The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-12-31
NEW YORK TRUNK
MURDER MYSTERY
ISSTILL WE'D
Unable to Tell Exact Way
i'm Which Victim Met His
Death-Detectives Are
Investigating

New York, December 30.-An autopsy
performed today on the body of a man
iammed in a trunk and dumped at an
East Side tenement doorway yesterday,
failed to reveal the exact way in which
the victim had come to his death.
The neck was disloeated, but this was
believed to have been done when the
trunk lid was closed more than prob
able after death.
"Asphyxia through strangulation,"
was the cause of death as ascribed, but
there were no signs of violence on the
throat.
1t was thought possible that a hand
kerchief or a hand held over the mouth
and nose had been fatal.
The police continued to prosecute a
vigorous search for the man who left
the trunk and attempted to clinch the
Identification of the victim as John
Kremen, a young laborer.
BY drawing the net of investigation
which was cast yesterday noon when
the body of a man was found in a
trunk in front of a Pitt street tene-
ment on the East Side, the police are
confident that today the victims iden-
tity will be established positively.
Body Identified
Yesterday the body.was identified as
that of John Kremen, "a years old, by
a man who had worked with him in the
West Virginia coal mines
Today, however. ]. F. Donovan and
]. F. Dolan. two housewreckers. will
view the body in an effort to solve the
ownership of time check bearing the
initials ~. F. D." and the mo. 1922"
which was found on the victim
The police believe the dead man was
formerly employed by Donovan or Do
Ian and that one of them will be able
to give some facts concerning his hab-
its and associates.
The police hope to gather in num-
ber of men answering descriptions of
the two who dumped the trunk contain
ing the body from a pushcart onto the
sidewalk.
One of the men, evidently the employer
of his companion. was tall and well
dressed. He directed the unloading and
hired boy to guard it, promising to re-
turn in a few minutes.
The man who pushed the cart wore
dark sweater and cap and was described
as shorter than the other man.
Both disappeared after disposing of the
trunk the well dressed man hurriedly.
while the other returned the pushcart to
the yard when it had been secured.
Thousands View Body
To identify the body, it was placed on
view in a police station and more than
1000 mn and women residents of the East
Side passed before it before Michael NAL
10y, proprietor of a Polish boarding house,
declared that it was that of John Kre-
men, a former coal miner of Charleston,
w. Va. but more recently employed in
this city by housewreckers and as a
stableman
Several headquarters detectives are IN
clined to believe that Malloy may be mis-
taken and that the trunk victim probably
followed a higher vocation than that of
a laborer.
Malloys statements are tc a degree
borne out in part by the trunk victim S
| appearance.
One of New York's previous unsolved
trunk mysteries was the murder of
! Moses Sachs, a jewelry peddler, who was
killed June IS, 1910.
Just a year before Elsie Sgel's body
was found in trunk in a room occu-
pied by her Chinese Sunday school pupil.
Leong Lee, Chinese. who disappeared,
was accused by the police as her slayer.
Another unsolved trunk mystery was the
murder of Meyer Weisbard, whose body
was found in trunk on an East River
pier on January 16, 1901, after the trunk
had remained there for one day.