The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-08-10

DOWCfy mlnnlG.
 One of the most samous of these cases was that of Minnie Weldt,- "Bowery Minnie"-who was found dead in her bed at No. 324 East G1st street with dirty bandanna hand kerchief kRotted cruelty about her throat.
 In 1903 the capture in Ohio of Al. fred Knapp, arch-garroter, who con. fessed to having strangled five wom- en, three of whom he had married and several little girls, cleared up at least one of the earlier mysteries and 1t was thought probable that Knapp had been guilty of some of the oth- CTS.
 1T always killed from behind,' Knapp explained. q get them in front or me, then clutch them by the throat, placing my knee on the back and bend them over. They struggle. but not long. They look in my face, but l don't mind that"
 One of the most widely discussed cases of murder by strangulation was that of Elsie Sigel, granddaughter of Gen. Franz Sigel, of Civil war fame, whose body was found, in 1909, dou- Died up in a trunk in the room of a Chlnaman on the top floor. The family had for years done missionary work among the Chinese of New York city. Leon was sought all over the world, but the case finally went into the list of unsolved mysteries.
 Ruth WheeIer's Case.
 A year later the finding of the body of fifteen-year-old Ruth Wheeler in the rear of No. 224 East 75th Street two days after she had disapnear- ed from her mothers home at No 313 West 134th Street, sent New York City into a fury of horror. Ruth. a pretty, brown-eyed girl, whose father was dead and who had been taking a business college course to enable her to help her mother support the family, nad gone to answer an advertisement for stenographer. She had been strangled with a moose of wire, and an attempt had been made to burn the body in the fireplace to conceal the crime. Albert Wolter, a pale youth of nineteen, with a large nose, a low fore head and a loose mouth, was convicted and executed.
 A particularly atrocious case last year was that of Miss Estelle Phillips, a kindly, hard-working woman of thir- weight, whose naked body was found in the spare little furnished room she had occupied six years on the top floor of lodging house at No. 64 West 97th Street, with a towel knotted around her neck and the marks of merciless fingers beneath it. Miss Phillips had been for fourteen years a saleswoman for Saks & company, and all who knew her declared her the most lovable and self-sacrificing of women. Frank Ben ner, a crook, twenty-six years old, con- fessed to the crime, but because his mentality was such that it would have been hard to prove reconciliation, he was allowed to plead second degree mur- der and was sentenced to from twenty years to life imprisonment.
 Another strangling that is still fresh in public memory is the case of Eugenio Lozado, a Filipino, who strangled Blossom Martin, a nurse, in the home of Dr. George B. McAuliffe, No. 20 West S7th street, in June, 1923. Lo- zado choked the girl to death with his bare hands, wrapped her body in some portiers, put it on his shoulder, took a taxi to Staten Island, and was captured when trying to hoist the bundle over the rail of an Elizabethport ferryboat into the Sound.
 He locked his hands behind her neck and forced his thumbs into each side of her larynx with a terrible pressure. said, until he was quite sure she was dead.
 Lozado was executed a few weeks ago.
 It was only last February that the body of Louise Lawson, pretty Texas girl had come to New York six years ago to earn her living as a manniquin and in small parts in motion pictures, was found on the bed in her expensive apartment, at No. 22 West 77th Street, across the street from the American Museum of Natural History, still clad in silk pajamas but with her hands tied behind her with one of her own silk stockings, her feet fastened to the bed stead with the leather leash of her lit tie dog, and a towel thrust down her throat and held in place by adhesive tape.
 Sixteen Stranglings In 1928.
 Robbery seemed to have been the motive. Some of her costly jewelry was missing. She had had wealthy and prominent men friends, but suspicion did not attach to them. Two young men who said they were bootleggers, had been admitted shortly before the murder. Not a sound nor a cry had been heard.
 Police believed it possible murder had not been intended, but that the gag had been too roughly placed and too well secured. At any rate, the body of the little Texas girl, who had seen too much of New York, was sent back to her home, and her murderer has nev- CT been found.
 The list could be extended indefinite ly. There were sixteen stranglings in New York City alone in 1923, accord ing to figures given out by Magistrate House of the Homicide Court.
 But it is the child victim of strang- lers whose fate most rouses pity and horror.
 There have been many of them.
 The finding of the body of Irving Pickelny, four and a half year old, in a cellar near his home at No. 35S Grand street, after family, friends and police had searched the city for nearly a month, has not yet been forgotten. Irv- ing had gone to play with his little cousin, Rosie Ibansky No. S1 Orchard street. He never came back. His frantic parents had reused the police, and a search that finally covered the nation and spread even to Canada, was instituted.
 A month later, a mechanic and his helper, looking for a clog in the gas pipes, found him lying on a box in the cellar. He had apparently been dead about two weeks. In reconstructing the crime, the police concluded that a rough hand had been held over his nose and mouth to smother his cries. It takes little to stop the breath in a child's throat.
 And now another child has walked confidingly into the clutch of a strang-