A Terrible Murder in New York Causes the Belief that "Jack the Ripper" has Located in That City
New York, April 25.
A horrible crime committed in a thickly populated section of Lower New York at some time
between 11 o'clock Thursday night and 10 o'clock Friday morning justifies a suspicion that
the fiend known as "Jack the Ripper" of Whitechapel notoriety has located in this city, or
that an equally blood-thirsty wretch is plying his trade of murder in the same fashion.
Between the hours named an unknown woman about 55 years of age was disemboweled at the
Fourth Ward hotel, a resort at No. 14 Catherine slip, and her assassin has disappeared
mysteriously. About 10.30 o'clock Thursday night a tall, slender man about 30 years of
age, dressed in a brown cutaway coat and light trousers, met an old woman who is known by
the name of "Shakespeare" around the Fourth ward, and with her entered the hotel and asked
for a room for the night. The man registered under the name of C. Nicoli, and he and the
woman were shown to a room on the top floor. Friday morning the bartender went to the room
and rapped on the door. There was no response and he forced the door. The dead body of the
old woman was found lying on the bed. 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.
It is believed the murderer strangled his victim first and then proceeded to his horrible
butchery. There was no trace of the man and no one had seen him leave the hotel. The
detectives placed under arrest a bartender, a woman named Mary Heeler and the chambermaid,
Mary Mineter. The coroner had the murderer's knife, which is a common table knife with a
broken blade about two inches in length and half an inch wide. The resemblance between
this murder and those credited to Jack the Ripper in London is strong enough to warrant
the presumption that the object aimed at was the same, although the procedure was slightly
different.
Inspector Williams is assisting Inspector Byrnes in questioning the people continually
being brought in by the largest force of central office detectives ever put to work on a
single case in New York. One of the women arrested, a Mrs. Harrington, who keeps a lodging
house, gave information whereby the police arrested a man knwon in his haunts as
"Frenchy," and who, according to Mrs. Harrington, was an acquaintance of the dead woman,
whose name she said was Carrie Brown, 60 years old. The woman formerly lived out at
service, but was so much given to riotous living that she acquired an unenviable
reputation and thus lost her chances of gaining an honest living. The police would give no
information concerning the man nor would they give his right name.
