The Rahway Murder of 1887 on:
[Wikipedia]
[Google]
[Amazon]
The Rahway murder of 1887 is the murder of an unidentified young woman whose body was found in 
Four brothers traveling to work at the felt mills by Bloodgood's Pond in
Her murder was the subject of national headlines and hundreds came to view the body. Investigators had her embalmed body photographed dressed in the clothes she was found in and these images were circulated widely, but neither she nor her killer were ever identified. Rahway police still have the original photographs taken of her body, which were among the first to be taken as evidence by a police department.
One researcher stated that a post mortem picture of her appears in the March 30, 1887 ''
Rahway, New Jersey
Rahway () is a city in southern Union County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. A bedroom community of New York City, it is centrally located in the Rahway Valley region, in the New York metropolitan area. The city is southwest of Manhattan ...
on March 25, 1887. She is also known as the Unknown Woman or the Rahway Jane Doe.
Four brothers traveling to work at the felt mills by Bloodgood's Pond in Clark, New Jersey
Clark is a township in southern Union County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, the township's population was 15,544 an increase of 788 (+5.3%) from the 2010 census count of 14,756, which had in turn increased by ...
early one morning found the young woman lying off Central Avenue near Jefferson Avenue several hundred feet from the Central Avenue Bridge over the Rahway River
The Rahway River is a river in Essex, Middlesex, and Union Counties, New Jersey, United States, The Rahway, along with the Elizabeth River, Piles Creek, Passaic River, Morses Creek, the Fresh Kills River (in Staten Island), has its river m ...
. Her body lay at the side of the road in a pool of blood that had frozen in the cold. Her throat had been cut twice from ear to ear, her hands were wounded, and the entire right side of her face was extensively bruised from a severe beating.
"Also present was a bloodstained jackknife with a tortoiseshell handle that was clearly the murder weapon."
The footprints surrounding her body were said to be "huge."Peter Genovese, New Jersey Curiosities, page 62-63 (2011).
Description
The woman appeared to be in her early 20s, and was described as attractive, with brown hair and blue eyes. She was found clad in a dark green cashmere dress that had been trimmed with green feathers and a fur cape to protect from the cold. She also wore yellow kid gloves, what were described by the papers as "foreign good shoes," a black hat made of straw with red-colored velvet trimmings adorning it, a black dotted veil, and a bonnet. She had carried a basket of eggs. Other belongings were found in theRahway River
The Rahway River is a river in Essex, Middlesex, and Union Counties, New Jersey, United States, The Rahway, along with the Elizabeth River, Piles Creek, Passaic River, Morses Creek, the Fresh Kills River (in Staten Island), has its river m ...
.
Aftermath
Her murder was the subject of national headlines and hundreds came to view the body. Investigators had her embalmed body photographed dressed in the clothes she was found in and these images were circulated widely, but neither she nor her killer were ever identified. Rahway police still have the original photographs taken of her body, which were among the first to be taken as evidence by a police department.
One researcher stated that a post mortem picture of her appears in the March 30, 1887 ''New York World
The ''New York World'' was a newspaper published in New York City from 1860 until 1931. The paper played a major role in the history of American newspapers. It was a leading national voice of the Democratic Party. From 1883 to 1911 under publi ...
''.
She was buried in May 1887 next to the Merchants' and Drovers' Tavern
The Merchants' and Drovers' Tavern is a historic tavern located in Rahway, Union County, New Jersey, United States. The tavern was added to the National Register of Historic Places on November 21, 1978.
The exact construction dates of the build ...
in Rahway Cemetery
The Rahway Cemetery is located along the banks of the Rahway River in Rahway, New Jersey, U.S. Earlier, the land is thought to be owned by the Frazee family with the first burial in 1724 of John Frazee. This land for the cemetery was later acquire ...
.
Her ghost is said to haunt Rahway Cemetery.
At the time of the woman's murder, Francis Tumblety
Francis Tumblety (c. 1833 – May 28, 1903) was an Irish-born American medical quack who earned a small fortune posing as an "Indian Herb" doctor throughout the United States and Canada. He was an eccentric self-promoter and was often in trouble ...
, one of the many controversial purported suspects in the Jack the Ripper
Jack the Ripper was an unidentified serial killer active in and around the impoverished Whitechapel district of London, England, in the autumn of 1888. In both criminal case files and the contemporaneous journalistic accounts, the killer wa ...
slayings (according to Ripperologists
Jack the Ripper was an unidentified serial killer active in and around the impoverished Whitechapel district of London, England, in the autumn of 1888. In both criminal case files and the contemporaneous journalistic accounts, the killer wa ...
) was living in New York City. New York City is twenty miles from the site and one could travel from there to Rahway in roughly 35 minutes; therefore at least one historian has speculated as to the theoretical possibility that Tumblety is connected to the murder.
See also
*List of unsolved murders
These lists of unsolved murders include notable cases where victims were murdered in unknown circumstances.
* List of unsolved murders (before 1900)
* List of unsolved murders (1900–1979)
* List of unsolved murders (1980–1999)
* List of unsol ...
References
Further reading
* Indianapolis Journal 4 April 1887 ("Suspicion that the Rahway Corpse Is the Remains of Lillian Snavely. Watson Claims that He Was in Baltimore at the Time the Murder") * The Brooklyn Daily Eagle (Brooklyn, New York), Sunday, April 10, 1887, Page 4. * Peter Genovese. New Jersey Curiosities: Quirky Characters, Roadside Oddities & Other Offbeat Stuff (2003). * Mark Sceurman, Mark Moran. Weird N.J.: Your Travel Guide to New Jersey's Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets (2003). * Sleuth, Old. Young dyer: Or," Piping" the Stratford murder mystery. A companion to the Rahway mystery. Munro, 1887. (Adime novel
The dime novel is a form of late 19th-century and early 20th-century U.S. popular fiction issued in series of inexpensive paperbound editions. The term ''dime novel'' has been used as a catchall term for several different but related forms, r ...
or penny dreadful
Penny dreadfuls were cheap popular serial literature produced during the nineteenth century in the United Kingdom. The pejorative term is roughly interchangeable with penny horrible, penny awful, and penny blood. The term typically referred to ...
)
* The Rahway murder mystery: Little Lynx "piping" the roadside tragedy. New York. Munro, 1887. (a dime novel
The dime novel is a form of late 19th-century and early 20th-century U.S. popular fiction issued in series of inexpensive paperbound editions. The term ''dime novel'' has been used as a catchall term for several different but related forms, r ...
or penny dreadful
Penny dreadfuls were cheap popular serial literature produced during the nineteenth century in the United Kingdom. The pejorative term is roughly interchangeable with penny horrible, penny awful, and penny blood. The term typically referred to ...
)
* The New York Times (March 1887) ("NO LIGHT ON THE MYSTERY; ONE POSSIBLE CLUE TO RAHWAY'S MURDER. THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER PROBABLY A CRANK").
* June 16, 1887 - THE RAHWAY MURDER MYSTERY. Chicago Tribune.
* "Nothing But Idle Rumors - The Rahway Murder Still A Mystery" New York Times (April 6, 1887)
External links
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Rahway Murder of 1887, The 1860s births 1887 murders in the United States 1887 deaths 1887 in New Jersey Deaths by stabbing in the United States Female murder victims Incidents of violence against women People from Rahway, New Jersey People murdered in New Jersey Unidentified murder victims in New Jersey History of women in New Jersey