In March 1894, New York City was gripped by a crime so shocking that newspapers struggled to find words strong enough to describe it.
An eleven-year-old girl named Susie Martin vanished while playing outside her family’s tenement. For nearly two weeks, her parents searched desperately for answers, fearing the worst but still clinging to hope.
What happened to Susie would become one of the most horrifying child murder cases of the era.
When a bundle was discovered beneath a pile of firewood in a Hell’s Kitchen cellar, police uncovered a scene of unimaginable brutality. The remains were so badly mutilated that investigators could not immediately determine whether the victim was a boy or a girl.
Evidence suggested the body had been dismembered and boiled in an apparent attempt to conceal the crime.
As Susie’s grieving parents were called to identify the clothing found with the remains, a devastated city demanded justice.
Killed and Boiled Her
That a murder more revolting and more mysterious than any recorded in the criminal history of New York has been unearthed in the discovery of the mutilated body of eleven-year-old Susie Martin in the cellar of a tenement in West 39th Street last evening the police are ready to admit.
Enticed, perhaps, from the door of her home nearly two weeks ago, kidnapped almost from under the eyes of her mother, the child had not been heard from until headless, armless and legless, the trunk of the once fair young body was found.
All that is left of the child at present rests in a rude coffin in the West 37th Street police station, and there it will lie until the Coroner arrives and gives the usual permit.
Up at the child’s former home, the mother sits frantically wringing her hands, calling aloud for her dead daughter and requiring the constant attention of the other tenants in the house to prevent her from taking her own life.
Several times during the last 24 hours, she attempted to throw herself out of the window and was restrained with difficulty.
The girl’s father feels the blow almost as much as the mother. When leaving the station house this morning, he said he did not know where he was going nor did he care. He had but one thought in his mind — to find the butcherer of his daughter and slay him.
Detectives Curry and Hay, of the West 37th Street police station are at work on the case, but they admit they have no clue to the murderer.
Susie Martin was a twin sister. She was born eleven years ago. The other sister died 17 months after birth. There are other children in the family now, but Susie was regarded as the brightest, and was her father’s favorite.
Martin is a boiler maker, and is regarded as a reasonably steady man.
Four months ago they moved to three rooms in the four-story tenement on 11th Avenue. The girl made many friends, but neither they nor her playfellows were much older than herself. She looked just her age, no more. She was in every sense a child.
She had been attending the Grammar School on West 50th Street, but not regularly.
Her mother had so much to do looking after the younger children and doing other housework, that Susie did not receive the careful training which the child needed. She was allowed much of her own way and occasionally played truant.
Susie was playing around the door about noon on March 10 when her mother, who had been out shopping, arrived. The girl asked permission to play downstairs and play a little longer. The mother allowed her to do so, but said she must not stay long.
“If you do,” she added, “I will give it to you when I get you.”
“Yes,” said Susie, “if you catch me I know you will give it to me.”
That was the last the mother saw of her child. Susie did not return that evening, and the anxious father, late that night, reported the disappearance to the police. When nothing was heard of the child, he directed his wife to go to Police Headquarters and have a general alarm sent out. The mother did so. The alarm was sent out and she was promised that a detective would be put on the case.
Day after day, both father and mother have been making inquiries in all directions, but all to no purpose. Every friend the girl had was questioned.
No one had seen her.
It was well known that many little girls had been enticed away for immoral purposes, on promises of money and candy, by men in the vicinity. These thoughts almost drove mere. Martin frantic.
It was 6:30 p.m. yesterday when the first tidings of the missing girl came in the finding of her mutilated body.
In the house 519 West 39th Street is a wood cellar, to which any one has access. It was there, partly covered by the wood, the body was found.
The 39th Street house is in the center of that section known as “Hell’s Kitchen.” At one time it was one of the wickedest places in the city. It was the headquarters of a gang whose crimes were said to be legion. The police say is a much different place now, and that the block is as good as any in the neighborhood.
Mrs. Farrell, the housekeeper of 519, went to the cellar at 6:30 last night to clean it out for Mrs. Mulhearn, a new tenant. All the wood in the cellar had been placed there about two months down. The wood from the stable had been common property.
Mrs. Mulhearn was with Mrs. Farrell and they removed about half a dozen bushels of the wood when they saw a bundle seemingly of rags. On opening it they were horrified to find the mutilated body of a child, and running out they notified the police.
The bundle was taken to the West 37th Street police station, and examined.
It was impossible to tell from the appearance of the body whether it was that of a boy or a girl. Nothing remained save the chest, neck, arm stumps, and a portion of the abdomen.
The arms had been cut off about two inches above the elbows. The flesh was in a perfect state of preservation. The remains has, according to a policeman who was called in, been boiled.
It was almost midnight before the police thought it possible that the body might be that of Susie Martin, and they looked up the description of the girl given at the time. In the bundle were found several article of clothing such as a little girl might wear, dress, underskirts, stockings, and the like. These tallied with the description of the clothing of the missing child, and Detectives Hay and Curry were sent up to notify Susie’s parents.
It was 3 o’clock this morning when they reached the home of the Martins. News of the discovery of the body had got there before them, and all the members of the family were up. The mother was wailing for her dead.
The detectives stated their errand, and they produced a notebook in which they had entered a full description of the articles found in the bundle with the mutilated body. They asked the mother to describe the clothing of her child again, and she did no.
Article after article she called out, and each one agreed with the description of the victim’s clothing.
There was no mistaking it. Everything was the same, but there was one thing stronger still.
On the back of an underskirt one button had been missing from her daughter’s dress, and the buttonhole above it had been broken. She asked if such was the case, but they had not noticed it.
This gave the woman a little hope, and with Mrs. Alice Quinn, who lives in the next flat, and the latter’s son, Henry, Mrs. Martin and the detectives went to the station house. The father was too much overcome to go out.
The clothing was overhauled again, and the marks explained by the mother were found exactly as she had described them. The identification was complete.
The scene in the station house was pitiable. The police would not allow the mother to see the mutilated body of her daughter. They feared for her reason. She was taken home by her friends and the police, and raved and screamed all night long.
The dead girl’s father and mother called at the station house at 8 o’clock this morning.
The father fully identified the clothing and was permitted to look at the child’s remains. It was after seeing them that his face turned white and he swore revenge.
“There is only one clue to be followed,” the frantic man cried, “my child was decoyed from her home by some scoundrel.
“She was enticed into some place, assaulted and murdered. Her murderer cut up the body the more easily to dispose of it and brought the bundle away to the place where it was found. My God, this is awful. It will kill my wife.”
Mrs. Martin heard him and became hysterical. She was led back to her home, and in walking through 10th Avenue, her cried attracted a crowd, mostly of women, who tried to console her.
“We have not an enemy in the world,” she said to an “Evening World” reporter, “and we have few friends. We have no money to bury our little girl, but I suppose my husband’s employer will guarantee the undertaker.
“My Susie, my Susie, is dead,” she cried and again became hysterical.
About 11 a.m. the detectives visited the cellar where the body was found and dug around in every direction in hopes of finding the head or limbs.
The search proved fruitless.
All the tenants in the place were questioned, but they had seen no stranger about the building. Had they seen anyone they would not have paid any particular attention, as persons come and go at will there.
Children living in the house are afraid to go down into the hallway. The place is infested with tramps who sleep in the hallway or in the yard.
There is a door to the cellar from the street, but it is never used, and as it is fastened on the inside, the bundle could not have been thrown into the cellar from the front.
A long hallway runs from front to rear, and an entrance to the cellar is from that hallway. The door is also open.
The police hope to have something to work on before night. Central Office men will also be put on the case.
The Evening World. New York, N.Y. March 20, 1894.
