Carrie Brown : Murder In The East River Hotel

Ah, ok, I assumed the consulate address would have been mentioned, sorry

D'Abzac's home address, from the 1890 NY Directory:

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Noticed the NY public Library has a letter he wrote 1890 online https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/e27318a0-b0e0-0133-8e28-00505686d14e?canvasIndex=0
Not relevant to anything

Some further crimes:

The Sun, Feb 8, 1875

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Tribune, july 13 1884

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Just to add this snippet, which describes Alice as a little "cleaner and younger" than Miniter and Lopez

The Sun, May 15 1891:
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Good finds, Howard.

I don’t know why she’d claim to have been at hersister’s when it was already known that she’d gone to jail several times

No problem, Howard.

I haven't considered Alice Sullivan in that light, I actually thought her refusal to give her maiden name was a real act of integrity.

Yes, it's confusing what she means by not seeing her family for four years or three years, I interpret it as her distinguishing between seeing them in the flesh, hearing from her parents (getting a letter) and hearing about her parents from her sister.

So she's answering differently because she interprets the questions a bit freely - she hasn't seen her parents in four years but she's heard from her sister a year ago who told her the parents are still alive, or something like that. She's perhaps a little slow - notice how the recorder keeps reminding the lawyers "She doesn't understand you" due to her limited vocabulary. Honestly the sketch in the paper seems to match, depicting a somewhat vapid woman.


Looking at her testimony:

She was born in White Plains - no state. I'm uncertain whether White Plains, Ill. was a real placename in the 19th century? I noticed it exists now, but did it then? I think it must be considered the most likely place for her origins.

She married a man called Sullivan; he was a first class cooper for Scoville & Bates in Chicago and worked for them 21 years.
I havent' found a known company by that name, but Scoville and Gates started a partnership in the 1840s, then formed their separate companies, so either she meant one of the companies or she meant he worked alternately for both?

She lived longer in Chicago than in NY, after her husband worked 21 years for Scoville & Bates, she lived with him in NY.

Her husband died in 11 may 1881, at the residence of his mother.

She was at the time living in White Plains (no state), with her parents and sisters (note: says sisters, not brothers and sisters. Either she had no brothers or they were adults living elsewhere at the time)

3-4 four years before 1891, her parents were living in Henry, Illinois. 1 year before 1891, she had a sister living in White Plains (no state) who'd communicated with her and told her the parents were still alive (and presumably still living in Henry).


White Plains and Henry are both placenames in Illinois, and her husband worked 21 years in Chicago. We don't know how long Alice lived with him in Chicago, but it was longer than she lived in NY. Speaking in 1891, she'd lived with her husband since he came to NY, that is before 1881.
So in 1891 she'd lived at least ten years in NY. This implies she'd lived more than ten years in Chicago, so probably at least from 1870-1880.

This puts her age at time of trial at least at 40? Born no later than 1850, in order to marry no later than 1870.

Her sketch in the paper places her age at anywhere from 25-55, I think.

Thanks for trying

In Chicago, he worked at ‘Scoville and Bates’, I think this is Scoville Ironworks, which originally was a partnership between Scoville and Gates?

They lived at W Desplaines Street 176, (or was it E?)  also sometimes written as Des Plaines Street.

I looked at some 1870s Chicago directories couldn’t see any E-W, only Desplaines street N-S.