The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1907-08-05
TANGLED CRIME BALKS POLICE
W. RDER . THEFT ENCENDHAR ~
CNIrFD without a CHE.

Persons seem 20 Have Had an E,e ON Homo
~ the Mack Brothers. where scrN ant
a:irI Was Pound Killed, Almost All
Afternoon and saw Nothing tIutowsrd.
The case OF Sophia Heckler. the little
servant girl whose body was found In the
cellar Of Leo and Harry Mack's house at
30s East Sixty-eecond street, at II O'Clock
Saturday night, seven hours after the
apartments above her had been robbed
and set on fire. Ia n combination mystery
against which the police made little head
way yesterday. Five detectives worked
at IL all day. In the afternoon Inspector
NlcCafferty spent two hours in the house
and all he could say when he emerged was:
we haven't a blessed clue. There was a
robbery, a FIRE and apparently a murder.
but how IL all happened YOU know as much
about as l."
Coroner's Physician Leblanc made an
autopsy on b body OF the Heckler girl
In the morgue yesterday. He found that
both jaws, both cheek bones. the skull.
the neck and a rib had been broken and that
the girl had died Of cerebral hemorrhage.
On the right cheek there was a wound that
cut clear to the bone, with a bruise extend
ing from there to the right ear. DR.. Leblanc
didn'ts see how a woman could be battered
in this fashion from a fall down a ten step
flight OF stairs. Coroner Shrady agreed with
him that Sophia Heckler must have been
beaten and perhaps killed before she was
thrown into the cellar.
Detective Boatti, while poking around in
the house yesterday. found on a bed on the
second hoor-the floor that was robbed and
fired-an icepick. The pick belonged In an
ice chest in the basement, the Macks told
him. Its prongs fitted marks that were
found here and there in the house, wherever
a door or cabinet had been jimmied open.
used on the girl. Nor was there a trace OF
blood anywhere except at the foot OF the
cellar stairs, where the body had been found
When Leo Mack learned at noon Satur-
day that he could not be home until even
Ing he sent q package up, by messenger boy.
When the boy got to the house he must
have found Sophia Heckler there, for the
bundle lay on the dining room buffet when
the brothers got home at 7 o'clock. That
would account for the girl AT about 1 O'Clock
saturday afternoon. For two hours after
that five women sat chatting in the back
yard Of the hous on Sixty-first street in
the rear NJ the Mack home. II there had
l,een a man prowlinR about they are sure
they would have seen him, but they saw
nobody.
ONct WI SAAty -btCOIu SlIttl, ilkb' w
posite the Mack house. Proprietor Mckinley
OF the Tuxedo Hall. at F1fty-ninth street
and Lexington avenue sat on q stoop from
ten minutes Of 8 until the fire was found at
S:45. He didn't sac anybody going or COM
ing across The way. And when tho fremen
GOT there they say that every door n
window was closed and locked.
Since the firemen made sure OF tina In
spector McCafferty remarks that il strikes
him as stTange hat they didn't explore the
house thoroughly. It was II o'clock at
night when Benjamin Levi aud Harry
Mack began wondering IL Sophia Heckler
had gone away. as they had at first sup
posed. They unboited the cellar door then
ana found the body.
The iewelry reported missing by Leo and
Harry Mack is valued at $jl5. The police
have the list. and Inspector McCafferty
thinks if the burglar-murderer-inoendiary
is caught il will be by way Of the pawnshop.
Sophia Heckler had no relatives here. She
had recently sent her savings over to Ger
many to pay her sisters passage to New
York,