The Wilmington morning star., 1940-08-31
Man bout

Bv George Tucker

NEW YORK, Aug, 30.-Is this
unpredictable city about to witness
another wave of bathtub and low
ers lane murders such as charac-
terized New York during the mid
die thirties and which reached an
au-time high in brutality with the
death of Nancy Titterton, pretty
young wife of a radio executive,
who was slain by a mailman in
her Beekman place apartment, on
East river?
Could be. The police have come
up with two such cases in recent
days which fit right into the pic
ture. Up in the Bronx a young wife,
barely % and the mother Of two
children, was found slain. L e S S
than twenty-four hours later, in a
hidden lovers lane in the Dyker
Beach section of Brooklyn, tn e
body of a pretty, 19-year-old wait
ress was found. The body
mangled and badly burned.
This girl was a Norwegian and
worked in the children's ward of
the Norwegian Hospital. Her IA
Their was an unemployed h o S
painter. Her salary was the fam
ily's only income.
In the girls pocketbook they did
find the clipping Of a poem by
Philip Freneau, The Fading Rose,
and the photograph Of a young
man. That was all. There weren't
many clues. But the police ex.
pressed confidence in a quick So
luton. The amazed and g%rief-strick-
en- people who lived in the girls
neighborhood said ii was the work
of a sex maniac.
It may be pertinent to mention
that just a day before this girl
was killed a New York magistrate,
in one of the Manhattan courts,
expressed the opinion that indecent
literature on the public newsstands
was contributing heavily to Adde'S
cent and even to adult delinquent
cies, and that unless it was curbed
the people could expect an up
swing in crime. Mayor LaGuardia
promptly announced a BLACK list"
OF magazines, many nationally ia.
nous and noted for their startling
revelations of certified incidents in
the lives of anonymous authors.
The publishers of these magazines
Indignantly denied that their pub
locations had anything to do with
the formation of bad habits and
demanded to know why they were
being "persecuted'' when all of the
material in these publications has
already passed the postal regula-
tons of the United States.
What is to be done about the
matter has not been announced.
A famous distributor of these mag
azlnes said he did not intend to
ignore the mayors warnings, but
he did say that, at the moment
at least, he had no intention of
removing any of the listed maya
zines from the company's news
stands.
We mention this purely as a CO.
incidence, because the magistrate
prophecy was hardly in print be-
fore the second of the newest afro
city murders was being flashed in
the police offices of Manhattan
and Brooklyn.
Stories of this nature fill many
volumes of New York's history dur
ing the last decade. There was Yer
onica Gedeon, a beautiful artists
model, who was slain; there were
the famous Dot King and Starr
Faithful mysteries, both blunt, and
brutal and sordid. Neither has been
solved by the police, and there
are those who believe they never
will be solved.
Another personality on Broadway
who goes in for the single name.
like Annabella and Carlo is
Yvette, 17-year-old singing star of
NBC. Yvette was born and also
brought up in New Orleans. 2