary newspapers for what was published, yet reportage could and should have been better.
It would be too great of an undertaking to present every possible case-related detail or tidbit for readers to examine. We've included what we felt were the best content and accounts for the reader.

The article in which Inspector Byrnes delivered his April 30th press conference is one of only a handful that we've utilized. It has been included so readers may understand his reasons for suspecting and charging Ali, right from the horse's mouth, and not from anyone else. There were at least 21 daily newspapers published in English alone during 1891 by which readers received their information, which also meant that 21 possibly different interpretations of events were being published during the 10 weeks between April 24th and July 4th, daily. Of course, many articles were similar, but quite a few weren't.



According to the Wall Street Journal on April 23rd, 1891, the weather in Manhattan was 'fair and warm' The headlines on that day read that Horace Greeley's only daughter was married in Pleasantville, NY and President Benjamin Harrison was in California, where he was greeted by children bearing bouquets of flowers and shook hands with a 100-year-old Indian chief. Looking back, it was a pretty humdrum day in America.

Meanwhile, down in the Lower East Side on Water Street at  10:00 p.m., Carrie Brown and a companion who will be forever known by the fictitious name, C. Kniclo, enter the East River Hotel. Within 12 hours, the climate down in the Lower East Side will be anything but 'fair and warm'.

Carrie Brown was murdered in Room 31 of the East River Hotel, a room which measured 12 1/2 ft. by 7 1/2 ft, situated at the far end of the fifth ( top ) floor overlooking Water Street and Catherine Slip. Civil engineer Frederick Reinart provided the measurements for the Court before the May 13-14 Coroner's Inquest.

The following is a recap of the events in April 1891, from ten days before her murder up to the end of the month.  All dates and events are taken from New York dailies, such as the Evening World, Sun, Herald, Tribune, Times, World, and Press.
On April 13th, Ameer Ben Ali was released from Queens County Jail, having been jailed on March 14th for vagrancy.
On April 16th, Carrie Brown is released from Blackwell's Island, sent there for public drunkenness.
On the night of Monday, April 20th, Ameer Ben Ali and Carrie Brown likely spent the night at the East River Hotel unless the man named 'George' that Mary Brennan said was with Brown earlier on the 20th was another man with the same first name. More on this in the chapter,' Mary Brennan and The Broadway Merchant'.
On the night of Tuesday, April 21st, Ali spent the night at the East River Hotel and was there on the morning of the 22nd.
On the night of Wednesday, April 22nd, Ali spent the night at the Hotel according to the trial testimony of Eddie Fitzgerald, a 21-year-old hotel employee who, along with performing custodial work, receives guests and  tended bar.
On the afternoon of Thursday, April 23rd, the day of the murder, Alice Sullivan saw Brown and Ali standing together near the corner of Oak & Oliver Street. In the afternoon of the same day, Sullivan treats Brown to lunch at  'George's' located near the intersection of Roosevelt & Water Streets between 4:30 and 5:00 p.m.
   On the night of the 23rd, Carrie Brown entered the hotel with a man at 11:00 p.m. The man gives 21-year-old hotel habitue, Mary Miniter, a dollar piece for a room costing fifty-cent. He also gives Miniter a dime for a pail of ale. Miniter hands them a candle and the key to room 31 and from there they go up to the fifth floor.
   On the night of April 23rd, Ali arrived at the hotel at approximately 12:00 a.m. Ali handed Fitzgerald 25 pennies for room, number 33, situated 41-42 inches from room 31 on the same floor as Brown and her companion.
  Fitzgerald, like Miniter, hands the money to Sam Shine, the bartender on duty that night.  He spent the rest of the night at the hotel up until 5:00 a.m. or so.
   On Friday, April 24th, at approximately 2:00 a.m., a man entered the Glenmore Hotel in Chatham Square situated 3/10ths of a mile north from Water Street and a 6-minute walk from the East River Hotel.
   The man requests a room from Mike ( or Tom) Kelly, the desk clerk at the Glenmore, and tells him he has no money to pay for lodgings. He is turned away. He has noticeable blood marks on both the back of his hand and a cheek. He is subsequently turned away again when he asks to use the washroom on the ground floor. The man leaves the hotel and is never identified in connection to the crime afterward.
   On Friday, April 24th, Ameer Ben Ali is seen leaving the East River Hotel at approximately. 5:00 a.m. by Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald describes Ali's departure as if he were 'sneaking out' of the hotel testifying to that at both the Coroner's Inquest in mid-May and at the trial, June 24-July 3, 1891.
   On the morning of the 24th, at approximately 9:00 a.m., the aforementioned Fitzgerald went about his duties of knocking on doors to let tenants know it was time to leave. Initially, he receives no response from room 31. After a few minutes, he returns and opens the door with a passkey. He, along with housekeeper Mary Corcoran, would be the first two to see Brown's corpse on the bed around 9:30 a.m. No mention from either about the ladder eventually sketched in the corridor in the New York Evening World on the 25th. Proprietor James Jennings goes to the Oak Street police station, arriving at 9:40 a.m., and informs Sergeant McCarthy that a murder has been committed in his hotel.

   There are conflicting newspaper reports which began on April 24th, concerning who wrote the name of the man who entered the hotel with Carrie Brown in the hotel register. The name was 'C.Kniclo'.
   Some reports attribute Eddie Fitzgerald, while others suggest Mary Miniter. It was neither one.
   Shortly after the discovery of the corpse, manager Tommy Thompson wrote the name in the register, although it was fictitious. Thompson admitted, at the Coroner's Inquest on May 14th, that he was responsible for the name in the register. 
   Much of the misinformation that has been handed down over the past 132 years is a direct result of shoddy newspaper reporting. To be objective, there were probably several instances where locals, not wishing to wind up more directly involved with matters, gave false or factually incomplete statements, which the reporters simply repeated. Competition between newspapers in Manhattan was higher than in the average American city. Some newspapers were notorious for sensationalizing stories to boost circulation. Two notable examples of this are reflected in what was known as 'The Circulation War' between Joseph Pulitzer's New York World and William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal in the 1890s.
   One example is the report on the 24th that hotel utility man, Eddie Fitzgerald claimed to have signed Brown and C. Kniclo in on the 23rd.  This is false. Mary Miniter was the only person at the hotel who actually saw Brown with her companion on the 23rd. Fitzgerald testified at the Coroner's Inquest and the trial that he did not see Brown and her companion.
   
   The police would be provided with a description of C. Kniclo from Miniter which stood the test of time.
   She described him as having a heavy mustache, a fact which will play a large part in the necessary re-evaluation of the narrative that's been handed down all these years. He was, according to Miniter, approx. 5'8 1/2",32-35 years of age, possibly German, based on his 'foreign' accent, slim build, long sharp nose, wore a dark, brown cutaway coat, dark trousers, and a battered Derby hat. His hair color is mentioned as being light in some reports ( and at the trial and inquest)and brown in others.

   On the night of April 24th, Ameer Ben Ali Ali is picked up by Officer Adam Lang at 8:10 p.m., three blocks from the hotel at James Slip & Water Street. Lang was accompanied by Mary Ann Lopez. Lang would be the officer who testified at the Coroner's Inquest regarding the particulars of Ali's arrest.
   The official police blotter for April 24th lists Officers Lang and Griffin at his booking. The blotter is reproduced in D.A. Eugene Philbin's July 10, 1901 letter to Governor Benjamin Odell.
   The time of the booking of Ali occurred at 9:00 p.m. which sounds accurate factoring in the time it took to walk from Water Street to the Oak Street Station.
   The New York Sun reported that detectives Doran and Griffin arrested Ali at 10:00 p.m. in their April 26th edition. No mention of Lopez being with Lang and Griffin. Yet, she was.

11
East Side Story / Re: ***East Side Story: The Book On-Site***
« on: March 14, 2026, 04:42:10 am »
CHAPTER 1


THE ORIGINAL ACCOUNT OF THE CRIME AND CRIME SCENE


Instead of blue-penciling the small and not-so small mistakes found in this report, this New York Evening World reporter's on-site description
 of the room is still worthwhile as a reference in consideration that it goes into detail as to the condition of the room, the victim, and other relevant matters.
It is also an important artifact within the case's history and unless I'm mistaken was the first newspaper report of the murder that was ever published.
 Reproduced as it appeared, misspelled words included.

 New York Evening World
 April 24, 1891

 A RIPPER!

A Woman Barbarously Slaughtered In The East River Hotel.
Strangled First And Then Hacked And Disemboweled.
A Cross Cut On Her Back After She Was Dead.
She Was Taken To The Hotel By A Supposed Greek or Italian.
The Murder Committed Some Time During The Night.
A Description Of The Murder In The Hands Of The Police


[[ An atrocious crime, as horrible in its details as any of the Whitechapel atrocities of Jack the Ripper,
   came to light this morning in the East River Hotel, at 14 Catherine Slip.

The victim is an old woman sixty years of age, well known as a vagrant and streetwalker in that locality.
Her murderer, who escaped before the crime was discovered, is supposed to be a young man about thirty-five years of age, who hired the room with the woman late last night.
His name is unknown, but the one he gave to the bartender of the hotel when he came in with the woman, is C. Kniclo.
He is about thirty-five years of age and is supposed to be either a Greek or an Italian.
The body of the old woman was found lying on the bed in the room about 9 o'clock this morning.
It was shockingly cut and mutilated, apparently with some dull instrument.
The body was completely naked. A deep gash extended from the lower part of the abdomen upward to the breast, which disemboweled it completely.
The entrails had apparently been torn from the body and were scattered over the bed.
There were also two deep cuts crossing each other on the back in the form of an exact cross.
The woman's head was bound up with part of the underclothing and a part of the bed-clothing, which was so tightly knotted together that it took some time to remove them.
There were marks of discoloration about the neck and throat, and it is believed that the murderer strangled his victim first and then proceeded to his horrible butchery.
The body lay upon its side upon the bed. with the back towards the door, so that the marks of the cross upon the back were first visible to those who might enter.
The bed clothing was saturated and dripping with blood, and the spectacle was one of the most fearful that could be imagined.
Sgt. McCarthy was sitting at the desk in the Oak Street station when James Jennings, the proprietor of the hotel, rushed in at 9:40 a.m. and with a blanched face told him
 that a woman had been murdered in his place.
Capt. O'Connor and Ward Detectives Doran and Griffin made all haste to get around there.
They first got the story of the crime from bartender Fitzgerald, of the Fourth Ward Hotel, who was the last to see the woman and her companion.
He said that the old woman, who is known in that locality by the name of 'Shakespeare', came to the barroom early in the evening, where she was joined by another woman
 named Mamie Healy, also a disreputable character of that neighborhood.
They sat together drinking beer for some time, and then the Healy woman went out.
Old 'Shakespeare' sat for awhile and talked with Mary Minotar, the assistant housekeeper of the hotel and then she too went out.
About 11 o'clock the old woman came in again. She had a fairly well-dressed young man apparently about thirty-five years old, with brown hair and a blond
 mustache, and said she wanted a room for the night.
The young man did not say anything, except to tell the clerk, Fitzgerald, that his name was C. Kniclo.
Fitzgerald entered the name in the register, spelling it according to his own ideas of the orthography.
The pair was assigned to room 31 on the top floor, and the key was given to Kniclo after he had paid for the lodging.
Then the old woman turned to her companion and asked him if he would not like to have a pint of beer sent up to the room/He did not say anything,
 but nodded his head and gave her a new ten-cent piece.
The beer was drawn and given to her in a pail, and she went upstairs with it, followed by the young man.
That was the last that was seen of them last night,
Fitzgerald says he thinks the young man must be an Italian or a Greek, for when he gave him his name he seemed to have a foreign accent.
Fitzgerald says that this morning when the couple did not appear, he went up to the room about 9 o'clock to rouse them up.
There had been no noise whatever during the night, and Proprietor Jennings, who occupied the adjoining room, had heard nothing.
he found the door locked, and after knocking several times and getting no response he began to shove it in.
The lock, which was an old one, gave way, and the door burst open, disclosing the horrible spectacle already described.
Fitzgerald at once informed Jennings of his ghastly discovery, and the police soon after took possession.
They detained Fitzpatrick as a witness, and also arrested Mary Minotar, the assistant housekeeper, and found Mary Healy, who has been an old
 comrade of the Shakespeare woman.
There was not a sign of a clue to the man, who must have gone stealthily out of the house during the early hours of the morning after he had accomplished his butcher's work.
Mary Minotar says that while she sat talking with the old woman during the evening previous before the latter went out she learned part of the old woman's history.
The woman told her that her father was a sea captain and that she was once married to a seafaring man named Charles C. Brown.
She had not lived with him in many years and did not know whether he was dead or alive.
The old woman was sober at the time, but Mary Healey, who had left her some time previous, was very drunk when she went away.
The housekeeper said she knew both women only as speaking acquaintances. They frequented a little grocery store in Water Street, known as
 George's place, with many of the abandoned women.
The Healey woman was still in an inebriated condition when the police found her this morning.
She was hysterical and seemed to be on the verge of the horrors, and no information could be obtained from her except that the old woman's
 name was Shakespeare.
She did not know where she came from or where she lived, and said she knew nothing about the young man with the blond mustache, whom the
 police think may be the real "Jack the Ripper".
Coroner Schultze, who was notified by the police, held a preliminary investigation at the Oak Street station but did not get any more out of the
witnesses than has been related.
He gave a permit for the removal of the woman's body to the Morgue.
The police are thoroughly mystified by the case and have not yet obtained the slightest trace of the murderer, as far as can be learned.

At The Scene Of The Crime

When a reporter for the Evening World visited the scene of the awful crime the police were in charge of the house.
The entrance to the bar on the corner of Water and Catherine Streets was open, and the bartender was ready to wait upon customers.
There were few, however, as the terrible crime had apparently cast an awe over the customers who ordinarily frequent the place.
The bartender said he knew nothing of the murder, as he was a new man who had only come on duty today.
He pointed to the rear, however, and said the policeman there knew all about it.
Two or three men stood about the barroom, but they spoke in whispers.
At the foot of the stairs back of the barroom stood a policeman, who graciously made way for the reporter to pass.


The stairs are narrow and bare.
There are five flights, and through the open doors of the rooms opening out on the halls could be seen marks of disorder, as though the
rooms had been hurriedly vacated.
The top floor, where the crime was committed, is partitioned off into even smaller rooms and barer rooms than those seen below.
It was in the corner room, with one window opening on Catherine Street and the other on Water Street, that the deed was done.
At first glance on entering, there was nothing strange apparent.
The extreme bareness of the room was the chief characteristic.
But after taking a single step inside, turning to the left, and glancing at the bed pushed up against the wall, a horrifying sight met the eyes.
There lay a woman with her single garment pulled up around her neck.
She lay in a pool of blood and her own intestines.
An 'X' was drawn with a knife in her flesh below the back.
The blood had flowed down off the bed and made a little pool on the floor.
She lay upon her right side, with her right arm bent back under her.
The left arm was folded over her breast.
One leg was drawn up almost double, and the other was stretched out full length.
The lids of her eyes were closed as though the woman had shut them and with all her strength was endeavoring to keep them shut.
The room was about 8 x 10 feet in dimensions.
The only pieces of furniture were what is known as a single bed, old fashioned and grimy, and a broken washstand and chair.
A dirty mattress and black pillow without a casing were the bed's only furnishing.
On the washstand was a small tin pail, with a few drops of beer in the bottom.
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.
One shoe lay under the bed.
The other shoe had been used as a prop to keep one window up.
The shoes were coarse and, as a policeman said, looked like workhouse shoes.
She was evidently one of the poorest of the poor creatures that frequent Water Street and entice drunken sailors to buy them a drink.
There was an old-fashioned candlestick holder on the stand. The candle had been burned down to the last drop of grease.
From the appearance of the room, the whole horrible tragedy could be readily seen in one's mind's eye.
The couple upon entering the bare little room had begun their debauch by drinking beer from the tin pail.
There were no glasses, but they were not fastidious and were satisfied to tip up the pail and drink to the dregs.
When sufficiently stupefied by drink they retired.
The woman distributed her clothes about the room with the indifference of her class.
When he got ready for his bloody deed, the man grasped her by the throat with one hand, and the other struck her with his knife.
She must have made a struggle, for she had been turned clear around in the bed.
This was evident from the fact that the foot of the leg stretched out at length and touched the pillow. That must have been the recognized
head of the bed, for the fiend had not stopped to arrange anything after his mad thirst for blood had been satiated.
The marks of his fingers were still on her throat.
These discolorations told why the poor woman had not aroused the house with her cries.
Strangled as she was, the man of blood was not troubled in completing the dread work begun.
He ripped her open, and then with maniacal fury tore out her intestines.
She lay on her back and he laid these ghastly symbols of his crime on her stomach.
In the first feeble struggle, the unfortunate creature had been pinioned with the right arm under her.
One leg had been drawn up in her agony.
It was thus she died.
He gazed with fiendish satisfaction at his victim, gloating over the devilishness of his work.
It was while gazing at the bleeding creature in her death throes that she made one final effort and rolled over on her side.
He had but one detail of his awful deed to complete before he made his escape from the terrible scene.
That was to place his mark upon his victim.
This he did by drawing the blade of his bloody knife across the skin below the small of her back in the shape of the letter X.
The light streamed in through the windows from the electric lamps on the street corner, and he had no need for the candle which had burned
 out before he began his bloody work.
He was satiated.
Now to leave the ghastly discovery to be made in the morning.
He stuck the knife under the woman's right hip, where it rested on the mattress, and then without a glance behind left the room.
His escape was easy. It is customary for the guests of this hotel to leave at all hours of the night without explanation, and the occupants of room 31
 last night were not subjected to any unusual inspection.
Two people had entered room 31, and the one that came out and left his horribly mutilated companion on that fatal bed was as free to go as he had been to come.

The Knife Found

The effects found in the murdered woman's clothing were brought to the Oak Street station house along with the knife with which Kniclo carved
and disemboweled his victim.
The effects consisted of a Chinese muslin bag about thirteen inches long and six inches wide.
Two pairs of old-fashioned spectacles, one of which was encased in an old pasteboard spectacle box.
The knife is an ordinary table knife, about eight inches long, with a black wooden handle.
The blade is about an inch wide and slants at the end. It resembles a shoemaker's leather cutter.
The blade near the handle is smeared with blood stains, which are dry.
At 1:40 p.m., Capt. McLaughlin, of the old slip station, came into the Oak Street station, accompanied by Detective Sergeant McCloskey.
They had just viewed the body and went into Capt. O'Connor's private room where Detective Sgt. Crowley, also of Inspector Byrnes' staff, was waiting.
 The four officials held a consultation with the door closed.
Detective McCloskey, who is on the case, says that the body was terribly mutilated.
The bowels were ripped open and part of the intestines cut through. A portion of the viscera is gone. The detective declined to discuss the case.

Not The First Murder There.

The East River hotel, where the crime was committed, has a most unsavory repute both in the neighborhood and with the police. Many suspected
 crimes are alleged to have been covered up within its walls.
The interior appearance of the place bears out its reputation. The rooms are dirty, even filthy, the floors utterly destitute of any sign of a carpet, and many
 of the rooms lack even a chair for the occupants. No person with a particle of self-respect would consent to remain there over night.
Some three years ago a man was found dead on a beer keg just outside the bar room door, with an ugly stab wound in the abdomen.
The bartender, a man named Thompson, was charged with the crime, and his weapon was said to have been a huge Chinese sword, with which it is
claimed he stabbed the man because he would not pay for the drinks he had ordered.
Thompson was tried and acquitted, his boss, it is said, having exercised a large 'pull'.
The place has also been the scene of many suspicious deaths, and within a week, according to a businessman in the neighborhood, a sailor was
 enticed into the place by sirens, made intoxicated, and robbed.
The same merchant characterizes the place as a disorderly resort of the lowest type for depraved characters of all nationalities.]]





12
East Side Story / Re: ***East Side Story: The Book On-Site***
« on: March 13, 2026, 06:06:33 pm »

                                             INTRODUCTION

 This volume contains material and files related to the 1891 murder of Carrie Brown which have never been seen before. Most people became aware of the case
through books or magazine articles which relied almost entirely on newspaper reports or 'Ripper' websites where, on occasion, individuals proposed that Carrie
Brown might have been a victim of the Whitechapel Murderer.   
What the discovery of these files revealed were the seldom mentioned and behind the scenes efforts of attaches of the French Government in America to get
Amer Ben Ali out of jail and that there is enough evidence to dismiss the theory that a hired hand working in Cranford, New Jersey was Carrie Brown's murderer.

Note: regarding the red emboldened section, there may be enough evidence to dismiss the Danish Farmhand theory

 Professor George R. Dekle's, 'The East River Ripper- The Mysterious 1891 Murder of Old Shakespeare', published in 2021, was the first book ever written
 devoted solely to the case in the then-130 years since the crime occurred.   The murder, the trial, and the aftermath of the case were laid out by Professor Dekle.
 He presented three possible scenarios, one of which potentially might lead us to the case's seminal question: the identity of her killer. 
 To the majority of people with a minimal interest in this case, the solution and the killer's identity had already been resolved, based almost entirely on a series
 of events that took place in 1901 that resulted in the release of Ameer Ben Ali in 1902. Mainstream print media rarely covered this case, but when it did, writers
 invariably concluded that Ali was innocent. Professor Dekle was able to distinguish and explain the medical evidence provided in the trial transcripts, which
 was but one reason Ali received a life sentence in prison. Ali is firmly back into the picture and re-established as a viable suspect or possibly having been the actual killer all along. 
Contemporary newspaper reportage of the murder was often unreliable and based on the reporters competing for headlines in a very competitive Manhattan
 market. Magazine articles and references to the case found within books up until 2021 relied entirely on material coming from those contemporary newspapers. 
Articles were often politicized and/or antagonistic toward the police.  An example of this bias is how Ali was often presented in the newspapers as a poor and
 friendless fellow, incapable of speaking in any language well enough to defend himself or be understood, to create an air of sympathy for a man with a track
 record of misogyny and loafing. On the other hand, the female witnesses who spent eight weeks in jail were savaged by the Manhattan press.

 Interest in the murder of Carrie Brown has always been on the back burner in the genre of true crime, never garnering a large following on the Internet or
 anywhere else, despite ten weeks of sensational headlines in 1891 and years of the French government's campaigning to get Ameer Ben Ali out of prison.
 Even Professor Dekle hadn't set out to write a book about the case but actually had planned on writing about Assistant District Attorney, Francis Wellman.
The underwhelming interest in the case has worked well for one and all, as there aren't dozens of absurd
and poorly thought-out cases against suspects, fake diaries, or silly conspiracy theories.

 That the medical evidence used in obtaining a conviction was accepted by the jurors is good enough, at least for me. I also feel the prosecution did a
e Trial. The inability of the defense to prevent their client from testifying at his trial, a monumental disaster which, according to the jurors, two medical experts,
and non-participating observers, had as much to do with his conviction as anything the medical evidence could present at trial. The fact that Ali lied non-stop,
starting the minute, he was detained on April 24, 1891, to the day he boarded a ship for France on April 24, 1902, provides a clear picture of the suspect's character.
I compiled the book in chronological order, deciding to stick to presenting exactly what is known about the people involved without spicing up their lives.
I must also admit in advance that it was necessary to be redundant on several occasions in the book but only in order to make things easier for the reader since
 the aftermath of the trial is far more interesting than the lurid details of the actual crime. Readers should not have to go back and forth over certain crucial facts which will be brought up. 
We'd like to acknowledge the following individuals for their insight and input towards making this book. Time and time again, when yours truly made a goof, one of them was there to put the train back on track. 

 Peter Damgaard
 Michael Banks
 Bernie Wagenblast
 Luke Jerod Kummer
 Jose Oranto
 Mark Franzoi     
 Professor George R. Dekle

 Additional thanks to:                         
 Robert Clack
 Professor Richard H. Underwood
 Roger J. Palmer
 The New York District Attorney Archives
 Finally, we wish to thank the New York State Archives for their informative files. Without the NYSA, this book could not have been written.

13
East Side Story / Re: ***East Side Story: The Book On-Site***
« on: March 13, 2026, 05:54:02 pm »
                                                            Preface

 The first I'd ever heard of Carrie Brown and the murder in the East River Hotel was in 2002. Nina was well aware of the murder and Carrie Brown's
 background before then. She was the one with a degree of interest, whereas I had been indifferent to the case.  My interest began to develop over time,
 not because I was that interested in the killer's identity, but more in the events following Ali's imprisonment. 

As I began to look into the case a little further, the story that a man from New Jersey came out with in 1901 that eventually led to Ali being released 11
 years after his conviction, became a matter of real interest. Like a few others, I thought that something wasn't quite right with it.  Unfortunately, the best
 anyone could do was question it and little more. 

Several discussions over issues in the case that the small circle of dedicated researchers have conducted on Carrie Brown: Murder in The East River
 Hotel site resulted in ground-breaking discoveries, some of which dealt with issues that had never been approached before. None of us had an agenda
 or position to maintain and as a result, the repository of knowledge in 2023 is far greater than just 6 years ago.

Among those who do study the case, some believe Ali was a victim of anti-immigrant sentiment and that he had been a victim of a sinister frame-up.
 Some feel George Damon had something to do with the murder, if not directly, then indirectly.  Some believe C. Kniclo was the murderer, while others
 feel that Ali was guilty after all and that a guilty man had been freed in 1902. There isn't an across-the-board, universally held belief as to the identity
 of the murderer among the few who study the case seriously.

The Brown murder wasn't the only vicious murder of a woman in Manhattan during the latter stages of the Gilded Age, just the most sensational.

Those other women's names are virtually unknown today:  Mary Martin was strangled and disemboweled in 1895; Alice Walsh was strangled and
 dismembered in 1895. From 1895 to 1922, four women were murdered and mutilated in the Big Apple. Two of them, Sarah Martin in 1903 and
 Ellen Tracy in 1922, were killed within spitting distance of the East River Hotel. We know less about them because they lacked a link to the
 Whitechapel Murders, which we find present in Brown's murder in a few ways.   

We've provided as much valuable material as possible to guide the reader through the ins and outs of the case to encourage further interest from those
 who read our book.

The book won't provide a game-ending solution to the murder, although it is an iron-clad certainty that the correct solution is at least included in the
 Scenarios chapter.  In a way, it would be nice to keep this crime's 'ending' left as it is in order that people in the near future put their efforts into
 studying the Brown Murder and perhaps discover more information that will increase our collective knowledge.

The purpose of this chronological history wasn't based on an aim to eliminate one of the two major suspects. Ali or C. Kniclo, but to present facts
 which removes one of the theoretical 'solutions' to the murder that has existed for 122 years since the day George Damon showed up at a Manhattan notary in July 1901.

 Howard Brown



Note: Regarding the red emboldened section, the book does not do that.
 

 

14
East Side Story / Re: ***East Side Story: The Book On-Site***
« on: March 13, 2026, 05:47:29 pm »
 

                                                            CONTENTS

 

1.   Original Crime Scene Report

2.   April 1891

3.   East River Hotel

4.   Glenmore Man

5.   Carrie Brown

6.   Ameer Ben Ali

7.   Inspector Byrnes

8.   May 1891

9.   June 1891

10.  The Inquest & Trial Participants

11. The Women of Water Street

12. Whoa Nellie!

13. The Jurors Speak

14. July To December 1891

15. 1892 To 1901

16.  George Damon Pre 1901

17.  George Damon 1901

18.  The Brass Key

19.  The Danish Farmhand

20.  Train Man

21.  The French Connection

22.  Ovide Robillard

23.  Scenarios

24.  Suspects

25.  Tommy Thompson

26.  The Affidavits

27.  Alexander ‘Clubber’ Williams

28.  DA Philbin's Report

29.  Governor Odell's Decision

30.  1902

31.  Official Files

32. James Dougherty

33.  Unresolved Mysteries

34.  Remaining Questions

35.  Mary Brennan & The Broadway Merchant

36.  To Acquit or Convict

36.  Cast of Characters

38.  Case Progress 2017-2023

39.  Media 1891-2023

40.  Credits and Sources

15
East Side Story / ***East Side Story: The Book On-Site***
« on: March 13, 2026, 04:48:44 pm »
Beginning tomorrow, I will be adding one chapter each day of East Side Story: 1891 Murder Case of Carrie Brown
to this thread. I hope to be finished by April 23rd of this year.

                                                   April 23rd will mark 135 years since the Murder In The East River Hotel occurred in 1891.


Comments will be most welcome. In fact, there are a few things that might need correction due to findings made by site researchers since the book's publication.

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