The names of these newspapers have been abbreviated:
Brooklyn Daily Eagle = BDE
Daily People = DP
New York Evening World = NYEW
New York Sun = NYS
New York Times = NYT
New York World = NYW
The Sun and the Evening World can be accessed for free through the Library of Congress at www.chroniclingamerica.loc.gov, and the Brooklyn Daily Eagle is free at www.newspapers.com. Others are available on microfilm (through Interlibrary Loan) or through subscription databases.
1. MURDER AT GROUND ZERO
1. “Burns Girl Shaken by the Day’s Events,” BDE, Feb. 23, 1902.
2. Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace, Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1999), 343; “Schulte Buys Robert Fulton Corner,” NYT, July 13, 1923 (Fulton land). The 1896 Raines Law was designed to cut down on the rampant Sunday consumption of alcohol (often the only day off that laborers had) in stipulating that the only establishments that could legally sell it that day were hotels with a minimum of ten rooms, as long as food was served with the alcohol. Richard Zacks, Island of Vice: Theodore Roosevelt’s Doomed Quest to Clean Up Sin-Loving New York (New York: Doubleday, 2010), 245. The mystery here is that the Glen Island had been an established hotel since the 1880s, so it should not have been considered a Raines Law hotel, which usually meant a saloon that had slapped together some small upstairs cubicles that could serve as “rooms.” Possibly the Glen Island did not have the requisite number of rooms in 1896. When Walter and his “wife” were assigned Room 12, it was stated to be in “the old section.” “Girl Accused of Killing Her Sweetheart,” NYW, Feb. 16, 1902 (“no questions asked”).
3. “Florence Burns Identified by ‘L’ Conductor,” NYW, Feb. 23, 1902 ($2 room); “Murder of Brooks Charged to a Girl,” BDE, Feb. 16, 1902 ($60 in safe); “Brooks and Woman Alone at Hotel,” NYW, Mar. 3, 1902 (names of three couples registering at the Glen Island).
4. “Florence Burns Identified.”
5. “New Witness in Burns Case,” Boston Post, Mar. 5, 1902.
6. George Washington’s testimony is covered in “Burns Girl Shaken,” “Murder of Brooks Charged,” and “Florence Burns Identified.”
7. “An Examination Begun in Case of Florence Burns,” BDE, Feb. 22, 1902.
8. “Girl Accused”; “Brooks Shot in a Hotel, Girl Arrested,” BDE, Feb. 15, 1902.
9. “Murder of Brooks Charged.”
10. “Florence Burns Identified.”
11. “Girl Accused”; “Murder of Brooks.”
2. THE BEDFORD AVENUE GANG
1. “The Gang of Scoundrels Exposed by Brooks Case,” BDE, Feb. 18, 1902 (colored vests); Edward Wagenknecht, American Profile: 1900–1909 (Amherst: Univ. of Massachusetts Press, 1982), 15 (rainy-day dresses); Florence was frequently sketched in court wearing an “automobile coat,” very much like a duster, which also gives rise to a possibility of her hiding a pregnancy. John F. Kasson, Amusing the Million: Coney Island at the Turn of the Century (New York: Hilland Wang, 1978), 6 (rebellion).
2. Florence Burns, “Relates Madcap Career,” Pittsburgh Press, Nov. 30, 1902. This article originally appeared in Hearst’s New York Journal and possibly had a byline there as it is written in the first person. However, the Journal is unavailable online or via Interlibrary Loan; the only extant copies are at the University of Texas Library.
3. “Evidently Murdered,” Daily People, Feb. 16, 1902; “Brooks a Virginian,” Baltimore Sun, Feb. 18, 1902; “Florence Burns in Court,” BDE, Feb. 18, 1902.
4. Sandra Vermilyea Todd, Vermilyea Family Genealogy, http://vermilyeafamily reunion.com/pdf/VBook2011/SixthGen.pdf, 236. See also Brooklyn Citizen Almanac for 1894, 432, available as a free e-book download from www.books.google.com. For the surname Von derBosch, there were so many spelling variants that it would be impossible to duplicate them all. This one is the most likely.
5. In the 1940 census, Florence gave her highest academic completion as Grade Eight. Her business school foray is from “Florence Burns a Recluse,” Denver Post, Oct. 30, 1902.
6. “Hearing in Burns Case Over Until Tomorrow,” BDE, Feb. 24, 1902. The name Harry must have been at the top of the charts for boys born in the late 1870s and early 1880s, as there were a lot of them involved in this case. The court and the newspapers began referring to the core group as “the four Harrys”: Casey, Cohen, Gimpel, and Theall, three of whom had dated Florence. There was a fifth one (Butler), who had recommended a boardinghouse for Florence when the Brookses were trying to get her out of their house.
7. Gay Talese, “The Last of the Bare-Knuckle Fighters Still Spry at 93,” NYT, Nov. 23, 1958 (smoking); “Brooks Ordered Suit for Easter,” NYW, Mar. 20, 1902 (dragged out of Coney Island).
8. Burns, “Relates Madcap Career.”
9. “Think Burns Girl Tried Suicide,” New-York Daily Tribune, Mar. 23, 1902.
10. Unless otherwise noted, the information on the Bedford Gang comes from a series of exposé articles done by the BDE over a four-day span: “The Gang of Scoundrels”; “ ‘The Gang’ Is Worried by Tale of Its Deeds,” Feb. 19, 1902; “How the Gang Swindled, as Told by One of Them,” Feb. 20, 1902; “Police May Take a Hand in the Game of the Gang,” Feb. 21, 1902; “A Degenerate Gang,” Daily People, Feb. 20, 1902.
11. Burns, “Relates Madcap Career.”
12. Here is a chronological summary of the “career” of Theodore Burris. The newspapers seem to take a perverse pride in his ability to think of new ways to get into trouble, while at the same time managing to avoid conviction for his crimes: “Brooklyn Man in Trouble,” BDE, Feb. 20, 1901; “Landlord Ran Him Down,” Boston Herald, Feb. 20, 1901; “Burris Still in Jail,” BDE, Feb. 21, 1901; “Theodore Burris Indicted,” BDE, May 16, 1901; “Broker Puts His Son in Jail,” NYT, June 17, 1901; “Theodore Burris Discharged,” NYT, June 18, 1901; “Bedford Gang Member in Clutches of Law,” BDE, Aug. 21, 1902 (after the Brooks-Burns case, he is always connected with the Bedford Avenue Gang even though it existed before 1902); “Burris Held in Court,” NYT, May 23, 1904; “Burris of Bedford Gang Had the $1,000 Dog Toby,” BDE, May 23, 1904; “Mr. Burris to the Bar; Assault Case This Time,” BDE, June 17, 1904; “Lived High in the Jail,” BDE, June 20, 1904; “Burris Who Feared Jail Got Job from Dr. Babbitt,” BDE, June 27, 1904; “Took Another’s Name Just to Amuse Himself,” BDE, Oct. 2, 1904; “Jumped from Moving Car; Fought Five Policemen,” BDE, Sept. 16, 1905; “Ex-Tackle Beats Police,” New-York Daily Tribune, Sept. 17, 1905; “Theodore Burris Injects Himself into the Situation,” BDE, Oct. 6, 1906; “Ted Burris Returns to Old Field of Labor,” BDE, Aug. 29, 1908. Readers will be highly amused—as Burris’s family and his victims were not—in reading the accounts of those exploits that made the newspapers from 1901 to 1908, knowing that there must have been several that did not get printed.
13. University Registrar, Cornell University, e-mail to author, Dec. 15, 2015; Harvard University Archives, e-mail to author, Dec. 24, 2015.
14. Maud Gleason, “Is the So-Called Kangaroo Walk Injurious?,” Health: A Home Magazine Devoted to Physical Culture and Hygiene, Jan. 1904, 385–87, www.books.google.com.
15. The Bedford Gang member who anonymously detailed the activities of the gang said this about a comparison: “They are all alike and the Paterson crowd who were rounded up last spring in the Bosschieter case weren’t a marker to them” (“The Gang of Scoundrels”). In other words, both groups were drugging and gang-raping women, except that the Bedford boys had not been exposed. There’s a good modern-day summary of the Bosschieter case by David J. Krajicek, “Attacked by the Gang,” New York Daily News, Oct. 25, 2008, http://articles.nydailynews.com/2008-10-25/news/17907341_1_four-men-physical-affection-george-kerr. The New York Times covered the Bosschieter case, but the best articles were done by the Daily People, New York’s socialist newspaper, which emphasized the class angle of the mill girls and the rich boys in Paterson, New Jersey, as well as in the reactions of the townspeople to the fate of the four defendants. The Daily People is available through www.Genealogybank.com (a subscription database).
16. Burns, “Relates Madcap Career”; “‘Handsome Ed’ Weds Again,” BDE, July 17, 1903.
17. Kasson, Amusing the Millions, 41, 59.
18. “J. Clinton Brower Married,” NYT, Apr. 24, 1901; see also “Bader’s Road House,” BDE, July 4, 1897, for a review, and “Lively Magnum Races,” NYT, Dec. 6, 1904, for winter sleigh races to the roadhouses.
19. “Casey Slew a Wild Cat with One of His Boots,” BDE, Aug. 9, 1901.
20. “Has Big Bills,” Pittsburgh Press, Oct. 29, 1902.
21. “Casey of Bedford Gang in Frank Keeney’s Auto,” BDE, Jan. 19, 1904.
22. “Harry Casey Is the Man Who Shot Young Cawley,” BDE, Nov. 20, 1903; “He Shot His ‘Best Friend,’” BDE, Dec. 3, 1903.
3. FLORENCE BURNS AND WALTER BROOKS
1. New York City Archives, death certificate for Gertrude Brooks.
2. “Mrs. Brooks Denounces Girl,” BDE, Feb. 16, 1902.
3. “Murder of Brooks Charged.”
4. “Murder of Brooks Charged”; “Grand Jury Rushing Florence Burns’ Case,” BDE, Feb. 17, 1902; “Mrs. Brooks Denounces.”
5. “Brooks Fought with Woman in Brooklyn,” NYW, Mar. 14, 1902.
6. “Six New Witnesses,” DP, Mar. 9, 1902; “Walter Brooks to Figure in Civil Suit Tomorrow,” NYW, Mar. 9, 1902.
7. “Grand Jury Rushing.”
8. “Walter Brooks’ Mother Says Her Son Was Drugged,” BDE, May 15, 1902.
9. “25 Years Ago,” Syracuse Herald, Mar. 23, 1927.
10. “Says Miss Burns Asked About a Pistol,” NYT, Mar. 9, 1902.
11. “Walter Brooks’ Mother Says.”
12. Unless otherwise indicated, the information in this section comes from the testimony of Mr. and Mrs. Brooks at the hearing and inquest: “Mrs. Brooks Faints on the Witness Stand,” NYT, Mar. 16, 1902; “If You Kill My Son, I Will Kill You,” NYW, Mar. 16, 1902; “‘Third Degree’ Evidence May Be Ignored,” NYW, Mar. 19, 1902; “Sensational Climax Likely in Florence Burns Case,” BDE, Mar. 18, 1902; “Court Causes Surprise in the Burns Case,” NYT, Mar. 19, 1902; “Walter Brooks’ Mother Denies a Former Story,” BDE, May 19, 1902.
13. “Saw Miss Burns in Hotel, She Says,” NYW, Mar. 7, 1902; “Blamed Brooks,” DP, Mar. 8, 1902.
14. “Florence Burns’ Plea to Brooks to Marry Her,” NYW, Feb. 19, 1902.
15. “Florence Burns’ Plea”; “Mrs. Brooks Denounces Girl.”
16. “Murder of Brooks Charged.”
17. “Girl Held for Hotel Murder,” NYS, Feb. 16, 1902.
18. “Grand Jury Rushing.”
19. “Girl Held.”
20. “Murder of Brooks Charged.”
4. WALTER BROOKS`S LAST WEEK
1. Ruth Dunne’s surname was uniformly reported incorrectly as “Dunn,” but census documents and her marriage certificate have it as Dunne.
2. “Ruth Dunn a Witness at the Brooks Inquest,” BDE, May 16, 1902.
3. Unless otherwise indicated, the reports of the day-to-day activities of Walter Brooks during his last week come from the testimony of Joseph Cribbins (office boy), Harry Cohen, and Ruth Dunne: “Jerome Offers His Aid to Free Miss Burns,” NYW, Feb. 20, 1902; “Murder of Brooks Charged”; “Burns Girl Shaken by the Day’s Events,” BDE, Feb. 23, 1902; “Sensational Evidence Against Burns Girl,” BDE, Mar. 8, 1902; “Walter Brooks’ Mother Denies”; “Believe Mayer Is Likely to Let Burns Girl Go,” BDE, Mar. 22, 1902; “Trainman and Newsman Saw Burns Girl at 11:15,” BDE, Feb. 21, 1902; “Ruth Dunn a Witness.”
4. “Some Foolish Theories in Brooks Murder Case,” BDE, Feb. 20, 1902.
5. Matthew Algeo’s delightful book is a thorough—and thoroughly entertaining—compendium of the history of the sport through the years. Matthew Algeo, Pedestrianism: When Watching People Walk Was America’s Favorite Spectator Sport (Chicago: Review Press, 2014).
6. Chicago Daily News, Almanac and Year Book for 1902 (Chicago: Daily News Co., 1903), www.books.google.com; see also Eleanor Atkinson, Francis B. Atkinson, and Lewis A. Convis, The World’s Chronicle: A History of the World To-day for the Men and Women of To-morrow, vol. 4 (N.p.: Little Chronicle Publishing Co., 1901), www.books.google.com.
7. Algeo, Pedestrianism, 45–66.
5. ARREST
1. New York City Archives, death certificate for Walter S. Brooks. (Walter’s middle name was never mentioned, but it is possible that it was—ironically—Slaughter, as this was his maternal grandmother’s maiden name. His father’s name was Thomas Walter Brooks and sometimes Walter’s middle initial is listed as T., but it was officially S.)
2. Unless otherwise indicated, the interactions between Florence and the arresting detectives come from their testimony at the hearing and inquest: “Girl Held for Hotel Murder,” NYS, Feb. 16, 1902; “Murder of Brooks Charged”; “Sensational Climax Likely,” BDE, Mar. 18, 1902; “If You Kill My Son.”
3. “‘Third Degree’ Evidence All Stricken Out,” NYW, Mar. 23, 1902.
4. New York State and US Federal Census records, www.Ancestry.com.
5. “Celluloid Hair Combs,” Vintage Celluloid Collectibles, vintage-celluloid-collectibles.com/celluloid-hair-combs.
6. The interaction between Florence and Detective Riordan (sometimes misspelled as “Reardon” because it is pronounced that way) can be found at “Miss Burns and the Pistol,” NYS, Mar. 9, 1902; “Crushing Blow for Miss Burns,” NYW, Mar. 9, 1902; “Sensational Evidence Against Burns Girl,” BDE, Mar. 8, 1902.
7. “Murder of Brooks Charged.”
8. “Weible’s [sic] Story Upset Burns Girl’s Case,” NYW, Feb. 22, 1902.
9. “Tells How Barbour Died,” NYT, Sept. 16, 1900 (includes an extended personal account by Helen Southgate of the shooting); “Similar Tragedies,” Boston Herald, Mar. 12, 1902. This article notes the “remarkable … similarity of features” in the two cases and relates that Helen Southgate wrote to Florence to encourage her not to give up hope.
10. “Murder of Brooks.” In an eerie coincidence, Florence echoes this philosophy eight years later in her trial testimony for extortion: “If I had a million dollars a week, I would live up to it.” Transcript of People of the State of New York against Edward H. Brooks and Florence W. Wildrick, Court of General Sessions of the County of New York, Oct. 24, 1910, Case 1236, Criminal Trial Transcripts Collection, Special Collections, Lloyd Sealy Library, John Jay College, 1910.
6. FLORENCE AND THE TOMBS ANGEL
1. Nearly every article throughout the arrest and hearing of Florence Burns commented in some way on the incredible calmness—to the point of indifference—on the part of this teenage girl. For a small sampling, see “Calmness Displayed Astonishes Officials,” Miami (OH) Daily Star, Feb. 17, 1902; “Mother Tells Accused Girl Brooks Is Dead,” NYW, Feb. 17, 1902; “An Examination Begun in Case of Florence Burns,” BDE, Feb. 22, 1902.
2. “Murder of Brooks Charged”; “Grand Jury Rushing.”
3. “Mother Tells Accused Girl”; “Florence Burns to the Tombs,” NYS, Feb. 17, 1902.
4. “Mother Tells Accused Girl.”
5. “A Tale of the Tombs,” New York Correction Historical Society, http://www.correctionhistory.org/html/chronicl/nycdoc/html/histry/3a.html; Greg Young and Tom Meyers, The Bowery Boys: Adventures in Old New York (Berkeley, CA: Ulysses Press, 2016), 101.
6. Unless otherwise indicated, the information about Mrs. Foster comes from “Little Stories of the ‘Tombs Angel,’” NYT, Mar. 2, 1902; “Seth Low’s Rising Star,” BDE, June 5, 1896; “Afternoon Tea in the Tombs,” NYS, Nov. 28, 1896; “Among the Seventeen Dead,” NYS, Feb. 23, 1902; Zacks, Island of Vice, 196.
7. Says Molineux Is Innocent,” New York Tribune, Feb. 18, 1900; “Mrs. Nack’s Own Story of the Killing of Guldensuppe,” NYW, Oct. 3, 1897; “Maria’s Cell at Sing Sing,” NYEW, July 19, 1895; “Editorial” (re: Barberi and the Tombs Angel), Middletown Daily Argus, July 19, 1895; “Marie Barberi’s Second Trial,” BDE, Nov. 16, 1896; James D. Livingston, Arsenic and Clam Chowder: Murder in Gilded Age New York (Albany: State Univ. of New York Press, 2010), 63. Information on the cases whose defendants were inhabitants of the Tombs and who were the recipients of Mrs. Foster’s kindness can be found in Livingston, Arsenic and Clam Chowder (Mary Alice Fleming); Timothy J. Gilfoyle, A Pickpocket’s Tale: The Underworld of Nineteenth-Century New York (New York: Norton, 2006) (George Appo); Paul Collins, The Murder of the Century: The Gilded Age Crime That Scandalized a City and Sparked the Tabloid Wars (New York: Crown Publishers, 2011) (Augusta Nack); Gerald Gross, Masterpieces of Murder: An Edmund Pearson True Crime Reader (Boston: Little, Brown, 1963), 140–48 (Maria Barberi); Gross, Masterpieces of Murder, 229–33 (Mrs. Nack; this article is a very short, tongue-in-cheek and somewhat breezy recount of the Guldensuppe case; the Collins book is excellent and a much superior source).
8. “‘Miss Burns Wasn’t on Train,’ He Says,” NYW, Feb. 25, 1902; “Hearing in Burns Case Over until Tomorrow,” BDE, Feb. 24, 1902.
9. “Foster L. Backus Dead,” NYT, Mar. 11, 1907; “Foster L. Backus,” New York Tribune, Mar. 11, 1907.
10. “Burns Girl Shaken by Day’s Events, BDE, Feb. 23, 1902.
11. “Detectives Hunt for Burns Family,” NYW, Feb. 27, 1902; “Parents Gone,” DP, Feb. 28, 1902; “Jerome Offers His Aid to Free Miss Burns,” NYW, Feb. 20, 1902.
12. O’Connor’s book is a readable compendium of the cases that comprised Jerome’s career as New York City’s district attorney, as well as a biography of him. But you won’t find any mention of the Brooks-Burns case there, probably because it was so early in his tenure as DA, the case did not culminate in a trial, and it was not a victory for him. Richard O’Connor, Courtroom Warrior: The Combative Career of William Travers Jerome (Boston: Little, Brown, 1963).
13. See next chapter for a discussion of the concept of the Unwritten Law.
14. “Burns Girl Faces Accusers Today,” NYW, Feb. 26, 1902; “Burns Family Evades Subpenas [sic] from Jerome,” BDE, Feb. 22, 1902.
15. “Ban of Brooklyn,” DP, May 22, 1902.
7. THE UNWRITTEN LAW
1. Jackie Wahl, “Murder in Jacques Canyon: Did the Battered Wife Kill Jim Bachus?,” The Golden Age, Journal of the Nez Perce County Historical Society 14, no. 1 (1994): 15–18.
2. Gross, Masterpieces of Murder, 140–48.
3. “In the Case of a Girl,” Tacoma (WA) Times, Feb. 20, 1909 (Verna Ware); Bill Neal, Sex, Murder, and the Unwritten Law: Courting Judicial Mayhem, Texas Style (Lubbock: Texas Tech Univ. Press, 2009), 40–58 (Verna Ware) and 59–83 (Winnie Jo Morris).
4. Lawrence M. Friedman and William E. Havemann, “The Rise and Fall of the Unwritten Law: Sex, Patriarchy, and Vigilante Justice in the American Courts,” Buffalo Law Review 61, no. 5 (2013): 1000–1002, 1008–9.
5. Friedman and Havemann, “The Rise and Fall,” 1041–42.
6. William Grimes, “Francine Hughes Wilson, 69; “Domestic Violence Victim Who Took Action, Dies,” NYT, Mar. 31, 2017.
7. “Saved Herself by Killing Husband,” NYW, Mar. 12, 1902; “Woman Acquitted of Murder,” BDE, July 16, 1902.
8. “Miss Burns’ Motive,” DP, Feb. 25, 1902.
9. “Miss Burns’ Motive” (“She is about to become a mother”).
10. “‘No Jury Would Convict Burns Girl,’” NYW, Mar. 3, 1902.
11. “Jerome Falls from Pedestal,” Atlanta Constitution, Mar. 30, 1902.
8. FLORENCE IN JAIL AND A CITY OBSESSED
1. “Florence Burns in Court” (Florence to a reporter: “Please let me have a newspaper. I want to find myself”).
2. “Similar Tragedies,” Boston Herald, Mar. 12, 1902.
3. “Vaccination Bee in Tombs Prison,” NYW, Mar. 11, 1902.
4. “Shot Friend While Explaining Brooks’ Murder,” BDE, Mar. 17, 1902.
5. “Weibel’s [sic] Story Upset Burns Girl’s Case,” NYW, Feb. 22, 1902; “Burns Girl Faces”; “Vital Witness in Burns Case Lost,” NYW, Feb. 28, 1902; “‘Alice’s Sister’ Wrote to Save Florence Burns,” BDE, Apr. 7, 1902.
6. “Said She Killed Brooks,” BDE, Feb. 27, 1902.
7. “Florence Burns in Court.”
8. “Florence Burns in Court.”
9. “Florence Burns Carried Pistol, Police Say,” NYW, Feb. 18, 1902.
10. “Florence Burns Carried Pistol.”
11. “Florence Burns in Court.”
12. “Fifty Bodies in the Blazing Park Avenue Hotel, Says Chief Croker; Many Are Missing; Four Bodies Found,” NYW, Feb. 22, 1902.
13. “Burns Girl Sobs at Death Hymn,” NYW, Feb. 24, 1902.
14. “Eight Sailors Storm Victims,” Chicago Tribune, Feb. 24, 1902 (first adjournment for a woman); “In Honor of Tombs Angel,” NYEW, Jan. 30, 1904 (memorial plaque).
9. THE COURT OF SPECIAL SESSIONS
1. “Mother Tells Accused Girl Brooks Is Dead,” NYW, Feb. 17, 1902.
2. “Judge Mayer Dies of Heart Attack,” NYT, Dec. 1, 1925.
3. “Burns Case Is Badly Tangled,” NYW, Mar. 2, 1902.
4. At this time, William Travers Jerome was also involved in the investigation of a police department scandal over the murder of a whistle-blower, James McAuliffe, on the orders of the corrupt chief of police, Bill Devery, which occurred just before the Brooks murder. See “Mystery of Glennon Witness’ Death Deepens,” NYT, Feb. 21, 1902. The preliminary was also presided over by Justice Mayer and, in July, Mayer discounted—as he had in the Burns case—most of the witnesses’ testimony. Unlike his decision in the Burns case, however, Mayer declared the police testimony reliable—testimony that was almost certainly self-servingly untrue as the death occurred when the victim was in their custody. This left Jerome with no choice but to decide not to proceed because of a lack of evidence pointing directly at any specific individual. “Mr. Jerome Says He Can’t Act in McAuliffe Case,” NYT, July 22, 1902.
5. “Beauty Show in Brooks Mystery,” NYW, Mar. 8, 1902.
6. “Florence Burns Identified by ‘L’ Conductor,” NYW, Feb. 23, 1902.
7. “Florence Burns Identified by ‘L’ Conductor” (for poses); “New Mystery in Brooks Murder,” NYW, Mar. 1, 1902 (for quote).
8. “Believe Mayer Is Likely to Let Burns Girl Go.”
9. “Believe Mayer Is Likely to Let Burns Girl Go.”
10. “Florence Burns in Court”; “Burns Girl Not with Brooks?,” NYS, Feb. 19, 1902.
11. “Burns Girl’s Alibi to Jerome,” NYS, Feb. 21, 1902.
12. Articles regarding the Bedford Gang’s activities and their exposure can be found in note 10 of chapter 2.
13. People v. Durrant, 119 Cal. 54 and 119 Cal. 201 (1897). For an exhaustive examination of the Durrant case and the people involved, see my book: Virginia McConnell, Sympathy for the Devil: The Emmanuel Baptist Murders of Old San Francisco (Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2001).
14. “Burns Girl Shaken by the Day’s Events,” BDE, Feb. 23, 1902.
15. “Burns Girl Shaken.”
16. “Detectives Hunt for Burns Family,” NYW, Feb. 27, 1902.
17. “Burns Girl Shaken.”
18. “New Mystery in Brooks Murder,” NYW, Mar. 1, 1902; “Detectives Hunt for Burns Family,” NYW, Feb. 27, 1902.
19. “Expect That Burns Girl Will Be Held for Trial,” BDE, Mar.19, 1902; “Ridiculous, Says Mayer,” DP, Mar. 9, 1902.
20. “Burns Girl Shaken.”
21. “Burns Girl Shaken.”
22. Wible’s name was consistently misspelled as “Weible” and “Weibles.” Also, he had lied about his age, possibly to get the conductor’s job, saying he was twenty-two, so the newspapers reported him as twenty-two—except that one said he looked about nineteen! “Burns Girl Shaken.” Wible was nineteen and Florence was a pretty girl of the same age, so of course he would notice her.
23. “Florence Burns Took 11:15 P.M. Train Home,” NYW, Feb. 21, 1902.
24. “Burns Girl Shaken.”
25. “Weible’s [sic] Story Upset Burns Girl’s Case,” NYW, Feb. 22, 1902; “Trainman and Newsman Saw Burns Girl at 11:15,” BDE, Feb. 21, 1902.
26. “Miss Burns Wasn’t on Train, He Says,” NYW, Feb. 25, 1902.
27. “More Scandal Coming,” Boston Herald, Apr. 11, 1902; “Missing Persons in Burns Case Found,” NYW, Mar. 12, 1902.
28. “To Flush the Sewers in Search for Pistol,” BDE, Mar. 21, 1902.
29. “Burns Girl Shaken”; “Backus Tries to Show Brooks Was a Suicide,” BDE, Mar. 1, 1902.
30. Board of Trustees of American Institute of Homeopathy, Journal of American Institute of Homeopathy 1 (1909): 337–38, www.books.google.com.
31. “If You Kill My Son, I Will Kill You,” NYW, Mar. 16, 1902.
32. “If You Kill My Son.”
33. “Some Foolish Theories in Brooks Murder Case.” In September 2017, the forensic program Cold Justice related the successful examination and reopening of a cold case file for the murder of a young man, previously determined to have committed suicide. The ballistics reports showed a nearly impossible position for a successful suicide: in the back of the head in almost the same location as Walter Brooks’s wound. The chances of the victim’s being able to do this to himself were very low and, in the span of two seconds, a forensic team member was able to demonstrate the most successful methods of shooting oneself: to the temple, in the mouth, under the chin. All other methods run the risk of a less-than-fatal injury. The victim’s wife, long suspected of having killed him, eventually pleaded guilty to this crime. Cold Justice, Oxygen Channel, episode on the murder of Benjamin Cooper, Sept. 16, 2017; see also Matt Harvey, “Boothsville Woman Gets 15 Years for Voluntary Manslaughter of Husband,” www.theet.com, Dec. 22, 2016.
34. “Found Dead in a Hotel,” NYT, Jan. 10, 1883 (gas); “An Inventor Found Dead,” NYT, Feb. 11, 1896 (morphine); “Dead in Glen Island Hotel,” NYT, Apr. 30, 1904 (carbolic acid). Also not a suicide, but a not uncommon situation with a seventy-four-year-old man (deemed “aged”) accompanied by a twenty-eight-year-old woman to the Glen Island, found dead of what turned out to be heart disease (“Aged Merchant Found Dead,” NYT, Feb. 1, 1916).
35. “Some Foolish Theories.”
36. “Brooks Ordered Suit for Easter,” NYW, Mar. 20, 1902.
37. “Believe Mayer Is Likely to Let Burns Girl Go.”
38. “If You Kill My Son.”
39. “Burns Girl Freed, Decision Cheered, BDE, Mar. 23, 1902; “Florence Burns Freed; Not to Be Rearrested,” NYW, Mar. 23, 1902.
40. “If You Kill My Son.”
41. “If You Kill My Son.”
42. “Court Causes Surprise in Burns Case,” NYT, Mar. 19, 1902.
43. “Burns Girl Freed” (“fat baby”); “If You Kill My Son” (Eyre’s testimony).
44. “If You Kill My Son” (late edition).
45. “Girl Friend of Miss Burns to Tell of Threat,” NYW, Mar. 18, 1902; “‘Third Degree’ Evidence May Be Ignored,” NYW, Mar. 19, 1902.
46. Office of the Registrar, Lehigh University, e-mail message to author, Mar. 1, 2017; also in the 1900 census, Eyre listed his occupation as clerk and stated that he had not attended school that year.
47. “Denies He Ate Glass,” BDE, Dec. 24, 1903.
48. “Expect That Burns Girl Will Be Held for Trial,” BDE, Mar. 19, 1902.
49. “Believe Mayer Is Likely”; “‘Third Degree Evidence.’”
50. “Believe Mayer Is Likely”; “‘Third Degree Evidence.’”
51. “Believe Mayer Is Likely.”
52. Federal census records for the Dunne family, www.Ancestry.com.
53. “Girl Friend of Miss Burns.”
54. “Believe Mayer Is Likely.”
10. THE VERDICT AND AN INTERMISSION
1. “Believe Mayer Is Likely to Let Burns Girl Go.”
2. “Burns Girl Freed, Decision Cheered”; “Florence Burns Freed.”
3. “Useless to Try Miss Burns Again,” NYW, Mar. 25, 1902.
4. “Burns Girl Freed” (hungry); “Florence Burns Freed” (description of Mr. Brooks).
5. “Florence Burns Freed.”
6. “Florence Burns Freed.”
7. Burns, “Relates Madcap Career.”
8. “Burns Girl Freed.”
9. “Editorial,” Watertown (NY) Daily Times, Mar. 21, 1902. Watertown, smugly boasting of its small size as a buffer against crime, is seventy miles north of Syracuse, close to the Canadian border, and even today has a small population of twenty-six thousand, despite the nearby presence of the US Army’s Fort Drum. In 1900, Watertown’s population was under twenty-five hundred.
10. “The Burns Case and the ‘Third Degree,’” NYW, Mar. 24, 1902.
11. “Release of Florence Burns,” BDE, Mar. 24, 1902; emphasis added.
12. “Editorial,” Troy Press, cited in Watertown (NY) Daily Times, Mar. 27, 1902.
13. “Press Comment,” Charleston (SC) Evening Post, Mar. 26, 1902.
1. “Nicholas T. Brown Discharged,” NYT, Oct. 22, 1901.
2. “Brooks Inquest Begun; Burns Girl Not There,” BDE, May 14, 1902.
3. “Florence Burns at Lake Hopatcong,” NYT, Mar. 29, 1902.
4. “Walter Brooks’ Mother Denies.”
5. “Miss Burns Always Carried a Revolver,” NYEW, May 15, 1902.
6. “Runaway Boy Injured,” Philadelphia (PA) Inquirer, Oct. 15, 1895.
7. “How the Gang Swindled, as Told by One of Them,” BDE, Feb. 20, 1902.
8. The entire sorry saga is laid out in these BDE articles: “Girl Weds Strange Man, Thought It Was a Joke,” Sept. 29, 1901; “Groom’s Leg Involved,” Oct. 2, 1901; “Marriage Was Legal,” Oct. 3, 1901; “F. G. Jackson Wonders If He Is a Married Man,” Oct. 6, 1901; New York City Marriage Index, www.Ancestry.com.
9. “How the Gang Swindled.”
10. “Walter Brooks’ Mother Says”; “Miss Burns Always Carried.”
11. “Walter Brooks’ Mother Says.”
12. Young and Meyers, The Bowery Boys, 312–13. See also Burrows and Wallace, Gotham, 1148; Lloyd Morris, Incredible New York: High Life and Low Life from 1850 to 1950 (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse Univ. Press, 1951), 111.
13. “Police Testify to Indict Burns Girl,” NYEW, May 16, 1902.
14. “Police Testify.”
15. “Walter Brooks’ Mother Denies.”
16. “Walter Brooks’ Mother Says”
17. “Burns Girl’s Fate Rests with Jury, NYEW, May 19, 1902.
18. “Brooks Inquest Begins,” NYT, May 15, 1902.
19. “Walter Brooks’ Mother Denies” (Ruth hired by yellow paper); “Ruth Dunn [sic] a Witness at the Brooks Inquest” (her testimony); “Walter Brooks’ Mother Says” (Harry Cohen saw muff).
20. “Burns Girl Exonerated by Coroner’s Jury,” BDE, May 20, 1902.
21. “Burns Girl Exonerated.”
22. “Brooks Murder Case Ends,” NYT, May 21, 1902; “Burns Girl Is Freed by Coroner’s Jury,” NYEW, May 21, 1902.
23. “Miss Burns’ Motive, DP, Feb. 16, 1902.
24. “Miss Burns Wasn’t on Train, He Says,” NYW, Feb. 25, 1902.
25. “Florence Burns Not Ill,” BDE, Apr. 18, 1902.
26. “Miss Florence Burns Starts for Charleston,” Columbia (SC) State, May 26, 1902.
1. “Florence Burns a Recluse,” Denver (CO) Post, Oct. 30, 1902.
2. “Florence Burns a Recluse” (re: housework); Burns, “Relates Madcap Career” (for quote).
3. Burns, “Relates Madcap Career.”
4. “Florence Burns Home, Living in Seclusion,” BDE, Sept. 17, 1902.
5. “Two Hours of Intense Agony,” NYT, Nov. 12, 1881.
6. Abram Wildrick was the first in an impressive line of West Point graduates: two sons, two grandsons, three great-grandsons, and one great-great-grandson. West Point Association of Graduates, The Register of Graduates & Former Cadets of the United States Military Academy (West Point, NY: West Point, 2015); correspondence with the Wildrick family.
7. For a capsule summary of Wildrick’s (self-reported) derring-do, see “Florence Burns’ Parents Didn’t Know of Marriage,” BDE, Nov. 28, 1902, and “All Hope of Solitaires,” Marion (OH) Daily Star, Dec. 1, 1902.
8. Interviews and correspondence with the Wildrick family, all of whom refer to him as “Uncle Tad.” Several newspaper articles also mention the nickname.
9. “Corum and Coates Appear,” Salt Lake Tribune, July 2, 1895.
10. “Friend of Many Women,” NYS, Apr. 27, 1901; “Charley Wildrich [sic] a Marvel as a Conqueror of Hearts,” St. Louis Republic, May 5, 1901.
11. “Friend of Many Women.”
12. “Friend of Many Women” (Spanish-American War); “Wildrick Had a Novel Career,” Chicago Inter Ocean, Apr. 28, 1901 (Montgomery Ward).
13. “Dying Woman Faints in Court,” New-York Tribune, Apr. 26, 1901; “Friend of Many Women.”
14. “And Yet Another,” Marion (OH) Star, May 1, 1901.
15. “Friend of Many Women.”
16. The Mabel Strong story was such a dramatic one that it was covered by newspapers all across the country. She was the faithful woman standing by her “scapegrace” man, who was presented as totally undeserving of such loyalty and love. One article even refers to her as “his victim” when it was very obvious that she was a willing partner. From Tad’s arrest through Mabel’s death and burial, here is a representative sampling of articles: “Fainted,” Cincinnati Enquirer, Apr. 26, 1901; “Dying Woman Faints in Court”; “Friend of Many Women”; “Wanted Love to Last Longer Than Her Life,” Philadelphia Inquirer, Apr. 27, 1901; “Wildrick Had a Novel Career”; “His Debts,” Cincinnati Enquirer, Apr. 30, 1901; “On Verge of Grave,” Marion (OH) Star, Apr. 30, 1901; “Wildrick’s Victim Dying,” Chicago Inter Ocean, Apr. 30, 1901; “And Yet Another”; “Charley Wildrich [sic] a Marvel”; “Wife Loyal to the Last,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, July 16, 1901; “Wildrick’s Defender Dead,” NYT, July 16, 1901; “Miss Strong’s Funeral,” Akron (OH) Daily Democrat, July 18, 1901; “Mabel Strong Dies True to Scapegrace,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, July 21, 1901.
17. Burns, “Relates Madcap Career.”
18. Burns, “Relates Madcap Career” (“playthings of fate”); “Florence Burns Is Applicant for Divorce,” New Castle (PA) Herald, Apr. 17, 1908 (“I will devote my whole life”).
19. “Florence Burns’ Parents.”
20. “Florence Burns an Ex-Convict’s Wife,” NYW, Nov. 29, 1902.
21. “Bill to Punish Adultery,” NYS, Dec. 2, 1902.
22. “A Tragic Quartette,” Anaconda (MT) Standard, Dec. 4, 1902.
23. “Ban for Brooklyn,” DP, May 22, 1902.
24. “Florence Burns and the Stage,” BDE, Mar. 26, 1902.
25. H. A. Kemble and William E. S. Fales, Blue Pencil Magazine, Feb. 1900, vi, www.books.google.com (re: Irving Pinover); “Florence Burns to Star,” BDE, Dec. 8, 1902 (vaudeville plans).
26. “Florence’s Return Engagement,” BDE, Dec. 12, 1902.
27. “The Wildricks the Cynosure of All Eyes at Theater,” Great Falls (MT) Tribune, Dec. 14, 1902.
28. “Florence Burns Facing Rialto Belles Boycott,” BDE, Dec. 17. 1902.
29. “Florence Burns to Sing; She Has Not Rehearsed,” BDE, Dec. 15, 1902.
30. Maurice Jacobs (words) and Harry Robinson (music), “Gracie Brown,” A. A. Lupien Music Publishing Co., 1902.
31. “Florence Burns’ Debut,” Baltimore Sun, Dec. 16, 1902.
32. “Florrie Wasn’t Scared, But She Couldn’t Sing,” BDE, Dec. 16, 1902.
33. “Florence Burns Facing.”
34. “Florrie Wasn’t Scared.”
35. “Florrie Wasn’t Scared.”
36. “Florrie Wasn’t Scared.”
37. “Florence Burns Facing.”
38. “Hyde & Behman’s for the Week Commencing December 15, 1902,” Keith-Albee Manager Reports for Sept. 2, 1902–Sept. 3, 1903, from the Keith-Albee Collection, DIY History, Univ. of Iowa Library, https://diyhistory.lib.uiowa.edu/transcribe/4721/150446.
39. Bing Crosby was a member of the Newsboy Quintet when he was young, erenow.com/biographies/bing-crosby-a-pocketful-of-dreams-early-years-1903–1940/26.html.
40. “Florence Burns Facing.” For the picturesque and outrageous careers of Howe and Hummel, see Cait Murphy, Scoundrels in Law: The Trials of Howe & Hummel, Lawyers to the Gangsters, Cops, Starlets, and Rakes Who Made the Gilded Age (New York: HarperCollins, 2010); and Richard H. Rovere, Howe & Hummel: Their True and Scandalous History (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1974).
41. “Florence Burns Facing.”
42. “Florence Burns in Posse,” BDE, Dec. 20, 1902.
43. “Florence Burns Jeered,” DP, Dec. 20, 1902.
44. “At the Theaters,” DP, Feb. 16, 1903.
45. Wagenknecht, American Profile, 261–66.
46. Wagenknecht, American Profile, 261–66. Anyone wishing to experience a realistic description of the turn-of-the-century variety show could not do better than to read the scene in Frank Norris’s McTeague, where the titular character takes his fiancée, her mother, and her brother to a show in 1899 San Francisco. Frank Norris, McTeague: A Story of San Francisco (New York: Signet Classics, 2003), 76–84.
47. For a thorough account of the Gillette-Brown case, see Craig Brandon, Murder in the Adirondacks: “An American Tragedy’” Revisited (Utica, NY: North Country Books, 1986, with a 100th Anniversary edition in 2006).
48. “White Rats Win,” DP, June 25, 1903.
49. “Florence Burns Again,” BDE, July 23, 1903.
50. “Carrie Nation Appears with Florence Burns,” Salt Lake Telegram, Sept. 14, 1903.
51. “Florence Burns Sues for Absolute Divorce,” BDE, Apr. 17, 1908.
52. “Florence Burns Sues,” NYT, Apr. 18, 1908.
53. “Seeks Absolute Divorce from Charles W. Wildrick,” New-York Tribune, Apr. 18, 1908.
54. “Florence Burns Sues for Absolute Divorce”; “Once Held as Slayer; She Seeks a Divorce,” Washington (DC) Times, Apr. 18. 1908.
55. “Alimony and Counsel Fees,” BDE, Apr. 21, 1908.
56. Transcript of People of the State of New York.
57. “Kept Marriage a Secret,” BDE, Nov. 12, 1909.
58. Transcript of People of the State of New York.
13. THE BADGER GAME
1. Unless otherwise indicated, the information in this chapter comes from Transcript of People of the State of New York.
2. “Uncle Ready to Fight for Estate,” Amsterdam (NY) Evening Record and Daily Democrat, Sept. 8, 1911. The history of the litigation can be found in “Western N.Y. News,” Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, Feb. 25, 1887; “Western New York,” Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, Jan. 21, 1895; “Wayne,” Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, Nov. 14, 1895.
3. Probate of the will of Lyman Hurlburt, www.Ancestry.com; “Uncle Ready to Fight.”
4. “Meet Tonight,” Little Rock Arkansas Democrat, Dec. 10, 1900.
5. “Uncle Ready to Fight.”
6. New York, Sing Sing Prison Admission Records, 1865–1939, for Edward H. Brooks, www.Ancestry.com.
7. Registers of Enlistments in the US Army, 1798–1914, p. 266, www.Fold3.com.
8. 1900 Federal Census, www.Ancestry.com.
9. Information on the career of Ed Brooks Sr. can be found in the following articles, all from the Lebanon (PA) Daily News: “20 Years Ago,” Jan. 27, 1906; “Two More Arc Lights,” Jan. 7, 1889; “In and About Town,” June 20, 1890; “Notice,” May 6, 1891; “Work Begun,” May 6, 1891; “Electric Light Plant,” Sept. 18, 1891; “Fottrell Insulated Wire,” July 28, 1891; “Half Interest in the Avon Inn,” May 19, 1892; “Resignation Accepted,” Sept. 7, 1892; “Mr. E. H. Brooks,” Mar. 17, 1893; “Will Leave for the West,” Apr. 8, 1893; “Runs a Vessel on Puget Sound,” June 9, 1893; “Eldridge H. Brooks” (obituary), Apr. 4, 1898.
10. B. Frank Scholl, Library of Health: Complete Guide to Prevention and Cure of Disease (Philadelphia: Historical Publishing, 1927), 650–52.
11. See www.Dictionary.com/browse/badger-game for a definition and some background. Charles Kushner, the father of President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared, in an especially odious use of the Badger Game, hired a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law, either in revenge or to silence him and his sister, who were to testify against him in federal court. See Laura Mansnerus, “Major Donor Admits to Hiring Prostitute to Smear Witness,” NYT, Aug. 19, 2004.
14. ARREST, TRIAL, AND THE LAW OF UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES
1. Unless otherwise indicated, the information in this chapter comes from Transcript of People of the State of New York.
2. “Florence Burns Again in Hands of Police,” New York Tribune, Sept. 21, 1910; “Florence Burns in Bold ‘Badger’ Game, NYT, Sept. 21, 1910.
3. The newspaper reports of the case can be found in “Florence Burns Again”; “Florence Burns in Bold”; “Girl Once Tried for Murder Held in Badger Case,” Denver Post, Sept. 21, 1910; “Charge Badger Game,” Washington Post, Sept. 21, 1910; “Florence Burns in ‘Badger’ Plot, Lawyer Charges,” NYW, Sept. 21, 1910; “Woman Given Long Term,” Indianapolis Star, Nov. 3, 1910; “Once Belle, Now Criminal,” Elyria (OH) Evening Telegram, Oct. 29, 1910; “Florence Burns Goes to Long Prison Term,” BDE, Nov. 2, 1910; “Florence Burns Again,” Tampa Tribune, Nov. 3, 1910; “Florence’s Big Sentence,” Indiana (PA) Evening Gazette, Nov. 3, 1910.
4. “Mystery in Death of Accuser of Florence Burns, NYEW, Sept. 2, 1911.
5. “Uncle Ready to Fight.”
6. “Florence Burns’s Accuser Found Dead,” NYT, Sept. 2, 1911.
7. “Mystery in Death.”
8. “Mystery in Death.”
9. “Florence Burns’ Victim Found in Hudson River,” Wilkes-Barre (PA) Evening News, Sept. 2, 1911.
10. “Uncle Says Nephew Slain for Revenge,” Lincoln (NE) Evening News, Sept. 2, 1911; “Investigate Death of Man in River, Trenton (NJ) Evening Times, Sept. 2, 1911.
11. John E. Wehrum Jr. and Owen C. Marx, “Palmagiano: The Constitutionality of Prison Mail Censorship,” Catholic University Law Review 21, no. 1 (1971): 216n2, http://scholarship.law.edu/lawreview/vol21/iss1/14.
12. “Uncle Ready to Fight”; “Will of C. W. Hurlburt Filed,” NYT, Sept. 8, 1911; “Contests Charles Hurlburt’s Will, NYT, Nov. 14, 1911; “Writ for Badger Woman, BDE, Nov. 14, 1911.
13. “Find Hurlburt’s Clothing,” Santa Cruz (CA) Evening News, Sept. 20, 1911.
14. “Lawyer Hurlburt Not Murdered,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Sept. 3, 1911.
15. “Suicidal Thoughts: When Is It Time to Worry?,” www.depressiond.org/suicidal-thoughts-when-is-it-time-to-worry/.
16. “Suicidal Thoughts.”
17. “Hurlburt’s Will Sustained,” BDE, Dec. 11, 1911.
18. See www.Findagrave.com.
15. LESSONS NOT LEARNED
1. “Florence Burns Reappears; May Be Bride Again,” Syracuse Herald, Mar. 21, 1915; www.Findagrave.com for Caryl Bensel.
2. “Whitman Angered at Pardon Appeal,” BDE, Dec. 21, 1915.
3. “Florence Burns Tries to Shoot Detective in Raid,” NYEW, Jan 27, 1922.
4. “Burns Woman Is Taken into Custody Again,” Syracuse Herald, July 13, 1919.
5. “Burns Woman.”
6. “Florence Burns Repents,” BDE, July 12, 1919.
7. “Florence Burns Held After Police Raid,” NYT, Jan. 27, 1922.
8. The term disorderly house was generally used to refer to any residence that was the subject of a complaint made to the police, even for something as benign as a loud party. However, it was understood to refer specifically to houses of prostitution, as well as dwellings dealing in drugs or gambling. Here, because the police were already committed to a raid, and given the nature of what they found there, it’s clear that it was a house where prostitution occurred, even if it was not an outright brothel.
9. “Florence Burns Tries”; “Florence Burns Held After”; “Florence Burns Is Held for Gun-Play,” BDE, Feb. 1, 1922.
10. “Florence Burns Tells Court She Is Guilty,” NYEW, Feb. 15, 1922; “Florence Burns Guilty,” NYT, Feb. 16, 1922; “Florence Burns Gets 3-Year Term,” BDE, Feb. 23, 1922.
11. “4 Women Criminals, Well Known Locally, Serving Terms at Auburn,” BDE, Mar. 9, 1924.
12. Death certificate for Frederick Burns, New York City Archives.
13. “Kept Marriage a Secret”; State of New Jersey marriage certificates; 1910 Federal Census, www.Ancestry.com.
14. Probate of the Last Will and Testament of Frederick Burns, www.Ancestry.com.
15. Records of The Evergreens Cemetery, Brooklyn, NY.
16. “New York Day by Day, with O. O. McIntyre,” Logansport (IN) Pharos Tribune, Aug. 14, 1924.
1. 1925 New York State Census; 1930 and 1940 Federal Censuses, www.Ancestry.com.
2. “Woman Freed in 1902 Slaying Asks ‘Gossip’ Be Silenced,” BDE, Apr. 22, 1929; 1930 Federal Census for John Stankevich’s occupation after this incident.
3. “Obituary, Henrietta Burns,” BDE, July 24, 1937.
4. “Obituary, Henrietta Burns.”
5. “Two Cops Save Woman in Blazing Kitchen,” BDE, Mar. 2, 1944.
6. “Stankevich—Florence,” BDE, Aug. 29, 1949.
7. The Evergreens Cemetery records (for Burns plot); Social Security Death Index (for John Stankevich). Florence consistently reported her age as younger than she really was, admitting her actual age in only one census. The cemetery records have her as fifty-five when she was really sixty-seven. For the kitchen fire incident in 1944, she reported herself as fifty-three when she was a month shy of sixty-two. Did John know how old she really was? He would have been the one giving the information to the funeral home and the cemetery.
8. Sandra Vermilyea Todd, Vermilyea Family Reunion, http://vermilyeafamilyreunion.com/pdf/VBook2014/VERMILYEA%20GENEALOGY%ADDITIONS%20AND%20CORRECTIONS.pdf, 2014.
9. Death certificate for Mary Brooks, New York City Archives.
10. Death certificate for Thomas Walter Brooks, www.findagrave.com.
11. “Foster L. Backus,” New York Tribune, Mar. 11, 1907; “Foster L. Backus Dead,” NYT, Mar. 11, 1907.
12. “Judge Mayer Dies of Heart Attack,” NYT, Dec. 1, 1925.
13. O’Connor, Courtroom Warrior, 233–34.
14. “Jerome Dies at 74; Long Tammany Foe,” NYT, Feb. 14, 1934.
15. Marriage Records, New York City Archives; death certificate for Harry Casey, New York City Archives; Medical Examiner’s Report on the Death of Harry Casey, New York City Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.
16. “‘Handsome Ed’ Weds Again,” BDE, July 17, 1903; “Mrs. Alma Watson Announces Divorce,” BDE, May 17, 1913; US Draft Registrations Cards, 1917–18, for Edward Cole Watson, www.Ancestry.com.
17. “New Yorker Dies at Springs,” Denver Rocky Mountain News, Sept. 16, 1911; “Deaths and Funerals,” Colorado Springs Gazette, Sept. 15, 1911; State of Colorado death certificate for Theodore Burris.
18. “Jobs at $15 Each,” NYT, Nov. 12, 1905.
19. 1910 Federal Census, www.Ancestry.com.
20. “Hold American for $5,000 Ransom,” NYT, Nov. 23, 1912.
21. “Bankruptcy Notices,” BDE, June 8, 1915.
22. “Maddox, Jr., in Hospital,” BDE, Nov. 21, 1911; “Died,” NYT, Feb. 13, 1916. For an excellent account of the Guldensuppe case, not only involving Judge Maddox as presiding judge for Martin Thorn’s trial, but also the nefarious law firm of Howe & Hummel (mentioned elsewhere in this book), see Collins, The Murder of the Century. The reason I use “reportedly” regarding Maddox Jr.’s cause of death is that I am skeptical that it was from pneumonia, although it is entirely possible that it was. But there is no entry for him in any of the New York City death indexes and he is supposed to have died at home in Brooklyn. I sent for his death certificate and was sent the one for his father instead (an easy mistake as the father, who had the same name, died a month later). When I reordered the certificate for the son, accompanied by a letter about the confusion between father and son and giving the son’s family-reported date of death, I was sent another certificate for the father! Because of Maddox Jr.’s mental problems, I thought possibly the cause of death might have been suicide.
23. “Talks of Florence Burns,” BDE, Apr. 13, 1902; “Ruth Dunn [sic] at New Haven,” BDE, Apr. 11, 1902.
24. “Ruth Dunn [sic] Finds Herself and Notifies Her Family,” BDE, Apr. 10, 1902.
25. “Ruth Dunn [sic] Finds Herself.”
26. “Ruse of a Girl’s Mother to Make Sure of Arrest,” BDE, Sept. 11, 1902.
27. “Ruth Dunn’s [sic] Chum Took Acid to Die,” NYEW, Dec. 29, 1902; “Girl Who Tried Suicide Proves to Be Ethel Kahl,” BDE, Dec. 29, 1902.
28. “Said She Was Ruth Dunn [sic],” BDE, Oct. 8, 1902; “Ruth Dunn [sic] Made Prisoner in Raid,” NYEW, Oct. 8, 1902; “Ruth Dunn [sic] Caught in Raid,” DP, Oct. 9, 1902.
29. Marriage certificate of Ruth Maria Dunne and John William Murphy, New York City Archives; California Death Index, www.Ancestry.com.
30. New York City Municipal Deaths, www.FamilySearch.org; death certificate for Harry L. Cohen, New York City Archives.
31. “Eyre Signed a Peace Bond,” BDE, Mar. 13, 1905; death certificate for William A. Eyre, New York City Archives (his age is listed as thirty, but he was actually a month shy of age twenty-seven; he was born in October 1882). The Consumers Park Brewery (building still standing today) was part of a delightful beer garden complex called “a theme park of beer” by Walkabout author Suzanne Spellen, containing a market, benches, restaurant, and foliage. Suzanne Spellen, “Walkabout: Consumers Park Brewery, Part 2,” July 10, 2012, www.brownstoner.com/history/walkabout-consumers-park-brewery-part-2/.
32. New York, Abstracts of World War I Military Service (for Joseph E. Cribbins), www.Ancestry.com; US Headstone Applications for Military Veterans (for Joseph E. Cribbins), www.Ancestry.com.
33. Federal Census records; US World War I, Draft Registration Cards, 1917–18 (for Arthur Cleveland Wible); US World War II Draft Registration Cards, 1942 (for Arthur Cleveland Wible), www.Ancestry.com.
34. Federal Census records; death certificate for Harold L. Theall, New York City Archives.
35. “T. C. Wells Drowned in Texas,” NYT, June 23, 1903.
36. New York City Death Index, www.Ancestry.com.
37. “George D. Bader a Suicide,” NYT, Sept. 20, 1905.
38. Interviews and correspondences with members of the Wildrick family; “Obituary No. 1,” NYT, Nov. 10, 1964 (for Capt. Charles W. Wildrick).
39. US World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917–18 (for Eldridge Hildreth Brooks), www.Ancestry.com; Duesenberg history, www.historicstructures.com/in/indianapolis/duesenberg_auto_company.php.
40. US Passport Applications, 1795–1925 (for Eldridge Hildreth Brooks), www.Ancestry.com.
41. “New Jersey Charters,” NYT, June 23, 1926; Selective Service Registration Cards, World War II, Fourth Registration (for Eldridge Hildreth Brooks), www.Ancestry.com.
42. Federal Census records.
43. “Mrs. Brooks Denounces Girl,” BDE, Feb. 16, 1902. Decatur Street was originally composed of houses that were set back modestly from the street and had gardens in the front, but the newer brick homes did not. The Brookses, who had a reputation in the neighborhood of being “exclusive”—which probably meant they did not mingle much—objected to the modern house being built next to theirs because it supposedly came too close to their yard and possibly infringed on their lot line. Today, you can see the Brooks house set quite a way back from the street, while the one to its left (facing the house) juts out boldly, close to the sidewalk. The Brooks house can’t be seen until you are right in front of it.
44. “Her Father Fears ‘Bedford Gang,’” NYEW, June 19, 1902.
45. “After a Hound,” Watertown (NY) Daily Times, July 21, 1902 (Latimer); “Man with Stab Wounds Found Lying in Snow,” BDE, Mar. 6, 1902.
46. “Bedford Gang Suspected of a Highway Robbery,” BDE, Jan. 27, 1904.
47. “Bedford Gang Revived in Its Old Time Infamy,” BDE, June 5, 1904.
48. “Bedford Gang Revived.”
49. “Bedford Gang Revived.”
50. “Mining Co. Promoters Swindled by Wholesale,” BDE, Mar. 11, 1904.
51. “Murphy Conspiracy Sulzer Calls Suit,” NYT, July 3, 1913; “Woman Explains Basis of Suit Against Sulzer,” Washington (DC) Herald, July 12, 1913.