The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-04-01
POLICE WARNED; MURDERDONE
DISSOLUTE CABMAN VISITS WON
AN TWICE TO KILL.
Her Protector, Wounded at First, Dies After
Second ShOotins-She's Badly Wounded
and Murderer's Bullet Ends His Own
Lfe-He Waited for a Sleuth TO Co.

ehtA .NIui > III .ib his ;"
Lfe-He Waited for a Sleuth TO Go.
James Ahearn. who had been a trooper
in a Hussar regiment in England, came
here from Ireland eight years ago with
a pretty, black eyed Irish girl, Mary Woods.
Of the County Armagh. They lived as
man and wife, although unmarried, drifting
from tenement to tenement and going a
grade lower in the social scale at every
move. Ahearn had got a job as f cabman.
but he drank much and often and soon the
young woman found that she was expected
to support him.
Until about three weeks ago they lived
together in wretched quarters at $40 East
Seventy-fourth street. The woman had
begun to tire of her life with Ahearn, who
frequently beat her. She fell in with James
Black, an upholsterer. 81 years old and a
widower, formerly of Boston. Black was
kindly, sober, and a steady workman
who had been five years with RICHTER 6
kolb, decorators, Of l56 Fifth avenue. He
was struck with the woman's looks and her
tale of i'll treatment. He s~ynnpathized with
her and she went to live with him in a cosey,
we'll furnished fat of three rooms on the
fourth floor OF 229 East Sixty-third street.
ilItdTu "dS luTlOuS NIIeL ne lOulQ uldI
his source of income had been cut of. He
learned where the woman was and decided
20 kill her and Black.
The middle of the three rooms in which
Black and the woman lived served both as
dining room and kitchen. The only en-
trance to the fat was a door with upper
panels Of glass. Ahearn, armed with a big
revolver, knocked at this door ar II o'clock
o. Friday night and got no response. He
smashed the glass panels with the butt Of
his pistol, put his hand through the opening,
drew back the latch inside and went in.
Black had jumped out of bed when he
heard the glass crash and ran at the in
truder. Ahearn fred, and the bullet
glanced from Blacks nose, breaking the
bridge. Black, who was big and stronger
than the dissipated cabman, %grappled with
him and threw him partly down the stairs.
The woman had fled from the room to the
rear fire escape. when she saw Ahearn.
She walked by it over to the roomso Of Ms.
Joseph Wexler on the east side Of the house.
The shot aroused many Of the tenants
and their appearance at various doors and
the scream Of the frightened woman sent
Ahearn running down the stairs. He dis
appeared before the COP on post got TO the
house. Black went to the PRESBYTERIAN
Hospital and had his wound dressed. The
woman said she knew Ahearn to be a brute.
She old the police hat he would doubtless
come around again and kill both of them.
She went to the East Sixty-seventh street
station house and asked Capt. Handy to
send a man round to protect her and Black.
Detectives John T.. Bonser and Parsloe Went
to the house and searched it from top to
bottom without finding Ahearn, Parsloe
SrA-S n II N--nr fhn rronin- and 1ntA Ah.ar ,f =
haunts, but got no clue to his whereabouts.
Detective Bonser sat at the door of the
fat from midnight until 5 o'clock yester-
day morning with his revolver on his lap,
waiting for Ahearn to return. He talked
to the upholsterer, who decla red that he
was not afraid of Ahearn. Black said he
thought he could manage Ahearn even
without a gun. He had taken down a
curtain from the window and tackled it
over the broken glass panels.
At 5 O'Clock Black and the woman in
sisted that Bonser should go. He was not
out of the house more than twenty minutes
when Ahearn, who had been lurking in the
neighborhood, simply waiting for the
detective to get away, sneaked into the
hallway and up the stairs.
Black and the woman were at breakfast,
when the fimsy curtain was ripped off
the broken door n the face of Ahearn
appeared at the opening. He opened the
door and before Black could spring at him
sent a. buIeI through MS ordln' he then
fred three shots into the woman, and, az
she fell, sent one into his own head.
Black died instantly. Ahearn and the
woman were taken to the Presbyterian
Hospital in the same ambulance. Ahearn
died three hours later and the woman,
who is not MORALLY hurt, was transferred
TO Bellevue.
Black was highly commended by his
EMPLOYERS. He was an expert workman
and earned good wages. He came here
from Boston about FIVE years ago and for
three years lived in a room over the deo-/I
orators shop, taking his meals out. He
leaves a grown son and two daughters, |
one of whom is ma rried and lives in Boston.
The woman, according to one Of her friends,
left a child in England. She kept the
fat of her protector in fine order.