The Murder of the Century: The Gilded Age Crime That Scandalized a City & Sparked the Tabloid Wars (40 page)

  1
“OH! YES, IT IS HOT ENOUGH!” NYET
, June 25, 1897.

  2
riverside refreshment stalls … the new 700-foot-long promenade pier
“Large Public Pier Opened,”
NYET
, June 26, 1897.

  3
a confection of whitewashed wrought iron
“New Public Pier,”
NYW
, June 27, 1897.

  4
tenements on Avenue C
Edwarde,
Guldensuppe Mystery
, 9.

  5
flat caps and straw boaters
“River Gives Up a Murder Mystery,”
NYH
, June 27, 1897.

  6
a mysterious ironclad in the shape of a giant sturgeon
“Flyer for the Sea Afloat,”
NYH
, June 26, 1897.

  7
Jack McGuire spotted it first
Edwarde,
Guldensuppe Mystery
, 10.

  8
The police knew just whom to blame
“River Gives Up A Murder Mystery,”
NYH
, June 27, 1897.

  9
five schools that were allowed to use cadavers
“Boy’s Ghastly Find,”
NYW
, June 27, 1897.

10
The city had yet to buy its first horseless carriages
Lardner and Reppetto,
NYPD
, 152.

11
morgue keeper had been arrested
See
New York Times
coverage of March 23, 1896, January 10, 1897, and April 2, 1897.

12
tobacco would get a reporter the run
Dreiser,
Newspaper Days
, 492.

13
resident tomcat
“Bellevue Cat a Prisoner,”
NYT
, January 15, 1900.

14
“That horrible place”
Dreiser,
Newspaper Days
, 492.

15
obligatory seventy-two hours.… Each day a dead-boat pulled up
King,
King’s Handbook
, 461.

16
the coffin room, where another attendant hammered
Wyeth,
With Sabre and Scalpel
, 362.

17
Brady forcibly checked his mother
“Wealthy Woman Committed,”
NYT
, June 27, 1897; and “Rich Woman Insane,”
NYEJ
, June 26, 1897.

18
“There is a mystery here” NYW
, June 27, 1897.

  1
his Harlem tenement on 127th Street
“Fragments of a Body Make a Mystery,”
NYW
, June 28, 1897.

  2
“let’s go cherrying!”
Ibid.

  3
Just one house was visible … twelve-foot drop
“Strange Murder Mystery Deepens”
NYH
, June 28, 1897.

  4
Sedgwick and 170th NYH
, June 28, 1897.

  5
he called out NYW
, June 28, 1897.

  6
“I was walking a post”
Carey,
Memoirs
, 49.

  7
everyone in the department called it: Goatsville
Lardner and Reppetto,
NYPD
, 63.

  8
Carey had been in Goatsville ever since
“Detectives in New Jobs,”
NYT
, July 20, 1895.

  9
easily a hundred pounds.… They’d needed a stretcher and towing ropes
“River Mystery Grows in Horror,”
NYP
, June 28, 1897.

10
captain was another Byrnes appointee.… renting out on-duty police
“The Killilea Fiasco,”
NYT
, May 17, 1896.

11
the annual police parade was canceled
Lardner and Reppetto,
NYPD
, 112.

12
in that morning’s New York
Herald
NYH
, June 28, 1897.

13
It was a sort druggists used NYW
, June 28, 1897. NB: This
World
report was the only one to specifically note the use of druggist’s seine twine, a telling minor detail that others—including their own reporters—then overlooked or forgot.

14
adhered another piece of brown paper
Carey,
Memoirs
, 49. NB: The piece of paper bearing the stamp of Kugler & Wollens is noted in Carey’s account, and
it is only in his account
. The stamped paper is not cited in any newspaper, or indeed in the trial. Given the insatiable hunger newspapers had for reproducing illustrations of any clue in the case, the reasonable supposition is that they never saw this one. The exiled Carey was clearly hungry for a real case, and he was by far the earliest to make a good guess—startlingly so—at where the crime had been committed and how the body had been disposed of. I can’t help but wonder whether, rather like the newspaper reporters, Carey wasn’t above pocketing a hot lead for himself.

15
ramshackle and roiling retail polyglot
Marcuse,
This Was New York
, 54.

16
pouncing on on-duty officers
Lardner and Reppetto,
NYPD
, 112.

17
you could tell the old and new officers apart
“Conlin Leads a Long Line,”
NYTR
, June 2, 1897.

18
one of the world’s largest
“The Bowery Savings Bank,”
World’s Work
4 (1902): 2229.

19
retired with a fortune of $350,000
Lardner and Reppetto,
NYPD
, 83.

20
John Jacob Astor IV owned
“The Building Department,”
NYT
, December 30, 1899.

21
For decades … the Marsh family
Longworth,
Longworth’s American Almanac
(1834), 471; and
Trow’s New York City Directory
(1860), 571.

22
it became a German beer saloon
Important Events,
132
. NB: John Volz’s short-lived saloon is featured in an ad on this page.

23
Ernst Kugler Trow’s New York City Directory
(1890), 163.

24
outlasting a previous partner
Ibid. (1879), 115.

25
used to wrap a saw
Carey,
Memoirs
, 49.

26
it smelled of the store NYP
, June 28, 1897.

27
four feet wide and fourteen and a half feet long
“East River Mystery,”
NYT
, June 28, 1897.

28
nearest distributor: Henry Feuerstein NYH
, June 28, 1897.

29
other distributor that Buchanan & Sons used
“A Queer Murder Mystery,”
NYTR
, June 28, 1897.

30
Claflin, had been arrested
“Will Arrest Mr. Claflin,”
NYT
, May 27, 1897.

31
something like fifty more shops to visit NYW
, June 28, 1897.

  1
Ned Brown just about had the place to himself
Liebling,
Liebling at
The New Yorker, 169.

  2
walls placarded with exhortations
Dreiser,
Newspaper Days
, 625.

  3
clear out to the East River
Ibid., 632.

  4
ridden cavalry in Sheridan’s Shenandoah Valley campaign
Morris,
Pulitzer
, 24.

  5
Pulitzer, then a penniless veteran, was thrown out of it
Bleyer,
Main Currents
, 334.

  6
two miles of wrought-iron columns to support the world’s largest pressroom
Morris,
Pulitzer
, 286.

  7
425-ton golden dome
Ibid., 287.

  8
its gilded surface could be seen for miles out to sea
Ibid., 272.

  9
“Is God in?”
Brian,
Pulitzer
, 153.

10
a circulation of twenty thousand
Churchill,
Park Row
, 27.

11
attention-grabbing promotions
Ibid., 39. NB: The idea of the Mars billboard was slightly less loony than it may sound; astronomers like Thomas Dick proposed decades earlier that a giant geometric ditch could be dug out in Siberia, and perhaps be set aflame, the better to send a signal of intelligent life to our fellow astronomers on Mars. The
World
scheme of sending an actual message to Mars was shelved, alas, when someone at a promotion meeting asked: “What language shall we print it in?”

12
Circulation had risen fifteenfold
Liebling,
Liebling at
The New Yorker, 165.

13
yellow journalism,
they called it
Campbell,
Yellow Journalism
, 25.

14
the day’s front-page grabber NYW
, June 27, 1897.

15
today it was just the substitute editor.… Ned was to run over
Liebling,
Liebling at
The New Yorker, 169. NB: The description of Ned Brown, as well as his conversations with editors and other reporters, is drawn entirely from Liebling’s September 24, 1955,
New Yorker
article “The Scattered Dutchman,” reprinted in
Liebling at
The New Yorker. Although the article contains a few errors and chronological inconsistencies, it was by far the most ambitious account ever attempted regarding the Guldensuppe case. That it’s a Liebling piece makes it a joy to read—he writes tartly of the victim’s “brisket” arriving “in installments”—and he conveys what it was like to be a denizen of Newspaper Row in the old days. The article focuses largely on the opening stages of the case, and in particular on revealing Ned Brown as the
World
’s near-miss reporter.

16
“At first,” O’Hanlon admitted NYW
, June 28, 1897.

17
lungs was still spongy and the heart was filled NYT
, June 28, 1897.

18
between the victim’s fifth and sixth ribs NYW
, June 28, 1897.

19
blood had entered into the surrounding tissue
Ibid.

20
alive and naked when stabbed NYT
, June 28, 1897.

21
“Both wounds were made” NYH
, June 28, 1897.

22
The victim had cut his hand NYP
, June 28, 1897.

23
“That he was knocked down” NYW
, June 28, 1897.

24
the two segments were pushed together
Edwarde,
Guldunsuppe Mystery
, 17.

25
Magnusson’s friends and neighbors had been urging her to visit NYTR
, June 28, 1897.

26
“If they had only been able to account” NYW
, June 28, 1897.

27
A few among the reporters took notice NYT
, June 28, 1897.

28
I knew it was a murder all along “River Gives Up a Murder Mystery,”
NYH
, June 27, 1897.

29
the patrolman’s report claimed … a patent falsehood NYW
, June 27, 1897.

30
Herald
reporter who had fetched the coroner NYH
, June 27, 1897.

31
World
reporter who started knocking NYW
, June 27, 1897.

32
hadn’t secured the crime scene
Ibid.

33
Hogan ventured.… out of their jurisdiction
NYH, June 27, 1897.

34
sweeps of women … walking along Broadway
“Moss Gets on Chapman’s Trail,”
NYET
, June 28, 1897.

35
his own pet theory NYT
, June 28, 1897.

36
an unnerving sense of recognition
Liebling,
Liebling at
The New Yorker, 186.

38
“may have been a Hebrew”
“River Mystery Grows in Horror,”
NYP
, June 28, 1897.

39
no alcohol in his stomach.… Nor was there food “Louis A. Lutz the Victim?”
NYEJ
, June 28, 1897.

40
“It appears to me”
“Dr. Weston Says Body Was Boiled,”
NYET
, June 28, 1897.

41
CANNIBALISM SUGGESTED NYH
, June 30, 1897.

42
“A butcher may have done it”
“Strange Murder Mystery Deepens,”
NYH
, June 28, 1897.

43
a recent Chicago murder
Loerzel,
Alchemy of Bones
.

44
“as white as marble.… body had been washed” NYH
, June 28, 1897.

45
a
Press
reporter suggested NYP
, June 28, 1897.

46
The
World
knew just the man to ask NYW
, June 28, 1897.

47
scores of reporters were fanning out
“World Men Find a Clue,”
NYW
, June 29, 1897.

48
“God damn it
, get excited!” Churchill,
Park Row
, 86.

49
You could tell when New York was having a peaceful day
Ford,
Forty-Odd Years
, 260.

50
sent reporters off to tail detectives and swipe evidence
Liebling,
Liebling at
The New Yorker, 166.

51
“Events seem to indicate”
signed W. R. Hearst editorial,
NYEJ
, June 29, 1897.

52
race riots in Key West
“Inviting a Race War,”
Boston Daily Globe
, June 28, 1897.

53
stealing electricity off high-voltage streetcar lines
“Up-to-Date Burglars in Ohio Tap Trolley Wires for Electricity”
NYH
, June 29, 1897.

54
a
$15 dog
“Millionaires War Over a $15 Dog,”
NYEJ
, June 27, 1897. 27

55
Hire four launches
“Picture of the Murder,”
NYJ
, June 29, 1897.

56
crowded with bereaved families
“Undurchdringlithes Dunkel,”
NYSZ
, June 29, 1897.

57
could barely make their way inside NYW
, June 29, 1897.

58
John Johnson and Adolph Carlson
“The Body Not Identified,”
NYCA
, June 29, 1897.

59
“Japanese.” … Another mysterious visitor
“Dark Crime of River and Wood,”
NYH
, June 29, 1897.

60
presumptive widow of Mr. Robert Wood NYH
, June 29, 1897.

61
Brooklyn gas engineer Charles Russell
“No Clew Yet Found,”
NYTR
, June 29, 1897.

62
bartender John Otten
“No Light on Murder Mystery,”
NYP
, June 29, 1897.

63
printer John Livingston, or … Edward Leunhelt NYH
, June 29, 1897.

64
Manhattan bricklayer: NYCA
, June 28, 1897.

65
he refused to talk NYW
, June 29, 1897.

66
“bicycle attorney”
“Drivers in Trouble,”
NYJ
, June 29, 1897.

67
“I feel sure it is my uncle’s body” NYEJ
, June 28, 1897.

68
“Oh, Dick!” NYW
, June 29, 1897.

69
dancing a little jig … as page proofs were laid out
Winkler,
W. R. Hearst
, 71.

70
“The public … likes entertainment better”
Stevens,
Sensationalism
, 87.

71
$20 gold piece he used
Churchill,
Park Row
, 46.

72
piss pots emblazoned with their portraits
Winkler,
W. R. Hearst
, 58.

73
“I am possessed of the weakness”
Procter,
William Randolph Hearst
, 41.

74
“chambermaid’s delight”
Ibid., 78.

75
“in the Silurian era”
Campbell,
Yellow Journalism
, 3.

76
“Smash as many as you have to”
Winkler,
W. R. Hearst
, 110.

77
“polychromous effervescence”
Whyte,
Uncrowned King
, 187.

78
MAN WITH THE MUSICAL STOMACH
Stevens,
Sensationalism
, 84.

79
word arrived of the upcoming four o’clock
World Liebling,
Liebling at
The New Yorker, 178.

80
$500 REWARD NYW
, June 28, 1897.

81
Run an Extra Final Edition
Liebling,
Liebling at
The New Yorker, 179.

82
$1,000 Reward: NYEJ
, June 28, 1897.