Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1903-04-15
FROM EAR TO EAR.
An Italian Found Murdered at
New York City.
Throat Cut and Body, Still Warm,
Packed in a Barrel.
No Clues in sisht-A PuzzIins Case for
the Police.

New York April IA murder was
discovered, early today, by the finding
of a body of a man apparently a..
Italian, in barrel in East tn sect
near the docks. The mans thl cat was
cut from ear to ear. The body was
warm when found and the work of fer
reting out the supposed crime was be-
gun at once by the detectives.
A scrub woman on her work noticed
the barrel on the sidewalk and hanging
on it the mans coat soaked with blood.
She informed the police.
The first and only clew found during
several hours search was the letters
1T. W." painted on the bottom of the
barrel, but the police think these let
tiers will aid them good deal in re-
vealing the mystery. 1t is supposed
that somebody intended to throw the
body into the river, after bringing it
in a wagon to the place where it was
found, but found the pier at East 18th
street closed and dropped the load in
the street in a hurry, fearing discovery.
The police discovered later the ad-
dress 366 Third avenue written in pen
Gil on the bottom Of the barrel and
in the coat pocket of the dead man
bit of paper bearing the words in
Italian translated as come, come in a
hurry" The police believe this was
part of a decOy letter. A small per-
fumed woman's handkerchief was found
in the barrel.
At $3.50 Third avenue is a furnished
room house, but the proprietor, Albert
Voecks, said he had never seen the
barrel or the body before. Adjoining
366 is a grocery store. The barrels
used there are generally thrown into
the yard of 366 to be used as fire wood.
The grocer, Van Hoffman, could not
identify either the body or the barrel
OF 200 Italians summoned to the police
station none have been able to identify
the body.
The police suspect the body may
have been brought over from Brooklyn
with the intention of throwing it from
a pier.
The well-kept condition of the hands
and nails of the dead man indicate
that he was not q laborer. The po-
lice say that he wore expensive shoes
and may have been in good circum-
stances.
Coroner's Physician Albert T. Wes-
ton, who performed an autopsy on the
body of the murdered man, said af-
forwards that he had found Is addi-
tional stab wounds in the neck, besides
the two deep gashes that had severed
the jugular vein. All the wounds were
inflicted with a dagger.
The physician said that the autopsy
revealed no evidence that there had
been a struggle at the time the man
was killed. He advanced the theory
that the man had been held SO that
he did not move, while his assailants,
in order to force him to tell something
they wanted to know, tortured him
by making slight stab wounds in his
neck.
The nationality of the murdered man
has not as yet been established. Detec-
tive Sergeant Petrosini, who was posi-
tive tonight, that the man was an
Italian, took eight Italians to the
morgue, tonight, in an effort to have
the man identified, but to his surprise
they declared that the man was not an
Italian, but was an Armenian or
Greek On the other hand Detective
Sergeant Feretti said that several Ar
menians had declared that the man was
not an Armenian and was either an