and especially of unexpected and unexplained deaths.
On that day, the best-known cabby in the Village, Edward Tyrrell, for thirty years the Hotel Brevoort’s driver, died while driving his horse and open barouche to the stable. The horse knew the route and finished the trip with a dead man at the reins. On that day, on the island park in Allen Street between Delancey and Rivington streets, two gray-haired women sat pleasantly talking and eating grapes. One was poor. The other had $6,305 in the bank. Two hours passed before both women pitched onto the concrete walk—suicides by poisoned grapes. On that day, the evicted family of Joe Romola, a bookkeeper, stood freezing around a pile of their household goods. Their landlord had stacked them in front of their former home at 851 West 177th Street. He did not want to accept Romola’s home relief rent vouchers because the city was slow to pay. The eldest child grew deathly ill and would not last the night. And on that day over on 70th Street in Brooklyn, lawyer A. B. Epstein, depressed over his meager earnings, blew himself up in his basement with a stick of dynamite.
But the worst death of the day had been the last. Wilhelm Johnston; his wife, Florence W. (aka Margaret Johnston); and their two kids, William and Margaret, lived in a Washington Heights apartment. Around four o’clock they’d shopped at the A&P around the corner. They bought a pound of porterhouse for 35¢ and a half pound of chuck for 9¢. They seemed happy enough, but later that night neighbors heard piercing laughter issuing from their third-floor rooms. A voice, louder than the other, seemed to be speaking in a foreign language, possibly Swedish. At 11:00 P.M. a heartrending shriek echoed from their apartment, then a second. Finally silence. Neighbors called the police.
Two New York cops pushed past a dozen tenants and at the middle turn, where the stairs changed direction, found a large blood stain. Forcing the Johnston’s door, they entered with drawn guns to find the lights blazing and the apartment in wild disorder—furniture thrown in all directions and a shattered pot on the floor. They hurried from the living room to the bathroom to the kitchen, really only a closet arrangement of a disappearing sink and stove called a kitchenette. The back of a mechanical refrigerator separated the kitchenette from the rest of the apartment—a small bedroom and the master bedroom. Florence was dead on her bloodstained bed, strangled, stripped, and horribly autopsied with a razor. But four people lived here. Where were the other three? A large stain of blood on the landing, as large as the one Officer Malcolm had left, suggested a body or bodies had been dragged down the stairs. At 11:45 P.M. police located the Johnstons’ children at a neighbor’s down the block. They could tell the police no more than they already knew, which was nothing, and authorities began dragging the river for Wilhelm. The Johnstons were just the beginning of a long chain of motiveless crimes that would involve a San Francisco Gorilla Man and Captain Dullea.
TEN
Safe mobs may consist of up to a half-dozen men. Their backgrounds may be varied, but the leader of the mob is usually a professional and most always an ex-convict. The leader compiles his information and lays his plans.
—CRIME MANUAL OF THE PERIOD
IT took a second betrayal to really open Dullea’s eyes. This time it was one of his own men.
Just after midnight on January 27, 1933, dispatcher Paul Frasher eyed his shotgun standing in the corner and shivered. It was a frigid night at Land’s End. The wind was rising, shaking the painted frame barn, and whistling over the peaked roof. Frasher heard it humming through the crisscrossing of electric wires above. He wished he were home in his cozy Irving Street apartment by the Bone Yard, a square block of abandoned streetcars. He heard sand biting the windows and the medallion reading “Market St. Railway
On that day, the best-known cabby in the Village, Edward Tyrrell, for thirty years the Hotel Brevoort’s driver, died while driving his horse and open barouche to the stable. The horse knew the route and finished the trip with a dead man at the reins. On that day, on the island park in Allen Street between Delancey and Rivington streets, two gray-haired women sat pleasantly talking and eating grapes. One was poor. The other had $6,305 in the bank. Two hours passed before both women pitched onto the concrete walk—suicides by poisoned grapes. On that day, the evicted family of Joe Romola, a bookkeeper, stood freezing around a pile of their household goods. Their landlord had stacked them in front of their former home at 851 West 177th Street. He did not want to accept Romola’s home relief rent vouchers because the city was slow to pay. The eldest child grew deathly ill and would not last the night. And on that day over on 70th Street in Brooklyn, lawyer A. B. Epstein, depressed over his meager earnings, blew himself up in his basement with a stick of dynamite.
But the worst death of the day had been the last. Wilhelm Johnston; his wife, Florence W. (aka Margaret Johnston); and their two kids, William and Margaret, lived in a Washington Heights apartment. Around four o’clock they’d shopped at the A&P around the corner. They bought a pound of porterhouse for 35¢ and a half pound of chuck for 9¢. They seemed happy enough, but later that night neighbors heard piercing laughter issuing from their third-floor rooms. A voice, louder than the other, seemed to be speaking in a foreign language, possibly Swedish. At 11:00 P.M. a heartrending shriek echoed from their apartment, then a second. Finally silence. Neighbors called the police.
Two New York cops pushed past a dozen tenants and at the middle turn, where the stairs changed direction, found a large blood stain. Forcing the Johnston’s door, they entered with drawn guns to find the lights blazing and the apartment in wild disorder—furniture thrown in all directions and a shattered pot on the floor. They hurried from the living room to the bathroom to the kitchen, really only a closet arrangement of a disappearing sink and stove called a kitchenette. The back of a mechanical refrigerator separated the kitchenette from the rest of the apartment—a small bedroom and the master bedroom. Florence was dead on her bloodstained bed, strangled, stripped, and horribly autopsied with a razor. But four people lived here. Where were the other three? A large stain of blood on the landing, as large as the one Officer Malcolm had left, suggested a body or bodies had been dragged down the stairs. At 11:45 P.M. police located the Johnstons’ children at a neighbor’s down the block. They could tell the police no more than they already knew, which was nothing, and authorities began dragging the river for Wilhelm. The Johnstons were just the beginning of a long chain of motiveless crimes that would involve a San Francisco Gorilla Man and Captain Dullea.
TEN
Safe mobs may consist of up to a half-dozen men. Their backgrounds may be varied, but the leader of the mob is usually a professional and most always an ex-convict. The leader compiles his information and lays his plans.
—CRIME MANUAL OF THE PERIOD
IT took a second betrayal to really open Dullea’s eyes. This time it was one of his own men.
Just after midnight on January 27, 1933, dispatcher Paul Frasher eyed his shotgun standing in the corner and shivered. It was a frigid night at Land’s End. The wind was rising, shaking the painted frame barn, and whistling over the peaked roof. Frasher heard it humming through the crisscrossing of electric wires above. He wished he were home in his cozy Irving Street apartment by the Bone Yard, a square block of abandoned streetcars. He heard sand biting the windows and the medallion reading “Market St. Railway
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