1902-09-21-New York Times Jewels of Murdered Anna Pulitzer Found

New York Times

21 September 1902, page 1

JEWELS OF MURDERED ANNA PULITZER FOUND.

Earrings Recovered in a Park Row Pawnshop. Pawn Ticket, Dagger and Woman's Clothing in the Trunk He Sent to Chicago -- Police Theory of Mormon Protection.

W. Hooper Young, charged with the murder of Mrs. Anna Nilsen Pulitzer, has been traced so far that his arrest is expected hourly. The police have learned that he pawned Mrs. Pulitzer's earrings in a Park Row pawnshop Wednesday afternoon, and he was seen in Herald Square Friday afternoon by Augustus J. Powers, President of the Enterprise Engraving Company, which did some work for him when he was business manager of The Weekly Crusader in Hoboken. Mr. Powers carried this information to Chief Detective Titus last night.

Capt. Titus said early this morning that his men had traced Young up to late Friday night, when the fugitive was still in this city.

The fact that Young was in the city Friday having been established, Capt. Schmittberger advanced early this morning the startling theory that the man was being concealed by a secret Mormon organization. After the Captain had held a conference with some of his detectives at midnight, he summoned a group of reporters to his private office in the West Forty-seventh Street Station and said:

"There was once in this city a secret society of Mormons. I believe it still exists. It was broken up once by the United States Secret Service Bureau, but it is going along on the quiet, I believe. Although the members of his former church say he is a recreant member and a villain, they will stick to him. He was once sactified, so he must be protected."

That Young was the man who pawned the Pulitzer woman's earrings, using the name of Stiner in doing so, was proved positively late in the afternoon by a dispatch received from Chief O'Neill of the Chicago police. This was the message:

"Shipped trunk by Wells-Fargo Express, Erie 14, 3:40 P.M. Contained woman's dress, underclothes, hat, shoes, men's clothing, dirk knife, all smeared with blood. Mailed special delivery letter explaining. Trunk contained memorandum book containing name William hooper Young and pawnticket issued by William Simpson, 91 Park Row, on Sept. 17, name Stiner."

Capt. Titus explained that "Erie 14" meant "Erie train No. 14," the one that carries the Wells-Fargo express. He said he inferred from the dispatch, where it said "special delivery letter explaining," that the Chicago police meant they would explain why they had opened the trunk when he had telephoned to them not to open it, but to send it sealed up to this city.

Before the message came the Chief of Detectives had obtained from Simpson's pawnshop a pair of earrings suspected of being those once worn by the murdered woman. Pulitzer, the husband, had been brought to headquarters to identify them. While they were still wrapped up he was asked to describe them, and said that one setting had become loose, so that he would know them at sight. They were shown to him and he identified them positively without hestitation. They were found to answer the description given him previously.

At Simpson's it was learned by the police that the man who did the pawning gave his address as 430 West One Hundred and Twenty-third Street. Before Pulitzer was called down town and before the message came from Chicago, Capt. Titus had proved that there was no such man as Tiner at the address given. The earrings had been found early in the morning by Detective Mooney, and at first not much attention was paid to them, the Chief being busy on things he considered more important. It was when he learned of the fictitious address that he sent for Pulitzer.

"There is no longer evena slight doubt about the identity of the murderer," said the Chief. "The identification of the jewelry through Pulitzer and the Chicago dispatch prove that W. Hooper Young did the deed. We have already found that he was the one who shipped the trunk to "E. S. Ewing," Chicago, requesting of the express company that it be held until called for.

Capt. Titus called attention to the date when the earrings were pawned. The 17th was Wednesday. it was on that day, at 6:15 P. M. taht Young hired the buggy from Evans, liveryman of Hoboken.

The pawnshop trace is the last sure one in the hands of the police, but they have several clues that appear promising. Capt. Titus has received a letter signed "H. Young" and stating that the murderer intended to commit suicide. Three citizens of Hoboken have reported that they saw a man of Young's description on Thursday. A boarding house keeper at 151 East Thirty-third Street, Koenig by name, has told Capt. Schmittberger of the West Forty-seventh Street Station that a man, supposedly Young, came to that address as late as Friday night and asked for a room.

The letter received by capt. Titus read as follows: "Search in vain; have killed myself. H. Young." It was written on a scrap of cheap white paper and inclosed in a small envelope such as are used for visiting cards. It had been mailed at the general Post Office at 10 A.M. yesterday. The Captain got it at 4 P. M., and expressed the opinion that some crank might have written it.

The Captain had larned that the fugitive frequently signed himself "Hooper Young" or "H. Young." He will have experts compare the handwriting with that of Young.

One of the most startling developments of yesterday was the discovery by Capt. Titus that a murder bearing much similarity to this one was committed in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1893.

"A Frenchman was murdered there in that year," he said. "And this Young was living in Salt Lake City at the time. No one could find the Frenchman's body, nor could they trace the murderer. A long time afterward the body was found in a trunk that had been shipped to Chicago. The find was made in 1895. The murderer's name was never learned.

"I do not say that Young committed this murder out West, but it seems highly probable that his mind was affected by it. Of course, the two cases differ, but still they are similar. A trunk was sent to Chicago in each case, and in both the trunks was evidence of the crime that the murderer was attempting to conceal."

The murder to which Capt. Titus referred was partially cleared up in Chicago on Saturday, March 28, 1896. The body of the murdered man was found in a trunk in Wakem & McLaughlin's bonded warehouse March 26 of that year. On the following Saturday two men, who gave their names as Henry Devere and Charles Marcel, viewed the body in the Chicago Morgue and said that it was that of Prosper Chazzell, a Frenchman, who disappeared from Salt Lake City early in February, 1893. They based their assertions on the nature o fthe fillings in the murdered man's teeth, one of these fillings being of steel.

Chazzell went to Salt Lake City late in 1892 or early in 1893. He was apparently a very well-to-do man and had thousands of dollars' worth of diamonds. He disappeared early in February, 1893, and a woman who said she was his wife asked the police to institute a search for him.

No trace of him was discovered. By order of the court the safety vault where he had kept his diamonds was opened, but no diamonds were found.

For a time suspecion rested on a number of Chazell's compatriots, but nothing tangible turned up, and later the men who had been suspected went to Chicago. The body found in Chicago three years later was shipped from Salt Lake City on the Union Pacific Railway in 1893, by a man called Morgan. When the mystery was partially cleared up in Chicago, Morgan was looked for in Salt Lake City, but no evidence of the existence of such a man was discovered. The Salt Lake City detective who worked on the case was certain that the body found in Chicago was Chazell's.

Early yesterday morning, a few hours after the scene of the murder was found to have been in the flat of John W. Young, the accused man's father. Capt. Titus began to send dispatches all over the country. From here to San Francisco every Police Department was told to look out for a man thirty years old, with a small dark mustache and a peculiar walk. Many other details relating to Young's personal appearance were given in the messages. The local police announced that they had laid a dragnet in which the fugitive must fall within a few hours.

The officials of this city, Hoboken, and Jersey City kept up their activity. Every clue was followed. Capt. Titus and Capt. Schmittberger vied with each other, the former a little piqued because his men had not located the scene of the murder first, and the latter bubbling over with satisfaction that he was the one to whom the Hoboken Chief of Police and the two Hoboken reporters first brought the news that led to the Fifty-eighth Street apartment.

From Hoboken came the news that at least three citizens thought they had seen the accused man there. One of these persons was a Mr. Weller, who had offices in the Hudson Trust Building, at Newark and Hudson Streets. he is a member of the law firm of Weller & Lichtenstein. Another person is a young woman who is employed as typewriter by the firm.

Mr. Weller said that shortly before noon on Friday and just before the weight and hitching strap which were attached to the murdered woman's body were identified by their owner, Charles K. Evans, a Hoboken liveryman, a man entered the office and asked for Mr. Lichtenstein. Mr. Weller said that his partner was out, and asked whether he could do anything for the visitor, explaining that he was Mr. Lichtenstein's partner.

"Perhaps you would not care to do the business that I want done," said the caller. "The fact is," he continued, "I have been off on a spree for a day or two and I am out of funds. I want to borrow some money, and, as Mr. Lichtenstein is a friend of mine, I thought he would accommodate me."

The stranger went on to say that his name was Gilligan, and that he was a New York lawyer. Weller replied that, as the visitor was an entire stranger to him, he could not very well let him have any money on Mr. Lichtenstein's account, and the stranger departed. When Mr. Lichtenstein came in Mr. Weller told about the caller. Mr. Lichtenstein said he knew no lawyer named Gilligan, and he wondered who the stranger could have been.

When Mr. Weller saw pictures of Young in the newspapers yesterday he thought he had seen the face before. Then it suddenly occurred to him that some of the pictures bore a very strong resemblance to his visitor.

He called the attention of the typewriter to the pictures, and she confirmed him in the belief that Young and the mysterious stranger were identical. Both were so thoroughly convinced that the man was Young that Mr. Weller went to the police and told them about his strange visitor and of his belief that the man was the fugitive murderer.

At headquarters Mr. Weller's story was considered of so much importance that Chief of Detectives Nelson at once started to follow up the clue. Nelson thinks it is quite possible that Young is in hiding in Hoboken and a systematic and thorough search for him will be made throughout the city.

Mr. Lichtenstein said that he was acquainted with Young and had known him since he came to Hoboken, about a year ago. The description of Mr. Weller's visitor, who called himself Gilligan, closely corresponded with that of Young.

Young was said to have paid a visit to a young woman of Hoboken recently. The police are trying to locate her. Capt. Schmittberger, after having sent to Police Headquarters the bloodstained sheets and furniture in the Young flat, that they might be kept as evidence, announced in the afternoon that he had found a man who saw Young walking eastwardly through Fifty-ninth Street on the evening of Thursday.

It was about 7:30 o'clock at night when Mr. Litsepp, a bookseller of Sixth Avenue, saw the man pass his shop and turn from the avenue into Fifty-ninth Street. Litsepp had known Young for some time. When he saw him, the man had the same two brown paper bundles that the people at the apartment house had described him as carrying when he left there for the last time.

Thinking that these bundles might have been dropped over the wall of Central Park, Capt. Schmittberger sent two detectives to the park. They crawled through the bushes along the wall all the way to Fifth Avenue, but found nothing.

In the meantime the Captain, having collected all the available evidence in the neighborhood, had turned over to Dr. Otto Schultze, the Cornell University expert analyist, all the beer bottles and glasses found in the room where Mrs. Pulitzer was slain.

The doctor took them to this laboratory in East Forty-second Street, there to analyze what was left of their contents and discover whether or not the murderer had put "knock-out drops" in the drinks he furnished to the woman.

It was in the afternoon that the latest "clue" was announced. Mr. Koenig, who teaches German and keeps a furnished-room house at 151 East Thirty-third Street, went to see Capt. Schmittberger and had a conversation with him about a man who had asked for a room on Friday night. Detective Berbenich was sent out to investigate, and later other officers went to canvass the whole neighborhood around the Koenig house.

Mr. Koenig, when asked what he had told the Captain, said he was an old friend of the officer and was talking confidentially when he mentioned his visitor of Friday. The Captain was equally reticent about the details of Koenig's information, but he seemed to think he had something of importance, for he said:

"I expect to have that man Young this night."

All day the different police officers had been advancing their theories about the murderer's motive. But in the end all the police officials agreed that robbery was Young's motive. All the evidence about the man's recent doings bore out this theory. He was proved to have been in dire financial straits of late, and, as Capt. Titus said:

"When he saw Mrs. Pulitzer in the afternoon of last Tuesday he noticed that she wore much jewelry. When he allured her to his flat on the following night he probably did not notice that she had left most of it behind at home."

The Chief Detective said that he had found letters in Young's flat that proved the man to be a moral pervert. In these letters it was further shown that Young had been in the habit of living at various cheap boarding houses in the city under the name of "Billy" Smith, and that he had received at the General Post Office mail directed to that name.

This new name is expected to be a valuable aid ito the police in tracing their man. They have learned already that Bill Smith was in the habit of patronizing a certain Sixth Avenue saloon.

YOUNG FAMILY HISTORY

As all the clues to the accused man's whereabouts came to nothing yesterday, the different stories of his past, his family, and his recent movements commanded more interest than anything else connected with the tgragedy. Joseph Pulitzer, husband of the murdered woman, was practically forgotten; he had been released from custody and his personality seemed to have lost its importance in the case, except that he flitted around and got in the way of the police whereever he could find them at work. The dead woman's history had been thrashed out, and the only new development about her was that she had known Young for a long time.

Henry Graveman, who runs the saloon on the southwest corner of Fifty-eighth Street and Sixth Avenue, opposite the apartment house where the crime was committed, told a story that threw much light on the affairs of William Hooper Young and his father, John W. Young, the well-known Wall Street promoter.

"The elder Young," said Graveman, "has lived in the Clarence, across the street, between two and three years. I know something about the family, or families, because the former janitor of the apartment house was a good friend of mine, and used to tell me the peculiar circumstances surrounding Mr. Young's life.

"When the father of Bill first came to the place, he said he wanted three flats connected by doors so that they would be one apartment and yet three. He insisted that the doors be cut so as to make the combination. My friend the janitor told me that his tenant was a Mormon. Later he said that there were three wives, and that the three flats were hired so that the wives might be separate if they ever showed up at the same time.

"Bill, as we called W. Hooper Young in this neighborhood, was the oldest child. His two brothers, who lived in the apartment until the old man's departure for Europe in the Spring, were sons of another wife, and the daughter, who also lived there, was the daughter of a third. The other sons of J. W. Young are J. Wesley Young and William Van Cott Young, the latter being a student at Columbia lasts year. The daughter is named Mary. The janitor told me that the mothers of the daughter and the two other sons had been in the apartment at the same time for a short time once, but that Bill's mother had never been there. He understood that she was divorced.

"None of the three boys ever worked, so far as I know. Bill came in here almost every night, and so I knew him well. He drank beer when he paid the bill himself, but when anybody treated he took whisky or cocktails. He had a very peculiar walk, as though something was the matter with his legs, and I think anybody who ever saw him could identify him by his gait among a million men. He was in the habit of staying up very late at nights, either in here or on the opposite corners. I've often seen him trying to get into the drug store after it was closed up, and they tell me he was after drugs.

"One of his best friends was Mme. Ponvert, the widow of a wealthy Cuban, who lives with her son in the Clarence. Together they often drank in my back room, and he helped her unlock the street door of the apartment house when she wanted to go in. The last time he was here was Monday afternoon. She was with him, and he told her he would go to dinner with her the next Sunday night if she would pay fo rthe dinner. She always paid for the drinks they had here, for he didn't have any money."

CAPT. TITUS'S STATEMENT.

Capt. Titus made an unofficial statement last night that bore out part of what Graveman said. The Captain had information, he said, which indicated that the elder Young, organizer of the Shipbuilding Trust, was a Mormon and had three wives. The Mormon Elders in the Clarence, of whom there are four, occupying two fo the Young flats through the courtesy of Mr. Young, acknowledged that the father of "Bill" was a Mormon, but disclaimed the statement that there were three wives simultaneously.

"He has been married twice," said Lafayette Woods, one of the proselyters, all of whom came to this city to increase the Mormon fold. "But he did not have both wives at once. His first wife, the mother of Hooper, was divorced and lives now in Seattle. The second wife was separated from her husband, and I don't know where she is.

"Hooper Young is a degenerate and scoundrel of the worst sort. Nobody who ever knew him wants to have any dealings with him. He is not a Mormon. I think he once joined the Methodist Church, but he didn't have any religion that I could see. The talk of his having studied the Bible carefully is ridiculous, and 'blood atonement' is not a doctrine of the Mormon Church, as some one has stated."

This "blood atonement" of which the Elder spoke referred to something written in a memorandum book found in the flat on the night that Capt. Schmittberger and his companions went there and found that the Pulitzer woman had been murdered in the front bedroom. On the first page of the book were written two words seen above, and under them were half a dozen references to the Bible. When the verses were looked up they were found to bear on atonement for crime.

Mr. Kringle, part owner of the Clarence apartment house, was another who knew something of Young and his family.

"My tenants were very much excited this morning," he said, "after having read in the papers about the events of last night. Many of them said they were going to move out. But I have promised to change the name of the house, and now only one family is going.

"The father of Bill Young has never had three wives at once, as far as I know. If he has, they haven't been here to my knowledge. The reason Mr. Young wanted three flats wwas that he wished one for himself, as he liked to be alone a great deal; one for his children, and one for his sister-in-law and brother-in-law. The brother-in-law and sister-in-law, whose names I forget, lived with him for a while, and there were two servants, who also lived in the third flat. The whole apartment was rented for $140 a month.

It was learned from Janitor Cronk of the Clarence apartment house that Young went out into the Park last week to play with his (Cronk's) daughter. They came back after a little while, and then Young urged the child to go up to the flat and have a game of "tag."

His manner was so insistent that she thought the request was unusual and told her mother about it. The Cronk family, having heard the "blood atonement" theory discussed, are rejoicing that their child escaped the fate which later befell Mrs. Anna Pulitzer.

"I never had any use for Bill. Only last Monday I told him to stop hanging around the corridor, and I told the boys I would fire them if they allowed him to do so. I did not let him have an outside door key, but he borrowed one from the Mormon Elders every now and then."

Mrs. Ponvert, who was known to be friendly with W. Hooper Young, could not be seen yesterday. In the morning she declined to receive callers. At night it was said that she had gone away.

A tenant of the Clarence said that the fugitive had been known as a "dope" and a vagabond. He had gone to the roof often and acted queerly. When anybody saw him there he would dodge behind chimneys.

The theory that Young had an accomplice in his crime was quashed yesterday. Louis Bowker had told about a mysterious stranger leaving a flat key in his (Bowker's) lunch room, at 1,041 Sixth Avenue, Thursday evening. Bowker knew Young well, but had not seen the man who left the key, returned for it later, and then came back again with it.

MORMON ELDERS EXPLAIN.

Elder Woods explained this story. He said that Elder Taylor had been asked by Young to leave a key in the lunch room, and had done so. But the Elder had returned home first and had gotten the key temporarily in order to let himself into the house. Then he had carried it back and given it to Bowker a second time.

"Mac Levy, the Brooklyn gymnasium proprietor for whom Young worked recently, was asked yesterday what he knew about the fugitive.

"He came to my place for instruction in the Spring," said Mr. Levy. "The last time, I saw him was on Thursday. He came to tell me good-bye--said he was going West. The call was made just a little while before the afternoon newspapers published an account of the finding of the body in the Morris Canal.

"When he came here in the Spring he was completely broken down. He staid at the St. George Hotel, which is next to my place, while in training. He began his training in March, and was much improved byMay. In the Summer I lost sight of him. About ten days ago he showed up again. He was very haggard, not from drink, I am sure, for I know he did not drink heavily. He was a cigarette fiend.

"He wanted work, and I gave it to him, as he was very hard up for money. I told him he could go out and sell real estate for me at $1 a day. He was a brilliant talker, and I knew he would do well. Last Saturday I gave him a week's pay in advance. I did not see him again until Thursday, as I said before. He was neatly dressed in black at the time, but the suit was not the same one I had seen him in on the previous Saturday. He looked haggard, and his clothes were dusty, as though he had been driving all night. He did not seem at all excited.

" 'You need to be out in the air,' I said to him. 'Get into the country.'

" 'I shall,' he answered. 'I'm going to the Rocky Mountains.'

"That was the last I saw of him. He was the most attractive fellow you ever saw. He was well educated, perfectly honest, and seemingly well balanced."

At the St. George Hotel it was learned that Young staid there from March to May 31. He was quiet and did not seem freakish in any way.

County Physician Charles B. Converse yesterday directed Coroner William N. Parslow of Hoboken to hold an inquest in the case of Mrs. Annie Pulitzer, the murdered woman. The inquest will be held at the Court House, Jersey City, on Wednesday night. As the mystery of the murder has been solved the inquest will be a mere compliance with the legal formalities necessary to establish the cause of death.

Dr. Converse yesterday gave a burial permit authorizing Morgue Keeper Griffith to deliver the body to Joseph Pulitzer and Mrs. Neilsen. The latter is Mrs. Pulitzer's mother. They will remove the body to-morrow to Perth Amboy, N. J., where the funeral services will be held.

Coroner Scholer of this city said last night that he thought Mrs. Pulitzer died of chloral poisoning, and not from the knife cut, as the physicians had said after the autopsy in Jersey City. A half-filled bottle of chloral was found in the Young flat. The New York Coroner added that he believed the cut in the woman's abdomen was made when the murderer intended to dismember the body and dispose of it in pieces. In consequence of the Coroner's opinion Dr. Otto Schultze has been asked by Assistant District Attorney Garvan to examine the fluids in the stomach of the murdered woman for traces of poison.