MURDER MYSTERIES.

DR. BURDELL.

       New York city had a murder a few years previous to the war which ranks among the causes celebre of the country. The mystery that shrouded the case from the outset has never been dispelled. Saturday, July 31, 1857, an office boy in a lodging house, No. 31 Bond street, went as usual to the sitting room of Dr. Harvey Burdell, a surgeon dentist, to light the fire. Receiving no response to his knocks, he entered the room and found the doctor lying on the floor near the table in a pool of blood. He at once gave the alarm, and several of the inmates hastened to the spot. The body was cold, showing he had been dead some hours, and a physician's examination disclosed the fact that he had been murdered, there being no less than fifteen stabs in his neck and breast, inflicted with some narrow-bladed, sharp instrument. One of the cuts severed the jugular vein, and two entered the heart. One of the servants informed Mrs. Cunningham, the landlady of the house, a widow with five children, two girls and three boys. She was about 40, her eldest daughter 18, the other 16, the sons several years younger. Mrs. Cunningham at once proceeded to go into hysteria, but soon recovered sufficiently to rush into the room, and throwing herself on the body of the deceased, cried out: "Dear, dear husband!" Some of the bystanders asked her eldest daughter what this meant, and she replied that she was a witness to the marriage, which had been solemnized by Rev. Uriah Marvin, of the Dutch Reformed church on Bleecker street. She understood that the marriage was to be kept secret for a certain period of time, at the request of Dr. Burdell, but for what reason she pretended not to know. The coroner held an inquest, which lasted fourteen days, and a vast amount of relevant and irrelevant testimony was admitted. This much was proved: Dr. Harvey Burdell was a reputed bachelor, and had accumulated about $80,000 in the practice of his profession. He owned the house he lived in, renting the upper portion to Mrs. Cunningham, who having been left in straitened circumstances by the death of her husband, added to her income by taking ledgers.

       On the night of the murder there were twelve inmates in the house — Dr. Burdell, occupying the first floor, which consisted of three rooms; on the second, Mrs. Cunningham had the front room; Mr. Eckel, a lodger, a hide and tallow merchant, a small chamber adjoining; Mr. Ullman, another gentleman, the rear apartment. On the third floor were four rooms. One was occupied by Mr. Snodgrass, a distant relative of the widow, and the little boys, the second by the two young ladies, the third by the two housemaids, the fourth being vacant. By 11:15 all had retired to their rooms except Dr. Burdell and Mr. Ullman. The latter gentleman a prominent lawyer and candidate of the native American party for governor of the state, stated that he came in at 12:30 o'clock, found the hall lamp out, and went to his room in the dark. He heard no unusual sound, though he slept over the doctor's bedroom. Evidently the deed must have been committed before Ullman reached home or a considerable period after. The doctor supped at the Lafrage hotel, but it was impossible to find out where he spent the evening, though it was surmised with a married woman with whom he was known to be carrying on an intrigue. Dr. Burdell's apartments consisted of two large rooms, front and rear, and a bath-room. The rear apartment was fitted up as an operating room, and communicated through a corridor with the front chamber, which was occupied by the dentist as a bedroom. The body was discovered in the surgery, where undoubtedly the crime was committed; for, although the doors of communication between the two rooms were open, no blood was found in the bed-chamber, and it did not appear that the doctor had entered there after returning home. The furniture of the operating-room consisted of a sofa, operating chair, bookcase, safe, and center-table. The table stood between the windows, and over it a large mirror, with gas-burners on each side, so that no person could enter the room without being instantly perceived. It was also impossible for any persons to hide themselves in the room, so close was tho furniture packed to the walls. The gas, which was still burning when the office-boy entered the room, had been lighted some few minutes before the attack on the doctor, for he had removed his hat and cloak and laid them on the sofa, had opened the safe and sat writing at the desk. It was thought from marks on the throat of tbe deceased that an attempt had been made to strangle him, as he was of apoplectic build. Being a powerful man, he had struggled desperately, for there was blood marks on the furniture and down-stairs to the street door, so that the party must have been literally covered with blood.

       The theory adopted was that there being no place for concealment in the room, and the mirror reflecting every person who should enter the room, the crime was committed by some person who was known to the doctor, had accompanied him home, or by an inmate of the house. In either case it was a person whose presence caused the doctor no uneasiness. That he would bring anyone home with him at that late hour was considered as improbable. Suspicion pointed to the inmates, and Mrs. Cunningham and Mr. John Eckel were arrested. There were two reasons for this. The cook and the housemaid sent a communication to the coroner that Eckel and Mrs. Cunningham were criminally intimate; and second, by the death of the doctor she, as his widow would receive one-third of his estate, despite any will to the contrary. A man by the name of Connery was coroner at the time. He had been a foreman in The New York Herald office, and adopted the theory that no marriage had taken place between the doctor and Mrs. Cunningham, but that she had been married at the time specified to a person personating Dr. Burdell, and that person was Eckel. He handled Mrs. Cunningham without gloves, and when she declined to be examined as a witness until she had seen counsel he said: "Officers, go you take her by the collar, and bring her down. I'll have no such humbug here. I'll let her know we're too democratic for any such hifalutin notions." The clergyman who solemnized the marriage would not swear that Eckel was the man he married, but that Burdell resembled him, though his features were distorted. No trace of weapon or blood was found in any of the other rooms of the house, nor was there any sign from the ashes that anything unusual had been burned. The circumstantial evidence showed that the crime was committed by someone not residing in the house.

       In Eckel's room were found in his secretary four papers — a declaration by the doctor saying that he had not made a will before Oct. 8, 1856, and if there was such a document in existence it was a forgery. The second was a general release from Mrs. Cunningham to Dr. Burdell of any claim she might have upon him; the third in the doctors handwriting, that he would do nothing inimical to her, and would rent the rooms to her at $800 a year. The fourth paper was a lease of the house. Eckel claimed that the widow had asked him to keep these papers some weeks before. The second paper the coroner declared Mrs. Cunningham had stolen from the safe after the murder, though Eckel swore he had received it six weeks before. The servants all agreed that at the time Eckel claimed to have received the papers Mrs. Cunningham and the doctor had a quarrel, he accusing her of stealing some papers. It soon appeared that the widow in the first place entered the house as the doctor's mistress, and after a time took steps to make him marry her. She had in October previous brought two suits for breach of promise in the supreme court, which where dismissed by the plaintiff on Oct. 22, and six days later she claimed he married her.

       As to Eckel, he proved that he did not know the widow before Oct. 14, when he took rooms with her. Was it probable, then, that he would enter into a conspiracy as accomplice in so short a time! To marry a middle-aged widow with five children and 20,000. The jury took a different view, and rendered a verdict of willful murder against Eckel and Mrs. Cunningham. Snodgrass and the daughters were held as accessories. Mrs. Cunningham was placed on trial at the next term of the criminal court. The trial lasted several days, and the same evidence was rehashed. The case was weak against her, and the judge summed up in her favor. The other parties were dismissed. Acquitted, Mrs. Cunningham at once set up a plea to administer on the doctor's estate, as he died intestate. While these matters were pending, the public were startled by a rumor that she was soon to become a mother. It appears that she visited an almshouse, disguised and under a feigned named, and said she wished to adopt an infant from its birth. She was recognised by one of the officials, who at once notified the district attorney of the visit. He resolved to give Mrs. Cunningham plenty of rope. As soon as the almshouse woman became a mother, the child was conveyed by a trusty messenger to Mrs. Cunningham's residence. Then it was concluded the farce had gone far enough. The surrogate decided against her, declaring the marriage not proved. She appealed and was defeated. Barnum hired her for a few weeks in his show, and she left for California, and a few years later kept a sporting-house in New Orleans. While in transit from New York to the Crescent City with a company of cyprians she had recruited in the former city, she went down in the ill-fated Evening Star. Eckel, during or just after the war, entered the distilling business, and was arrested for revenue or whisky frauds. He suffered a short imprisonment, and some years since died. Thus ends one of the murder mysteries to solve which time has not yet furnished the key.

THE NATHAN MURDER

       Benjamin Nathan, a millionaire, descended from a Portuguese Jewish family, and living at No. 12 West Twenty-third street, New York, between 12:30 and 2 A. M. Friday, July 29, 1870, was murdered. Theft had been the object of the murderer, as the clothes of the deceased were rifled of a Perreguoux watch, 5,667, three diamond shirt-studs, what money the pocket contained, and the key of the small safe, which stood in the library beside the bedroom door. From the outside the crime presented peculiar enigmas. It was reasoned that Mr. Nathan had awakened on hearing the noise at the safe, and entering the library door was grasped by the burglar, the gas-light glaring in his face. Fearing identification, and ignorant of Mr. Nathan's defective vision, he struck savagely at the old man with a short iron bar, turned at the ends, and commonly called a ship carpenter's "dog." This weapon was carried down stairs and laid on the hall floor. The two puzzling features were the weapon and the brutality. The detective, Jourdan, declared that the dog was the great puzzle. It was not a weapon used by burglars. It led to the mechanical world, and here the circle was illimitable. The man had been most cruelly beaten and mauled. One blow was enough, but the old Jew was hammered and pounded as though his carcass was tough as a rhinoceros, and his head as solid as a block of lignum vitæ. What sneak-thief or burglar would have done this?

       There were no marks of violence about the house; no one had been seen lurking there. No "jimmy" marks were found on the windows, nor was there an imprint of the burglar's foot or bloody hand, or a piece of his clothing torn in the death-struggle. Effectually were his tracks covered up. The police on his part declared that when he passed the house at 4:30 A. M. he tried both front doors and they were fastened, and when he passed a little before 6 the hall-door was closed. The house and stables were thoroughly examined.

       Sleeping in the house at the time were Washington and Fred Nathan, his sons, Mrs. Kelley, the housekeeper, and her son, and none of them heard any suspicious sound in the night.

       The night gown of Frederick Nathan had blotches of blood upon it, his stockings were blood soaked, but it was evident these resulted from contact with the corpse after his brother had discovered the murder. The pawn-shops all over the city were searched, but the assassin was too prudent to thus give himself away. For ten days the thieves of the city were severely overhauled. Ten thousand dollars reward was offered by the New York stock exchange, besides large rewards by the mayor, huge placards were posted and every city in the union notified; but from that day to this not the slightest tangible clew has been offered. Hundreds of letters were written by would-be wiseacres offering advice, many of them evidently jobs put up to direct suspicion to the Nathan boys. The theory of the police, who followed up every clew, and spared neither time, pains, nor money to unravel this murder, was what it had been from the first — viz: that it was committed by an outsider, some fellow known as a "duffer." who follows an honest calling by day, and at night sallies forth to rob and house break. Nobody, they argued, but such a one would have carried such a weapon, nor used it so cruelly. A regular thief would not have carried off watches and medals which would give him away through some of the numerous detective agencies. The Nathan murder is to-day, as it was thirteen years ago, a murder that will not out.

BART BURKE

       Early on the morning of July 18, 1856, a clerk of Lane Joyce, a tailor, whose shop was on the second floor of No. 378 Broadway, in trying to open the establishment, found the door locked. Bartholomew Burke, the porter, had slept in the store for many years, and ha had never before failed to open up at the proper time. The clerk stood wondering, when he spied blood stains on the handle. He hastily called a policeman, who, kicked in the door and found the body of Burke weltering in gore. It was a sickening sight even for a policeman. Beside the dead man were a pair of shears, and further off a short keen-edged sword bloody to the hilt, which the murderer had dropped close by. The struggle must have been a fearful one. Yet, though the windows were open and people passing in the street below, though a family slept in the room above, none heard the noise of the struggle. The assassin went from the building unseen. He had washed his hands and face at the washstand, and had received a slight cut in the hand, which persisted in bleeding, and hence the mark on the stairs and stain on the door knob. At the foot of the stairs he had bound up his wound, for no more spots were found on the pavement by which to trace the direction he took. He had been cool enough to lock the door, and all that was ever found of him was that a belated citizen had met a man walking leisurely and whistling whose face he did not see. but whose hand was bandaged. George W. Matsell was then chief of police, and the best detectives were put upon the track of the criminal. It was suspected that the porter was slain in endeavoring to protect the property from thieves, but an examination showed that not a dollar's worth of stock had been taken. Burke had been in a saloon in the basement of the building about half past 9 o'clock with a strange man, with whom he had drank. They had gone out together, Burke carrying a pot of beer he had purchased, and about 10 o'clock a citizen passing on the opposite side of the street had seen two men sitting in the front window of Joyce's shop with two empty beer mugs on the window sill before them. The sword, it was thought, would furnish a clew, but no one had ever seen one like it and nothing came of the labor of the detectives. The coroner's jury long ago brought in the verdict, "murdered by unknown party or parties," and there it rests to-day, and probably will forever, as a murder that will not out.

THE BYERS GREEN MURDER.

       On the 1st day of November, 1855, Robert Sterling, a young surgeon of Byers Green, near Newcastle, suddenly disappeared after visiting some patients. Nothing was thought extraordinary in this, for he had lately been appointed to the Turkish contingent, and was about to leave for the east, and his partner wrote to Stirling's father to this effect thought it improbable, and went to Newcastle to make search. In a copse near Derwent bridge young Stirling's body was found with a gaping gun-shot wound in the abdomen and the head smashed to pieces. His watch and money was stolen. He had been shot from behind a hedge, and dragged into the copse and finished with two stones and a gunstock. On the 26th of July "Whisky Jack" Cain and Richard Rayne were tried for the surgeon's murder. A boy had heard a gun fired and a shout of distress, and a farmer had met soon afterward two men whom he could not positively identify, but he thought looked like Cain and Rayne. A glass button like one missing from Cain's waistcoat was found near the body, and a watch like Sterling's was offered for sale in a pawn-shop by a man that looked like Rayne. A servant-girl at an inn swore that after the murder the two men had brought her their bloody shirts to be washed, bidding her to say, should she be asked what caused the bloody stains, that the men had been hunting and killed a hare. The prisoners were acquitted, and the murderers never discovered.

THE CANNON STREET MYSTERY.

       Sarah Millson, housekeeper for the Messrs. Berrington, of Cannon street, London, was sitting, April 11, 1867, in the kitchen at 9 o'clock at night with another servant when there was a ring at the door-bell, and she went down-stairs to open the door, saying she knew who it was. She did not return for an hour, which, however, caused no alarm, as it was a custom of hers to hold conversation with her friends, talking in the doorway. Finally the other servant went down, and the lifeless body of the unfortunate and fated housekeeper was found at the foot of the steps, her head beaten in. A small crowbar unstained with blood lay by her. Another was missing. Her keys lay there, too; her shoes were on the table, and the gas had been turned off. The servant found a woman crouched in the doorway, apparently for shelter from the rain, and asked her to go for help, but she answered: "Oh, dear no, I can't go in!" and ran off. A man named William Smith, of Eton, who had been employed to collect money for her, was supposed to be guilty, and the police wove about him a web of circumstantial evidence, but he accounted for himself during every minute of the evening in question, so that both judge and jury acquitted him, the latter not leaving the box. Who murdered the housekeeper is still a mystery unsolved.

THE BRAVO MYSTERY.

       In December, 1875, Charles Bravo, a lawyer, married the handsome widow of Capt. Ricardo, being aware that she had contracted an intimacy with Dr. Gully, of Balham, where he lived. On the 20th of April, 1876, he dined at home, and at half-past 9 o'clock he went to bed sick. Doctors were at once called, and gave him injections of brandy. He rallied sufficiently to make a will, and died the next day. The post-mortem examination showed the presence of antimony in the intestines. He was not jealous of his wife nor was there any cause for his committing suicide. She and a lady friend had eaten exactly the same dinner, but the women had not touched any wine, while he had drank three glasses of Burgundy which the latter had filled at noon. The jury returned an open verdict, but anew investigation was ordered, commencing Julv 11 and continuing a month. Sir William Gall, who attended Mr. Bravo, swore that the patient had repeatedly and solemnly declared: "I took it myself; before God, I took laudanum." Mrs. Cox testified to Mrs. Ricardo's intimacy with the doctor, which had ceased when Bravo proposed to her, and of which Bravo had been told. Mrs. Bravo gave her testimony, but bursting into tears on the cross-examination, declared she had been sufficiently humiliated and begged protection. The jury found that Bravo did not die by accident, but was poisoned by some person unknown. Mrs. Bravo died in September, 1878, of the excessive use of stimulants, leaving much of her money and jewels to Dr. Gully. In January, 1879, a lot of gentlemen were made sick with symptoms of antimonia poison by some sherry which the wine merchant it proved had bought from Mr. Bravo's father, who died recently. It came out a few days later that Mr. Bravo had told his wife's mother that he could cure his wife of drinking, and a Mr. Raymond, who sold a cure for dipsomania, consisting of tartar, emetic (antimony), testified that he had sent Mr. Bravo six of his powders. So the Bravo mystery still remains a mystery.

JANE CLENSEN.

       Jane Maria Clensen, aged 17, a servant girl in the employ of a Mr. Pook, a printer, left the house on the evening of April 25, 1871, saying she was going to meet her young man, the son of her employer. At 4 o'clock the next morning a policeman found her lying at the point of death in Kildbrooke lane, Eitham. Her head was beaten in with some blunt instrument and covered with blood, and her hat and gloves lay in a pool of blood near by. When asked who hurt her, she could only murmur, "My poor head!" and when the policeman took her hand she turned upon her face and said: "Let me die." There were foot-prints near, but not of recent origin. The officer had passed through the lane at 1:45 and the girl was not there. Edmond W. Pook, the young man, was arrested, and tried and acquitted amid great applause. The judge censured the police in his charge for having assumed the guilt from the start and for straining all the evidence to make him so. The mob thought him guilty, however, for they mobbed his father's house. Yet that did not solve the mystery.

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