In the summer of 1907, New York City was gripped by fear. Newspapers warned of a spreading “crime wave,” police chased leads that went nowhere, and parents worried every time their daughters stepped outside.
Reports of assaults, attempted abductions, and unsolved murders filled the headlines, creating an atmosphere of panic that seemed to grow with each passing day.
Against this backdrop came one of the most alarming stories yet. A young woman was found nearly strangled in a vacant apartment after a brutal attack. A little girl narrowly escaped death at the hands of another assailant.
Crowds demanded vengeance, detectives made arrests, and investigators struggled to solve the horrific murder of young Katie Tietschler, whose death had already shocked the city.
Seven More Fiends Attack Girls
NEW YORK CITY. — A determined attempt to Lynch a man who set upon and tried to strangle a little girl, seven more attempts at fiendish outrage reported by the helpless police, blood marks discovered on the walls of the basement in which the horrible mutilated body of Katie Tietschler was found, and the identification of the body of the young woman found murdered in West 19th Street, are a few developments of another day in the great crime wave which is sweeping New York and appalling the entire civilized world.
500 men and women cried for revenge on Martin Sallo, who, in Brooklyn, struck down and attempted to choke to death little Anna Rogers, of 758 Third Street. The police prevented a lynching.
The first ripper victim of the day was Frieda Tieub, a beautiful 18-year-old girl, who was found strangling to death in a vacant apartment next to her home.
Attack by Elevator Man
M. Ohns, a lailor, residing at 471 Central Park West, reported to the police that an 8-year-old girl living with him had been treated in a heinous manner by an elevator man. A description of the fiend was taken and detectives sent to search for him.
Eight arrests in all have been made in connection with the horrible murder of the Tietschler girl, but the officials at headquarters virtually admit that they are no nearer the solution of the mystery than on the day the little battered body was found.
Assaults, or attempted assaults, were reported from all of the boroughs, and notwithstanding several arrests that were made, the police have a tangible case against only a single man.
Murdered Girl Identified
The young woman whose body was found in the cellar of 283 West 19th Street, where it was supposedly removed after she had been strangled and horribly abused, was identified by Catherine W. Ludwig, a stenographer, as Helen Farrell, a trained nurse, who formerly lived on East 125th Street. The young woman viewed the body at the morgue and said she was positive of the identification.
Girl Almost Strangled
Miss Frieda Tieub was found almost strangled to death with a rope of a “Jack the Ripper” about her neck today in the vacant apartment next to her home.
She had been attacked as she left her home, knocked senseless with one blow on the chin, dragged into the vacant rooms and there, after the fiend had drawn tightly the rope he wrapped three times about her neck, he completed his attack and escaped, thinking she was dead.
Rescued Just In Time
The young woman was rescued just in time to save her life. Her brother saved her by leaping into a window from a fire escape.
When she first recovered consciousness in the vacant flat the man was gone, and she struck her heels on the floor as hard and long as she could and then her strength left her.
Miss Tieub and her chum, Miss Jennie Gross, had walked home together and had agreed to meet each other an hour later for a walk. On their way home they observed that two men were following them.
When Miss Tieub left her apartment to meet Miss Gross, she ran into a tall man in the hall.
Struck Her On Chin
As she tried to pass him, he struck her a severe blow on the chin and she fell unconscious to the floor of the hall.
More than an hour afterward the family, under the vacant apartment next door heard the repeated knocks and tappings on the floor above them.
Unable to break in the door, they went to the flat next door and young Henry Tieub swung himself from one of the fire escapes in the rear to that back of the vacant flat. He found his sister, who had relapsed into unconsciousness on the floor, her face blue and her breath fast leaving her.
Arrests in Tietschler Case
At about the time this report was made, the police arrested four brothers in connection with the murder of little Katie Tietschler, whose mutilated body was found in a cellar only a few blocks from where the attempt was made to murder Miss Tieub.
Source: The Washington Times. Washington, D.C. August 3, 1907.
