The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1891-06-29
NEW Y0RkS RIPPER.
Trial of the American Edition of
Jack to Begin To-day.
AMEER BEN ELFS Sad PLIGHT.
Is He the Murderer and Mutilator of
"old Shakespeare" and, if SO, is He
Identical With the White Chapel
Fiend, Known as Jack the Ripper9
How He Appears in Court---The
Jury Secured for the Trial.


How He Appears in court---The
Jury Secured for the Trial.
New YoRK, June 2s.-.Ameer Ben Ali
will be confronted on Monday with the
evidence upon which the public prose-
cutors expect to prove that he killed
and tfsndishly mangled and mutilated
the body OF Carrie Brown in the East
River Hotel on the night of April 1924.
The jurors will appear at the brown
stone court house at 1O:9O o'clock, and
will be escorted, under guard, to the
East River Hotel, at Catharine and
Water streets, where the dissolute old
hag was slaughtered and half dissected,
and will view in perfect silence tho 9 by
10 room in which the foul deed was
done, and the room like it on the same
floor where it is said the Algerian Arab
slept that awful night.
On their return to Part II, OF the
Court of General Sessions, Assistant
District-Attorney Francis L. Wcllman
will open the case for the prosecution,
telling the jury what he proposes to
prove.
The evidence will be almost entirely
circumstantial. The speaking witness
es for the people are thirteen miserable
people of the class to which "old
Shakespeare" belonged, and who have
been for two months living better than
lhey ever lived before, physically and
morally, in the house OF detention.
They will tell how Ameer, known to
them rs "Frenchy No. /" was called
old Shakespeare's lover; how he was
looking for her the night before the
murder; how she and a blonde young
man occupied room 81 on the top floor
OF the East River Hotel dive after II
o'clock that night; how Frenchy No. |
paid twenty-five pennies at the bar and
went to sleep alone in No. 80 at mid
night; how the body OF the old woman
was found at 0 o'clock next morning,
strangled, disemboweled, mutilated;
how two days later blood was found on
the door, the walls, the chair, the bed
in room 80, and blood was found on the
shirt Of the Arab arrested eleven hours
after the discovery of the murder
lounging at neighboring bar.
Ameer Ben Ali does not look like a
desperate fiend. He has lost some OF
his fright and talks earnestly to Con-
slant ]. Sperco, who is MGhometan
educated in English.
To reporter, through Mr.. Sperco,
the child OF the desert says:
~ swear by the Prophet that I never
killed any woman never had any
thing to do with Carrie Brown. She
never harmed me. Why should / kill
her? Business was dull and | had lit
tie money, but woman like her would
have no money-perhaps few pieces, a
dollar or two"
Then, with IN eager look and Q smile
Of confidence, this dark-skinned pris-
oner says in picturesque English:
"Hack ALA max me freew
"The Law OF God" will clear himl
Frenchy says he was born in village
near Algiers, but he doesn't know how
long ago. Like most low.Class Arabs,
he iixes the date OF his birth, by some
national or notorious event. But
Ameer's event was not known to the
interpreter. He is probably about
forty:flve, for he served five years in the
French army, participating in Turk
ish regiment in the Franco-P -Prussian
war, where he was shot in the leg, lie
was honorably discharged, married and
has two children.
"Leet chill, wan boy, wan grill" sx-
claims Ameer, teariully, holding his
tattooed hands at the height Of the
knee, then OF the thigh.
Some time ago he was induced by the
pretty stories Of the steamship to pay
$50 for a passage to Brazil He nearly
starved there, and finally drifted to
New York. Here he peddled fruit,
shell and bead ornaments and did odd
Jobs, living at $40 Fourth street, Brook
lyn, in the Greek and Algerian settle
ment.
defend MYSELF l know no one. l
have no influential friends. They may
hang me-then what will my poor wife
and children in Algeria do?"
Tears well up to the sunken, brown
eyes at the thought OF his little family,
and he wonders il they know OF his
trouble and danger. Then he says
cheerily that if he is allowed to 60 free
he will go home TO his wife and babies
as quick as he can get there, adding,
''Maybe NJ. d'Absac, the French Consul
General, will send me home, l was q
French soldier"