River Murder Victim Was Miss Annette Day
Brother of Missing Brooklyn Girl Identifies Parts of Body Found in Water.
Police Seek Young Doctor
Young Woman, Infatuated with Italian Physician, Had Been Absent from Home Several Weeks.
He had seen the marks in his sister's skin, he said, in passing her room while she was dressing. Through an open door, he said, he had often seen reflected in a mirror the peculiar marks on the girl's skin. When the past of the torso bearing the birthmarks was shown to him at Volk's morgue in Hoboken, where the sections of the body were placed as soon as they were taken from the water, he asserted at once that the body was that of his sister.
The last [illeg] of the Day girl was on August 7, when she left Tarrytown, where she had gone to visit friends with her mother, to return to New York. She was employed here as a machine operator. She did not return to her home in South Brooklyn that night, where she lived with her parents, her brothers Francis and Salvatore and her sisters Emma and Mary. After she had been absent from home several days a private investigation was conducted but without result.
It was not until a few days ago that Francis Day got in touch with the New York police. He had read descriptions of the body found in pieces in the Hudson and was convinced it was that of his sister. He named a young Brooklyn physicians, also an Italian, with whom the girl had been infatuated last March. The police are now searching for the man, although Inspector Faurot refused to admit this last night.
Young Day was taken quietly to Volk's morgue in Hoboken yesterday afternoon for a view of the pieces of the body. He at once declared it was that of his sister.
Miss Day was twenty-three years old, 5 feet 2 inches in height and weighed about one hundred pounds. She had a birthmark on her left shoulder similar to that on the torso of the murdered woman found in the Hudson River, and another chocolate colored mark on her right elbow. Her hair was dark brown and her eyes were blue, and the brother described her skin as being of particularly fine quality.
Early last evening the brother of the missing girl was closeted with Inspector Faurot. He left Police Headquarters in company with a detective returning several hours later to go into another conference. Yesterday afternoon detectives from the Manhattan headquarters visited Volk's morgue at Hoboken, where the two sections of the girl's torso, picked up in shallow waters along the New Jersey shore of the Hudson, and the right thigh, found at Keansburg, N. J., are held, and took away all the evidence the Jersey police have gathered.
Besides taking a careful record of the case, the police brought to Manhattan the pillow slip on which is embroidered the initial "A", in which the first section of the mutilated torso was found; the bed ticking of a peculiar stripe, a blood stained garment, found at Weehawken, near the spot where the second part of the body was discovered, the brown tar paper in which the body was wrapped, and the fine milliners' wire that was tied about the bundles.
The man who is sought by the police was graduated from a medical college on Long Island two years ago. When the girl's family reported her disappearance to the police a few days ago, after making an exhaustive private investigation, a picture of the Italian physician was shown to S. H. Hurowitz, a druggist, at No. 2755 Eighth avenue, where a man visibly excited, bought two sheers of paper similar to that found wrapped about the pieces of the body a little more than a week ago.
Hurowitz looked over the picture, which was a composite affair of the medical college graduating class. He was unable to pick out the purchaser of the paper. Even when the detective narrowed the choice down to half a dozen and finally pointed out the man named by the Brooklyn girl's family he was unable to state positively whether that was the man.
The brother of the girl, however, was positive last night that the young Italian doctor was responsible for his sister's disappearance. Last winter, it became known, she became desperately infatuated with him, in spite of the fact that he was married and had two small children. The intimacy lasted several weeks, and ended when the girl's family became aware of the state of affairs.
To his friends the young physician confided the fact that his life had been threatened, but declared the Black Hand was responsible. It was well known. However, that he was not possessed of any wealth, in fact, owing to his scant practice he earned hardly enough to maintain himself and family.
Fears for his safety were entertained by the physician, and he made preparations for a hurried departure from Brooklyn. He told a few intimate friends he intended going to Italy, but so far as could be determined last night he did not engage passage for that country. In fact, a doctor with whom he was on the best of terms learned shortly after he left Brooklyn that California was their destination. Besides his wife and two small children, the physician took his father and mother when he hastily departed.
Since March the physician has not been seen Brooklyn. The girl had not been in correspondence with him, so far as is known, but it is believed by her family that she left her home recently to join him. The young doctor's wife and children came to Brooklyn a week ago, which leads to the belief that they came here in search of him.
The girl, whose parents are wealthy, left home about August 7. It was suspected she had gone to join the doctor, for whom her infatuation seemed undiminished.
River Murder Victim Was Miss Annette Day, The Tribune, 13 September 1913, page 1, column 4, and page 3, column 6.
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