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NAMES IN THE NEWS:
CRIMES |
Famous Murder Mystery. Was Finally Solved through Clever Work by a Young Detective
Submitted by Barbara
Date: 1901-02-14; Paper: Weekly Republican
Senator Cocks, of Nassau county, this week introduced a bill in the legislature to abolish the death penalty in this
state. It may not be generally known, but it is a fact, just the same, that the death penalty was actually abolished
once in this state, and by reason of it, though the law was quickly repealed, one of the most extraordinary murderers
on record in this city escaped the gallows, and in a most extraordinary way says the New York Sun, Gaboriau never
wrote a detective story that exceeds in interest and surprise the case of this man. It began with one murder, which
was quickly.followed on the same night by another murder, and after that a third murder, which ended
the life of the man who committed the first two.
Just before the war between the north and south began, a well known citizen resided in Eighteenth street, near third avenue,
a neighborhood in those days where many rich men lived, His name was John Walton. One evening Walton was shot dead
in the street as he was walking toward his house. As the fatal shot was fired, a man named John W. Matthews, who was on
the block, saw a man run toward Lexington avenue. Matthews, gave chase. He was fast outstepping the man when the latter
suddenly turned, a shot rang through the air, and Matthews fell dead. By this time a crowd had started after the murderer,
who had turned into a side street.
When the crowd got to the corner there was no sign of the man anywhere.. He had vanished as if the earth had swallowed him.
The murder of Walton and Matthews set the whole city in an uproar. The police were at sea. Why was Walton killed? What
was the motive of the murderer? A moment before he met his death a friend was certain, that there was no one on the block
at the time but Walton and himself. Evidently then, the murderer must have been behind a tree when he fired on Walton,
The latter's neighbors began to talk, they remembered that Charles Jeffords, twenty-two years old, Walton's stepson had had
frequent quarrels with Walton, and that the young man's mother always sided with her son.
Was young Jefferds the murderer? That was impossible, as he was known to be at a hotel in Brooklyn, and had been seen
there the night of the murder, sauntering about in his usual way. However the talk became so hot about him that Jefferds, just
as an Innocent man would do, sent word to the coroner that he would place himself at his official disposal, for said he, "I am
getting sick of the talk connecting my name with that awful crime. True to his word ,he appeared before the coroner, and a
horde of respectable men testified that they saw him at the Brooklyn hotel the night of the murder about the time Walton was
said to have been killed.
Every body was convinced that Jefferds had nothing to do with the murder, the coroner apologized to him for the unnecessary
trouble he had been put to. But everybody was not convinced the exception was Nelson J. Waterbury, the district attorney.
He got the grand jury In some way, to indict young Jefferds for the murder. The trial soon followed. It was on every tongue
while it lasted. The newspapers were full of it. Well, when It was ended, Jefferds, amid the cheers of his friends, walked
smilingly out of court—a free man. The jury,had acquitted him.
That ended it all said Jefferd's friends and the general public agreed with them. But one man still considered Jefferds the
murderer. True, Jefferds acquitted, could, if guilty have boasted of his guilt, and the law, under the constitution ,could not
have harmed a hair of his head. But the one man who believed him guilty of killing Walton said to himself: "The man who killed
Walton killed Matthews. Jefferds can never be tried for the killing of Walton but the murderer of Matthews has not been put
on trial yet. The obdurate man was Nelson J. Waterbury.
Full of health, naturally robust, young Jefferds enjoyed life after his acquittal to the fullest extent. His mother had a lovely villa
on Long island near the sound. There was yachting there: Jefferds was fond of boating
There was plenty of fishing; Jefferds was a great angler. Besides there were cozy places in the not far away neighborhood
where corn whiskey was in abundance, and where jovial young men assembled in the evening. Jefferds liked, merry
company, and he liked whiskey ,too, and he was often nights the merriest of the merry.
One young man he met among the merrymakers Jefferds took a great liking to. This young man always had plenty of money.
He was evidently some one who, during the summer, had all the time he wanted to enjoy himself. He and Jefferds became
great churns Indeed, they finally became so inseparable, and Jefferd's mother took such a liking for the young man that
she insisted on his spending the summer at her villa. She thought the tavern hotel was not good enough for such a nice young
fellow. The summer days passed on pleasantly, and the two young men when they sat at a table with Mrs. Walton playing a
friendly game of cards, amused her with tales of their mishaps on their boat.
But the boating and fishing had not been done without considerable interchange or views of life and things generally between
the two friends. Jefferds had several times alluded to his trial for the murder of Walton. One day he laughingly remarked: "What
fools those jurors were." And he calmly told his friend that when Walton came along that night he was hid behind a tree on the
corner of Eighteenth street and third avenue. "I shot him dead'' exclaimed Jefferds with a laugh. His friend shrugged his shoulder
and said he did not believe him. "Why. remarked the friend." ! suppose the next thing that you will say is that you shot Matthews."
It was a lively race between me and Matthews," said Jefferds. "If he had minded his own business, I would not have killed him."
The man in the boat with Jefferds laughed. "Why, Jefferds. It was proven in the Walton trial that you were in Brooklyn that night."
Jefferds sneered. Then he told how, after shooting Matthews, he had turned the corner and lay hidden under a stoop until the
crowd whirled by. Then he stowed the pistol in a crevice in the wall and jumped on a Fourth avenue car. Opposite the Astor
house he dashed down Broadway to Whitehall street, leaped on a ferryboat just going out and was soon sitting in the public
room of the hotel with other loungers. Jefferd's friend pooh-poshed the whole story.
About a week after this Jefferds and his friend came to this city to have a good time. The two ended their bout in a tavern called
"The Store" in Bleeker street. As they were coming out a policeman arrested Jefferds. "For what?" queried Jefferds. "For the
murder of John W. Matthews." "Fiddle-Sticks" replied the young man, "the man who killed Walton killed Matthews and I was
acquitted of killing Walton. What a farce" Jefferds begged his summer friend to visit him often.
A year and a half had passed since Walton's murder. The trial of Jefferds for the Matthews murder came on. Jefferd's summer
friend, had not abandoned him. He sat beside him every day in the count room. Jefferds was cool and unconcerned. He was
confidant of acquittal . He said so to his friend frequently and his friend nodded his (head and smiled as if to say "They have a
poor case."One day during: the trial Jefferds turned deathly pale. He clutched the chair in front of him for support. His eyes
fairly smarted out of his head. His friend had left his side and gone to the witness stand at the beck of the district attorney.
These were the questions Jefferds heard the district attorney ask and the. answers of his friend:
"What is your name?"
"William V. Moore."
"What is your occupation?"
"Member of the Metropolitan police force"
Then came the rest—all that summer friend's story of what Jefferds had told him about the killing of Matthews.
But what of that without corroborative evidence? It came The pistol that was hidden in the wall. Two bullets were missing.
The ones that killed Walton and Matthews were of the same caliber. They fitted the pistol. More than that—Moore had found
the man who had sold the pistol to Jefferds. He identified it.
"Guilty of murder in the first degree" was the verdict of the jury.
Jefferds was never hanged. While the trial was on the law abolishing capital punishment was repealed, so under the then
existing law he was to remain in prison for a year under sentence of death, and then when the governor should fix a date he
was to be hanged. But no governor cared to make himself the hangman, and so Jefferds remained there perpetually under
the sentence of death. But one day he himself was murdered by a fellow convict who almost cut his head off with an axe
while Jefferds was reading a novel in the hay loft in it he jail yard. And strange to say the convict who killed him was
acquitted when put on trial.
As for Moore, the happiest day "of his life was when he heard of the death of Jefferds, who had sworn if he would ever get
out of prison it would he to kill Moore. Moore was for years after this terrible detective work a clerk in The detective office in
Mulberry street when John A. Kennedy was superintendent of police. He never got over the terror of Jefferd's threat to take
his life, and gradually broke down, became half dernented, and sank out of existence.
"Charles Becker (July 26, 1870 - July 30, 1915) was a New York City police officer in the 1890's and 1910's and who was tried, convicted and executed for ordering the murder of a Manhattan gambler, Herman Rosenthal. Becker was the first American police officer to receive the death penalty for murder. The scandal that surrounded his arrest, conviction, and execution was one of the most important in Progressive Era New York in the 1890s and 1910s."
Professional Poisoners Dr.
Meyer and His Wife Murdered Men for
Insurance Money
The Idaho
Avalanche,
(Silver
City, ID) Saturday, January 06, 1894; Issue 20;
col D
Transcribed by Janice
Rice
"Murder
most foul, strange and
unnatural," said the
ghost of hamlet's father when speaking of
his
own death by poison. Truly this is the
vilest form of murder, but
life insurance
men say
it is increasing. The latest case is almost
to horrible for that belief, and yet
it seems to be proved
that Dr. Henry C. F.
Meyer and his wife Mary,
recently arrested in
Detroit and taden (sic
taken) to New York,
made murder by
poisoning there business, and
the list of their victims include
two of his
former
wives, her alleged husband, and innocent servant
girl and no one knows how many others. The
last case and the one
most conclusively
proved, was the poisoning in New York of
their
confederate, Ludwig
Brandt.
But Dr.
Meyer's story
is best told in the order of
time. He is a
German
and he located in
Chicago about 1876, graduating in medicine a
year or two later. He was married and his
wife died very
suddenly. Soon after he
married a Mrs.
Gelderman, whose
husband a well to do
grocer, had also died
suddenly. The newly
married pair were
arrested, but as no poison was found in the
bodies of the dead
they could not be
held.
At least one
detective, however, believed that Dr. Meyer
had
invented a new and subtle poison and for
a
long time kept
acquainted with the doctor's
doings. He secured employment
as the
agent for a
life insurance company and was arrested for
forging a policy for $2,500 , but the matter
was compromised and
the prosecution
dropped. In the fall of 1882 a
newspaper man
who had known Mrs. Gilderman
-Meyer during
the life of her first
husband, saw her on
Clarke street so sick that she could barely
stand. He assisted her
home, and on the way
she intimated to him
her life was in danger.
Next day her child, a little daughter of
Gilderman was found
dead -"drowned in the
bathtub" Dr. Meyer
said.
Mrs.
Gelderman-Meyer openly declared that the
doctor
had drowned the child, as it was the
heir of
its father, and Meyer
had charge of some of
the property, but none of it could be
proved. That Mrs.
Meyer, escaped, however,
for the Doctor ran
away
with another woman.
The next case of note, was in Toledo where
Dr
.Meyer tried to collect, $5,000 insurance
on
the life of another
woman who had died
suddenly. An inquiry was set on foot, and he
and his supposed wife fled from the city,
taking a buggy as for an
evening ride
and
never returning . The report of that case
brought another detective to the scene, who
declared that the dead
woman was not Dr.
Meyer's sister, as he had alleged, but
a
poor and unknown girl whom he had picked
up
in Indianapolis. While
in Toledo, he hired
one Mary Neiss as
a domestic and
persuaded her
to represent "Mrs.
Weiler" (that was the name he assumed in
Toledo) and take out an insurance of
$5,000
in the Equitable. It
now appears that while
in another city this girl was taken ill
suddenly, became
suspicious, refused all
medicine from the
Dr. and
his wife and left
them as soon as she was able. And this is
but a
small part of which is charged against
him,
for detectives from
other places have been
on his track. It was in January,
1892,
that the Meyer
gang, for now they had with them two
confederates, appeared in New York and
rented apartments in the
flats at 316-326
East
Thirteenth Street.
Of the
confederates the one
known as Wimmer has disappeared. The
other
Ludwig Brandt, a swindler in his
native
Germany and had once been
in prison in
America.
The game, as he understood it, was for him
to get heavily insured, then to be taken
sick, and in due time a
corpse was to be
procured and placed in the bed he had
occupied,
and all the rest would be easy.
But the
Meyers had other views. He
was their victim,
He
and Mrs. Meyer were known as Mr. and Mrs.
Gustave H. M Joseph
Baum and Dr. Meyer as her
uncle. Baum or
Brandt took sick and
was treated by Dr. S. B. Minden for
dysentery. He had
unbounded confidence in
his confederates and
was
not all alarmed
when Dr. Minden told him his condition was
dangerous.
It was
indeed. He
sank rapidly and died in a
stupor. Subsequent
examination has proved
poisoning by
antimony. Two companies
in which the victim was insured paid
at once
but, the
Mutual Life started an investigation. Again the
poisoners escaped, and for a year and a
half the hunt
continued before they
were run down. When captured in Detroit,
they were almost in
starving condition,
though it is alleged
that
they left New York
with at leas $20,000. They had one child and
soon after her arrest, the woman again
became a mother.
She
is
quite handsome and does not look to be over
25 years old.
How Some People
Live
On Thursday morning, a
dandy-looking chap,
calling himself JOE DeLUCE, and a
colored female, known to the police as LIZE
CONNOLLY at the
Tombs, charged with keeping a notorious den
of infamy at No. 102 Church-street. The
happy couple were locked
up to answer the
complaint, and of their manner of living, Captain CARPENTER of the Fifth Ward Police
makes the following report:
“This
black woman and white
man long kept a house
of prostitution at No. 137 Duane-street, but
recently moved to No. 102 Church, and many a
white man, half
drunk, has been inveigled
into their den and robbed. They have
been
arrested frequently, but, unfortunately, their victims would
rather submit to a loss of money than a loss
of character by
exposure.
“And,
again, when arrested by the police, they
have escaped having justice meted out to
them by having plenty of
money to employ
able counsel. I have now undertaken to bring these
vile wretches to justice, they being the
worst ones in this Ward,
and I earnestly
call upon some of the good citizens who have been
complaining to the Mayor of these same
parties, to come forward
now, and aid us in
teaching such characters that there is law, and
moral courage enough to enforce it.”
[The New York Times, June
2, 1855.
Transcribed by Melissa]
SARGEANT
MANSFIELD, of the Lower Police Court,
arrested an old
offender on Thursday, called
JOHN
WHITE,
charged with being concerned with several other
ruffians in beating and robbing JOHN
JOHNSON in
Cherry-street. The eyes of the unfortunate man
were gouged and the flesh of his face
severely bruised and
blackened. The
assailant was locked up for trial. [The New
York Times, June 2, 1855. Transcribed by
Melissa]
A Caution to Corner
Boys
Francis
Hughs, Stephen Fox, Patrick
Hay, and James Fitzgerald, who
were passing their time with “star gazing”
on the corners of
streets on the evening of
Sunday, were arrested and provided with
a
night’s lodging in the Station-House cells, on complaint of one
Henry Sluke. They
were in the morning
discharged by Justice Brennan. [The
New York Times, August, 1855. Transcribed by
Melissa]
Assault by
Rowdies
Mr.
George W.
Cumberland, of No. 64
Vesey-street, made complaint at the
Mayor’s
Office yesterday, that as he and a friend named Charles Gray were passing by the corner or
Prince and Elizabeth street, on Sunday night
last, at about 11 ½
o’clock, they were set
upon by several rowdies who were armed with
slung-shots, and who knocked them down, beat
them and then run
away. [The New York
Times, August, 1855. Transcribed by
Melissa]
Woman’s Fight
A woman
named Ann Scanlon
had her head split
yesterday by her sister,
while they were fighting. She was
conveyed
to the City Hospital. [The New York Times, August,
1855. Transcribed by
Melissa]
A Youthful
Pickpocket
Thomas Delany, a
young
man, eighteen years of age, was arrested yesterday, caught
in the act of picking a lady’s pocket, at
the New-Haven Railroad
Depot,
Twenty-ninth-street. He was committed by Justice Pearcy. [The New York Times, June
8, 1855. Transcribed by Melissa]
Robbing a
Lodger
Widow
Duffy, the
keeper of a Sailor’s
Boarding House No. 42 Hamilton-street, in the
Seventh Ward, was arrested yesterday,
together with two men name
John Regan and James
Harding, charged with assaulting Mr.
Peter Begley, of Blair County, Pa. and
robbing him of $70. The accused were taken
before Justice Connolly, at the Essex
Market Police
Court, and committed for
examination. [The New York Times,
June
8, 1855. Transcribed by Melissa]
Street Sharpers
Four
alleged thieves, named Michael Downey,
John Gillen, Michael
Maning and Thomas
Wells, were arrested yesterday,
charged with knocking down
and attempting to
rob a man named Morris
Stewart. There are three separate
charges against each of
the accused. They
were committed for examination. [The New
York Times, June 8, 1855. Transcribed by
Melissa]
