Thriller Thursday - Woman in Jersey is Being Watched in River Mystery

Woman in Jersey is Being Watched in River Mystery

Had Male Accomplices, It is Believed - Death Followed Criminal Operation.

Expect Arrest Soon.

Police Believe They Have Secured Real Identification of Dead Girl.

Detectives in New York and neighboring New Jersey towns who have been trying to solve the mystery of the Hudson River murder have progressed so far in running down what appears to be the first real solution that The Evening World is in a position to set forth most of the closely guarded details of what Inspector Faurot at Headquarters believes to be the true story of the murder. Upon this lead Headquarters men and the detectives of Hudson and Bergen Counties across the river have been co-operating to-day with feverish energy.

Here are the salient points in the new hypothesis hinted at in a late edition of The Evening World yesterday, whose revelation cannot at this time defeat the ends of justice, as close is the police [illeg] [illeg] about the person or persons suspected of complicity in the murder.

Police Sure They Know Victim of the Crime.

The victim of the crime was an Irish girl, less that six months in this country, who had been employed as a servant in the home of a family living in the vicinity of the town of North Bergen.

The murder is believed to have been done by a midwife, who has enjoyed a shady reputation with the police of Bergen County and whose establishment has been called "the slaughter house" because of the prevalent and permanent suspicion that several women have been the victims of malpractice there. This place has been under surveillance of the Bergen detectives for two days and they are simply awaiting the clearing up of a few [illeg] points in Manhattan before making an arrest.

The girl about whose death the present mystery centers went to this midwife to undergo a criminal operation only two months before she expected to become a mother. She died under the ministrations of the midwife, and by the midwife - assisted, it is almost positively established, by one or more male accomplices - her body was dismembered and distributed in the Hudson River.

Name Suppressed Until Arrest is Made.

The name of the victim, known to the detectives at Manhattan and Weehawken Headquarters, has been suppressed until definite action against the midwife is taken. This much can be said - that she has three sisters living in New York and that they have given the detectives of Inspector Faurot's staff information upon which the recent activities have been based.

As much of the story as can be printed at the present time carries this young immigrant to the home near North Bergen. There she took service immediately after her arrival from Ireland without having seen all of her kin in this country, who are scattered through the greater city. The man responsible for the condition in which she soon found herself remained in Ireland.

Less that a month ago it became apparent to the girl's employers that she was approaching motherhood. They wrote to one of her sisters in New York, telling her of the girl's physical condition and saying they could no longer have her continue in their service. The girl seemed overwhelmed with mortification and made cautious inquiries of her mistress to determine if there was any way she could escape the inevitable.

Did Not Ask Advice of Her Sisters.

It is not believed she had any friends in North Bergen whom she could consult; she did not see her sisters to ask their advice. But ten days ago she left her employer's home in New Jersey, saying she would go to one of her sisters' homes in New York.

The girl has not been seen since. It was not until one of the sisters, growing anxious and reading of the finding of the sections of a woman's body in the Hudson, confided her fears to a New York policeman, that word of these circumstances came to Headquarters.

Yesterday Detective Wood brought from the Hoboken morgue the chemise which had been found wrapped about the upper portion of the trunk and showed it to one of the sisters, who was familiar with the garments the missing girl had purchased upon her arrival here. To-day the same garment was delivered to Detective Bennett of the Hudson County Prosecutor's office, and by him taken to the home of the missing girl's former employers.

Sisters Think Parts of Body are Sisters.

Since none of the three sisters has lived with the missing sister since her childhood - they having come to this country several years ago - they do not feel confident of identifying the fragments of the trunk positively, but the description they have given of the general physical characteristics of the missing woman tally closely with those of the body so far recovered.

Headquarters detectives have carried descriptions of the missing girl from the sisters to the North Bergen family, and it is established beyond a question of doubt that the girl who left service there ten days ago is the one whom the three sisters count as Jess.

Mrs. Lena Janin, positively "identified" yesterday by Casper Janin, a waiter in an uptown restaurant, as being the victim of the Hudson River mystery whose severed body has lain in the Hoboken morgue, with half the members missing, for a week today, is alive and in Havana. Word to that effect was received early to-day at Police Headquarters.

The message stated that Mrs. Janin who admits she is the still undivorced wife of the man who yesterday made the identification in Hoboken, was living with Vincent Planells in Havana street, Havana. They had previously lived together in New York, as Janin said to the detectives of Hudson County yesterday, and had sailed for Havana separately, the woman sailing about a month ago. Planells is reporter in the message from
Cuba to have joined the woman ten days ago.

Woman in Jersey is Being Watched in River Mystery, The Evening World, 12 September 1913, page 3, column 7.