Forthcoming Book About Old Shakespeare Murder

[Howard Brown]

If the register was only filled in on the morning of the 24th what about the other names listed for the fifth floor that night? Were they all added the next morning by Thompson or whoever? The names listed as renting rooms on the top floor of the hotel were all Irish with the exception of “C. Knicklo.” Did Thompson, or whoever, just run out of Irish names and decided to make one up (and of unknown ethnicity)?
-Wolf-

For all we know, Thompson might have written them all in in consideration of the fact that a murder had occurred on that floor and I believe that the hotel and any other hotel, even glorified whorehouses like the East River Hotel, had to have names in the register if the rooms were rented by law.

What about the fact that the register lists two different names having rented room 30? “J. Buckley” and “J. Murphy” were said to have both rented the room at some point during the night, with, apparently, Murphy renting the room with a woman, then moving on before Buckley rented the room. The next day it was announced that “J. Buckley” was actually “Frenchy” and that he had stayed in room 33. But the register showed that no one had stayed in room 33 and that Buckley/Frenchy had stayed in room 30.
-Wolf-

I see you also know the list of the names...which I should have acknowledged in the previous post.
It may well be down to Thompson writing down the wrong numbers, but that's just my assumption at this point.

[Howard Brown]

Why were Ben Ali’s lawyers not allowed to see the register? Why did the D.A. state that the register would appear as evidence at the trial, and Ben Ali’s lawyers could see it then, and why, then, did the register disappear, as far as I know, never to be seen again?

If this is true, then how did an out of town newspaper know all the four names on the list ?

As you can see above, Dekle mentions none of this but instead just goes by one version of the story given by the prosecution witnesses. Shades of grey are not what Dekle is selling. So what is, in my opinion, the takeaway from the Mystery of the Hotel Registry Book?

The probability is that the registry was never kept up to date and is useless as evidence in a murder trial. Did the murderer give the name “C. Knicklo” when he entered the hotel? No one can say but if he did it doesn’t mean that the police had only to find a man with that name and they had their murderer. No one had to prove that they were who they said they were so fake names could easily be given without fear that they would be checked. “C. Knicklo” is useless as evidence to prove anything. As for which room Ameer Ben Ali spent the night in it was probably, but not conclusively shown to be, room 33. In all likelihood the notation that “J. Buckley,” i.e. Ben Ali, spent the night in room 30 was a slip of the pen and the clumsy attempt at changing the room number to 33 was just an attempt at fixing that error after the room number grew in importance.
-Wolf-

Byrnes disparaged Miniter in a May 1st, 1891 edition of the Evening World and now, sadly, you seem to be, too. In fact, Miniter is a stalwart in this case in that she did not deviate from her testimony at trial concerning the description of the man with Brown she gave the police on April 24th as she states clearly that she gave C. Kniclo the key ( and candle and beer, etc) to go to Room 31. Even while Byrnes is condemning her in the press, the girl stuck to her guns on the stand and stated Room 31.

However, the fact that the story of the register changed whenever it seemed to go against the police and D.A.’s storyline and how the register ultimately just disappeared is of great importance. The defence team, especially in a first degree murder trial, had every right to see the registry and to use it against the prosecution’s case but this evidence was withheld by the D.A.’s office.
-Wolf-

If the defense team was denied access ( as they claimed), how did an out of town newspaper have access to it ?

[Howard Brown]

It remains to be seen how the evidence found under Ali's nails and examined by two of the foremost medical men in the United States can be dismissed in 2021, evidence which matched what was found in Brown's blood.

The entire question of what room anyone was in other than Brown is really not as important as it is being made out by Wolf....in my opinion. Nellie English proved that with her testimony of Ali going door to door on that floor ( Why, after the Mannix affair, he was even allowed in the hotel is baffling) and actually entering one to hook up with a woman whose man had just left.

In my opinion and not a fact, Wolf brings up questions which were worthy of contemplation at the time and still may be, but in the final analysis are less important in consideration of what led the D.A. to charge him.

Until anyone can dismiss Flint & Formad's findings, the case against Ali was correct even though the police ( Byrnes) did seem to be attempting to frame Ali with the disparaging remarks found in the NY Evening World on May 1st ( right after or on the same day Ali was charged with Brown's murder....the 30th) where Byrnes called her some awful names, even if true..and said she had been untruthful. Well, if she was being untruthful, it had nothing to do with her description of C. Kniclo ,which mirrored what Kelly at the Glenmore Hotel had told a reporter and/or the police.....and which she stuck to. This is why I removed the entire 462 thread section of JTR Forums related to Carrie Brown because I had tainted it with my jabbering on about how Ali was framed....and that only 'Frank' the farmhand could have committed the murder.....

But back to Wolf.

[Abby Normal]

Although Mr. Dekle did an impressive amount of research for his book (there are 23 pages of notes), and he provides his sources for the above, all the information I’ve highlighted here is wrong. Dekle did his research, which at first glance looks impressive (i.e. he Lived by the research), but the above information, which he found through that research, and used in his book, was incorrect (he Died by the research). In other words, research alone doesn’t automatically make you right, although it might appear impressive. It takes as many sources as you can find, corroboration of information from those sources, weighing the information and interpreting that information. And it all has to be done with an objective mind set. Or at least should be, but that’s just me, apparently.
-Wolf

First of all, Dekle was just giving the readers a back drop to the Brown murder. He is not a Ripperologist, but it should be known that he got ALL his information from reading what Ripperologists have written.
Hence, his 'Jack the Ripper' material, as I alluded to previously by pointing out a couple of mistakes he made and is cognizant of are irrelevant in the scheme of things. His book is NOT about a 'Jack The Ripper' murder.

By the way, he reached out to you early on and you never responded to him. Your vast amount of 'Ripper' knowledge might have pre-empted what you criticize him for.

hi howard
for what its worth from a laymen if i started reading his book and first off see these kind of errors, especially right off the bat i might stop right there. for me it ruins any kind of credibility and then i cant really trust whatever else what the writer says is true. it happened when i started reading cornwalls book on sickert where she asserted near the beginning of the book that most of the ripper letters were written by sickert. i was done right there. but maybe thats just me.

[Howard Brown]

What sort of errors ? Brown related or Ripper related ?
I pointed out that whatever Prof. Dekle wrote about the Whitechapel Murders was gleaned from Ripperologists....and to be blunt, from this site, not the Forums as he had no idea it existed.
All I will say and I'm not trying to convince other adults what or what not to purchase....is that if you are interested in the Brown Murder, Ali Trial, and the Aftermath, then Prof. Dekle's book is a great start to accelerate your interest in the Case. As anyone knows, it took quite a few years before a good book on the WM appeared. In regard to the Brown Murder, it took 130 years but it was worth it.

[Howard Brown]

This is from the New York Sun on April 25th, 1891....and does not contain the name I clearly remember ( Warder) appearing in the out of town paper. It was published one day after the murder or at least, the second day after Brown entered the Hotel for the last time :

D. Connor and wife Room 29
J. Buckley Room 30
J Welch and Wife Room 28
_____Reilly Room 32

The 4 names which appeared in the Sun article are listed above.

I added Ali and Brown's names.

[Howard Brown]

In retrospect, I might have erred in that another name found in the press, no room number, was James Wilson.
Skip the Warder entry....it was probably Wilson.
What room he was in ( The hotel 'rules' forbade single men going up to that floor...yet Shine took money from Fitzgerald who got it from Ali to take a room on the 5th floor...so much for rules) is not designated from what I have in my files..

[Howard Brown]

Wolf:

I'll provide my responses on The Forums in the future. I'll set up a thread and send you the link.

Brown

[Herlock Sholmes]

What sort of errors ? Brown related or Ripper related ?
I pointed out that whatever Prof. Dekle wrote about the Whitechapel Murders was gleaned from Ripperologists....and to be blunt, from this site, not the Forums as he had no idea it existed.
All I will say and I'm not trying to convince other adults what or what not to purchase....is that if you are interested in the Brown Murder, Ali Trial, and the Aftermath, then Prof. Dekle's book is a great start to accelerate your interest in the Case. As anyone knows, it took quite a few years before a good book on the WM appeared. In regard to the Brown Murder, it took 130 years but it was worth it.

I’m currently reading it How and I’m fascinated so far. Unlike yourself and Wolf I’m a complete newbie to this case apart from hearing the basics (which I’d guess that anyone interested in the ripper case would know) After reading it I’ll look at the dissertations on here then I’ll re-read yours and Nina’s Rip articles then I’ll check out the stuff over at JTRForums. I have a small pile of other books to read but it might be a while until I get to them.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I’d recommend this book to anyone. I’d never looked at the case before but it’s an intriguing (and frustrating) one. Well worth a look into.

And talking of ‘well worth a look into…’

https://carriebrown.net/

[Wolf Vanderlinden]

I think it’s difficult for the uninformed reader to clearly understand exactly what was going on during the police investigation into the murder of Carrie Brown by telling the story linearly, as Mr. Dekle does. The investigation started off going in a certain direction, thoroughly reported on by the newspapers. However, it then swerved into an altogether different direction. This second direction made a farce of what the police had been saying, and what the reporters had witnessed, and raised serious questions about the guilt of Ameer Ben Ali. I would like to (briefly) write about what appears to be the two separate narratives that made up the police case against Ben Ali.

The First Police Investigation:

On Friday, 24 April, 1891, Captain Richard O’Connor, of the Oak Street Station House, was informed that a murder had been discovered at the nearby East River Hotel. The captain, with two precinct detectives, hurried over to the hotel, arriving there at around 10:00 a.m., and found the murdered and mutilated body of a woman lying on a bed in room 31 on the top floor (5^th) of the hotel. The woman’s body had been slashed with a knife (one very deep wound to the left abdomen, some less deep cuts running from the lower abdomen, between the legs and up the buttocks and back and also various light wounds, some just scratches). The knife was found in the room, two pieces of the small intestine were removed from the body and lay on the bed, along with the left ovary. Clothing and a sheet from the bed were wrapped around the victim’s head and neck and knotted tightly. Captain O’Connor locked up the room and left a man guarding the bottom of the stairway while he went to report the murder to the Central Detective Office on Mulberry Street.

O’Connor and some Central Office Detectives arrived back at the hotel between 11:00 – 11:30 a.m. and were quickly followed by, or were hot on the heels of, the Coroner and over a dozen crime reporters, all of whom were allowed to go up to the 5^th floor, see the murder room, and wander the hotel. The reporters interviewed witnesses, looked at the hotel register and generally looked for clues that might throw some light on the mystery for their readers. This is a crucial point.

Newspaper articles from the very start of the investigation, when no one had yet heard of “Frenchy,” state that after a search, the reporters found “blood spots” on the scuttle, or trap door, leading to the roof and also bloody water in a wash bowl in room 32. They saw no other blood outside of room 31, the murder room, and none in that room beyond a foot from the bed on which the body lay. “No Blood Tail,” was a section heading in the New York World on the 25^th, and the article pointed out that “A strange thing about the case is that no marks of blood appear either upon the furniture of the room or on the door knob or wood work.”

Meanwhile the police had obtained an excellent description of the supposed murderer, “C. Knicklo,” given by Mary Miniter, the woman who had rented the room to the murdered woman and her male partner. He was about 32 to 35 years old, about 5 feet 8 ½ inches tall with a slim build. He had a long sharp nose, light brown or blond hair with a heavy, light brown or blond, moustache. He was wearing a dark brown cutaway coat, dark pants and a battered and dented derby hat. Miniter thought he might be German. A version of this description went out to all precincts and out onto the wire to police in other cities. This began what one newspaper called the largest dragnet in New York City history. This is also a crucial point.

The police were also able to quickly identify the victim as Carrie Brown, known locally as “Shakespeare” and also “Jeff Davis,” after the ex-president of the Confederate States, for some unknown reason (Dekle confuses another woman, Annie Campbell, who he doesn’t identify but calls “young Shakespeare,” who was more famously known as “Shakespeare,” with this “Jeff Davis” alias). They were also able to trace Brown’s movements on her final day. She had spent most of the day at 49 Oliver Street, where she sometimes lived. A friend, Alice Sullivan, stated that she had taken Brown to a free lunch counter in a saloon on Water Street (i.e. Sullivan paid for the drinks that allowed them to eat for free). They had reportedly eaten cheese sandwiches, corned beef and pickled cabbage, a meal that would become important later on.

Back at Oliver Street witnesses told police that two men, their names were unknown but they were both known as “Frenchy,” and were said to be cousins, came in looking for a certain woman, who wasn’t there at the time. They chatted with Brown and later the three left together and ended up at a nearby saloon. One of these men was described as being tall, with black hair and a dark complexion (he would be called “Frenchy No.1”). The other was described as his opposite: medium height with light coloured hair and a light complexion (“Frenchy No.2”). Both were immigrants who spoke English poorly. It was also learned at some point that “Frenchy No.1” had spent the night at the East River Hotel in a room on the top floor.

Sometime between 10:30 and 11:00 p.m., Brown and “C. Knicklo” entered the East River Hotel and asked for a room. They were given the key to room 31 on the top floor and they went up the narrow rickety stairs – she was never seen alive again and he just vanished. Or did he?

At around 2:00 o’clock on the morning of the murder a blood stained man, who was acting strangely, and who fit the description of “C. Knicklo,” down to the “shabby” derby hat (although there must have been thousands of those on the East Side), and an accent that the night clerk took to be German, entered the Glenmore Hotel, just blocks from the East River Hotel, and asked for a room. When asked what priced room he wanted the man said that he had no money and so was turned away.

Was this the murderer? Mr. Dekle states that “some newsmen speculated” that this might be true. This ignores the fact that the police investigated this lead and even appear to have amended the description of the murderer given out on Saturday, the 25^th, because of it. One Central Office detective interviewed by the New York Press (27^th of April) was also quoted as saying that “The energies of the entire police force… are directed now toward running down the man who applied for a room at the Glenmore Hotel early Friday morning, as we believe he was the one who committed the deed.” This appears to go beyond just “some newsmen” speculating.

Given Mr. Dekle’s belief that Ameer Ben Ali was the murderer, he obviously disagrees with the theory that the blood stained man might have been “C. Knicklo.” He points out that the man’s hands were described as being bloody and that “It would have been difficult for a man with blood-covered hands to have closed and locked the door of room 31 without getting blood on the doorknob and door facing.” Sure, he’s right, if the hands were wet with blood, but why doesn’t Dekle then disagree with the police evidence that Ben Ali’s hands were dripping with blood when he supposedly did just that?

Very early on in the investigation, likely the first day, the police seemed to have come to the conclusion that the murderer, “C. Knicklo” (with light coloured hair and moustache who spoke broken English) and “Frenchy No.2” (with light coloured hair and moustache who spoke broken English) were one and the same man. The lodging houses of the East Side were combed and men with light coloured hair and moustaches, derby hats and dark clothes were arrested and hauled in for questioning. Men with blood stained clothing; men who were fingered by others as being suspicious, Germans and even men who were just nicknamed “Frenchy,” apparently not an uncommon nickname at the time, were also brought in. Many of these suspects were shown to Mary Miniter for possible identification and by the 30^th of April it was reported that “one hundred such arrests were made.”

There was also the news conference the police gave on the night of Saturday, the 25^th, in which they stated that they were actively looking for “Frenchy No.2.” They also claimed that they would have no difficulty in tracing him and when they had him, they would have the murderer. After dropping that bombshell Inspector Byrnes ended the conference. However, something appears to have gone wrong with the investigation at this point.

By the next day, Sunday the 26^th, the police redoubled their efforts and were said to be in a surly mood and “completely baffled.” Inspector Byrnes loudly denied that he had ever said that “Frenchy No.2” was the murderer, which he had, and to a room of reporters, and also that the witnesses were unreliable and gave conflicting descriptions of the wanted man. Even more men were pulled in and interrogated.

It was reported from Washington D.C. that on Tuesday, the 28^th, Inspector Byrnes sent a BOLO to the Superintendent of the Washington Police, Major Moore, concerning the murderer. And on Wednesday the 29^th it was reported that “Inspector Byrnes is said to have ordered every house in the Oak street precinct visited by his detectives and every room in every house thoroughly searched, and this work is reported now to have been completed.”

Then, on Thursday the 30^th of April, Inspector Byrnes announced that the police had the murderer in custody. The murderer was “Frenchy No.1,” Ameer Ben Ali.

This was the end of the first police investigation.

Wolf.

[Wolf Vanderlinden]

The Second Police Story:

After announcing that “Frenchy No.1” was the murderer Inspector Byrnes gave details of the arrest of Ameer Ben Ali and outlined the police case against him. To follow this story we have to go back to the first day of investigation: Friday, 24^th of April.

Byrnes stated that on the afternoon of the 24^th, the police had found a trail of blood spots (one report stated that they were “very small and hardly discernable”) that ran from room 31, the murder room, to room 33, where Ben Ali had slept that night. In the murder room they found “the marks of bloody fingers on the edge of the door and marks in the blood on the floor by the side of the bed as if some one had stepped in it.”

Across the hall blood was found on the wall to the right of the door to room 33 and on the door jamb. On the outside of the door they found a streak of blood and “the prints of finger tips, as if someone with a bloody hand had pushed open the door and tried to leave as small a stain as possible.” On the inside of the door there was “the print of a bloody hand,” where someone had closed the door. Blood was found on the chair in the room, on the mattress, on the army blanket that was the bed’s only covering. The blood on the blanket was smeared and looked as if someone had used it to wipe blood from their hands. There was even flecks of blood on the walls, described as if someone had shaken bloody hands in an attempt at get rid of blood on them.

All, or most, or some (police stories varied as time went on, as we shall see) of this blood evidence was cut from the floor, woodwork and fabric of the two rooms that very evening, Friday the 24^th, and sent (for some reason) to Dr. Cyrus Edson of the City Health Department. The two rooms were then, reportedly, locked.

This was an important lead and, as the police either already knew that “Frenchy No.1” (Ameer Ben Ali) had slept in that room, or they soon found out, a description of the man was circulated. “Frenchy No.1” was quickly arrested later that same night and, after being taken to the East River Hotel for identification, was bought into the Oak Street Station.

At the station Ben Ali was stripped and his clothes examined. Byrnes said they found that 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….” There was also said to be blood in his hair.

Interestingly, there were no bloodstains on his hands but there appeared to be dried blood under his fingernails. Samples of all this blood was cut out, or in the case of his fingernails, scraped and also sent to Dr. Edson. Edson would later report that these samples were submitted to him starting on the Monday, the 27^th of April, and “as quickly thereafter as they were obtained. He did not personally visit the hotel, but examined the specimens as fast as they were brought to him by the police” (this would end up consisting of “Some scrapings of nails, a piece cut from the front of a shirt, then a tag from a shirt sleeve, three other particles from the shirt, a piece of paper said to be wall paper, having on it a drop of blood, three pieces of wood in separate packages, one piece of wood labelled ‘from room 33,’ another piece from the floor of the hall, some fragments of a man’s socks, a powder said to have been the scraping from a chair in room 33, another piece of ticking, a knife from which I scraped blood, a pair of stockings and a petticoat. Twenty in all….). Why, with a case as big as this one, the evidence collected on the Friday night wasn’t submitted to him sooner wasn’t explained.

The police also had a theory about the events of the night of the murder. After “C. Knicklo” left the hotel, they believed, Ben Ali crossed the hall in his stocking feet to room 31and, for some unknown reason, attacked Carrie Brown. Angered into a frenzy by her resistance he choked her to death and then slashed at her body before going back to his room, leaving the trail as blood dripped from his hands as he went.

Therefore, at the end of the first day of investigation the New York Police had identified the likely murderer. They did need a medical opinion regarding all this blood evidence but it is hard to see how this could be anything other than the blood of the murdered and mutilated woman found in a room just across the hall from where Ben Ali spent the night.

Within days Dr. Edson was able to report that all the blood was mammalian and probably human. Not only that, he also found intestinal matter, some of it partly digested food consisting of beef, cabbage and cheese, mixed in with all but six of the samples of the blood, proving that the blood had been in contact with the contents of the intestines (the six non mixed blood consisted of 3 scraps from the shirt, a piece of the bed-tick said to be from room 33, and Carrie Brown’s stockings and petticoat). This was like a unique fingerprint which pointed to the mutilated body of Carrie Brown as the source.

Case closed? Well, not quite.

What about “Frenchy No.2” and “C. Knicklo”? The police claimed that they had arrested “Frenchy No.2” on Sunday, the 26^th of April, and had found that he had an unshakable alibi for the night of the murder (one report was that “the people that he was living with” said that he was “not away” at the crucial time, while another report stated that he “was at work” at the time of the murder). As for “C. Knicklo” the police now considered him to be absolutely innocent. They said that he had left the hotel soon after he had arrived there with “Shakespeare” (although no one had seen him leave and it was impossible for the police to actually know when he had left), and that he was probably too embarrassed to come forward. Also, Mary Miniter was declared a liar who admitted lying to the police about her description (therefore dispensing with the blood stained man at the Glenmore Hotel), and, as the hotel register was not filled in on the night of the murder, even the name “C. Knicklo” was useless to identify him. “C. Knicklo” could now be safely forgotten; and he was.

Perhaps the final piece of the puzzle, the police claimed, was to connect Ben Ali with the murder knife. This they were able to do when on Friday, the 1^st of May, Sheriff Goldner, of the Queens County Penitentiary, informed Inspector Byrnes that while Ben Ali was a prisoner in his jail, earlier that April, he had attempted to stab another prisoner with a knife he had had concealed upon him. The man who was supposedly attacked and two other prisoners said they had seen the knife and could describe it. Two Central Office Detectives went to the prison with the knife and, supposedly, interviewed the three men individually. They were each able to give a good description of Ben Ali’s knife, which matched closely with the murder knife, and when shown the murder knife thought it might well be the one Ben Ali had in prison.

This was the end of the Second Police Story.

Wolf.

[Wolf Vanderlinden]

The problems trying to reconcile these two narratives is obvious. If the police had actually found all the blood evidence that they claimed to have found on the very first day, evidence that pointed straight at Ameer Ben Ali, then why did they waste all that time, effort, money and man power to find “the murderer,” who was supposedly “Frenchy No.2”/”C. Knicklo”?
Why didn’t Byrnes just announce that they had arrested the murderer less than 12 hours after they began their investigation?
Why did they send out descriptions of the murderer, which matched “Frenchy No.2”/”C. Knicklo,” when they knew, or at least greatly suspected, Ben Ali was the actual murderer?
Why were these descriptions sent to all precincts and to surrounding cities like Brooklyn and Jersey City?
Why did Central Office detectives travel to other cities to look at “Frenchy No.2”/”C. Knicklo” suspects?
Why did Inspector Byrnes travel to Brooklyn to discuss finding the murderer with Superintendent Campbell and Commissioner Hayden on the morning of the 25^th?
Why did they contact the Washington D.C. Police to Be On the Look Out for the murderer as late as Tuesday the 28^th of April, two days before Byrnes announced that Ben Ali was the murderer and that they had arrested him on the 24^th?
Why were “one hundred” arrests made during what was described as the biggest dragnet in New York City history if Ben Ali was arrested on the very first day of the investigation?
Why did Byrnes announce to a room full of reporters on the Saturday the 25^th that “Frenchy No.2” was the murderer? If you think that maybe Byrnes was being cautious about announcing that Ben Ali was the killer then the press conference refutes this. He wasn’t cautious about announcing that “Frenchy No.2” was the killer at a time when the police had yet to find him, let alone interviewed him. When it turned out that “Frenchy No.2” had an alibi and that he wasn’t ”C. Knicklo” Byrnes looked like a fool and a liar when he was forced to deny he had ever said such a thing.
Why was “Frenchy” (Ben Ali) detained in the House of Detention for material witnesses, rather than in a police cell at either Oak Street or Mulberry Street, if the police thought he was the murderer? Dekle writes “Persons arrested as material witnesses were usually taken to the House of Detention for Witnesses, but the police locked Frenchy into a cell at the Oak Street Police Station, and there he stayed until they were ready to make an arrest for Brown’s murder.” (Dekle, pages 19-20)

Dekle is wrong about this as several newspaper reports show that Ben Ali was committed to the House of Detention on orders of Coroner Schultze on Saturday the 25^th of April, and was still reportedly held there as of the 28th. For example:
“Captain O’Connor went to the Coroner’s office to-day and had a long conference with Coroner Schultz (sic) about the case. None of the persons under arrest were taken there, but Coroner Schultz directed that George Francis, alias “Frenchy,” William [Deckie], Mary Healey, Lizzie [Cartel], Florence May [Lapern] and Alice Sullivan be sent to the House of Detention as important witnesses.” (The New York Telegram, 25 April, 1891.)

“As heretofore explained in these columns, Frenchy No.2 is a cousin of the man Frenchy whom the police already have in custody as a witness and who was committed to the House of Detention by Coroner Schultze.” (The New York World, 28 April, 1891.)
Ben Ali had been arrested in the evening of the 24^th and locked in a cell at Oak Street until the police could get the Coroner to order his detention as a material witness. This they did the next morning. Ben Ali was later moved to a cell in the Oak Street Station (another report stated that there were rumours that he was moved to Mulberry Street where he could be worked over) when the police decided to railroad him.

Why, if there was all this blood evidence in rooms 31 and 33 and in the hallway between them, did the police not lock the doors to the two rooms and shut up the fifth floor of the hotel? They claimed that they had but various reporters went up to the top floor and looked around. For example:
“On Friday night and last night, the East River Hotel did as big a business as ever. It was filled with lodgers both nights. Room 31 was unoccupied. It was open to visitors all day, and many went up to see the ghastly marks of the crime which yet remained.” (The New York Sun, 26 April, 1891.)
“The East River Hotel had its regulation set of disreputable guests Friday night in spite of the shocking tragedy of the previous night. Five of the little pens of bedrooms on the floor where the murder was committed were occupied by men who had registered “and wife opposite their names. Of these five rooms one was just next to the death chamber and another was immediately across the hall from it.” (The New York World, 26 April, 1891.)
It wasn’t until Tuesday, 28^th of April that reportedly the police ordered room 31 to be locked.

As for the story the police told about finding the blood evidence in the hotel and on Ben Ali, I will go into all of it in other, more detailed posts. For now I’d just like to point out that the dozen or more reporters who swarmed the East River Hotel did not see any of this supposed blood evidence. Not in room 31, not in the hall and not in room 33. By the time that Byrnes announced that Ben Ali was the murderer on the 30^th of April, newspapers specifically reported that the police story was not supported by any evidence that the newsmen had seen. They pointed out that on the morning of the 24^th reporters had searched the 5^th floor and had seen nothing like what the police were claiming. No reporter ever said that he had seen any of this supposed blood evidence.

Mr. Dekle, when he writes about the reporters on the morning of the 24^th, states that the Coroner’s “first official act upon arriving at the scene was to allow a gaggle of newspaper reports to accompany him up to the top floor…Captain O’Connor and eight reporters crowded into the small room behind [the Coroner] while he made his examination. Jacob Riis, from the New York Tribune, was one of the eight reporters. We will hear more from Riis later.” (Dekle, page 11. Note: Dekle continuously calls the group of newsmen “a gaggle.” Trial testimony of Coroner Schultze states that 12 or more reporters were present.)

And that’s all he has to say about the reporters at this specific time in the investigation. He ignores the reports of blood, or lack of it, that appeared in newspapers after that first day. He ignores the reports that appeared after it was announced that Ben Ali was the murderer on the 30^th. When we do “hear more from Riis later,” it is much, much later, in chapter 8, and after the chapters on the inquest and the trial where Ben Ali was found guilty.

In chapter 8 (A Pardon for Frenchy?) Dekle reprints Riis’s affidavit in which the famed reporter, editor and author swore that on the morning of the 24^th, after he had “examined the place carefully,” he saw no blood in the hallway or in room 33 “or around that room.” Dekle then recounts how Frederick C. Barber and Robert Gordon Butler, also newsmen, swore the same thing. Butler, apparently, had also spoken with another reporter at the time who also said he saw no blood and who would also give evidence to that effect if needed. These three sworn affidavits, were used as evidence to be placed before Governor Odell. This would seem to be a problem for Dekle and his theory but he turns to another of the affidavits in order to tarnish the reputations of the newsmen.

Henry Berbenich swore that at some time after the murder he and some friends were in a club room at 106 Second Avenue, when “a reporter, whose name I don’t recollect, made a statement in my presence, that he, with other reporters had made several marks with blood, in the room of ‘Frenchy,’ so as to make it appear that it was a regular Jack-the-Ripper murder, and in order to write a sensational story about it. I understood by the statement made at the time by this reporter that there were no blood spots in ‘Frenchy’s’ room before these were made.” So, “unscrupulous” newsmen had tampered with the evidence. How could their word be trusted?

In the next chapter, which is also the last chapter, Dekle finally writes that Riis and other reporters who were at the East River Hotel on the morning of the murder, reported that they had seen no blood in the hallway or in rooms 31 and 33. Better late (ten pages before the end of the book) than never I suppose.

Dekle states that “we can expect that at least a few blood droplets should have been found on the floor of the hallway. And that is what the officers reported finding in the hallway – a few droplets of blood.” (Dekle page 231.) Dekle then offers his own thirty years of experience to suggest that evidence can be missed, even by modern, highly trained officers and technicians. Therefore, “I am not impressed by any number of untrained newspaper reporters or unobservant police officers who say they failed to see some small spots of blood in a hallway or smears of blood on bedsheets in room 33.” (Dekle page 232.)

And so, the highly inconvenient eyewitness reports of over a dozen experienced crime reporters – some of the most important evidence tending to prove that the police lied about finding the blood evidence – is first taken out of its context, then minimized and finally simply dismissed.

However, it appears that the only way Mr. Dekle can dismiss this important evidence is to greatly downplay the evidence that the police claimed to have found. Therefore the supposed evidence of blood on the door to room 31, a bloody trail across the hallway, a blood spot on the wall next to the door to room 33, blood on the door jamb, blood smeared and dripping over both sides of that door and a room that looked like a slaughter house, are now described by Dekle as merely “small spots of blood in a hallway” and “smears of blood on bedsheets in room 33.” This does no service to Mr. Dekle or his theory.

More to come.

Wolf.

[jmenges]

Thanks for these contributions Wolf.
I look forward to reading more.

JM

[Wolf Vanderlinden]

The Blood Evidence (Part 1).

The blood evidence is central to Mr. Dekle’s theory that Ameer Ben Ali murdered Carrie Brown. As I wrote above, blood found on both Ben Ali’s clothing and in, and between, Ben Ali’s and the murder room, had apparently been in contact with the contents of the upper intestines. This admixture of blood and intestinal matter created a unique fingerprint which indicated that the mutilated body of Carrie Brown was the source of most of the blood. How could Ben Ali have this unique admixture on his clothes, under his finger nails, in a trail between his room and the murder room and scattered around the room he spent the night in if he wasn’t the murderer? How, indeed.

Discrepancies with the blood evidence began early. In a statement made by Inspector Byrnes that appeared in various newspapers on the 1^st of May, 1891, Byrnes claimed that the detectives who examined of the fifth floor of the East River Hotel found “blood marks” on the door of room 31, the murder room. However, as I posted above, there was no blood on the door of room 31 and this was specifically mentioned in newspaper articles from the 25^th of April:
“A strange thing about the case is that no marks of blood appear either upon the furniture of the room or on the door knob or wood work.”

After Byrnes’s statement the New York Press, among others, pointed this out again:
“Inspector Byrnes told of finding blood on the door of room 31… On the morning after the murder, before the body had been disturbed, a PRESS reporter made a thorough examination of the room in which the butchery was committed, as well as of all other rooms on that floor. There was not a drop of blood on any part of the door of 31, nor anywhere in the room a foot from the bed, except what was found on the woman’s clothes heaped in a corner.” (2 May, 1891.)

Even the police stated that they saw no blood on the door to room 31:
(Mr. House in cross examination) “Q. Now did you find any blood spots on the door knob of room 31 - - on the doorknob?
Sergeant William E. Frink. No sir, I didn’t.
Q. Inside or out?
A. Neither inside or out.”
(Trial testimony of Detective Sergeant William E. Frink.)

Byrnes appears to have been lying about blood found on the murder room door. Why Byrnes would lie about this may have had something to do with the other blood evidence. It could be that Byrnes was trying to make the evidence the police claimed to have found fit together in an explainable way, which it doesn’t (I will get to that a little later on). In the end the supposed blood on the door to room 31 is not mentioned again by the police or the medical experts who examined the various samples of blood. It simply disappears. This is not the only blood evidence to magically do so.

In order to begin to understand the difficulty in trusting the supposed blood evidence one need look no further than Ben Ali’s blood stained socks (or sock, there were conflicting reports). This might seem like a piffling topic but if you stick with me on this I think you will see what I’m getting at here.

On the 30^th of April newspapers carried the police announcement that Ameer Ben Ali was the murderer of Carrie Brown and listed evidence against him. Part of this evidence was found when the police stripped Ben Ali when he was taken to the Oak Street Station (Friday, 24^th of April) in order to examine his clothes. It was claimed that, among other blood stains, the police found that the soles of his socks (possibly sock) were bloody. Assistant District Attorney Francis Wellman went so far as to state in his opening address to the jury at Ben Ali’s trial that “his socks were soaked with blood…” Add to this the report that the police had found “marks in the blood on the floor by the side of the bed as if some one had stepped in it.” (The New York Herald, 1 May, 1891) and the testimony of police which stated the same thing at the trial. Obviously cause and effect.

The socks were submitted to the medical experts for examination and, according to Dr. Austin Flint, the blood on them was found to contain the unique admixture of blood and intestinal matter proving that Ben Ali had stepped in Carrie Brown’s blood in his stockinged feet. Damning, right? Perhaps not when you look at all the evidence.

The socks were taken from Ben Ali at the Oak Street Station House by Doorman John Jaudas (Doorman was a rank below patrolman. They typically worked in the station houses looking after prisoners, doing maintenance etc.). Jaudas testified at the trial that he had been told to collect Ben Ali’s socks and bring them to Captain O’Connor’s room. Jaudas stated that once he had brought the socks to the Captain’s room “and after they saw the condition of the stockings then I was sent back for the shoes” (Trial testimony of John Jaudas). There was no ambiguity about the order in which Jaudas collected and handed over the evidence as the Prosecutor, Wellman, went over it with him a couple of times.

When the lead defence counsel, Frederick House, cross examined Jaudas he asked the Doorman whether the testimony he had just given was the same as his inquest testimony. Jaudas said it was. House pointed out that Jaudas was now claiming that he had first collected the socks and then the shoes, the opposite of what he had said at the inquest. Without missing a beat, and without any explanation, Jaudas said he had collected the shoes first and then had been sent back for the socks – the opposite of what he had just said when questioned by Wellman only minutes before. It appears that Jaudas didn’t have his story straight. Or, he was lying.

Moving on, House also tried to pin down the date on which the shoes and socks were collected and first examined. Jaudas couldn’t give a clear answer to that and House had to drag one out of him. Interestingly, the answer wasn’t the 24^th when Ben Ali’s clothes were supposedly examined.

Jaudas first said that he couldn’t quite remember the date but eventually told House that it was somewhere around two or three days after Ben Ali’s arrest, so Sunday the 26^th or Monday the 27^th. Some support for the 27^th came from Captain McLaughlin who, when asked when the shoes were taken from Ben Ali, said he thought on the Monday, the 27^th. However, earlier, when Captain O’Connor had testified, he had said that he thought that the shoes and socks had been collected the morning after Ben Ali’s arrest, so on Saturday the 25^th. When asked whether it could have been the morning after that, O’Connor said “No.” To add to this confusion Jaudas stated that the shoes had blood stains cut from them before he gave them back to Ben Ali and then collected his socks. However, Sergeant Frink was the man who cut the evidence from the shoes and he testified that he had done this on Wednesday the 29^th. This appears to have been the date this evidence was collected – some five days after Ben Ali was arrested and the day before it was announced he was the murderer.

Earlier in his testimony Jaudas had said that O’Connor, McLaughlin and “the Sergeant” (apparently Frink) were in the room when he brought in the shoes and socks. When House asked Jaudas who had directed him to collect them he couldn’t give a clear answer to that either. He only stated that “Well, Capt. O’Connor and Capt. McLaughlin were there. I don’t know which one told me.” (Trial testimony of John Jaudas.) However, Captain McLaughlin testified that he was not present on the day that the shoes and socks were examined. Once more, it appears that Jaudas didn’t have his story straight. Or, he was lying.

Even the description of the blood stains on the socks isn’t clear. Wellman stated that blood was found on the “heel and in the instep” of one of the socks while Jaudas said it was “on the sole and instep” and that it had soaked through. Captain O’Connor, who hadn’t looked at the socks carefully, could only say that he saw blood on the ankle area of one of the socks and that the bottom of the socks were “colored as though it was blood,” but couldn’t say whether it was blood or not (the socks were filthy, after all). Jaudas also said that the stains looked “something like old stains of blood,” an admission which brought House up short. When he tried to get Jaudas to repeat this the Doorman would only say that it looked “Something like stains of blood,” and that by “old” he had meant “not fresh.”

The importance of O’Connor’s observation of blood on the ankle and Jaudas’s statement that the blood looked old can’t be overlooked. Ben Ali had two bullet wounds on his body from his time in the French Army: one on his upper back and the other on the side of his lower leg. These wounds were supposedly suppurating and, if true, could explain some of the blood found on Ben Ali’s socks. But not all of it if the doctors were correct about Carrie Brown’s blood being found.

In the end, however, it is unclear why four different police officers (a Doorman, a Detective Sergeant and two Police Captains) couldn’t seem to tell the same story of the collection of some shoes and socks. At best, the four appear confused; at worst, they appear to be lying. Not very comforting coming from a notoriously corrupt and crooked police force. But what about the other evidence the police described which linked the socks to the murder room?

What about the fact that the police said that the pool of blood under the bed looked as if someone had stepped in it? No one else had described this. Not the newspapermen nor the Coroner. In fact Charles E. Russell, who worked for the New York Herald in 1891, said that “There was a round pool of blood under the bed… It had not been disturbed. Its edges were sharply defined, and not even a little stream had trickled from it.” (The New York World, 21 January, 1895.) Even just the logic of Ben Ali having stepped in the pool of blood under the bed and leaving some mark is hard to grasp.

The police theory was that while murdering and mutilating Brown Ben Ali had stepped in the blood. However, the blood on the floor under the bed had come from blood that had pooled on the bed until it had run over the edge of the mattress and also soaked through the mattress and then dripped onto the floor. This, supposedly, had continued for several hours after the murder so that the coroner stated that the blood on the floor was only partially congealed and that blood was still dripping into the pool from the mattress when he entered the room at around 11:45 in the morning. How is it that any footprint or mark made during the murder wouldn’t have been covered or erased over time by the dripping blood and the slowly expanding pool?

Even if you want to ignore all of the above – perhaps the police were just confused and the newspapermen were unobservant or hiding evidence on the first day of the investigation (when the murderer was presumed to be “C. Knicklo,” and no one had heard of Ameer Ben Ali) for some unanswerable reason – there is one question that can’t be ignored. If the police theory, backed by supposed evidence, that Ben Ali had murdered Carrie Brown, stepped in her blood while doing so, and soaked his socks in that blood, was true, then how did he leave the room?

More to the point, how did he walk across the room to the door without leaving any bloody footprints or any marks of blood at all? Because nobody, including the police, mention any blood on the floor, or in the room, except on and around the bed. Captain O’Connor was asked outright if he had seen any bloody footprints and he had answered “No, sir.” Did Ben Ali levitate and glide over to the door?

Did he walk on his hands? Impossible, since his hands were supposedly dripping with blood, as shown by the trial of blood in the hallway and the blood he got all over the door and the inside of room 33. But if this was true how had he opened the door, stepped into the hall and then closed and locked the door without getting any blood on the door to room 31? This, therefore, might be the explanation as to why Inspector Byrnes falsely stated that there was blood on the door to room 31: the police theory that blood evidence proved that Ben Ali left his room, crossed the hall, murdered Brown and then return to his own room, dripping blood as he did so, made no sense without blood on the door to the murder room.

Dekle mentions none of the above in his book; how could he. His book is about the trial and the case made by the District Attorney’s Office against Ameer Ben Ali, not about dubious evidence gathering by the police that helped make that case. He does, however, appear to make a half-hearted attempt at explaining the lack of blood on the door and floor of room 31 by saying Ben Ali “…certainly got blood on himself, and no matter how careful he was to clean up the room and polish the doorknob, he could not ensure that some blood would not drip from his person onto the floor.” This is the type of thing you might say if you have no answer to a difficult question. There is no evidence that any attempt was made by the murderer to clean up blood on the floor or on the door or doorknob. In fact it’s difficult to see how you could accomplish this so that all traces of blood would become undetectable. And what is the logic for this?

I could see where the murderer might clean blood off of the outside of the door, so that anyone passing the room wouldn’t become suspicious before he had time to escape, but why clean the inside of the door and the bloody footprints from the floor of room 31? Once inside the room the fact that a murder had been committed was blindingly obvious. And if it was Ben Ali, why, then, leave a supposed trail leading straight to your room and enough evidence to point to your guilt? It makes no sense.

Given the evidence observed at the crime scene it seems impossible that anyone stepped in the pool of blood in their socks and then walked out of that room, across the hall and into room 33. Yet the police, who couldn’t seem to keep their stories straight, claimed to have magically found Carrie Brown’s blood on Ameer Ben Ali’s socks. You would have to be in complete denial to not find that suspicious.

More to come.

Wolf.