San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1889-01-10
MYSTERIOUS MURDERS.
WOMEN KILLED IN NEW YORK CITY
AND THEIR sLAYERS NEVER FOUND.
The Pretty Cigar Girl Whose Story Poe
Made the Basis of q Novel-Murders
Without Apparent nIotive-The Police
Outwitted.

Made the Basis of q NoveI-Murders
without Apparent nIotive-The Police
Outwitted.
New York has produced as many mysteri-
GUS murders in which women have been vic
tins as London. Many of them were quite
as atrocious as the famous Whitechapel
crimes and as full of mystery as the murder
of Eva Mitchell or Amelia Olsen in Chicago.
Not all the murders of women in this town
have remained mysteries, but there are ten
or a dozen notable cases in which the stories
of the crimes have never been revealed and
probably never will I've. The story of New
York's inexplicable murders of women begins
way back in 1886. April 9 of that year
Dorcas Boyan, alias Helen levitt, was found
with her throat cut. Her murderer was
never captured or even known. The old
residents of New York can still recall the
sensation caused at the time by the murder.
This case was simply the beginning. IL
was followed six years later by what is still
known as the Cigar Girl Mystery" which
is one of New Yorks most famous crimes.
Pretty Mary Rogers sold cigars at a little
store on Broadway. She was bright and vi
vacious and popular with the customers who
througed the little store Among all her &C
quaintances there was none who could name
an enemy, nor was she known to have been
unduly intimate with any man. One day in
1912 she was found murdered The news of
the crime caused the greatest sensation New
York had experienced since her evacuation
by the British soldiery. The girl was so
widely known and so universally liked that
the whole population was interested in find
ing the murderer, but the name of the per-
son who committed the crime and the cause
of it remain as much a mystery today as
ever. Edgar Allan Poe perpetuated the
dreadful story by making it the basis of his
novel, THE Mystery of Marie Roget" and
there is no New Yorker who has not beard
of Mary Rogers murder
THE CARLTON HOUSE CASE.
Women murder mysteries have b-come
more frequent in recent years. The famous
Carlton house murder was the most sensa-
tiOnal within the last decade In December.
1884 two men were removing some debris in
the subcelar of the Carlton house. From
beneath a quantity of loose dirt a well shaped
woman's hand was first exposed. Then the
body of a good looking woman was found |
She was clad in a maroon cOlOred dress but
there was no mark on her person or clothing
by which she could be identified. Everything
which could possibly lead to the discovery of
who she was had been removed The person |
or persons interested in getting her out of the !
way were eminently successful, not only in
that, but in cunCcallng their own or her iden |
tity Even the time when the murder was
committed or when she was probably con- |
cealcd in the cellar was never approximately |
fixed. The police believe that Benjamin |
Grau, who is now serving a ten year sem
tence in the Trenton pententiary, had some
thing to do with the crime, and will try to |
fasten it on him when his time of imprison-
ment expires, but there is little chance that |
they will.
THE RYAN MURDER.
The crime which most nearly resembles |
those Of the Whitechapel fiend was the muir
der of Mary Ryan and her brother Nicholas |
Ryan at No 204 Broome street, in December,
1873. Three lives were really taken, because |
Mary Ryan was found to be enceinte The |
murder of this sister and brother was most |
bloody one, and, like the one which cost Fora |
Burns her life at Lincoln, Ills, in 1888, was
probably committed to shield the poor girls |
betrayer Undoubtedly the brother was
killed while trying to avenge his sister He |
engaged his slayer in tremendous struggle |
Mary was found lying with her face on the
ear. Her brothers body lay in the hallway. |
His throat was also cut, but the floor and |
walls were despatched with blood, and there |
were signs of a desperate struggle. The |
brothers body was clothed in night attire, |
and it was evident that he had been awak-
ened by the struggle which cost his sister her |
life and in going to her assistance had lost |
his own. The name of Mary Ryan's betrayer
and the slayer of herself, her brother and her
unborn infant has remained a secret for tif-
teen years.
Annie Downey was a flower girl and was
well known about town in 1879 and 1880
People Familiarity spoke of her as Blonde
Annie" or "Curley Tom" the flower girl
In personal appearance she was attractive.
Early III 1880 she was found dead III a house
kept by a woman named Sundt in Prince
street. None of the Whtechapel crimes ex
Ceeded this one in atrocity. The girls head !
was tied firmly to the bed on which she lay,
and she was cut in several places. Who did |
it? That's what the New York police tried |
to find out and couldn't, nor did they ever
discover who shot Josephine ForteIla, aged
%, at No. Y James street, in September,
1884 Equally mysterious was the death of
an unknown woman whose body was found |
at the corner of Elizabeth and Blocker
streets in 1876. The murder of Mary Howard
in East Eighty first street about ten years
ago was never satisfactorily explained. 1t
was supposed that her husband killed her,
but that fact was never fully established, and
he has so far eluded the vigilant police. New
York Cor. Chicago Tribune.